Don't mind the photo, it comes with Ubuntu as default !

NorhTec announced the Gecko EduBook. This little toy will run Ubuntu Netbook Remix as the operating system and will sport the following specification (copy pasting):

• Processor – Xcore 86 (Vortex86MX SoC) clocked at 1.0GHz
• Memory — 256MB, 512MB, or 1Gb of DDR2 RAM, soldered on CPU module
• Display — 8.9-inch LED backlit display with 1024 x 600 resolution
• Storage — Internal SD card or IDE HDD (hard disk drive)
• Networking — 10/100 Ethernet port
• Other I/O:
  • 4 x USB 2.0 (3 external, 1 internal)
  • VGA
  • Audio — line in and line out
• Expansion — SD slot
• Dimensions/weight — n/s

The killer feature, though, is the following:

• Battery — Accepts 8 NiMH AA cells, or lithium-ion battery packs, with run times approximately four or six hours, respectively

W00t ! It runs with normal batteries ! Those are pretty cheap compared to a netbook battery (circa $100). You may steal those from your mom’s remote and your dad’s beard trimmer and save even more money !

Rocks rocks rocks rocks rocks rocks rocks !!!

No batteries, no fan !

That was not a typo, the Xcore 86 processor has no fan. So no noise, and less energy consumption. The battery life (depending from which kind of you plug in, obviously) should vary from 4 to 8 hours. Seems like that it can be attached to the electricity cable without an external adapter (so no need to carry one around), in which case it will also recharge the AA batteries.

Price and ordering

The starting price should be circa 200$ (well, non official sources cited 100-130$), provided that you choose Linux of course. It’s still in pre-production right now, but you can already order this beauty filing a special order:

The price for the laptop starts at $200 for the basic configuration. If you are interested in this product, please ask for a price quote. This item is still at the pre-introduction stage so please indicate this as a special order.

Misc

I have to admit I’m pretty excited about the toy, it not only free yourself from the power adapter, it’s also cheap and modular (you can replace pieces easily). And it also supports Windows XP, which is my Operative System of choice.

Finally, it pushes netbooks to be what they really should: cheap toys, pervasively sold and made of easily replaceable parts.

[ source: LinuxDevices ]

While Italian generic newspapers desperately advertise Windows 7 as a good alternative to Linux (yeah, right, who switches to what ?), Microsoft shoots itself in the foot by imposing limits on the hardware a Netbook can use to ship Windows.

No wonder they found themselves sucking the socks of Canonical.

In the meantime, Dell redesigns Ubuntu LTS interface in their Mini, adds a tweaked Network Manager and put together a angry little 1o” beast that can kick a 1,366 x 768 resolution right in your face. 32 and 64 GB SSDs will be also available, sadly only to Linux customers as – like previously noted – Windows imposes limits.

Sell your mom and buy one.

This sounds really too good to be true.

No video ? Click here

[source: http://oei.yungchin.nl/?p=244 ]

IT journals have been quite quick to report OpenMoko‘s death after Sean Moss-Pultz‘s announce at  OpenExpo. It seems to me they’ve been so quick that they missed something. So here is a quick post to quickly make clear a what it needs to. Also, OpenMoko hasn’t put out a Press Release yet, which I believe is a mistake.

I’ve been asked by a friend to make this post, I seem to have many readers these days so perhaps I can help spreading the word out.

Openmoko is not dead

The FreeRunner phone (codename: GTA02)  won’t stop being produced or supported. The GTA03 phone development, instead, will be stopped.

So yes, the GTA03 is dead before being born. Instead the company will work on a Project B, which is going to require less resources and help build capital to pursue further projects (like a new GTA03).

What’s the Project B ? No one knows precisely, by the way, here it is:

So what it appears to be is a little touch tablet. Be it a media player, an e-book reader or a pornographic storage media system, that’s what has been shown by the CEO during the talk.

Why ?

Moss-Pultz was very careful to specify he doesn’t drive a Ferrari, and he doesn’t like to put the crisis forward as an excuse for everything, but – by the way – something happened.

Putting a new product into production means a big investment for the inventory, which is quite a big step for small companies. In other words, OpenMoko is not Apple, Google  or Microsoft.

Expanding the concept, the best from Apple came after they put together enough cash cows to provide them the capital needed for big investments. First came the iPod, then the iPhone. The same goes for every company. And, by the way, we’re still waiting copy-paste and push notifications from them

The choice they had to face:

This could be more explicative:

Essentially, I made the same argument I heard so many times on this list: “How do expect us to buy a GTA03 when you’ve yet to deliver on all the promise of FreeRunner?” And I took the arguments I heard from disty seriously, “how do you expect us to buy FR, when GTA03 is right around the corner?“

And:

Our biggest challenge was to make a choice about how to spend the
balance of 2009.

There were two paths:
A: Fulfill our promises on FreeRunner and launch GTA03
B: Fulfill our promises on FreeRunner and  launch project B.

We will talk more about project B in the coming months, but these
salient facts should be able to guide any budding executives out there.

1. GTA03 was in constant flux as a design.
2. GTA03 schedule was consequently always slipping.
3. The resources required for GTA03 are 3X those required for Project B.
4. We don’t have 3X.

So, we picked plan B.

As you have just read, both the choices won’t affect in anyway the support for the existing phone, which is still being sold.

How to help the project (as a developer) then ?

So, what about GTA03? As it was defined, it is dead. So how do we
get to a new GTA03? Two requirements: continue to improve GTA02; deliver
on project B. What is GTA03 and when do we get there? There are a number
of independent efforts out there that are pitching me ideas for GTA03.
I talked to sean a bit about this and I’d like to try to open up more
of the design process and the marketing process to the community.
Perhaps on a separate list. Some of these discussions have already started.

What can you do to help?
1. Move GTA02 code upstream.
2. Stay Involved.
3. Continue work on applications
4. Buy a FreeRunner.
5. Get involved in GTA03 discussions

Once again: is the GTA03 dead ?

No, it has been postponed. But it’s very likely for the project – once resumed – to be completely re-engineered. So in a way GTA03 is dead. But a new GTA03 project will see the light, some day.

So, in a way it’s dead.

Original sources

So here’s some official sources. Openmoko has been shy about releasing anything officially, but you can read their clarification on the matter in their mailing list.

Also the video of the OpenExpo announce is available for everyone to see:

Click here to see the video on my site

Engadget noted “The SmartQ 5 from SmartDevices just took itself from me-too MID of the millisecond to a quite interesting value proposition” in their news report, and I agree with them pretty much, as Ubuntu would be a feature capable of setting this Device apart from competition.

The news also confirms the goodness of Canonical‘s choice to support ARM architecture. This device runs a 800×480 touch display and has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth cow-powers. I am still looking around to find out the storage capacity of the device (any reader ?)

Also, the “ridicolous” price of appr. $132 may enable you to get one and buy me one also.

Anyone still wishing to buy an Ipod Touch ?

Sources: Engadget, SmartDevices

Ok, I have to admit that I’ve been bad lately with round-ups, here’s some good stuff I found around, enjoy !

Ubuntu installed on Nokia internet tablets

That’s right, Nokia N810 and N800 have been bent to the will of community.

Nokia N810 internet tablet

Ubuntu on Nokia splash screen

Ubuntu Rescue(?) Menu

Click on the images above to get the full size images.

If someone amongst you has one of those fancy devices and want’s to try, here’s the whole procedure. Here’s some more screenshots.

Also, if any of you wants to buy me one as a gift to reward my screenshots stealing efforts, just post a comment with your email down here .

[via Engadget; image credits: engadget, b-man]

Apple iPod Shuffle headphones policy to raise concerns and shadows

The new iPod Shuffle will refuse to work with third-party headphones that don’t contain an “Apple licensed authentication chip“. That sounds like a joke, but it’s true, and confirms the well know bad Apple‘s attitude.

What does this chip does, other than locking out independent vendors unless they get expensively accepted by Apple ? Together with the DRM encumbered new Display Port standard, the foundation of total media control are getting laid. This is something US anti-trust and EU commission should really give a look into.

A dirty hack has obviously already have been found. In the sense you’ll have to get your hands really dirty.

Software wars map

I often hear people claiming the (free software’s? Ubuntu’s?) mission is “take over the world“. While I don’t necessarily agree with the term and, by the way, my opinions are not necessarily those of my employers (nor my pets, fans and shoes), here’s a little map that could help them not get lost in the software world.

Awesomeness brought to you by http://mshiltonj.com, successfully stolen by me

note: I don’t necessarily agree with the map above (disclosure: I didn’t even spend time to read it)

Installation ease being a *bug* not a feature !

Check out the scaring story of Gabriel, who inadvertitely left is precious box at the mercy of his parents with Mandriva’s Live CD still in the drive. Everybody now scream My mom runs Ubuntu !

Italy’s government to try wipe off anonimity on the Internet (LOL) with the excuse of Pedophily.

Don’t laugh, this is real. Really !

Gabriella Carlucci, ex showgirl and italian deputy, presented a new law proposal, with the declared intent of fighting pedo-pornography.
To the disappoint of technology press [see vogliono chiudere la rete - translation: "they want to lock the net"], the proposal’s text seemed to have nothing to do with child pornography (despite the declared intents), rather than with putting outlaw websites that allow anonymity for their users.

This is already pretty lame, but the best has yet to come. Looking at the properties of the file containing the proposed text, a Microsoft Word Document, the name of Davide Rossi – president of Univideo (Italian Union of Audio-Visive Editory) – was to be found.

That obviously led to a number of concerns about the whole matter, as obviously the president of a content providers association is not really expected to write (or even edit) laws in place of the deputies, nor deputies are expected to be paper-passers on behalf of business men of any kind.

Carlucci later explained, below the beginning translated as literally as possible (square brackets contain text written by me):

Dear Giacomo [a journalist],
there is not secret to be revealed. My collaborators followed attorney David Rossi’s intervention (which is not only Univideo President [?!?!?]) at the meeting organized by Assodigitale on 15th January and I had the opportunity to share with him some ideas, and ask him to send me some informational notes.

For example the one of the responsibility of own acts, even if performed via the internet, that is you cannot throw a stone then hide your hand [the "cannot..hand" is a common saying in Italy].

You’ll be surely agree with me about this – year’s 2000 directive has been conceived when Internet was not yet web 2.0 [!!!] but there were more easily identifiable sites in case of violation. Nowadays it’s more easy to launch a discussion forum with a well defined title but leave to the polo [guess she meant "people"]  of the Internet, in anonymous manner, abuse perpetration such as defamation, injury, slander.

But there’s more. Who gone to check the propierties of the documents related to the law proposal about the Internet, has recovered the generalities of the author [which we all expected to be her], but strangely forgot to cite the files denomination [...]

Follow the link above for the full letter, but it’s written in italian, and by the way, the rest of the text doesn’t get any smarter than this.

Ok, you’re free to laugh now.