It wasn't clear earlier how well Jim Youll called this, but it is more horrifying than I'd even imagined:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36919 Well, I would like to see a device that a reasonable number of people had access to. Is it completely unreasonable to try to define and build one from scratch? Like that foocamp fellow did? The ideal uses of such a device in my mind are: 1) Let people talk voice; but opportunistically via wifi and/or a flat-rate data-plan versus a calling plan that has a profile designed to fit expected use ( so that month to month costs are predictable ). 2) Advise users what the nearest ten most interesting things are at any give time given their specific peer groups and interests. This imagines a larger hypothetical social networking service of some kind. 3) Allow people to text-message each other; but rather than focusing so much on individual messaging it should have display capabilities that make it easier to have larger active persistent discussion groups. 4) Keep a tracklog. 5) Reasonable computing interface and platform in general. This includes typical browser type functions but also includes specifically being fast enough run ssh crypto and other kinds of native applications. Specifications for such a gadget in my mind would be: 1) Open 2) GPS 3) Reasonable processor; like say an intel strongarm cpu - for which unix builds already exist. 4) Something that is low-cost enough that there would be enough sales that i could build for it 5) 640x480 display in a perfect world { or in the future a microvision style projection display } 6) Small form factor; similar to the iphone. 7) No keyboard; a keyboard specializes the use too much 8) Cell of some kind { i do not really care what kind } 9) Bluetooth { not even critical to me if gps is on board } 10) Wifi { critical } I could even live without a display at all, or a mediocre display, if there was a sufficiently powerful CPU - it could just do voice recognition and return voice results. The closest gadgets I have seen are the Dell AXIM and the Nokia N800. The PSP is a worthy mention because of its graphics acceleration; but of course these all lack connectivity by default (although you can get extensions for them). Looking at Joshua's comment re gsm (It must have been Colin Cross? ) : http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=7917 And looking around in general: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/posts.html?pg=2 [ DIY mobile phone ] http://www.opencellphone.org/index.php?title=Main_Page [ TuxPhone ] http://www.fabathome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page [ DIY Fab ] It looks like there might be enough pieces out there to do something interesting. - a
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