Using gmane with openmoko mailing lists + thunderbird

[Ben Burdette]

I found that you can 'subscribe' to mailing lists as newsgroups with 
this news.gmane.org list-to-nntp server.  I was able to subscribe to and 
then download all the headers for the 12 or two openmoko mailing lists, 
in just a few minutes.  Pretty cool.  This is using the Thunderbird news 
client. 

I can't seem to figure out how to reply to messages using this interface 
though.  I was able to do it to the gmane.test 'newsgroup' (list?).  
However, it doesn't really work for the openmoko lists.  Anyone had 
success with this?

Ben

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Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 (was something about yummy CPU-GPU combos!)

[Ben Burdette]

What hasn't been entirely clear to me in this discussion is whether, 
with the current VGA screen, we are able to enter a QVGA mode and run as 
quickly as with a true QVGA screen.

If that is the case, then why not use the QVGA for some things, like 
application selection, the phone dialer, or games, and then use VGA for 
things like terminals, email, web browsing?  It would require a seamless 
transition on a per-application basis.  Perhaps you could specify 
whether a given app runs in VGA or QVGA on a configuration screen 
someplace.  You get the benefit here of apps being QVGA-ready for a time 
when openmoko is installed on a QGA-only phone. 

One complication would arise with applications that require different 
modes sharing the same screen.  If our interface is purely one app at a 
time using the whole screen, then its not really a problem. 

Another difficulty would be transitioning between modes in a seamless 
way.  If there are compute intensive effects present in QVGA mode, then 
those would have to be deactivated in VGA, then reactivated on the way 
back.  There may be significant technical barriers to this approach, 
don't know. 

Also, transitioning between flashy QVGA and stolid VGA might be kind of 
jarring to the user.  Maybe QVGA would be the default, and users that 
want to make the tradeoff can go in and reconfigure.  Certain apps might 
be VGA by default, like a photo viewer. 

What would be cool would be a QVGA-to-VGA transition effect where a 
'blurry' QVGA app comes into focus as you transition to VGA mode.  So 
suppose you are in an application selection screen, you select an 
application and it 'zooms' to the app window - in QVGA mode.  But the 
app you selected is marked as a VGA app, so after the zooming happens, 
there is a fade from the QVGA appearance of the app (actually drawn in 
VGA now) to the VGA appearance. 



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Re: Why not use forum?

[Ben Burdette]

Ok, this is pointless!  But I'll participate anyway:

[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> On Thursday 12 June 2008 23:33:37 Ben Burdette wrote:
>   
>>>> Hi!
>>>> I was wondering - why are we not using forum for community?
>>>> It's much  better to view, you can subscribe and unsubscribe to the
>>>> topics you want and etc.
>>>> 
>>> For me, mailing list is much better to view, filter, read off-line,
>>> quick download etc. etc. For admins, mailing list is much easier to
>>> maintain (no buggy, crappy phpBB, etc.).
>>>   
>> I wouldn't say mailing lists are entirely bug free - witness the
>> duplicate messages I regularly delete out of my openmoko folder on a
>> regular basis.
>>
>> for me some advantages of forums:
>>
>> - far easier to set up and use, no filters and etc.
>> 
>
> Supposing that you read other mail using thunderbird your mail is always 
> running.  So Instead of firing up FF, clicking on a bookmark, selecting the 
> forum and waiting all the time while pages load, look at your running mail 
> and see if messages of OM have arrived.  'easier to use ' what could be 
> easier ?
>
>   
I mean with initial setup.   Its much easier to navigate to a web page 
than it is to subscribe to a email list and then set up proper filtering 
in your email client.  Plus you get to see all the old messages if you 
want. 
>> - far less distracting, with no emails coming in every 5 secs for every
>> topic.
>> 
>
> I have set up a rule automatically moves the OM messages to a folder I read 
> when I have time.  Setting up that rule takes less time than registering on a 
> forum
>
>   
My thunderbird brings up a little box every 15 minutes announcing the 
latest from the OM list primarily.  95% of it I don't care about. 
>> - don't have to download 1 million emails onto all my machines that I
>> use thunderbird on.
>> 
>
> Leave your messages on the server for all thunderbirds that are NOT master so 
> you only download the messages you want to read.
>
>   
Point taken.  At this point I have 4 instances of thunderbird among my 
machines, I get tired of watching 700 OM emails downloading into my inbox. 
>> +1 for forums from me.
>>
>> or, why not usenet??   what's wrong with newsgroups?  I don't understand
>> why people prefer mailing lists to newsgroups.
>> 
>
> Because mailing lists do not require you to check for new news from time to 
> time but you get messages as they become available.
>   
I think that's why I like mailing lists less.  One reason, anyway.
> Because mails are much easier to process than web pages are. (bloated with 
> stuff as they frequently are).
>   
I have to object to this!  Email lists are far more subject to cruft 
than forums - because everyone feels they have to include the context of 
a conversation in every email!  So you read the same text over and over, 
each time a little more indented. 
> Because you have fewer steps needed to access messages.  Forums generally 
> require you to select at least the forum you want to open).
>   
You could always bookmark the forum you are interested in, so you go 
straight there instead of having to navigate through the forum interface. 

But I still don't understand why groups choose mailing lists over 
newsgroups.  Weren't newsgroups designed with this kind of thing in 
mind?   By default you just download the headers without having to get 
the text of every message, you can subscribe and unsubscribe from them 
without impacting your regular email account.  I know you can just get 
email headers if you want, but that means I have to set my regular email 
account up all 'header only' or all downloading everything. 



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Re: Why not use forum?

[Ben Burdette]

>> Hi!
>> I was wondering - why are we not using forum for community?
>> It's much  better to view, you can subscribe and unsubscribe to the
>> topics you want and etc.
>> 
>
> For me, mailing list is much better to view, filter, read off-line,  
> quick download etc. etc. For admins, mailing list is much easier to  
> maintain (no buggy, crappy phpBB, etc.).
>
>   
I wouldn't say mailing lists are entirely bug free - witness the 
duplicate messages I regularly delete out of my openmoko folder on a 
regular basis. 

for me some advantages of forums:

- far easier to set up and use, no filters and etc.
- far less distracting, with no emails coming in every 5 secs for every 
topic.
- don't have to download 1 million emails onto all my machines that I 
use thunderbird on.

+1 for forums from me.

or, why not usenet??   what's wrong with newsgroups?  I don't understand 
why people prefer mailing lists to newsgroups.

Ben B.

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Re: Free Runner price vs iphone 3G price

[Ben Burdette]

I plan on using my phone in VOIP mode as often as possible.  Since I use 
my phone most often at home, I'm hoping I'll be able to use far fewer 
minutes per month than normal.  That's when the pay-as-you-go SIM plan 
starts to really pay off - I don't have to pay for an artificial minimum 
of minutes that I won't use.  When I run out of minutes, I just buy 
more.  If I only talk on VOIP during the month, that's zero cost. 

Also, I hear that AT&T is charging 10$ more per month for iphones over 
their normal plan fees, and even more if you are a business user.  So 
for a two year contract thats 240$.  And if you stay with AT&T after 
that, you keep paying that same premium on into the future too.  If 
you're like me and you keep your smartphones for 4+ years, then that 
would be more like 480$ over the 199 initial outlay. 

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Re: QVGA V/s VGA for GTA03 (was something about yummy CPU-GPU combos!)

[Ben Burdette]

My personal use cases for higher resolution:

- programming on the freerunner.  I've been learning Haskell, I want to 
get ghci or hugs on there and hack around with that.  Also I'm thinking 
about running the glade editor on there, if that's possible.

- using the freerunner as a remote control for amarok.  I want to be 
able to see more than just a couple of songs of my collection.  
Hopefully the web-based amarok control is usable on 640x480.

- GPS mapping.  The more map, the better this is. 

- Calendar.  I've used the palm calendar for a long time, and its just 
not that useful for seeing what's coming up at a high level.  You end up 
having to step through one day at a time to see what events are on there.

- Photo viewer.  Hook up the freerunner to a digital camera and use it 
to view the photos at a higher resolution than the camera screen.  By 
definition pointless unless you have higher resolution than the camera 
viewfinder.

Most of these are not impossible with lower resolution - I used to do 
programming on my palm III which is only 160x160 I think.  However, its 
much nicer on something with more real estate.  Also, having more 
resolution allows us to use more programs that were not designed for 
openmoko without excessive scrolling, like the glade editor.  To me 
these are real reasons to have more resolution, its not just eye candy 
and pointless feature-itis.

Not that QVGA is a bad idea though - I'd like to see a low cost openmoko 
phone at some point, something directed at the low end cellphone market 
perhaps.  If that was the only open phone around, I might even buy one.  
Given the choice though, I'll definitely spring for the high res option. 


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Re: ASU software - pre-pre-release impressions

[Ben Burdette]

Travis Tabbal wrote:
On Tue, May 20, 2008 at 12:39 AM, Carlo E. Prelz <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> wrote:


The switch to QT
*requires* the abandoning of C in favour of C++, a language that I
personally find unsuitable for use.



QT is C++, but you can write your code in C and just use the various 
classes to get GUI widgets. I really don't see why someone that knows 
C would have a problem with C++. I find some aspects of C++ irritating 
compared to Java, C#, Python, etc.. But it's far from "unsuitable for 
use". I can write both good and bad code in most any language. And 
there is nothing saying you have to write your apps in C++. Whatever, 
it's your money and your time, do what you want with it. I just find 
it an odd thing to be so irritated about.


C++ is difficult to link against, so that limits the languages that you 
can use for development.  For instance, D has a hard time with linking 
to C++ (or did last I checked).  C, on the other hand is far simpler to 
link to.  That's why many standard APIs use C interfaces - OpenGL for 
instance. 


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Re: Stylus Recommendation

[Ben Burdette]

Something that might work would be a guitar finger pick.  Here's a link 
to a selection of those:


http://www.suncreekmusic.com/index.php/cPath/26_34

The plastic ones would be the way to go.

The only thing is its kind of wide like a fingernail, not a precise 
stylus point.  but a little work with a dremel or the like would fix 
that...


Hans L wrote:

You also might be interested in a stylus that attaches to your
fingertip, as opposed to pen style, as discussed previously:
http://lists.openmoko.org/pipermail/community/2007-September/010165.html

Hans

  



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Re: What US plans are people using?

[Ben Burdette]

How did you get the plan to begin with?  Surely they didn't just give 
you a SIM card, did you already have another phone or did you buy a 
cheap phone?




Brandon Kruger wrote:
I have the "Media Net Unlimited" package which gives me unlimied data usage 
for $15/month.  Just try not to let them know it's for a PDA-ish device or 
they may try to make you get the $60 equivalent for PDAs instead.


  



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Re: Openmoko sounds, Motto

[Ben Burdette]

How about "got my moko working".  Then you could have a red flannel bag 
for your 'moko hand'.  Moko is HD (hoodoo) enabled!


http://www.luckymojo.com/mojo.html



ramsesoriginal wrote:

Following Michaels request for a homepage for the photos, I stumbled
upon two simple questions:
1) Do we have soem sort of motto (like "Hello Moto", "Connecting People", ...)
2) Is there an official Openmoko sound set? Systems sounds, but maybe
even a specific song or something? This could also be useful for ads,
or for branding, and so on.

Has anyone got some input?

  



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Re: photographs of box and POSSIBLE contents of Neo Freerunner

[Ben Burdette]

I think it has a protective piece of plastic over the screen, for 
shipping.  You can see the tab where you pull off the plastic in one of 
the photos.


Federico Lorenzi wrote:

Just from looking at photos, it seems that 02's screen is a lot less
reflective then 01?

Cheers,
Federico

On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 9:55 PM, Kosa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
  

It DOES include earphones!!! Just great!


 Kosa

 - Un mundo mejor es posible -

 Richard Reichenbacher escribió:





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Re: photographs of box and POSSIBLE contents of Neo Freerunner

[Ben Burdette]

Black on black case is looking great!  Glad you're going with that for 
the freerunner. 


Michael Shiloh wrote:
Remember, Steve is still deciding what to include in the box. These 
are just a bunch of stuff that fit, from which he is making decisions:


http://quickstart.openmoko.org/photographs/

If someone with more skills than me at web page design would like to 
turn this into a nice web page with thumbnails etc. I would welcome 
the assistance. I have to get back to upgrading GTA01 firmware, 
testing GTA02 samples, and shipping all of these items. You don't need 
my permission - download these photographs, they are direct copies of 
my originals, and create what you want.


Michael

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Re: 3G? What about CDMA?

[Ben Burdette]

Steven ** wrote:

I don't see how GSM is much less "closed" of a network protocol than
CDMA (the interchangeable SIM cards being the big difference).  The
GSM chip is the most locked down hardware on the Neo.  A CDMA chip
would be no different.
  
Actually the situation here IS very different, because of that 
interchangability.  With a GSM phone, its the SIM that allows you on the 
network.  You can (theoretically at least), go down to the T-Mobile 
store and get their bottom-of-the-line 20$ phone, then take it home and 
put the SIM into your neo, with T-Mobile being none the wiser. 

With CDMA, you will not be able to use your phone on their network 
unless they say ok.  This means I can't use my old CDMA sprint phone on 
my new verizon account.  If I switch back to sprint, my verizon phone 
won't work anymore.  If openmoko was CDMA but sprint and verizon decide 
they don't like the openness of the openmoko phones, you're SOL.  GSM 
gives the users choice as to what phone they want to run, and takes that 
choice away from the carrier.



As far as the aims of the Openmoko project, I don't see how CDMA
conflicts with that.  I thought one of the aims of Openmoko was to
show people the benefits of opensource, mobile computing.  It seems
odd to give people choices over everything but the service provider.
  
You can choose any service provider you want - as long as they are on 
GSM.  


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Re: FreeRunner Pricing and PVT update

[Ben Burdette]

Great news that things are getting so finalized. 

I have a question about the '10-pack'.  I'm thinking about getting 
together a group order for my local LUG.  Suppose we have 11 people 
interested?  Is it more a 10-plus pack, or would that extra 1 phone have 
to be ordered at full 399 price? 



steve wrote:

 I thought I would combine a couple posts today. First an update on PVT, or
production verification test. Phones are being sent to me from the first PVT
run. Michael Shiloh will be back in Silicon valley next Tuesday, so he and I
will test the samples and get them out to key partners. I want to check a
couple things like using the Nokia batteries as spares and generic USB
chargers before I send these samples out.

Now, for the update on Products, and Pricing,  


1. Products.

 Orginally the FreeRunner ( GTA02) was planned to come out in two packages.
Basic and advanced, just like the Neo 1973. We killed that idea. It was a
quick humane death. The problem was the GTA02 advanced unit would have been
$650 USD. After seeing the response to Neo 1973, a huge response, we decided
the best path was to lower the price, reward our early developers, and
attract more developers. 


2. Pricing
We scrubbed the BOM ( bill of materials). We eliminated the Luxurious bits.
Optimized the box like it was code. The first thing we got rid of
was the lunchbox. It was cool, but it was expensive and heavy. Eliminating
that was a sizeable cost savings. ( think shipping weight). 


Next we pulled out the debug board and made it a separate product.  We
priced it at $99 US. about 1 tenth what people would pay for similar
capability.

My goal was to get to a place where we could sell the FreeRunner at $399.
USD.

We did that.

The FreeRunner will ship from Openmoko.com at $399. For early customers
I'm looking at throwing in a few free things. More details later.

The debug board will be available as a separate product for $99 USD.

Many people wrote me mails asking if they could get a discount by buying
more than one phone. Sometimes they were universities, sometimes a small
business, sometimes a small group or club. 


For these people we created a 10Pack. instead of 399 per phone, we will
charge 369 per phone.

 
Over the next few days I will explain the next steps we go through and how

the product will get distributed


Steve



 



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Re: accelerometer thought

[Ben Burdette]

Yes, and my usage too... :) Good idea !

But what about a "not moving for a while" switch?

In my pocket, my bag, or other moving places, it will ring, and if it
is staying on a desktop, or near my bed, it will use vibrator...

But what happens if I try to locate it on my house, expecting it will
ring :p (This situation is frequent, for me :) )

  



What would be nice would be to have a system that would vibrate or ring
based on the caller's option.  This could work if there was a menuing
system on the phone for incoming calls.  If the phone is muted, with a
code you could override the silent ring and make it actually ring.

It could also work for the situation where I would like to call someone
late at night but I'm not sure if they're up.  Assuming they have an
openmoko phone and its past a certain hour, I'd get a menu that would
ask whether I want an audible ring or not.  Of course they could
override that and mute it completely, but for me this would be good.  I
often forget to un-mute my phone and end up missing calls.




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Re: Accelerometer brainstorming

[Ben Burdette]

Alexey Feldgendler wrote:
Just like my recent post about using GPS to enhance the phone, I'll 
try to explore the synergy opportunities for the accelerometers that 
Neo has. Once again, some of this might have already been discussed.
I'd like to see an accelerometer graphing application, so you could 
monitor and graph g force levels.  Maybe throw in a zeroing button to 
set a baseline orientation, then show deviation from that.  Maybe not 
extraordinarily useful, but it would be cool to look at.  You could also 
record the data for later hacking or comparison, like what was my max 
g-force last time I went skydiving compared to this time?  The graphing 
and etc would be good for studying the feasability of other 
accelerometer uses, ie is a tap on the case a recognizable event? 

Speaking of that, I'd like a tap on the case to be configurable as a 
mute function during ringing.  So if you forgot to mute your phone at 
the symphony and it starts ringing somewhere inside your backpack or 
jacket, a well placed kick would (probably) mute it.  The value here is 
not having to hunt for the phone and find a button on it.  I guess this 
falls under the larger category of gesture recognition, but this alone 
would be a real win for me. 

Another use would be as a 0-60 or quarter mile acceleration timer.  
Here's a link to a company that makes these:


http://www.gtechpro.com/?gclid=CLf7wPmpsJICFRI0awod1CWyQQ

I don't know if the accelerometer in the freerunner is accurate enough, 
but this is a low priced product, I'd think their accelerometers are not 
a great deal better, if any.




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Re: FreeRunner delayed a further 6 months?!?!??

[Ben Burdette]

JW wrote:

On 14/03/2008, Tom Cooksey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
  

http://www.telecoms.com/itmgcontent/tcoms/news/articles/20017514053.html
Please, PLEASE tell me this is not true? Or at least it's the consumer version 
>that's delayed?



Is this just not sowing seeds of realism along previous lines...?

FreeRunner hardware release in spring 08.
Polished software not available til much later

  
I guess it comes down to your definition of "slightly".  To me "slightly 
earlier" than 6 months from now is more like 5 months from now, not 1 or 
2 months from now.  That would put the gta02 dev release into august.  
However, this article doesn't have a direct quote from a FIC 
representative, so something may have been lost in the retelling.  I'm 
looking forward to some clarification of this, as I was under the 
impression that gta02 hardware was projected for availability in the 
next few months. 




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Re: Need a Cellphone now...

[Ben Burdette]

Why not get a bottom-of-the-line phone from T-Mobile or some other GSM 
carrier?  It will have the making and receiving calls feature and then 
you can use the sim in the freerunner when it is available in a month or 
two. 


Daniel Spies wrote:

Hi list!

I wonder if it's possible to run Openmoko on other handhelds than the
Neo/Freerunner. Actually I need a new phone ASAP. As I already mentioned I
don't need the complete functionality immediately. Making and receiving
calls would be enough...

I already searched the web for some kind of phone-comparer, but the only
one I found did not offer the filters I need. Does anyone of you know a
phone
with the following specs? The Freerunner covers them all, but is still not
available. If there's any smartphone covering the specs below, and we could
run Openmoko on it, please let me know!

Must have:
- Wireless Lan
- GPRS/EDGE/UMTS
- Bluetooth
- GPS
- USB with host-mode
- High Quality Stereo Soundcard
- High Resolution Touchscreen
- Less or no Buttons
- Fast CPU
- Not too less memory
- Extensionslot for SD/microSD or whatever

Nice to have:
- Acceleration-sensor
- DVB-T Receiver
- Multitouch
- Camera
- 2 Sim slots

I'm not sure if I missed something...

Thank you!
Daniel
  



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Re: Multi-touch: Many questions to one desire....

[Ben Burdette]

Federico wrote:

 So... where are those usecases that apply to a phone?



maybe pressing the shift key for typing uppercase letters :P

  

Or other chording based text entry schemes...

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Re: Mono audio output on GTA02?

[Ben Burdette]

Look again at the LM4853 specs and you'll see that it takes stereo in and 
drives stereo headphone out or mono speaker out. 


http://www.national.com/pf/LM/LM4853.html

  
Ah, I should have followed the link.  I kind of stopped reading where it 
said "Mono Amplifier" in the wiki.


http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo_FreeRunner_GTA02_Hardware#Mono_Amplifier

So its a 'high power' mono amp and low power stereo amp.  That makes 
sense, I feel better now. 


Ben

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Mono audio output on GTA02?

[Ben Burdette]

I was looking at the GTA02 hardware spec on the wiki, and its looking 
(to me) like mono only output.  According to this:


http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Neo1973_Audio_Subsystem

The neo1973 has a stereo LM4857 amplifier, which drives the stereo 
speakers, mono earpiece, and (presumably stereo) headphones.  However, 
on the freerunner it appears that it has been changed to the LM4853 
instead, a mono amplifier.  That implies that the headphone output is 
now mono and not stereo.  Unless I'm missing something? 




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Re: More about the GTA02

[Ben Burdette]

Um, just wondering what the differences were since the wiki seems to 
list the same information as here.  I checked the wiki history, it looks 
like mainly more specific information about the components.  I didn't 
see anything there about the 850 mhz change though.


One recent change is from a stereo to mono amplifier for analog output.  
I'm guessing/hoping that this is the amplifier that powers the mono 
speaker, and that we'll still have stereo output for headphones?  I 
guess with powered usb you could use a usb audio converter, but it would 
be nice to have it built in.


Christopher Earl wrote:

I said very slightly

  

Ben Burdette <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 02/06/08 11:57 AM >>>

So what is it that is different from the old spec?  Is it just the 850 
mhz version?


Christopher Earl wrote:
  

the specs have changed (very slightly)

* Atheros 802.11 b/g WiFi
* Samsung S3C2442 B54 SoC @ 400Mhz
* SMedia Glamo3362 Graphics Accelerator
* 2x ST 3D Accelerometers
* 256MB Flash
* 128MB SDRAM
* 2MB NOR Flash
* 1200mAh Battery
* 2 LEDs illuminating the two buttons. 
* u-blox/Atmel ATR0635 GPS

* Bluetooth
* 850/1800/1900 Mhz or 900/1800/1900 Mhz for GSM/GPRS 
* USB Host function with power


So anyone in NorthAmerica (mainly the states) needs to add that they want the 
850/1800/1900 GSM bands, I dont have a clue about how thats going to work

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Re: More about the GTA02

[Ben Burdette]

So what is it that is different from the old spec?  Is it just the 850 
mhz version?


Christopher Earl wrote:

the specs have changed (very slightly)

* Atheros 802.11 b/g WiFi
* Samsung S3C2442 B54 SoC @ 400Mhz
* SMedia Glamo3362 Graphics Accelerator
* 2x ST 3D Accelerometers
* 256MB Flash
* 128MB SDRAM
* 2MB NOR Flash
* 1200mAh Battery
* 2 LEDs illuminating the two buttons. 
* u-blox/Atmel ATR0635 GPS

* Bluetooth
* 850/1800/1900 Mhz or 900/1800/1900 Mhz for GSM/GPRS 
* USB Host function with power


So anyone in NorthAmerica (mainly the states) needs to add that they want the 
850/1800/1900 GSM bands, I dont have a clue about how thats going to work

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Re: Multilanguage Text-To-Speech

[Ben Burdette]

Gilles Casse wrote:

Hello,

FYI, mokoTTS 0.05 has just been released.


Awesome, looking forward to listening to project gutenberg files in the 
car... didn't know this was already under construction.


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Re: CAD files for the case of the Neo will be made available

[Ben Burdette]

great, now we can swing into action and get al those alternative cases
designed and built
  


My company gets aluminum sensor boxes made on a regular basis.  They are 
pretty comparable to the neo case in complexity, and I think we could 
get them made for about 200$ each in a batch of 30-40 or so.  Expensive, 
but black anodised aluminum would be pretty neat. 


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Re: What to use while waiting of v2?

[Ben Burdette]

Ben wrote:

I can't hold out any longer.

I need a PDA that will work as reliably as possble, have a few options
for easy automatic sync (with Mac or Linux) or at least automatic
backup. I will be using it to implement GTD (Getting Things Done).

Phone not essential.

I don't need it to be open, non-evil, etc. I just need it's
shortcomings to be outweighed by the ease of backup and sync it has
over a Hipster PDA (Notebook and Pen).
  
Palm III?  Dead reliable, sync and etc have long since been worked out.  
Cheap.  I just searched on ebay and found one for 5$.  Has all the basic 
features a PDA should have.  Get one and hang on to it until the moko 
comes out in a couple (?) months.


Ben



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Re: What to use while waiting of v2?

[Ben Burdette]

Ben wrote:

I can't hold out any longer.

I need a PDA that will work as reliably as possble, have a few options
for easy automatic sync (with Mac or Linux) or at least automatic
backup. I will be using it to implement GTD (Getting Things Done).

Phone not essential.

I don't need it to be open, non-evil, etc. I just need it's
shortcomings to be outweighed by the ease of backup and sync it has
over a Hipster PDA (Notebook and Pen).
  
What about a Palm III?  I just looked on ebay and saw one for 5$.  They 
are dead reliable and sync issues should be no problem on mac or linux.  
If you just need something to get by with until moko comes out, you 
could do worse.  If you get beyond just contacts, notes, to do, and 
calendar, there are tons of applications out there to choose from. 


Ben

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Re: 2007.11 snapshot available

[Ben Burdette]

Check out the Dasher text input system.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/

It is a text input sytem that uses 2 axis analog inputs, like a mouse, 
joystick, or tilt sensor.  Its very noise resistant, good for people 
with muscle control problems.  As long as you don't have to tilt so much 
that you can't see the screen, it should work ok for openmoko.  
Apparently its available for pocketpc devices, I don't know if any of 
them have tilt sensors and have used them for Dasher.  Here's a page 
about using tilt on a toshiba tablet pc:


http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/saw27/dasher/toshtilt/

There's a movie where someone is using tilt for text entry. 


Ortwin Regel wrote:
Tilting is an awful control method for almost anything. The main 
reason being that you move the screen around while tilting. Other 
problems are that it's exausting and lacks feedback. Even tilting to 
automatically switch the screen orientation can be annoying if you're 
lying on your side in your bed reading an ebook. I can not imagine any 
useful contribution of tilting to text input.


Ortwin

On Dec 5, 2007 2:52 PM, Joseph J. McCarthy 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
> wrote:


What if you could tilt the Neo to switch keyboards instead. Or,
perhaps,
instead of multi-tap you tilt and press "2" to get "B" instead of hold
horizontal and tap "2" to get "A".

It seems that the accelerometers could be used to make the keyboard
easier to use.

Now that I am typing perhaps the coolest, would be to have something
like a full qwerty with keys that are too big to fit the whole
keyboard
on the screen, but you tilt it to access the off-screen ones (you tilt
left and the keyboard "slides" over so that you can get to the "L"
key).

Just some thoughts.

Joe

Krzysztof Kajkowski wrote:
>
> Wiadomość napisana w dniu Dec 5, 2007, o godz 10:14 AM, przez
Thomas Wood:
>
>>
>> On Wed, 2007-12-05 at 09:20 +0100, Krzysztof Kajkowski wrote:

>>>
>>> For me it's also finger-usable keyboard - just like the one in
Qtopia.
>>> With that you can operate your phone without stylus (in most
cases).
>>
>> Chris has worked on a multi-tap input method:
>>
>> http://chrislord.net/blog/Software/multitap-pad.enlighten

>>
>
> That's wonderful news! What I also like in Qtopia's keyboard is
ability
> to switch between number, symbol and letters keyboard by moving you
> finger down or up on keyboard.
>
>> Obviously T9 will not be implemented due to patent issues. I
will ask
>> him if the source is available anywhere.
>>
>
> T9 is not necessary important (i.e. I do not use english on my
phone so
> probably I would need to hack it to include polish T9 database).
It is
> useful in SMSes but not on writing URLs or console ;)
>
> cayco
> ___
> OpenMoko community mailing list
> community@lists.openmoko.org 
> http://lists.openmoko.org/mailman/listinfo/community


--
Joseph J. McCarthy, Associate Professor and
William Kepler Whiteford Faculty Fellow
Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering
University of Pittsburgh
1249 Benedum Hall Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15261
Ph. 412-624-7362; Fax 412-624-9639
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
http://granular.che.pitt.edu

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Re: Michael Shiloh interview on The Linux Link Tech Show

[Ben Burdette]

Patrick Davila wrote:

Michael was gracious enough to come on our show and talk about the great
work you guys are doing:
http://www.tllts.org/audio/tllts_221-11-28-07.ogg
http://www.tllts.org/audio/tllts_221-11-28-07.mp3

Enjoy


  
I was relieved to hear that 850 mhz seems to be a sure thing - according 
to the interview there will be two versions of the phone, one for the US 
(or other 850mhz countries) and one for the rest of the world.  I assume 
the US version will be delayed compared to the 900mhz version, but still 
great its news.


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Re: November 26, 2007 Community Update

[Ben Burdette]

Thanks for the update!  I'm relieved to hear that 850mhz is not a dead 
duck.  I'm keeping my hopes up for an 850 capable gta02. 


Ben Burdette

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Re: No Camera???

[Ben Burdette]

So ultimately i think not having a camera might diminish the market,
but won't doom the phone.

--clayton


I have to agree.  I personally would like a camera, and if I knew there 
would be a neo coming out with one in the near future I might even wait 
for it.  But I don't think this will 'doom' the phone, by any means.  
I'll still be buying my gta02, though I might sell it one day in 
exchange for one with a camera.  The neo is still capable of doing many 
many things without it being a camera too, its worth it to me to get 
onto the platform and be in a position to contribute to the community. 

A phone camera is lousy for taking pictures compared to a real camera.  
But it is good for taking photos of things when you didn't think to 
bring a camera with you, or you just don't want to haul around a big 
phone.  I have a nice camera, but I don't take it with me many times 
because it is so big.  For instance, it would be handy to take a picture 
of a map, and then have it in the phone for reference.  Or other 
documents, like menus, agendas, etc. 

I like the idea of there being a lot of interesting open source apps to 
use the camera for the unexpected - like gesture recognition, for 
instance.  Use your hand gestures for gaming.  This may be unrealistic 
given the neo's processing capabilities, but who knows? 


Ben





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Re: UI responsiveness, Hope its not like new Blackberry

[Ben Burdette]

That's really sad.  One of the real strengths of the old versions of
PalmOS (and the applications developed for it) was that interaction
was instantaneous -- in almost all cases, what you wanted happened
right away, and in the few exceptions, you were notified immediately
that the app had gotten the input and would take a while to process.
  


Mine has become less responsive over time, as I have added more and more 
data without ever deleting anything.  The time lag is in some surprising 
places, not just where you'd expect like phone number lookup.  It is 
disconcerting when the GUI takes over a second to respond sometimes, 
then seems to be ok right afterward.


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Re: Qtopia coming for Neo1973

[Ben Burdette]

It may be worth mentioning that D also works well with straight C libs, 
but can't interface directly with C++.  Its in the same league as C++ in 
terms of speed, while arguably being more elegant. 

I haven't worked with scheme since the 80's, in my intro to programming 
course!  I'll have to check that out, I remember it being a very 
flexible and fun language.  IIRC the gimp uses it in its scripting system. 



john wrote:

I can echo these views.

I personally like a C based framework as I develop on my Neo in 
Scheme. I use a Scheme-to-C compiler called Chicken which happens to 
work extremely nicely with GTK+. I can develop much more 
efficiently/easily in Scheme than I can in C. I would not have this 
choice if I wanted to continue with Chicken using with a C++ 
framework. No doubt it is possible to integrate but what a pig it 
would be. Of course I am a very small minority taking this approach 
but at least I can if I want! It is good to have options. You could 
argue I am putting all my eggs in one basket (pardon the pun) but I 
have faith in GTK+.


Arguing which framework is technically superior may be a bit like 
arguing about VHS vs Betamax. In the long run it might not matter. 
Some of us with go down one route and will be looking hard to find 
people to trade films with :)


I have built an ipk of the Chicken Scheme system if anybody is tempted 
to the dark side?  ;)


John.

Carlo E. Prelz wrote:

Subject: Re: Qtopia coming for Neo1973



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Re: The problem with touch screens

[Ben Burdette]

Giles Jones wrote:


On 11 Sep 2007, at 18:11, Alexey Feldgendler wrote:




I once tried a mouse with tactile feedback (built-in vibrator). I 
could actually feel the buttons I hovered the cursor over as being 
embossed; it felt like moving the mouse over a non-flat relief rather 
than simply vibration.


The Wii remote does it on the Wii menus, but it causes aches after a 
while so I turned it off.


In the wii GUI the controller will vibrate briefly when the cursor moves 
into a clickable area, so the user knows they can now click the button.  
With a touchscreen though, when the user taps in the clickable area, the 
click has already happened.  There's no need to alert the user that they 
are in a clickable area.  It might be good to alert the user that there 
was a click though.  As you say, it should be something you can turn off. 


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Re: Apple is going to beat all competitors

[Ben Burdette]

The iPhone killer, competitor, or comparisons you have been describing - to
me - should not be done against the neo.  
I happen to think that the neo is indeed an anti-iphone.  Unfortunately 
a lot of people confuse this position with the idea that the neo is an 
iPhone killer - something entirely different.  An iPhone killer would be 
a phone that takes on the iPhone in its target market - nontechnical 
style mongers - and surpasses it.  The neo is not that phone. 

An anti-iPhone, to my mind, is a phone that is open to one and all to 
develop for it.  A phone without barriers to its use, without corporate 
controls and without toll gates.  That's what makes the neo special, not 
its touchscreen, its round shape, its GPS even. 

The problem is that people confuse the anti-iPhone and iPhone-killer 
concepts so much.  This subtle distinction is lost in the rush to 
blogging sensationalism.  So it this light maybe the iPhone should be 
left out of the rhetoric entirely, when possible.  Let's not forget that 
the neo is also the anti-razr, anti-ming, anti-nokia.  Its the 
anti-samsung, anti-blackberry.  In fact, whatever phone you have, its 
anti-that-too. 

The only exception would be maybe the greenphone, only if i remember 
correctly that requires some extra payment to become a developer.  So I 
guess the neo is the anti-greenphone as well. 




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Re: At the risk of being flamed : State of software

[Ben Burdette]

For me LGPL is proper license for such device. It allows to write free
applications which will use any license (all those hackers which you
listed) AND it allows to write commercial stuff. 



But after you add closed source software, the phone is not totally free 
anymore. Don't you see the conflict there?


  


Aren't GTK+ and the openmoko libs under the LGPL?  According to the wiki 
openmoko supports development of commercial software.  I'm for an open 
OS, and I think that's a good place for the GPL.  That way no one 
develops a closed source version of openmoko with AT&T specific 
binaries, or whatever.  But I'm planning on running skype on my GTA02 
one day, so I don't really take the 100% open source position. 




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Re: mailing list management

[Ben Burdette]

Karsten Ensinger wrote:


Maybe you should switch to this (or improve your configuration):

https://removedupes.mozdev.org/

I use this extension to thunderbird with success. The suggestion
of the extension seems to contain some smart algorithms.
The already read messages are preselected for keep and the "new"
ones get deleted.
Yes, much better than the regular "remove duplicates" extension.  Thanks 
for the tip.


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Re: mailing list management

[Ben Burdette]

Nick Johnson wrote:

On 8/16/07, Giles Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
  

On 16 Aug 2007, at 00:07, Nick Johnson wrote:


The list server is clearly the issue here, failing to accept messages
in a timely fashion.
  

It's only affecting GMail messages.



I believe people with providers other than gmail (and not just those
using google apps, like myself) have also reported issues. GMail is
just less patient than most - it's still only an issue because the
list server is taking a long time to respond. How long _should_ a mail
server wait for a reply? Forever?
  

Case in point - I just got a duplicate of your message.

Maybe openmoko needs a new, faster mailserver?  More mailserver 
bandwidth?  Or how about a duplicate message filter at the list level?  
I've gotten at least 100 duplicates today, this is getting really old.  
I have a filter for removing duplicates in thunderbird, but it leaves 
the newest duplicate, so I'm having to 'mark as read' the same messages 
over and over. 


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Re: Neo 1973 is sold out...

[Ben Burdette]

Alan McSwain wrote:

"Neo 1973 is sold out
By Jouston Huang
Neo1973 - OpenMoko After weeks hard work and a lot of complains from my wife. We 
sold out our Neo 1973 now. In fact, if you place order now. The ETA will be almost 
October 2007 "

AND...

"Sold out!
Please note that due to unexpected high demand, even at this early development 
stage, our quantities up to and including August 2007 are already oversold. This 
means that any orders placed now will not be shipping before September 10, 2007. We 
ask for your understanding. Your credit card will only be charged immediately before 
delivery."
  
Maybe I would feel differently if I was waiting for an order, but I 
think this is really good news!  My fear was that FIC would barely sell 
any GTA01 phones, and then FIC would put the project on the back 
burner.  It sounds like getting a GTA02 on 'schedule' may not happen, 
but maybe that means making calls from the GUI will work by the time I 
get one.  I'm very encouraged to see the amount of interest this first 
generation phone is receiving...


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Re: 700 Mhz Spectrum Auction

[Ben Burdette]

4.  Nobody really restricts devices anyway they just use retail power
to push their phones. So point 3 because mostly irrelevant either way.
  
Not sure what you mean by this.  When verizon won't allow you to use a 
sprint phone on their network, isn't that considered a restriction?  Or 
not being able to activate an old phone that they don't want to support 
anymore?  What about being locked out of features on your own phone?


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Re: OK, the forum is coming..

[Ben Burdette]

A gateway would not work. Forums and mailing lists are two quite 
different means of communication. In a forum you can edit things, move 
them, delete them. Also, discussing in a flat view doesn't only look 
different, it works differently. Also, if you connect both, you get 
all the trash that's ok in a forum because you can skip it sent to 
everyone in the mailing list.


  
So, you need to have a forum that is set up to work like a mailing 
list.  No editing, threaded discussion.  Don't have a flat format.  I 
don't see what's wrong with that. 


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Re: OK, the forum is coming..

[Ben Burdette]

Jay Vaughan wrote:


On Jul 24, 2007, at 7:45 PM, Daniel Robinson wrote:


The goal is communication, not rightness.  How is communication best 
served?




duh, use both mailing lists and forums.  any new forum post -> new 
post to the list.  and vice versa.


That was my thought too.  Anyone know of an existing solution? 


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Re: OK, the forum is coming..

[Ben Burdette]

Maybe you're right, and the whole point is here: mailing lists are for
geeks and forums are for all other people. We should then have a web
based forum.



Are you sure ? I find personally a mailing is much easier.  You get the 
messages with your regular mail, you can sort them to a special inbox folder 
to read them when you have time.  Whereas a forum you need to start your web 
browser, generally wade through some pages to get to the location you want, 
log on, use some user interface that changes from forum to forum.


Searching a mailing list is also easy : google or some searchable mail 
archive.


Adding another channel is counter productive.  Focus all data in one location 
and optimize that medium to the max. 


W

  
I'd have to say that for the casual or occasional user, there are 
significant advantages to a web forum. For me, monitoring an active 
email list like openmoko in my email client is a fairly sizable 
undertaking - there are many emails per day to look through.  I take 
time several times a day to look through these, or just mark the folder 
'read'.  If I were only want to look at the forum once every few weeks, 
then subscribing to the list would be overkill.  On the other hand, in 
order to participate in the list you need to subscribe.  So web-search 
only users are in effect barred from posting. 

Even if our casual users wanted 70-80 emails a day for something they 
only use once in a while, its still a hassle to set up if you don't know 
about email filtering and etc.  Lots of people don't. 

Compare this to the effort needed to visit slashdot.  You register once, 
and you never need to worry about it again.  Visit every day or every 6 
months, doesn't matter.


The other aspect is that you are putting your real email address out 
there on the internet for lots of people to look at.  This means its an 
excellent place for spammers to harvest email accounts.  With a forum 
your personal data is more anonymous.  Plus there is potential for other 
social networking style things like user profiles - what users are 
working on, etc. 




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Re: Camera on GTA02

[Ben Burdette]

Rather than alienate one group over the other, why not have something 
for both? A non camera version for those who don't need the feature as 
well as a camera version with the exact same specs for those who can't 
live without it? I mean, why have a chip with camera support if there 
are no plans to use if fully? Tag on a $50 difference or something. 
Problem solved. It won't be feasible in the near future if it involves 
a major holdup or deviation from the current product, but if it's 
doable, why not?
I would prefer a camera too.  But the impression I get re this project 
is that the FIC team is doing everything humanly possible just to get 
the product out as is.  I'm still glad they managed to shoehorn wifi in 
there, that's more important to me than a camera, and it sounds like 
wifi is more of a technical challenge as well.


Personally I'm hoping that it will be possible to retrofit a camera onto 
the GTA02 because I'm not going to wait for a GTA03 (or whatever comes 
after GTA02).  I'm willing to bet that if it is possible there will be 
people making kits to add a camera in short order.  We may even see that 
as an enhancement to the GTA01 before the 02 comes out.


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Re: Not "the free phone"

[Ben Burdette]

Great video!  the OFone, which way is up on this thing? 

I'd rather not go with oPhone, it sounds derivative of the iPhone.  Like 
the openmoko phone is a cheap wannabe iPhone.  I don't people to have 
that impression.


What about a nice industrial-style alphanumeric designation - like the 
'FIC A1'.  Or OM1.  Or FS1, whatever.  Kind of like how BMW names their 
cars.  You could come up with a feature specific naming scheme, then 
you'd never need to worry about what to name the phone. 

Another consideration might be to come up with a name that is search 
engine friendly.  The Open Phone would get a lot of non openmoko hits I 
bet. 


Luit van Drongelen wrote:

oPhone sounds great too...

but not this oPhone:
http://soapbox.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=79996a20-e2de-4757-8d22-dfc5a44acfc7 




--
Luit

On 7/17/07, digger vermont <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


On Tue, 2007-07-17 at 09:59 +0200, ramsesoriginal wrote:
> "The Open Phone"
> "Our Phone"

Just oPhone

I've always dislike the I and My stuff.

digger


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Re: Let's get some digging done!

[Ben Burdette]

Do we really want this to be dugg?

1. Its not an end-user phone. The average digg user who gets this
phone might be suprized and disappointed.
2. Is there already enough demand for the existing phones from the
developers and interested parties who know about it? If there is, i
say let that need get satisfied first by keeping the launch low-key.
If there is a huge excess of units, then this point isnt too important
(but see point #1)

I think its good to get the word out, as long as its clear its intended 
for developers right now.  Maybe we will attract more developers to the 
cause.  There might be a few out there that don't lurk on the openmoko 
lists yet, why not clue them in?  Plus its time for a celebration IMO, 
the hardware is getting shipped!  This is a milestone, the world should 
know. 




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Re: gmail.com problems and this list

[Ben Burdette]

Joe Pfeiffer wrote:

Ryan Prior writes:
  

Are my emails getting sent twice somehow? I'm using gmail, but have not
noticed any duplication or errors.



Have you been noticing duplicates from other people?  I haven't
noticed whether you've got one of the repeating messages (it isn't
twice -- it's something like hourly, something like forever).
  

I'm seeing duplicates from these non-gmail accounts:

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

Some messages from these accounts are duplicating, but not all.  So 
maybe its not necessarily limited to gmail, and not linked to individual 
accounts, but more to individual emails. 


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Re: Custom case designs...

[Ben Burdette]

Case modding for phones, cool.  You could have one machined out of 
aluminum, and as long as the FIC hardware doesn't change too much over 
the years, you could keep updating it with the latest boards.  Assuming 
that you could order the boards from FIC without the case, or are 
willing to buy and discard.  If someone comes up with a nice aluminum 
case design, there are sites where machinists bid on such things - a 
group of people could commission an order of replacement cases.  The 
company I work for gets complex sensor cases made for about 150$ each in 
small batches.  That said, carbon fiber would be cool too, though I 
don't know much about what it would take to fabricate such a case for a 
phone.


Tim Newsom wrote:
I have been thinking a little more about this and I struck upon an 
idea... What if you could buy a custom case with a custom message on it.


I am not talking about painted messages but letters and shapes cast 
into the plastic shell.

Raised, sunk, custom fonts etc.

Naturally we can't just replicate the exact neo1973 shell without 
permission, but maybe something like it and removing the FIC logo 
(unless we get permission to use it) or the like.


This is more of a vanity thing than a functional thing.. But what do 
people think of it?

--Tim

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Re: information efficient text enty using dasher

[Ben Burdette]

Dasher is only really information efficient considering the input only.
The output stream needs to be quite dense.

This pretty much means that you have to stare at the display all the time
when inputting text.
Sure - in theory, dasher may approach arithmetic coding in terms of
information input.
But unless you can do the coding in your head, you've got to stare at the
screen, making it less useful for environments where you've got vibration,
sunlight, walking down the street, or less likely for a phone, if you're
blind. (Hmm. /me ponders dasher with audio prompting)
T9 or even abc def ... you can use blind.
Even qwerty with real hardware keys. (I think on-screen keyb would be
optimistic :) )

  


To me, it looks like Dasher has a some drawbacks:

one, it seems to be CPU intensive - there's a lot of animation going on 
during text entry.  Not a problem for PCs, but it might not be optimal 
on a low power device.


two, its storage intensive.  You have to have a dictionary of some sort 
available for it to do its prediction.  Or, several dictionaries, each 
for a different type of text entry (like english and japanese, or 
english and C++ programming).


three, it takes up a lot of screen space.  If you are just doing pure 
text entry without needing to look at something else, that's ok.  But 
I'd rather it didn't take up the whole screen so that I can't see an IM 
that I'm replying to, or several lines of the website form I'm filling 
out. 

That's not to say I'm against Dasher.  But I'd like to see a lot of 
flexibility available in openmoko text entry so that I can change to 
dasher, or some other text entry method when needed, or just to try 
things out.  I hope someone will implement it for openmoko, together 
with several other alternatives for doing text entry. 


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Re: Gestures and Unicode Input

[Ben Burdette]

I don't want to discourage you guys, I'm all for developing a motion
recognition system.  It would be cool for using with a speakerphone
output to spell words when you don't want to look at the screen.  Using
gestures to navigate an audio based UI would be great for the blind too.

But for password entry it seems very insecure.  I mean, wouldn't
entering a password with gestures be like sending secret messages with
signal flags? Anyone who knows the system could just read what you were
entering.


Alexander E Genaud wrote:

[Gestures and Unicode Input]

Gestures, in lieu of passwords, is a brilliant idea and I hope it can
be done. However, it sounds deterministically fuzzy/difficult. Even
Picaso did not sketch the exact thing twice. Other input methods such
as Shapewriting are also very promising. However, none seem to allow
large character ranges (Unicode).

Beyond passwords, if we (geeks) don't mind memorizing specific symbols
and character points, 32 or 64 symbols (UTF-5) could map 1-1 and onto
the entire 10 Unicode set. A conceptual 3x3 grid, such as
suggested by Henryk Plötz, could grant about 50 unambiguous symbols.

=
123
456
789
=

1 stroke (8):
  46 and 64   horizontal line
  28 and 82   verticle line
  19 and 91   backslash
  37 and 73   forward slash

2 stroke (16):
  971 and 179 capital L
  713 and 317
  139 and 931
  397 and 793

  183 and 381 capital V
  349 and 943
  927 and 729
  761 and 167

3 stroke (16):
  7193 and 3917   capital N
  1739 and 9371
  1379 and 9731   capital Z
  3197 and 7913

  3179 and 9713   capital C
  9317 and 7139
  1397 and 7931
  1793 and 3971   capital U

4 stroke (8):
  13971 and 17931 circle or box
  39713 and 31791
  97139 and 93179
  71397 and 79317

=
123
456
789
=


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Re: "Can OpenMoko Make Coffee?" - SoC Project Proposal

[Ben Burdette]

Steven ** wrote:

I noticed the other day that MythTV has an option to "Enable Network
Remote Control interface".  Looks like this is just a port you can
telnet to and pass commands.  I intend to write a remote control app
that would run on OpenMoko.  Cause I think that would be awesome.  Of
course, it would only really be useful if the Neo has wifi...

Hmm...  Maybe I should create that project on openmoko.org.
I was hoping that I could use TCP over bluetooth to get on the network, 
bypassing the need for wifi for now.  I'm assuming there's going to be 
some kind of way to allow the moko to access an ethernet network through 
a computer with a bluetooth dongle...


But yeah, an openmoko remote would be awesome.  Kind of an open source 
SONOS system.  If you don't write it maybe I will! 



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Re: "Can OpenMoko Make Coffee?" - SoC Project Proposal

[Ben Burdette]

I think that the Neo1973 is both a phone and a portable handheld 
device. Using it as a remote control is one of the things I've 
personally been interested in this whole thing for. I'd like to think 
of the OpenMoko device as an extension of myself into the world of 
electronic devices. My own interface with the world ... until such 
time as we can get wetware to do brain-computer interfaces, ;).

--


Me too.  I want to use the moko to control a media center PC that is 
connected to my stereo, for queuing up audio files and etc.  My PC uses 
a video projector for the monitor and turning on the projector is too 
much trouble just for queuing up audio.  Leaving the projector on uses 
up the bulb life too.  I wonder if one of the linux based media center 
apps like mythTV would work for this?  A custom remote control app for 
the moko would be best, but a web browser interface would be fine too. 


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Re: T-Mobile finagling advice?

[Ben Burdette]

Unfortunatly, It looks to me like T-Mobile is currently not 
interested in
letting its pre-paid customers use GPRS to go anywhere outside their 
Silly

T-Zones walled garden.


Let me guess.
This contains such things as weather reports, news headlines, 
ringtones, ...

All available for a small per-use-fee?

Sigh.
They see GPRS as a profit source, to drive profit to their own partners.
Rather than a service to provide to users.

That's a depressing prospect.  All this openmoko and no web?  I wonder 
if cingular is any better...


Ben

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Re: T-Mobile finagling advice?

[Ben Burdette]

If you are in the UK, Tescos do a cheap pay as you go SIM;
http://www.tesco.com/mobilenetwork/shop/?page=simcards
Maybe WalMart do the same in the US?



There are various pay-as-you-go services in the US.  $20 (10UKP) will
buy you a GSM cellphone and 60 minutes of talk time (With no ID or
credit card required btw for fellow privacy freaks) :-D

The one that I have does use a SIMcard and they roam onto some GSM
network which it doesn't identify.  My guess is certainly cingular since
its the only GSM network available in my area[0].

Regards,


Red
  
Good info; I think that's what I'll do to evaluate service.  I like the 
idea of pay as you go better than a monthly plan anyway.


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T-Mobile finagling advice?

[Ben Burdette]

So, I'm thinking seriously about getting a neo1973 when they become 
available.  I called the local T Mobile office and asked them whether I 
could borrow a phone to see how the signal strength is where I live.  
They said I could get a 14 day trial with a free phone and just take it 
back when that is over. 

My question is, has anyone been through this process before, what's the 
best way to find out how the service is?  I don't know anyone that has a 
t mobile phone (maybe that should tell me something).  And the other 
thing is, how would I get the neo1973 onto the t mobile network?  would 
I have to get their cheapest phone and then remove the sim card to use 
in the neo1973?  Is it possible to get the sim card without buying a t 
mobile phone? 

I'm sure I could find out more by calling T Mobile, but I'm betting 
there's a lot of expertise in this area on this list. 





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data encryption + Biometric security

[Ben Burdette]

Here are a couple of items for the phone wish list:  data encryption and 
biometric security.  I'd like the phone to be a secure place for me to 
store passwords and similar information.  Are there plans to have some 
security features like this, that would prevent someone from extracting 
secure data from the phone if it was lost? 

Having a fingerprint scanner would be more of a convenience feature so I 
wouldn't have to enter a password whenever I want use the phone, or 
alternatively when I want to access encrypted data. 

Here's a device that has a built in fingerprint scanner, its a debian 
server that connects to your computer with USB:


http://www.projectblackdog.com/



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Re: Silent mode timeout

[Ben Burdette]

I added the page, but somehow I managed to put a '#' at the beginning of 
the title.  I don't seem to have delete or rename authority, so would 
someone mind renaming the page? 


Ben

Gervais Mulongoy wrote:

Hello Ben,

Please add this idea here 
(http://www.linuxtogo.org/gowiki/OpenMoko/Ideas) so its easier to find.


-Gervais.

On 1/29/07, *Ben Burdette* <[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote:


A simple feature that I'd like to see is a silent mode timeout.  What
always happens with my current phone is I set it to silent mode
because
I'm in a movie or a meeting, and then later I forget to turn the
ringer
back on.  This leads to a lot of missed calls.  You could have a
default
timeout for simply holding down the 'volume down' button (if there is
one on this phone), and this default would initially be 'no timeout'.
When you enter silent mode, the GUI could display this current timeout
and allow you to adjust it then.  A checkbox would allow you to make
this the new default timeout.




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Silent mode timeout

[Ben Burdette]

A simple feature that I'd like to see is a silent mode timeout.  What 
always happens with my current phone is I set it to silent mode because 
I'm in a movie or a meeting, and then later I forget to turn the ringer 
back on.  This leads to a lot of missed calls.  You could have a default 
timeout for simply holding down the 'volume down' button (if there is 
one on this phone), and this default would initially be 'no timeout'.  
When you enter silent mode, the GUI could display this current timeout 
and allow you to adjust it then.  A checkbox would allow you to make 
this the new default timeout. 


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Re: idea for Neo 2nd generation: Accelerometer

[Ben Burdette]

Gabriel Ambuehl wrote:

On Wednesday 24 January 2007 12:33, Sean Moss-Pultz wrote:
  

On 1/24/07 11:41 AM, "kkr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:


Does anybody know more about price and precision of the accelerometers's
chips on the market now?
  

About US$3.



Are they good enough to twice integrate the acceleration data (which obviously 
puts quite some demand onto accuracy) to get a better estimate of where a car 
would be after entering a tunnel? If so, there's your killer app.
  
I have a device that uses an accelerometer to measure 0-60 times, and 
quarter mile times in the car.  You find a deserted piece of road, stick 
the thing to the windshield and get it level, then go.  It senses when 
you have reached the quarter mile, or you've reached 60 mph and notes 
the time.  Much cheaper than a drag strip, good for people who hot rod 
their cars and want to measure the difference in performance.  With the 
openmoko phone you could add a data logging feature to gather G force 
data throughout a drag strip or autocross run, in addition to 
calculating the time. 

Another use would be as a game controller, either with a game in the 
phone, or transmitting the motion data over bluetooth to use with a PC 
game.  It would be ideal to have a 3 axis accelerometer and a 3 axis 
tilt sensor like the wii.  Apparently the wii controller uses an IR 
sensor to keep itself oriented relative to the game console; since the 
phone doesn't have IR this wouldn't be possible.  But then again it 
doesn't have accelerometers either at this point. 


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Re: built-in scripting languages

[Ben Burdette]

So have official/unofficial packages that handle the major scripting
languages. That way it's possible to have any scripting language used.


The only potential downfall may be that everyone ends up with quite a
few interpreters on their poor little phones... python, ruby, rhino,
lua, perl, etc, etc..


  


That's all well and good when everyone has SPACE for every scripting 
language known to man.  But use 10mb here, 10mb there for scripting 
languages, and suddenly there's nothing left of my 64mb of flash. 

I'm all for allowing people to use whatever scripting language they 
want.  But I'd like the peace of mind of knowing I can write a scripted 
app that will run on every OpenMoko phone out there, even if they have 
no memory expansion card.  I don't want the situation where the poor 
user has to unload someone else's app and scripting environment in order 
to use mine, or vice versa. 


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