April, 2007

The One Laptop Per Child computer will cost $175 and be capable of running microsoft windows, see here and here.

Here's a painful question: if it had not been adapted to running ms windows, what would the price be? $100?

Sean Moss Pultz updated us on the status of the OpenMoko and Neo1973. Looks like things are going well. Here is the announcement:

"Dear Community,

We owe you all an update as to our status. Here it goes...

Last week we finished 200 devices. Of these about 50 seem to have some
problems but the rest are functionally complete, tested, and ready to
go. We know the source of the problems for the 50 that failed and this
is already corrected. This is great news because it means we can finally
start to move out of engineering sample mode and into real production!

Right after the launch of MobiLiberty.com we have asked the community whether it would be a good idea to open a support forum for open mobile devices. The question was posted over at Nuxified.org and on the OpenMoko mailing list. After holding the poll up for a while the results were positive.

A Free Software world in the mobile realm is getting a few major kicks this year, from the OpenMoko project to the increased adoption of GNU/Linux in mobile phones to the more concerted efforts in organizing Free Software offerings for mobile platforms such as the GNOME Mobile & Embedded Initiative being announced today:

Trolltech will give away dozens of hacker-friendly Linux phones to winners of a mobile phone software programming contest launched today. The "Qtopia Greenphone Developer Challenge" will also pay two winners $5,000 each, and fly them to Trolltech's "Developer Days" event.

Palm, best known for Treo smartphones powered by Palm OS and Windows Mobile, is likely to ship Linux phones this year, confirmed CEO Ed Collagan today at Palm's "Analyst and Investor Day." Palm's Linux platform will add reliability, performance, and stability to Palm's smartphones, Collagan said.

All tier one mobile phone manufacturers are "involved with Linux on some level," with openness, flexibility, and developer affinity rather than cost driving interest, IMS Research reports. Additionally, the high variability of separate vendors' implementations will not impede Linux adoption over the long term, according to the firm's latest research.

Marvell, Nokia, and VirtualLogix have joined the Linux Foundation, the non-profit organization created two months ago by the OSDL/FSG merger. The new members will help the Foundation promote and improve Linux in such application areas as embedded processing, virtualization, mobile devices, and telecom infrastructure.

Former Vice President Al Gore told Embedded Systems Conference keynote attendees in San Jose, Calif. today that energy-efficient IT systems of the future -- many containing embedded processors -- will be a major factor in helping overcome the major climate problems the Earth is now facing.

"Linux will ship in more than 200 million phones in 2012, up from 8.1 million in 2007, forecasts a new report from ABI. "The industry as a whole is rallying behind Linux," even while acknowledging that significant barriers to widespread Linux adoption still exist, the market research firm suggests."