Not just a phone (was: Re: ancient hardware?)

[Steven **]

I'm hoping to use it not just for in-car navigation, but also data
readout.  I intend to rig it to display voltage and current in my
electric car.  I'd like to see someone do that with an iPhone  :-P

-Steven

On Mon, Jul 7, 2008 at 12:29 PM, Michael Shiloh <michael at openmoko.org> wrote:
> Peter, your email below is the one I've been trying to write for the
> past few months.
>
> Like you, what got me excited about this project was NOT the possibility
> of building better cellphone applications, but rather the possibility of
> creating radically new uses for a general purpose, location aware,
> connected handheld computer.
>
> I'd like a phone that syncs seamlessly with Thunderbird and the rest of
> my Linux workstyle. But what really turns me on is the potential uses
> that I can't even imagine yet.
>
> It is that innovation that I hope to see come out of this community, and
> I hope that in some way I can help make it happen.
>
> Michael
>
> Peter Harrison wrote:
>> I wouldn't focus on the age of the hardware at all.
>>
>> The real question is whether this will be a hardware platform that
>> others will be able to build innovation on top of. With phone companies
>> making available only applications which earn them money you have not
>> really seen the same kind of innovation that we saw in the PC space in
>> the early 90's.
>>
>> It will no doubt be a success in its own right, but what about other
>> ideas...
>>
>> * IP phone over Wifi and integrate with Asterisk IP phone systems -
>> changes to GSM outside the office.
>> * In car navigation system.
>> * Low cost taxi fare system.
>> * Courier driver system that minimizes route time and allows dispatch to
>> communicate.
>> * Robotic platform and robotic control
>> * Hospitals - used by nurses and doctors for prescriptions and
>> observations as low cost tablet.
>>
>> The Neo could open up hundreds of vertical market opportunities that the
>> Telco's currently have no interest in tapping. If you think that the Neo
>> is simply a different kind of iPhone you are missing the point. Many
>> applications may use GPRS, but may not even implement phone
>> functionality. Some may not even use GSM. To me the attraction is that
>> it has been designed from the ground up to run Linux, and there is a
>> dedicated team working on the frameworks that will make delivery of
>> these applications possible.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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