Hi,<br>I'm new to this list, so let's start with saying that I find it fantastic that such a fantastic device is developed is such a beautiful way.<br><br>I have been following the news on openmoko for some time, and have been thinking on possible uses and improvements too.
<br>Besides some things that can be developed separately relatively easy I was thinking about the possible uses of a digital compass,<br>see <a href="http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wishlist_-_Hardware:_Digital_compass">http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wishlist_-_Hardware:_Digital_compass
</a><br><br>In short: besides the obvious uses like aligning maps to the terrain and a compass, a compass makes a nice addition to the <br>accelerometer, since the absolute rotation can then be measured in 3D.<br><br>I think it would be nice if a compass is added as standard feature, since many applications can make use of it. (It would also be hard to
<br>modify all these application so users that add a compass chip themselves can fully benefit from it)<br><br>The AK8973 seems a very nice sensor, only hard to find when you don't speak japanese: <a href="http://www.akm.com/datasheets/ak8973_E-01.pdf">
http://www.akm.com/datasheets/ak8973_E-01.pdf</a><br>The predecessor of it, the ak8970N, costs $5.24 in 25k+ quantities, see http://<font size="-1"><span class="a"><a href="http://www.akm.com/press_release/ak8970Nwpr.pdf">
www.akm.com/press_release/ak8970Nwpr.pdf</a></span></font><br>The Honeywell HMC6352 also is nice, only probably too expensive (seen it for $22 in 1k order size in an online shop): <a href="http://www.ssec.honeywell.com/magnetic/hmc6352.html">
http://www.ssec.honeywell.com/magnetic/hmc6352.html</a><br><br>Also I was wondering, now that the GTA02V2 is finished, what are the accelerometers that will be used? Is it still the LIS302DL?<br><br>Another thing I'm curious at is what the thoughts behind two accelerometers are. It seems more useful to embed one better accelerometer
<br>like the LIS3LV02DL than having two LIS302DL's. The price doesn't seem to differ much, only it's double the weight and power usage.<br><br>Greetings,<br>Piers (PTT on the wiki)<br>