I’m interested in interface design if you need it, though interest seems to be abundant, if not overly so, and I’m sure others are much more qualified. Shoot me an email though…

This is a product I want, would like to help as much as possible

I’m in college for computer science and have job experience with Javascript, vb.NET, c#.net, sql

other languages: java, python, c

I would be more than happy to beta test =] I’m not into coding anymore, but I sure can debug like none other!

I’d love to help in whatever way possible. Also, I’m really sure I can get my super-brilliant friend to do some work too.

I have redone (and help design) several intranets, applications, and tools with User Interactivity in mind. I can work with every step of the process to be sure that this project is just as intuitive (if not more) than the iPhone.

Actually, it sounds like so many people are wanting to work on UI design, why not ask for people to design a usable UI and have the community choose which one is the best. It sounds somewhat like a textbook answer, but it will get the best UI out there.

I just whipped up a little advertising thing for the $200 web tablet; it features a lot of adjectives on what you guys could do with the thing, and also asks for everyone to contribute to the project: http://ionizedmedia.com/webtablet.png

I’m all for beta testing as well. Also, is there a way we could include more languages, such as Hebrew, Arabic, Japanese, etc.?

I would hate for this to be just an American thing.

I’m a freelance web developer these days but dabbled back in the day with more “standard” app development. I’m an open source freak from my gentoo desktop to my linuxmce HTPC. Cool thing about your request is X11 doesnt NEED a desktop manager to function…you can start it right into pure x with the firefox as main app. One real major software need would be the “lcd/touch screen keyboard” would require knowing more about the exact hardware to be used before a driver could be pulled off..but yeah sweeeeeet deal guys keep us in the loop and hit me up for anything I could do.

I can build anything with these languages – PHP, C, C++, Java, Perl, C#

wow, i brought a eeepc, but all i want actually is this TC netbook, pls count me in, i am in China, i think i can do some help, thank you!

something like fast dial (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5721) may work well for the “home page” basically it’s a rip off of opera’s speed dial, but it works pretty well and is very customizable.

Let’s crowdsource several UI’s then. I run my own consulting company (UsableXperience) doing interaction design and I would be happy to input if you’re interested.

Am I the only one who’s a bit skeptical about your chances of actually pulling this off?

Some issues come to mind…
– No open source hardware project has really taken off
– Crowdsourcing doesn’t work that well
– Major companies have no doubt considered making such a product and haven’t for some probably good reason
– There’s a lot more to delivering a product to market than just getting it spec’d out and manufactured
– Once Mike has one, what reason do you have to continue with the project?
– You’re effectively taking on the iPhone, the EeePC, Nokia tablets, OLPC, and the UMPCs for hardware and OpenMoko, Android, Palm OS and others on software
– You’re a blog

I certainly wish you luck, but I’m not going to be holding my breath.

Its an ideal concept… and to put it into relative terms… its a macbook air tablet.
Who could want more.

Im in.
I’ve got python & java experience & my background is in mobile computing devices.

It’s great idea.
Need pdf & flash data support.
Bluetooth headset support (for Skype Conversation, Flash ** Video ** contents)
If Mini-DVI is there, we can use it for presentation.
support double byte language (CJK: China — Japanese –Korean) support.

Can we discuss about this in TechCrunch50?

I can’t see it proposed anywhere, but there should be a way to change screen orientation. Either through a sensor like in the iPhone or via a button (maybe in the tray).

I’m In!!! Ya’ll have got the ultimate road warrior tool brewing here. Light enough to go anywhere and still net ready to access critical content. Who needs a laptop? I’ve got a wireless security background for what it’s worth…

Also, I live in China now and I realise how many device and services designed in the US are not at all ready for this market. There should be Input Methods adapted to countries with non-alphabetical writing. (via keyboard or handwriting).

The organization where I used to work did a device like this. However, since we did this in India in early 2002, funding and other things were hard to come by and ultimately, we were forced to abandon this project. I wrote the device drivers on Linux for wlan, touchscreen and a for a few keys that we had soldered on to the main board. I volunteer to pitch in whatever way I can.

Shyam

Interesting, Please send email

I think it would be really cool to have an option of linking this to a laptop/desktop acting as a server. Basically it would be a VPN into a personal box, with the VPN being the only thing running on the tablet. I’m not sure you could get enough performance out of this setup (maybe a lot of buffering/prefetching to the ssd) but it would definitely expand flexibility.

Interested in the financial backing of such product. What sort of initial investing are we talking… let’s discuss.

Would like to help with marketing etc also think it need flash and pdf support + google gears

I’m a college student, with knowledge of embedded design and hardware design. I’ll be glad to participate with the development of this project.

please include me in the loop.

Would love to be part of this exciting initiative. And I like the fact that It is Open Source based and Crowd Sourced. Lets make it happen. I will be able to help any thing related to Software.

I can think of a huge number of applications of such a device. I don’t know what I can contribute but please shoot me a email too; it’s something I would like to be a part of.

To address one of Chris Sears’s points: it’s true that there was and is a reason other companies have not launched a similar product at a similar price point; but at this time I think a $200 web only tablet is feasible.

http://www.slashgear.com/gigabyte-m912-touchscreen-ultraportable-priced-from-556-2112762.php

If people can build a fully functional computer with touch screen and a 1.6ghz cpu for $556, a web only tablet should be possible for near $200.

An exciting idea – but could be improved with some form of “natural input” apart from a virtual keyboard. Pen, voice gestures – there’s lots of creative talent in the posts above. There needs to be something other than the geeks favourite for those whose hands and fingers no longer work properly (or maybe are missing).

This is very cool cool idea i would be the first one to buy it. Though i may not be able to give you programing codes or anything i can do research and give ideas so yes this is truly going to be something truly great though there may need to be some modifications(minor i hope). Thank you.

I’d be interested in this as well. I can provide support from a coding perspective. Shoot me an email.

I’d love to be a beta tester and put me down for two of the final product.

I think this a very cool Idea, I would love to help in any way that I am more of a business guy though. I think bluetooth would make a nice feature to communicate with other devices.

I think this is a fantastic idea. If this device had some way to simultaneously use an actual keyboard for document editing, and an external hard drive (my ipod would be perfect), I could see my desktop going cold for days at a time. I’d only need the desktop for my big graphics programs, and that’s really only an occasional thing. A device like this might actually demonstrate to most of us how little we really need the endless bells and whistles on a three-thousand dollar laptop or a big power-hungry desktop. I see plenty of reasons why the big boys don’t like this idea. Think how much cooler my office will be without that 450-watt power supply on all the time. Count me in.

Personally, I think that pdf reader must be embedded in this machine so that it can be one of the competitor to kindle.

This sounds like a great project.
I would love to be involved at a
designer
developer
or even just end user testing role.
Matt.

i would love to help you guys promote it i am and expert on facebook group and free advertising on there.

I’d take a little thickness over a large bezel. The mock up is nice and sleek, but maybe a little too bezel-happy. I think it would also be cool if the device has the capability of accepting a sim card with a 3G/EDGE radio, but that’s likely to push the cost up a bit. Maybe different versions?

As for project offerings, I currently operate a website that is a customized homepage service with feed reading, etc. I’d be more than happy to modify the front-end code to make a tablet-friendly, streamlined start page that utilizes the powerful back-end we already have in place. Our widget support would also make for a desktop-like experience without harming the goal of this being an internet device.

It certainly looks like there are no shortage of volunteers; however, I am more than willing to help out in any way I can, just shoot me an email. I’m not sure how helpful I will be at writing code, but I’m always willing to learn, and I’ve been interested in linux kernel programming.

Just a question, what’s the plan for the linux distro on here? Planning to make your own distro for this project, or just planning on running a stripped down linux distro in a kiosk mode? As a linux user, I would like to have the ability to spawn a shell on one of these, and that wouldn’t require any additional resources.

I’ve done quite a lot of work in the area of minimal linux installs and deployment on enterprise level servers. I’m a linux engineer working out of San Antonio currently, and would love to get in on the development side of the project.

Came to give some input in what I would like to see in one of these.

Definitely an SD card slot. DUAL SDHC slots would be quite nice. I could see putting a 32gb card into one slot and my “camera” card in the other slot and dump my camera to the 32gb card. Its too expensive to buy 32gb cards for everything (and some are not SDHC compatible) a 32gb card has enough space to let me download a 4gig card 8 times. This would also make it a FANTASTIC picture viewer.

Bluetooth so I can also use the data connection on my cellphone. a LARGE screen Internet Tablet is something that would do a lot more than just browse the web in my home I want to browse the web anywhere On a nice readable screen!!

First the SCREEN. NO FRAKING wide screen. It might be great for movies (debatable) but it SUCKS for internet browsing.

Ideally I would like a 1600×1200 display resolution. I can turn that vertical and have an amazing Internet Experience. LOTS of vertical pixels. But I do not think thats possible for a sub $200 device.

1024×768 is the minimum for me. Anything less that that and my N800 works just fine.

Also built in speakers (loud ones)

Make the “hardware” open source as well. IE ZERO proprietary connections. Use a standard barrel jack charger (say the defacto standard plug like on creative hardware PSP hardware and Sony Readers etc..)

Standard Mini A USB port that ALSO charges the device. Standard Mass storage. One of the primary modes of failures in devices like this is the charging jack. It might even be interesting to make the charging jack a “module” so I can say unscrew the back cover and “replace” the charging jack module.

“dock” connectors would be nice so people can build hard mounts for this device and “integrate” it into other functions and usages.

The ability to expand the battery capacity.

The minimum power needed for web browsing is also enough power to do many other things. It seems silly not to at least “permit” the device to be capable of doing these things.

Also minimum power is not all that great for web browsing unless the browser is HIGHLY optimized. My N800 is pretty powerful and it can be damned slow sometimes on some sites

Done right (think dual mode screen like the XO PC ??) it could be low power enough to make a FANTASTIC Ebook reader. ESPECIALLY with a 1024×768 screen. it could make ANYTHING readable.

I figure 10″ is an idea size. large enough to make that resolution usable but small enough to be extremely portable.

If it can be done cheaply USB HOST would be nice.

Computer Engineer here, helped a hardware startup build a tablet prototype last year. My specialty is low-level dev work close to the processor. Sounds like a great project and a great way to build community! Please add me to the list. Thanks!

I’m in high school, but I would like to help anyway I can.

I’m an Industrial Design student at Auburn University. My goal in my career is to work on computers, both in hardware design and interface design. I’ve done a few projects already focusing on the external enclosure of small palm-top web and communications devices, and recently finished a project in which I mocked up a new type of easy-to-use touch interface (think multi-touch, but even simpler than that) that I think would be very useful and fit perfectly in this device. If you think it would fit you can have it and run wild with it. I would be VERY interested in helping here, feel free to email me.

I can help code and would love to help. I also agree with a number of others that it really needs a pdf reader.

i do a lot of design stuff ie photoshop/flash/web design…i also know people who would love to be involved on the same front
let me know if i seen to fit the bill
i dont really expect an answer though with the 400+ posts

I’m in. tabula rasa +1.

I’m interested in leading the design and feel of the UI.

Let me know if you’re interested.

Boom chi poo chi poo chi triple boom hoom gloom!
Oh no!
Boom hoom zoom!
Oh no!
Boom hoom gloom!
Oh no!
Yes, boom chi poo chi triple boom hoom gloom Oh No-no!
(repeat chorus)

Listen up kids, this is the gospel.

I’ve been using Linux for a while now, 2+ years… I just started building my own systems, and would love to work on this, in fact i already have the basic specs in my head… I’m a high school student, so I’ve got nothing but time!

I actually work at my school as an open source software advocate, implementing OSS where its useful.

I just graduated with a Comp. Sci. degree, and would love to help out anyway possible. Shoot me a note!

Hi guys! First off I have to say that this is a great idea (and I’d love to be a part of it)! I have extensive experience in tablets after spending quite a bit of time with a tablet manufacturer in Austin, TX. Design, QA, and software/driver design and I’m writing this on a tablet of my own customization. In addition, I’m an avid proponent of Mozilla/Firefox, Linux, and Open Source in general not to mention one helluva coder if I may say so! I think that’s it — shoot me an email sometime. Thanks!

I am the biggest geek among my friends and i would love to help beta test a great hardware startup like this it would be a great expirence for me and i could test it out in places like schools for reports and presentations and things please send me an email with the details also cali lewis of geekbrief.tv has made a brief about it http://www.geekbrief.tv

I would love to be a part of this project. I have a pretty solid knowledge of doing some programming, I could set up a project portal or a wiki type setup for group coordination, I also have CAD experience.

I can help in any way you see fit, and would love to see this thing take off and get off the ground.

I’m a coder happy to help if you need it. Please keep me in the loop . .

[...] I’m on board in support of the mission. This is actually my dream for Geek Brief … the democratization of product development. I want the tech community to work together to create a piece of kit that we want to own. If you want to jump on board, Mike is arranging the details at, Mr. Cynical’s post here. [...]

I’m a finance and accounting guy, but, if I can help at all I would love to. Add me to the email list if you could. I would at least like to keep updated with it.

I agree with others here — if it doesn’t have at least 1024×768 resolution, I may as well buy a shipping Nokia N810 that has a keyboard.

However, if you can hit that resolution, then I’m sold, because it’d be way better than the closed-source, closed-platform book readers like Kindle and the Sony Reader.

Good luck!

Hey Folks–

I really love this idea, and I think that if you can get a project like this organized and moving towards a production based design, the implications for the future of gadget evolution are pretty bright.

I’d love to help beta-test. I live in Australia and I’ve got lots of friends studying IT, so I think I’d be able to get Aussies interested.

I’d love to help anyway possible.

I am interested Comp Sci Student at BC and looking to help in any way I can.

I’m an investment banker, and I could arrange meetings with several very optimistic clients. Not sure if that would be necessary before a prototype is established, but you never know.

I have a computer engineering degree from Portland State University, and currently am working in hardware validation, but have a strong software background as well. I’ve been waiting patiently for this product to come out at a reasonable price. Let me know how I can help

I’m a Business Analyst with experience in Scrum/Agile-based development projects. I could help with the requirements/suggestion management process, as I’m sure you’ll be getting thousands of comments, questions, suggestions, etc. from everyone even remotely interested in this project and will probably want some way to sort through the chaos. I’ve been stuck in a Visual Studio world for awhile now, but used to be in Linux projects 3 years ago.

i’m a VP of Mktg with strong product mgmt experience and would be happy to help out.

I see the immense amount of response to the project here, and I would love to be a part of it, but I understand if the bag is already full, so to speak. I am an industrial/3d as well as graphic design for interface/UI and packaging. Again, I would love to be a part of this, but I understand if it is all filled up.

Have you seen this: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile

Ubuntu is working on a version made pretty mucho for something like this.

count me in.

Virtual Keyboard Firefox Addon! YEY!

Who is the first to write it?

miniUSB WTF!

I’m in. The software development I can do.

Sounds like an interesting concept, but I wonder if it should be more than a web tablet. Instead, it could be a way to replace paper notepads and combine the easy entry and storage of ideas with the medium to share them (the web).
I did some of the brainstorming for this type of device a while back, here:
http://mobilecommunitydesign.com/2007/07/re-thinking-notepad.html

Also, Apple is up to something. Given the large amount of multi-touch screens they’ve been playing with, it could be that (finally) they will be offering something in the tablet space.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/an-itease-something-cool-and-cheap-from-apple/

I am potentially able to offer some UX advice on this project, depending on what the actual design is.

Firefox embedded Skype Sidebar! YEY!, also a pidgin sidebar, and some more sidebars.

Skype, you listening?
Pidgin? You here?

This is a kick ass project guys. Just ignore the naysayers and go for it. I think using the techcrunch community as essentially a big test-marketing pool for new devices and software of any kind is a brilliant idea. I would definitely buy one of these instead of a Kindle!

When you get the website launched, include forums!

Love the idea. I’m a marketing manager who can help w/ vendor relationships, customer service, and project management.

It is probably too late for this, but did you consider evaluating the NVIDIA Tegra platform ? The power efficiency of even the first-generation products looks like it will be unbeatable — and very well suited to your goals.

This sounds really great. I’d love to support this.

I’d lend a hand with product management if that would be useful.

Love it. Love the way this media empire expands through collaboration, information and skills. Keep making it simple. Stay clean and keep it real.

pico itx board, pretty small less hardware devolpment low power consumption.
however pretty expensive….

A time whose project has come. Please include a slot for an SD chip like the One-Laptop (which I already have).

Maybe Android (the mobile OS from Google) can be used for this? It has a darn good browser (though not Firefox based), supports touch screen and even runs well on low-end hardware. Its Java-based programming API is pretty good too (I wrote some app with it), and the new tablet can piggy-back on the success of Android (many cool applications from Android challenge).

On the hardware front, the new Tegra processor from Nvidia sounds great: low power, hardware 3D and media (MP4 etc.) processing in one chip — thus will make the tablet a very appealing media player too. But no idea how much it costs and if any dev board available now.

I am interested in this idea — have been waiting for something like this like forever (Nokia table is close, if only has bigger screen). I will be happy to participate in this — I’m a CS PhD and a very good software engineer.

Disclaimer (PS to my last comments): I am affiliated with Google or Nvidia.

I would very much like to participate in this, no clue how, maybe a beta tester for the linux/firefox?

Count me in, please. I am software developer and can help with coding.

I’d like to offer my experience as a PHP developer – if you guys launch an independent site for this awesome innovation.

Hi,

A good idea, though pricing will be tough.
I am an advisor/board member to several (hardware) companies, one of them (based in Korea) is currently producing(development/manufacturing) a linux tablet being sold in the US. This company is also in development with Intel on the next gen tablet chipset that shall consume significant less battery.
This company could relatively quickly come up with a proto and even further. Let me know if you are interested.

Nik, You will need a simple sleeve and if you want advice on this from us let me know. To keep the price as low as possible, I would advise making this an add on as Apple does for its devices. Just a thought. Fred

Other than the fact that Arrington knows jack shit about building technology, what could go wrong.

Great- would love to see how far this goes, I am abit worried about developing this to be tough and spil/dirt resistant. Price could be a worrypoint aswel- e-ink out of the question? Sign me on for product development and/or community management.
I am founder of Incredicorp which fosters semantic startups- and a company that helps smaller companies in their development outsourcing tasks…

Marco Kotrotsos
Incredicorp.

I can do electronics hardware design. I have a lot of embedded design experience and I work for an embedded consumer electronics company designing these types of things. I also know quite a bit about wireless design as well. I think the hardware concept is do able for the $200 mark. Let me know if you want my help.

something like this is going to need a package/box eh? contact me and i could help kick around ideas in that realm.

For software base I would take Poky (http://www.pokylinux.org/) since it has some pieces you would need and it is more focused in embedded devices. I am not sure how much power would need Gnome OnScreen Keyboard compared with matchbox-keyboard i.e.
I would like as much as possible, so please keep me in contact for any help I could provide.
I work as project manager focused in mobile technologies, so I would pleased to be in contact with this project.

i’d love to hear more about this. i even have a few dollars i could invest, if this looks like something that can be gotten off of the ground. this is exactly the sort of product i would love to have, versus the alternatives i currently have available.

I see a host of potential missteps in UI and design that would potentially rule out swo of the most useful applications – writing and an all-in-one tool for filmmakers. View video playback on the screen, make script notes, store data externally and give it to an editor. Write a scrip in your lap. Build in screenwriter or Final Draft, and it becomes a writes portfolio. make the back smooth and somehow cooler than it might be, so comfort is a factor. I’ve been dreaming of this for may years, would love to add my unqualified two cents if anyone’s interested. Its a kindle on crack. Or maybe, more appropriately, on ecstasy. But the good kind. I’m in.

Definitely interested. Count me in. Let me know how I can help.

This looks brilliant. I’ve been looking to get into an open hardware project for a while. I’m a junior year electrical engineer, so I’m new to hardware design tools (verilog, for instance) but I’m willing to do what I can.

If it is possible, make the hardware design as open and transparent as possible, and I’ll do what I can. I’m not against spending large amounts of time researching things either, and the more I learn the better – this would be fun, and who say you can have too much fun?!

I can’t wait to see the hardware come together! Please get this up and running so we can start pitching in!

I have alot of expertise in building software keyboards for touchscreen devices. I would be interested in potentially building this aspect of the system for you.

Interested as well… can’t wait to do some work… hook me up with the site so I can start dumping some ideas.

This is an amazing idea. From the responses I see here, I think there is enough expertise to not only design and build the tablet but also put it on Mars. So what about funding? I think it would be great to incorporate the project and sell shares, with a twist. Only allow each person to buy a single share. That single share gets them one tablet when the project is completed. Any addition profit is given to charity. Thoughts?

I’d love to be included in this project, studying various compatible topics at the minute and it would be great to help and learn at the same time.
Also thinking the instant on, splashtop – (Linuxbios / coreboot) would be the way to go for some speed on the low end gear, this is area that interests me the most (well, one of them).

I have a name for it: Call it the “Wildfire Tablet.” It satisfies the reference to firefox, and I’m sure once it’s built, use of said tablet will catch on — like wildfire!

I can donate to beta test the tablet, I assure you I am a very dedicated beta tester.

Uhm… I read the whole stuff and the only think I didn’t get is: why skype? I mean: it’s a great software but it’s absolutely ar from any open-source or free-software philosphy. I would strongly prefer an open protocol for IM and even for VoIP. So why don’t use Pidgin for IM (in order to have IRC, Jabber/GTalk, even the skype IM interfacing is in progress AFAIK) and an open-source (maybe ad hoc) tool for VoIP?

I’m in for beta testing, and happy to donate (extra!) for a beta machine. I have an XO, which I adore, but it has its limitations.

Would kill for:

- clean, high res, fast browsing experience (which must mean enough RAM to have seamless flash

- good quality pdf reader (something the XO nails)

- swappable batteries. i know we’ll all get power jacks in our airplane seats one day, but until they appear in every bus, airport lounge, waiting room, etcetc

Apple’s coming out with something similar later this year

Some have mentioned the use of such a device in the educational world. The small laptops are selling well to schools and colleges in the uk with some local authorities buying thousands of devices. The proposed tablet, with a decent PDF reader, might well prove popular at the proposed price point as there is less to break!

Good luck with it all.

I’ll be happy to help, (with any software code required, OOP). I think the 200$ price tag is abit too cheap, with a good design and simplicity at it’s core (perhaps with optional upgrades) it’s market value can be around the 350$ + (amazon’s kindle is selling at 350$). Great Concept guys, keep up the good work.

Please keep me updated, I have experience developing embedded linux/busybox for networking devices and would love to help wiith testing/debugging.

Tim

I am happy to help on this from linux kernel point of view. I want to work on open source project which makes difference in other ppl life.

Hey, I’m a sophomore in electrical and computer engineering and I’d be interested in contributing.

I think that with this many people it would be a good idea at this point to simply compile the ideas into different design options, instead of trying to nail it down to one right away. Maybe make a shopping style list of features you want, estimated cost, and see which configurations could be created for the price point you want to achieve.

-Sean

If you need any web design or development, i’m definately in! Could set up a community drupal site for all the contributers.

would love to help out however I can, even if a small dev or testing role … I have a primarily digital hardware background.

Jose

This idea is incredible, if/when it comes out I would love to get one.

these comments have made me appreciate the internet more than I ever have before… can you Imagine how long it would take to get the same amount of volunteers/input if the internet didn’t exist?

yay

Sounds good. I would buy one! Here’s some of my ideas..

HW:
- Screen shall be aprox in Letter size or A4.
- Memorycard reader
- Highres touch option with small pen.
- Wall mountable loader.
- “Old school” volume control, not in SW.
- Mini USB, for chargning and external accessories
- Bluetooth

SW:
- Screen shall be “turnable”, so in reading mode it’s going to be “tall screen” and widescreen in “youtube” mode.
- Screen res should be high, 1280*800++
- Full Ebook support, naturally.
- Picture and Movie viewer, it can be hung on the wall while loading and then be a pictureframe or Movieplayer.

As I’m an Electric engineer, Sr Systems engineer and IT-consultant, I’m happy to help with architecture issues and Beta testing, willing to donate to Beta test equipment.

I’d like to help. I’m almost done with my Master in mechanical engeneering, and I’ve got a lot of experience in Corel Draw, Photoshop, etc. feel free to contact me.

I’m in for hardware specification/design. This is certainly going to be challenging for a $200 price tag but thats what makes it fun. As an added bonus I have manufacturing and component supply contacts if needed.

would love to contribute to the UI – design or testing. my background is in web, usability and interface design.

The project sounds beautiful and is just what people need. I am definitely interested in helping. I can work on the hardware design if any help there is needed and also more than happy to work on the development. I am more than happy to work on the system (kernel, integration,…). Do let me know.

I am absolutely in – anything that needs to be done to make this a reality…

XBMC would work well for this http://xbmc.org/media/ It runs well on low end hardware (the xbox has a 733mhz celeron and 64mb ram).

It already has a built in keyboard and a powerful skinning engine… it might be possible to adapt one of the existing skins for this project… perhaps firefox could be embedded into XBMC?

There are Linux and Windows ports available at http://xbmc.org/download/
The latest XBMC skins are here: http://xbmc.org/wiki/?title=Skin_Compatibility_List
CenterStage is a fork of XBMC with a sexy skin that hasn’t been released yet: http://centerstageproject.com/the-future.php

I would love to help in any possible way. I know Python and have done testing in the past if that helps. Also I am very active in the open source community and have participated in several open source projects organizing actual events. I am passing the word “free PR”.

If the price is kept at 200 for a tablet then consider me a client.

Another crucial aspect is marketing. Obviously TC has a great fanclub already, but my mum has never heard of you, and I would include her in your target audience. I can help with video / motion graphics and other marketing material.

Awesome open (source) project and concept. Especially like the way the people from around the globe have shown their interest.
If its successfully executed, it will be one of the most disruptive conceptualization to production scheme. Kudos for taking the leap.

Interesting ideea First of all firefoxtablet.com registered on 21 july 2008 so no chance to make an solid community for this project on that name.
I’m in. I’m not in dev, but i’m working as a game tester so you can count on me for testing, design, ideas, promoting.
I’m from Romania and i think it will have a big success here so you can count on me for this.
Also i’ll make a fresh standalone website community for this to faster the things.
Also i can help with host, domains everything with the internet site for this project.
So take me in cya.

Hi,
I can help for the marketing/evangelize in Europe on it and for translation.
Best,
Anne

Very interested in helping – marketing, testing and opportunities for selling on. Run a consultancy for comms and PR work.

Nik,

I’m a VP of Technology and CTO for a firm here in Beijing China.
I have been on the ground for 2 years and have resources and an interest to assist with this project both from a Hardware standpoint and perhaps software as well.

You can see a bit of my experience at my LinkedIn page:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/WillStevenson

What you won’t see there is that I have been a Unix/Windows hack since the late 80′s on BSD386/NT3.1/OS2,etc and have an innate interest in ‘appliancizing’ technology platforms and have a few patents filed related to that.

Hope to hear from you,
-Will Stevenson

I think this is a great idea. I am on with whatever help I can provide. I think addiing bluetooth support would be nice in making this extremely portable. It could easily be designed as part of the hardware interface. What kind of a screen size are we looking at. I think 8-10″ should be good enough.

Great concept and thank you for informing. I have word in several open source projects in the past and have also helped in the organization of events/meetings. Also I work with Python and have previous testing experience. I am active in the os community passing the word around as we speak (free PR).

If there is anything I can help with I am available. Keep the price at 200 and you have a client.

Count me in.

I hope I can help, maybe with concepts & ideas or marketing… or programming web-processes…

Wow nearly 500 comments, Power to the people!
The Techcrunch Team must be absolutely stunned at the response, I bet they’re not getting any sleep tonight!!;-D

Loved the idea of a cheap, light and easy use tablet computer since the 1991 when I saw Go Corp’s Penpoint vision, Kaplan was just out by a couple of decades.
My A4 tablet was to be called a Dataslate with a great ergonomic hardware and UI.
I have always have/would still love to make it, and it looks like it could happen judging the possible collaboration from all these comments, and once Techcrunch sit down and see what they have here and who will join the production, this could be something which goes down in the history books of the first online blog inspired project to become reality and of potential use to the masses who have been deprived of great user friendly gear in the shape of a device which we all comfortably familiar with; and I’m sure and have felt for all these years that could change the world.
This device will have a camera etc the works, mind blowing possibilities of new circumstances of data sharing and network usage taken out of the internet to become the OUTTHERENET.
I for one would love to be involved in this project, and like the hundreds of passionate and sometimes heated internet community who make up the readership of Techcrunch and other great blogs who love and always felt that we as human beings are now in control of our future and the tools of technology aided by open devices such as this could be the next leap of human awareness; thus enabling our world to get back to a place where the natural order brings a new equilibrium for assisting the knowledge of those have denied for various reason access to these social and knowledge facilitators
I for one have emailed Roger Fidler the visionary at Knight Ridders info design lab in the 1990s . I’m sure he will be over the moon (just as I) when he sees all of these if he hasn’t seen it already, .
Mike and TC team my best wishes to you; and if there is anything I can do. Like many others who a enthusiastically said before. I’m in.

This Web device is exactly what Webconverger software was designed to do.

I’d like to participate in software development

:O ……… …amazed,There is an OS already, DSL its 50mb can run on a PI very well,Combine that with an strongarm or similar platform, cool gadget built by its would be users…radical ..rip something off ipaq,

Great Idea.

We can contribute in Design and Specifications, even low cost manufacturing as well.

We can help market & sell, evangelize this product in India – we have educational focus and think that this has a lot of potential – 1 Billion People with 100 Million capable of reading/writing/browsing electronic content.

Include us in your team.

Count me in…..

I think this would be perfect in and around the house.
Similar idea, just not a tablet PC

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/21/cherrypal_launches_cherrypal_with_cherrypalcloud_and_cherrypal_etc/

Why don’t you raise the cash required from TC users? E.g. 10,000 “stocks” available at $100 each. The more you buy, the more voting rights you get on the project’s direction.

This is a great idea!

I would love to participate in any way that I can. I can contribute with some serious coding skills or marketing/translation in India.

Or anything else that is required.

Keenly following this project from here on…

This is exactly what i need. I would be pleased to help. Can help with translation of userinterface, helpfiles and documentation in to german.

I am very interested in this project and, if the job is needed, would like to sign on as a graphics/layout designer. I believe that because this is a pure touch screen application the interface needs to be completely rethought and redesigned to be used productively as a touch screen. Current layouts in Firefox are designed for mouse and keyboard, that would not fly in the world of touch screen.

Please get in touch with me if you are interested and I will e-mail drafts/ideas I am working on.

Great idea. I’m a former Red Hat employee, now with FiveRuns, who had a love/hate relationship with my Fedora laptop for years. http://marketingfree.typepad.com/marketingfree/2008/02/losing-my-relig.html
I can help you get this thing to market.

count me in – i’d love to get involved with the web integration, or the software engineering side of things – i’m just going into final year, so time will be used sparingly.

shouldn’t a wiki be setup, and shouldn’t all these product designers start generating ideas on how the thing looks? i’d say make it flat as possible, with two “wings” that fold down to make a stand, also LED edging for that “wow” effect..!

Just my ideas about project:

1)CPU
It has to be cheap low-power CPU. To make it comfortable (development and peripherals, software compatibility) i think it has to be x86 architecture. Probably Intel Atom, Via, Geode. Nothing new there.
If we will use ARM/MIPS – task to port required software(including some drivers) will be MUCH harder and will take more time.
A)Geode LX looks promissing, 1.5W TDP, memory controller + display controller is onboard. There is thin clients with Geode LX, to evaluate performance.
B)Via Nano 25W TDP, nothing onboard. So need external memory controller and display controller. But much faster.
2)Custom PCB design, RAM and other parts have to be soldered, to make device thin . Probably it can be slightly modified existing SBC or some other embedded solution. Probably it is good idea to fit miniPCI slot(even two) there, so it can be partially modular. (WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth options).
3)IMHO if it is Linux, we can run instead of expensive SSD, just some Async and SPI flash, and use software-layer to manage wear level, filesystem and etc. Maybe in this case also we can use power of XIP (execute in place), and save some RAM / decrease boot time. For Windows we will leave USB slot, or USB based cardreader. For regular customer filesystem must(or can?) be transparent, and it is easy to do over UBI.

If need, i can think more about details…

Count Me In!

I am a software development engineer with good skills in C, Java and GNU/Linux and I want to participate. (I speak french too)

I’m certainly up for helping. I currently live in China and will move next month to Taipei, Taiwan – the microchip/component capital of the world.

I’m primarily a marketer/web designer (as well as a gadget freak – got an EeePC as some other commenters mentioned), but I’m also director of a company specialised in sourcing in Greater China (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan), so once the specs are sorted I can definitely get my staff on finding the best priced components for it, so hopefully we can get this as close to our target price point as possible.

Alex

i would be more than happy to lend a hand, I’m an ICT and Multimedia grad…

The idea sounds great. I could help in both development and user-point-of-view issues.

It’s potentially a great idea. Some thoughts:

- the execution is all important. Otherwise nothing will come of it. Better to freeze the features and design at some point and come out with a not-so-good first version (if it comes to that), which may not satisfy everyone (that won’t happen anyway:). Can make better/other versions later.

- considering that there are so many readers’ opinions on features for the tablet (both hardware and software), there should be a small but strong technical + project management team in place – whose word is final – to decide the features (after sufficient discussion) and do triage. Otherwise it could get stuck with creeping featuritis and/or end up becoming something like the Chandler project (see http://www.dreamingincode.com/ and the related book).

- might want to consider making the design modular / pluggable / hackable – the great success of the IBM PC (and compatibles) and of Visual Basic (in the first few years after it came out – the huge component marketplace it created), was largely due to open specs and modularity / hackability, which enabled the thriving and profitable ecosystems that were created around them.

- I agree with others about a PDF reader and option for a physical keyboard. Consider the option of providing for expansion of RAM and disk capacity too, at higher prices.

- something like Google Gears for online/offline syncing is a good idea (as you mention in the post)

- would make it even better (for hackers) if it had programming environment(s) – maybe light ones like Python and Ruby, with the ability to add others – but I realize that may take it too far away from your original intended vision for it (see what I mean about creeping featuritis ?

My 2c …

- Vasudev Ram

I’m a college student, with knowledge and experience in embedded hardware, software design. And I’m willing to donate me free time. We can use FPGA (small because of cost) that can help with CPU intensive tasks (we can reconfigure it in real time to suit current needs for example iDCT, FFT etc.)

As an artist I’d like pen tracking like the Wacom’s expensive Cintiq. I know it wouldn’t be powerfully enough itself but if it could go into a mode where its just acting as a display tablet for a more powerful laptop or desktop via vga/dvi/usb input that would be a must have product for us creative geeks!

I wont bore you , I want to help , there is a queue forming

I can help work on design, not just with the product itself, but also interface and packaging. Although I’m not really proficient in 3D rendering for the actual product, but that’s it. I have some suggestions on specs and look/feel.

I’m in!

OMG!
It could be used as a ebook, ecomic reader!

This would be a boon for travelling photographers (and camera amateurs) but would need more solid state storage – which shouldn’t be a problem since by the time it’s built, storage will be cheaper yet. It’s a major pain in the butt lugging a laptop around when all one needs to do is quickly review photographs on location. You could feasibly bundle it with the mid-range and top-end DSLR cameras or get the big retailers to do it if the manufacturers wouldn’t play ball… All it would need is a thin client image viewer which would allow one to edit a day’s take – review / discard – on the plane trip back and have it ready for IPTC data input on a bigger machine back home.

37 signals users would love you, too – perfect portable tool and a logical sales channel / partner for the hardware.

Most of the weight I suspect would be in the battery which would need to be a Mother to make this thing truly useful – and battery management would be the prime concern.

Sealed unit so it can be used almost anywhere. The flap covering any ports would need to have a rubberised seal, a la top end digital cameras. Good advertising potential here – I can shoot a “singin’ in the rain” sort of ad once there is a prototype and send this thing down the viral path. (Just wrote a script for it too…)

Outstanding effort guys. Please keep me posted. Personally, I’m starting up in the mobile social networking space for travellers and suspect some of our members would find this very useful to back up and upload images and to location blog. My background is in photography / video / publishing / multimedia and consumer internet. Happy to contribute.

That tablet is what I want.
I’d like to help this project.

I’m PhD student in Japan, major in Electronics.
I can program C# C++ Java and so on, and also I can design electrical circuit.
Of course, I can translate English to Japanese.

Sorry, I missed the Email. This is correct one.

[...] Resonanz auf die Idee ist beeindruckend: Nur einen Tag später verzeichnet der Beitrag schon mehr als 500 [...]

This is what I’ve been looking for! I’d love to help, I do graphic and interactive design, and can do English-French translations. I have some experience in marketing too. If nothing more, please include me in the loop.

I’m really interested in developing and help you in it, software part…… I can program in java, c#, and other languages like javascript, php…Thanks…..

I like it, but how do I invest in it?

It’s very nice concept and I want to have several devices for me and my family. I’m working as a project manager in Japanese IT company. I’m not a developer but I can work on writing PRD, translating document, building web page for Japanese and also marketing activity for Japanese. Anyway, I want to join your project if my resource help you.

Specifications:

harddisk OCZ Rally2 8GB USB or A-Data 4GB Compact Flash
motherboard MX800LX2D
memory A-DATA 1GB 184-Pin
screen ?

Great Idea, would love to be involved. Hardware, Software, Product development, Cloud server app hosting.

The project sounds interesting. Drop me an email and I’ll join in with software engineering.

Not sure where my strategic marketing background could come in handy, but I’d definitely like to be kept in the loop and of course to see how it evolves over time.

Count me in! The key for me will be power source- an option to use a range of batteries/chargers through a standard input ?USB; mudularity: build up or down as you need, for all features. This is the way to go!

Very good idea!
I’m a usability expert – please contact me if you need any help with the interface design, user testing etc.!

Cheers from South Africa,
Nils

I’m a procurement specialist with over 20 years sourcing experience. I’d like to be involved from the supply side. My expertise is contract negotiations and cost reductions. Who do I contact to be involved?

I’m a .net/mono developer specialized in Linux embedded systems. With 10 years of Linux experience and built of custom Linux distributions I can help very much. Also I have a bit experience with graphic design and designing eye-candy GUIs

With a only firefox fullscreen interface, could be a great idea to implement a web control panel based in mono xsp webserver for local configuration.

Also this idea looks promising, I’m already developing an idea of 200$ Mini-PC without screen, so this will be fantastic.

I would be interested in such a project and help with development.

This is what I was looking for!
I’d love to contribute. For I have programming education, but little experience. I still am good with graphics. I could also do translation (english-german) and testing (debugging, beta-test, …), got experience on that
Some interface and web design is also on the menue.

Are we talking about network connection only through Wifi here, or do you have Bluetooth on your plan? Anything to connect to mobile devices, such as cell phones, propably use UMTS?

Wherever this will lead, I’ll surely stay tuned. If theres nothing to contribute, well, count me as your first customer!

Hey guys! Awesome, awesome idea for a project!

Not sure how I can help other than offering some of my radical ideas.. (bare with me!)

I work for a online department store that deals with a lot of electronics sourced from China.

Some of the popular items are MP3 players. Many which are based off Apple’s range of MP3 players such as the Nano, Classic and iTouch.

Ethical/Copyright issues aside.

For about $150 you can get a touchscreen MP3/MP4 player that resembles the Apple iTouch.

Many online store that deal with electronics sourced from China usually have a version of the touchscreen MP3/MP4 player, mostly rebadged/spec’d for their needs.

How would this apply to this project? Well..

Come up with the specifications then approach a few electronics factories in China and find out how much it would cost to create a few prototypes.

To find some possible factory contacts in China. Use a source such as Alibaba.com .

Once you have the prototype. Take it to a few of the big Chinese trade shows, like the Canton fair(http://www.cantonfair.org.cn/en/index.asp) . Drum up some support and maybe a few buy orders.

..And there you go! WAM! The device spreads worldwide. Sure it might not be $200 because of the markup along the way and it might be missing a nut or two because it was built in China.. but if you get the following behind it and everyone will want one.

HELL!! I want one now!

Hope that gives you guys some ideas. If you need some more help. Send me an email! lol

Oh, did I say that I want one of these “Firefox Tablets” NOW!!?!

- Marcin

[...] This could be the first open source hardware – people who are willing to participate can leave a comment on TechCrunchIT – almost 1000 users did so already. And then? What’s the [...]

Hey guys,

i think this is a pretty good idea. I saw many open source hardware projects wich had a very bad design, what made them not interesting to me. So i can help in programming and designing the ui or the device.

greets,

I see a xul aplication
Great!!!

This is really nice idea. I would like to particpate in this in any way. I’m a software developer but mostly Java one. Some hardware background. I haven’t been programming c/c++ languages for some time but Its a matter of time to be back on track. I hope it will start as soon as possible. I’m keen to know how your prototype looks.

And of course some work with translation from english to polish.

Cheers.

Let me know when you kick-off the project. I can do mainly software; both high-level and kernel-level stuff (including drivers). Would love to learn more about hardware too.

I would love to be a part of this project.

I an a graduate in CS with 3 years of experience in J2EE domain. I can also work on core Java and C/C++ if needed.

Always wanted this too. Surprised how similar your design is to mine!

I’m an interaction designer, I would love to help on this project!

http://www.alexisbrion.eu
http://www.designvsart.com/blog

Why is everyone so excited to work for free for a milionaire??? Suckers.

I was looking for such a thing a long time. Should work with battery.
I’m just into small fanless PCs (Mini-ITX /Nano and Pico-ITX boards). With Linux of course.
I’d like to have one of these!

count me in. great ideea but it must be kept at a low price to be worth the hasle

I’m a technical writer. No matter how intuitive the UI, you are still going to need some documentation. I do SGML, XML, HTML, and any kind of online help you want from Java to Qt. Let me know how I can help.

I am a designer over at FreshBooks and may be interested in working on the interaction design and user experience. It all depends on how you organize the design work. The design needs to be led by a single person who has final say. I learned long ago to stay far away from design by committee, or in this case, design by community.

Count me in if you need further or more design assistance. I have worked on many apps (internet based), have great experience in UI/Human factors and come from a marketing background specializing in identity and brand…and I am sure I am not the only one…email me if interested. If nothing else, I would love to test it!

I’m in to! please tell me how i can help!

it was called the freepad BY Screenmedia, great device, no interest.

The FreePad

And while we’ve been drooling over that new multimedia tablet from Sony, it’s been brought to our attention that a Norwegian company called Screen Media has a new Linux-powered tablet of their own on the way. The FreePad is meant for doing the basics like checking email and surfing the web, and only has a 300MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, built-in WiFi, a CompactFlash card slot, and 10.4-inch LCD touchscreen.
Curious about the upcoming Linux-based Freepad? Though release dates haven’t been specified, German company Dosch-Amand and Norwegian company ScreenMedia have released specifications for a wireless webpad. Opera Software is subcontracted to provide the browser component for the unit.

Weighing in at a scant 1.2 kg (2.6 pounds), the device will come in two models: one bearing a 10.4″ LCD, the other with a roomier 12.1″ display. The screen is touch-sensitive, and won’t require a mouse or special stylus. A Cyrix Media GX processor will provide the processing power required to run embedded Linux OS.

Hey guys! That is just an exellent idea! I am already dying for one of these!

Unfortunately I do not have any programming knowledge, (web) design ability or procurement experience but I get very excited when a group of people come up with ideas like this and I am very eager to be part of it!

I work for Vodafone if that’s any help! And I also speak Greek!

Get back to me!

Cheers everyone!

I’d be more than happy to code up some of it. I’m a Java/C++/PHP developer, including an extensive web developer background. I run linux as my daily computers and dev boxes.

Hit me up if you need someone to build packages, develop some new applications (regardless of toolkit), ec.

Haven’t had time to read all the comments, but a search tells me it hasn’t been mentioned: What about magnetic RAM? It would lower the power consumption and give the device the ability to be “instant on” (with a few tricks). It sounds like a few companies have stuff in production:

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=0ST287482180C6B6253

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/02/toshiba-says-its-1gb-mram-chips-are-almost-ready-were-ready/

I’m a front-end designer and would love to help out on this project. I also like getting my hands dirty with usability and accessibility.

This is a great idea and I can see myself purchasing a few of these to spread throughout my place.

I love it!!!

don’t let it become vaporware and get your roll out plan straight to make it accessible to europeans, asians and americans all at the same time!!

I think that the infrastructure is finally available for this. Internet access is readily available to support this. Obviously, there will need to be a way to configure the wireless parameters for the device, but everything else could be done via Firefox. Please count me in. I am a c# and JavaScript developer and would be interested in helping with the project in any way possible.

I would like to help with software

I would like to help out with this project. I have a few years of computer science development, and have worked with just about every language on the face of the earth: from C to Haskell, from Perl to Actionscript to Scheme to Prolog — not sure that most of those will be helpful, but I’d like to help however I can — just drop me an email and point me in the right direction.

I’m currently studying Electronics&Software Engineering at University in the UK, and I am coming to the end of my Industrial Placement Year. I would love to help in some way in the hardware/software – I think my degree programme lends itself particularly well to a project of this sort.

I’m sure this has already been said, but the Tablet would surely benefit from having an associated webportal of some sort, maybe with a place for people to offer web apps/other services that are tailored/associated with the Tablet?

I’m a keen enthusiast in Web Design/Logo Design and have done this sort of thing for a few people now, so I’m willing to give any help needed in this area also!

Overall, sounds like a great project – what with it being open source ‘n’ all, maybe the pricing will translate more directly when sold in the UK, as compared to other companies products? We shall see!

Anyway, when you’ve got the developer site up, or if you need/want my help, send me the link/details in an email!

Hi! Count me in! I have a lot of experience on developing Linux distributions and Linux server software. I’ve also worked together with hardware guys before so I have a good idea on how they look at the world. I also know something about developing drivers for Linux.

Very interesting idea, hope it keeps momentum.

There are some very good alternatives to an on-screen keyboard. The dasher project, for example (http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/dasher/).
I’ll try to follow the project, come on, make a twitter, a feed of something
Cheers,

Emme

Hi! Electronics engineer and software developer from Argentina, i’d like to lend a hand if you are interested, get in touch please so we can discuss this further.

Could I be in on this project? I can fetch your slippers and grill some Yak hot dogs when you need some. Yak rules, mind you!

Interested in helping … can offer expertise in various areas, including some potential partnership ideas to get / keep things moving.

I can help with:

- development – working on the linux flavour, google gears, any other web widgetry
- interface/interaction design – strong experience prototyping and developing consumer products
- marketing: branding, pr, marketing collateral, building sales channels appropriate for a crowdsourced project, pricing, putting together the offer
- legal: trademarking, patenting, TOS, import/export licensing, warranties etc.
- localization and localization testing
- project / operations / program management

I build award winning software and consumer IT products.

I’d love to help out with any aspects of the hardware, from electrical design to mechanical cad-work. But only if the organisation is well structured, which I believe will require hard work.

I would definitely be interested in helping out with this.

I’d like to put my name into the pot. I’m a Systems Engineer, work daily with HW/SW interface, ICDs, tech pubs, System Level, Functional Level, Software Level requirements, as well as testing at a system level. I’d love to help out at the system level, possible helping to set up and run any software management systems to manage the project. I also dabble in code C/Perl/whatever’s needed to get a job done.

I’m definitely interested. I don’t have the technical software skills, but I’m in internet marketing/advertising and would be happy to help in any way I possibly could. Thanks!

Hi ! Count me in !
I want to do the french translation of eveything !
I’m also a C/shell/php … programmer.
Plz contact me.

Sounds like a great idea, sign me up. I’d be happy to help with the default home page that is displayed when it starts up. Perhaps provide some localhost web app for organisation of contacts, todo list etc. Would be extremely easy to get a local webserver on that machine.

Would love to deliver:

- web voice, IM and file exchange all IM (and Skype) communities worldwide
- location based services
- interoperability between web, mobile and local applications
- localization
- branding

I like the idea of a UI contest. Come up with a solid spec list, let anyone with an idea participate, and let the community judge. I do UI design for a living and would love to help out.

I have been wanting a tablet like this forever. I have used various products from desktops, laptops, netbooks, etc in traveling. This project sounds like an excellent alternative to the norm.
Some things I’d like to see: The ability to utilize a pen for graphics applications would be excellent. Applications like GIMP or Inkscape.
I would love to be on the test bed for this tablet. I would provide excellent feedback.

I’d like to help. What do you still need done?

I have 3 years of experience in writing POSIX-compliant applications using C. I’m especially thoroughly experienced in the areas of
- Network programming using Socket API
- Writing daemons, monitoring tools, etc

Also I’ve been working, for about an year, on a hobbyist personal project – a kernel, coded in C and NASM, for the AMD64 architecture. The aim is to build a kernel that’s designed from the core to take advantage of the new features in AMD64, which is definitely not done by the other “AMD64 OSs” because they are just ports of IA32 OSs to AMD64.

I believe that hardware whose programming documentation is completely public is the only way to remove vendor lock-in, to restore fair competition and to make technology progress at maximum speed. That’s exactly the reason why I’m interested in helping this project.

I’m a final-year engineering student at BITS-Pilani which is one of the most prestigious universities of India.

I would love to test drive this device, i have been waiting for this form factor for long time.

I think that using an existing framework or mobile OS is a must. Probably MAEMO is the place to start. Maemo can run on “any” device or resolution.

I would be more than proud on helping with this. I can do something like translations (to Spanish, native), documentation, and integration with desktop systems and services.

Bye!

Hooo yeah…

Can work on the software, no stranger to usability testing, could even pitch in the hardware though I much prefer playing on than in the hardware. Could do soome translation work too… French – English

how about the tegra plateform from nvidia?
wasn’t it supposed to be affordable while being perfect for these kind of device?

Great idea, count me in.

Great concept and thank you for informing. I have word in several open source projects in the past and have also helped in the organization of events/meetings. Also I work with Python and have previous testing experience. I am active in the os community passing the word around as we speak (free PR).

If there is anything I can help with I am available.

I would love to stay in on the emails and contribute where I can.

I’d love to help, but I think I’d only be good with with the management and marketing side of things (I’m just an engineer wannabe).

Great idea. I’m not sure how helpful I can be, but I’d love to contribute to the process. It occurs to me that this could have a great deal of appeal in the education market. With cloud computing, who needs a laptop anymore? A second USB port would be good if you could squeeze it in, so as to allow an external keyboard and external storage simultaneously w/o using an external hub.

It may be useful to use a flock-type modified browser for the functionality that you are talking about.

A Wi-Fi sensor would be a nice touch. Example – the power input on my laptop glows blue when plugged in, so I know that an outlet is working before I power up, saving possible battery waste onbroken outlets.
A Wi-Fi sensor that can work without powering up the tablet would save battery, possibly a single light that glows red for no network, blue for secured network, and green for unsecured network. Somewhat like those Wi-Fi dongles I’ve heard so much about :p
Cheers.

Echo the enthusiasm for the product, and the offer to be of assistance…
I do think the product can be expanded to include eBooks, media playback, and integration to ancillary products, without interfering with the motivation to keeping it simple.

Here are the specs you are shooting toward I believe:
- Daylight viewable touchscreen
- Orientation controlled by a motion sensor
- 256MB RAM
- 512MB solid state storage for user data, OS in NAND flash
- Low power embedded processor. (ATOM, Via, Freescale, etc.)
- Bluetooth (Keyboard, mouse, headset, tether to cell phone)
- Induction charged power system (No external connectors needed)
- No external connectors as they drive price up quickly.
- 802.11 Networking
- Video capable camera for video conferences with Skype
- Microphone
- Speakers (Maybe use the screen as a simple speaker. This tech currently exists)
- Using a custom *NIX distributions you can get VERY small. My company has been working with a custom distributions that is at 14MB for an embedded device.
- A number of projects exist for displaying a keyboard and/or pen input area for *NIX. Don’t re-invent the wheel.
- Firefox as the main running app would be great. Enable the ability to extend it with extensions. I didn’t see that mentioned anywhere.
- Skype

I’ll agree that using Ubuntu MID as the OS would be a pretty good platform to build in. It’s designed exactly for this (MID = Mobile Internet Device).

Hi, I have some experience porting gtk and qt to sh4 and arm platforms.

really cool and useful idea…

i think that taking help of the neo freerunner project for the hardware (we dont need it to be as complex as that… or provide as much functionality… but if we make it a subset of that project… we would always have the option of increasing the functionality of this tablet-if ever needed…)
for the s/w part i kinda like poky linux / puppy linux… we can strip it down to bare minimum components…(poky has already been ported to the freerunner.)

im also interested in contributing to the project…

Hello,

I’m really excited about this project. I am a student at Penn State majoring in Computer Security and Information Warfare. I would be more than happy to approach the College of Information Sciences and Technology (of which my major is in) in order to get support/materials/etc. Please send me an email. I work as a software tester for my summer internship, so I’d like to continue using the skills I have!

Count me in. I’ll probably be a bit too ‘low-spec’ to be of real use, but if you need anyone doing (g)runtwork in C/C++/Java/Perl/PHP/Python/Ruby/Javascript/HTML/etc, gimme a call.

HI!

Im intrested to contribute to this, been looking for a small device like this for a long time.

If you actually want this project to get off the ground, I suggest actually creating some sort of project site and revision control system to hold the details, grabbing an IRC channel, and scheduling a meeting where people can get together an divy up responsibilities. Unfortunately, if you want any variety of hardware design done, this will be a much more specialized group of people than you’re going to require for the glue to port anything that doesn’t work on the hardware that’s decided on. At the very least, make a mailing list–this is a comments thread, it will go nowhere.

P.S. One thing that the OLPC project did that helped alot is that developers essentially bought their dev boards from the group. This means that the amount of money that would have to go into the projects pre-mass manufacture is low, and if you want to beat any large companies to market on this, you’re going to have to start hardware design now.

Just my 2 cents.

Add me to the list! I offer to help code. I have experience with a variety of accessories.

Folks, count me in.

This definitely sounds like an interesting project.

I can help on:

- Beta-Testing (some experience in it, actually)
- French Translation
- Dev. things, just ask

Thanks.

Additionally, if you want my help (with any of the steps mentioned above, send me an email.
I’m competent with C, C++, Haskell, OCaml, x86 ASM, Java, Python, Perl, Lua, Scheme, and PHP. Additionally, I can pick up new languages rather quickly so if this is required, it should be fine.
Additionally, I’ve dabbled in FPGA and EE work, which might be relevant if you need someone to assist with hardware, but I certainly won’t be leading any groups there.
If you need help with infrastructure setup, I should be able to help with that as well (run my own debian/ubuntu mirror, and a cluster (ugcs.caltech.edu).
–Matthew Maurer

This is amazing. People really wanted to see something like this come about and I guess no one else wanted to put the opportunity out there. I’d love to contribute and help market it.

I think that the blogsphere should rally around a product like this, and post updates so that lots of people can be introduced, and help it build momentum.

I’m excited to see what happens next.

Kudos to the TechCrunch crew: What a great way to use your community and influence to experiment not only in product and technology design but also in community development effort. Some criticize you for your ambition, but if our political leaders had your kind of guts, this world would be a better place. Keep it going! Good Luck!

I understand a lot of people are interested in working on this project, though I’d like to help develop this as well, strength in numbers eh?

I would be totally enthused to see something like this emerge in the marketplace. I especially like some of the comments in regards to adding pdf/text support for ebook purposes. I am available for contact/comment whenever necessary.

Sure, why not?

I’ll lend a hand.

I’d like to participate. I have some experience with hardware development, component specification, pcb layout and routing etc. Just tell me how can I help.

I would love to be able to upgrade the ram after purchasing such a product and possibly using it with gimp or something like that

I’d love to help with the development of this right now we do work on mobile apps, i’ve been thinking of something like this for a long time. If it is open source even better. Hopefully this will be the start of a great product.

‘Bout friggin time.

Some random thoughts:

Why *just* a $200 one? Why not also (after and ONLY after the $200 one is done) a $100 one and a $300 one. And a 24″ (or whatever the biggest reasonable LCD display currently on the market is) model. People will buy it. I’d buy one now if I could. More than one actually.

There’s a few ways to skin this cat. You could start with an existing display production line and add a change that gave a couple of usb ports and boots the new rom we gave them; embedded linux with 4 or 5 executables.

Saying “Firefox” might be good for viral marketing but we’re really talking “a web browser” here in actual fact. And my first thought came to Opera; one of the things Opera does as a matter of course is embed browsers into small devices. Just tell them it’s a phone and they can probably cut a build in a week that’ll work.

The technology is actually pretty simple in terms of hardware and software and that part can be done quickly and predictably.

The most difficult part of this to me is what the physical design is – what it looks like – and how it’s made. I want to be able to replace any broken part myself. And I don’t want it to break very much at all.

You could buy an old desgn or RIM in Waterloo and put a bigger screen and battery in it.

The idea of a collaborative open source computer, not just some intangible piece of dree software is going to hit the media like a mothephuquer. It would be nice to have some poeple to handle that, and business contracts and stuff so we can get some work done.

It has to have SSH too. This is not negotiable. Get Simon to add putty. 3 days work, max.

It should come in different colors.

While “having a USB port takes care of I/O devices” is almost certainly true, it would still be nice to have optional modles that plug in to give certain functionality: cam, mic, spkrs, 12v in, 12, 24, 48V in and so on. It’d be nice to have varying grade$ of spkrs. I’ll take the good ones.

Given the internet prime directive as “it must scale” and the fact we have to design for a world where there are billions of these things and v6 is not much further ahead than it is now (or has been for 15 years) there needs to be a v4 addressing plan.

With enough of these things in place, spam would no longer be an issue and our old addresses would work again. I won’t say more in public.

You guys got funding for this?

I’ve programmed unix since 76 and have done embedded firmware all my life and have helped build the net since 86 and I’d like to help.

Lately, partly ‘cuz I have a mobile device on the drawing board and partly out of curiosity I have been researching this new wave of higly integrated chips and SoCs. I call it a new wave ‘cuz manufacturers have caught on to the fact that devices need to get smaller as they’re made better. For example Nvidia APX and Tegra series of SoCs are simply what slim iphone-type devices need. Wifi+Bluetooth (some Broadcom chip), Wifi+Bluetooth+FM Tx/Rx (CSR Bluecore 7), Wifi-N(Redpine Signals RS9110) SoCs and many more. The NXP LPC2478 ARM SoC is another (underpowered for an internet tablet promising a rich web experience). I know it might be hard getting placing some of these chips in an open source device but I’m sure if you search hard enough you can whip up a PCB the size of a matchbox for this web tablet.

Going back to the internet tablet, the hardware part would be so simple if only the Nvidia tegra SoCs were anything near open source. . . just thinking out loud. I mean an extremely short BOM would help with the slimmness and most of the space behind the LCD would be occupied be low profile lithium polymer batteries. With the Tegra . I hope you’re thinking of a larger widescreen LCD in the 11.1″ – 12.1″ range as opposed to the 4.3″, 4.8″ and 7.0″ LCDs that are now popular on UMPCs; an internet experience would be so cramped even on a 7.0″ WSVGA LCD. And keeping the slim form factor of the proposed internet tablet in mind the Toshiba 11.1″ WXGA LCDs are only 2.8mm thick. Regarding the iphone-esque touchscreen keyboard (I assume that includes the capacitive multitouch functions as well), gone are the separate capacitive touch controller PCBs and enter the Cypress MultiTouch All-Point PSoC from their TrueTouch Touchscreen Solutions line-up. With way fewer chips you can intergrate multitouch into any device with screen up to 8.5″ and up to 10 simultaneous finger inputs (that’s the only problem ‘cuz the smallest WXGA LCD module that I know of is an 8.9″ toshiba model that’s 3.5mm thick).

As much good as a low end CPU would do to the battery life, you really don’t want lackluster performance while you’re watching online videos (youtube and the likes) ‘cuz that could very well kill the dream of a perfect web tablet.

Besides the Nvidia SoCs other comparable options there’s also the TI OMAP3530, the Freescale iMX.31 although I would go with the TI chip.

For the interface, a nice flash based experience would be nice. The good news is that Adobe has opened up it’s flash technology, they call it the “Open Screen Project” (http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS8017259270.html and http://www.adobe.com/openscreenproject/).

I might sound too excited about this but I hope this doesn’t become vaporware. I don’t know much about developing devices such as this but offer me a device with at least a 8.9″ LCD (WXGA would be nice), multitouch touchscreen, Wifi (maybe bluetooth), SSD of any size, one USB port on the device with at least another free USB host port on the PCB, keep the price to $200 or lower and I’m sold.

When you eventually release the specs and design files, I’m thinking of OQO 02-style dual capacitive touch sliders and a couple of other touch buttons using a Cypress CapSense Express PSoC. It’ll be nice to always keep it open so that someday a razor-thin uber web tablet with real-world usability features will be reality.

This is very interesting. I like to input from a user’s point of view.
Please keep me posted!

I am interested in helping. Pls count me in. Thanks!

I am a systems engineer with experience in verification and testing. I would love to be involved in this project as I think it has immense merit.

Please drop me a line if you would like my assistance.

Just caught your /. coverage…this is great. I’ve been looking for one of these for years. NEC’s Versa Litepad came close in 2003, but as you point out, $ and HW were overkill (and it only showed up in Japan). Please add me to you list. I’m a CS guy doing enterprise level integration, but I’d be happy to assist any way I can. You definitely need an orientation accelerometer ala iPhone for webpage/pdf viewing.

Myself and my design company would be very interested in working with this product and developing for it. We have experience in both interaction design, product design and hardware.

Hi. I’d like to know how I can help, being a software guy. I’d like to have one of those for sometime now

I am excited about this. One thing which many smaller tablets have been missing so far is the Unicode support and a fontface with basic UTF-8 character set. Within this price range and with Unicode supporand the device can drive great demand in linguistically-diverse countries like India.

Great idea, but I’m also surprised by the Skype choice. It’s closed source, and uses a closed protocol. Doesn’t really sound for a fit candidate for this ‘open’ tablet. There are many great other clients out there, which are not only open, but also use an open protocol (Jabber/XMPP).

I’m no nerd but can certainly help with translation into my own language

[...] I’m on board in support of the mission. This is actually my dream for Geek Brief … the democratization of product development. I want the tech community to work together to create a piece of kit that we want to own. If you want to jump on board, Mike is arranging the details at, Mr. Cynical’s post here. [...]

I’d love to help out, been looking for something just like this. I’ve got a back round in hardware design and low level software, device drivers, Linux bring up on new boards, etc. Let me know how I can help.

Hi,

I’ll throw my hat into the ring too … I’m a C developer and Linux Geek. (Also Python, PHP, Perl, Java, Javascript)

Cheers,

David.

I’d be all over this. I’m not a coder, but I will help how I can. Or I can just help down the line by buying it : )

I’d be interested in participating, as time permits – though I am more interested in a generic system that can be set up on any hardware bundle (and is OS independent) rather than focusing on the hardware aspects. Some of my thoughts are congealed here:
http://www.knowprose.com/node/19123

Fire me an email, whatever – I’m a submarine in life these days, and only caught this with my periscope up.

I’d be interested as well. I’m not a UI guy, but I know something about Linux internals. Less about BSD, or at least less about BSD after the late 1980s. Tell me what I can do.

I’m a student in Computer Science and ECE and would be interested in helping with the project… I’m just getting into Internet Tablets and this sounds like an exciting project and maybe I can integrate my school work into this…
Let me know if i can be of help

I’d like in too, if you need any BIOS work done I’m your man…. I work on EFI BIOS on a daily basis and have also played around with the open source BIOS’s. I also have tablet expereance having been employed by a tablet OEM in one of my past jobs. Send me an Email if you need more details.

I’ll help if I can. Software development, some hardware hacking, sysadmin, with small children for destructive testing.
I agree with previous posters about having bluetooth or USB. However, since it’s an open platform, adding your “special magic feature of the week” would always be possible and the core design could maybe stub out some common connection points on the board to allow other hardware hackers to have at it without driving up the base units cost. Maybe go as far as carrying an empty mini-pci slot or something similar.

Way to get things done – there has been so much talk about this type of thing, glad to see it coming together. Please contact me to discuss how Edelman can be of help from the PR angle!

I would easily buy one of these for $200. But it would have to work as smoothly as the iPhone interface does, plus I would wait a little bit for some of the kinks to ironed out.

I’m not much of a programmer, or hardware designer, but if you want any thoughts from a consumers view let me know. Thanks!

Following the Slashdotting of the previous post there appears to be a stack of applications a few meters thick at this point, but allow me to nonetheless submit my portfolio (click my name) and to suggest that I have a particular skill for the clear articulation of the interaction design process.

This is a great development – also for a couple of our projects. Essential is a screen that can be read in different lighting conditions – so go OLED?
Martin

Hi,

i think a lot of people are looking for a cheap device like that.
i would love to buy it.

furthermore i would like to support you guy’s.
thank you in advance for your reply

I’d buy one. In fact, I would probably buy several. I’d love to help out if I could be of use. I could probably try contributing on HCI / Usability / UX aspects.

Marketing – strategy, email, data segmentation, creative briefing, copywriting, digital marketing

Not techie but anything I can do to help.

Duke

Love to help out and hear about any updates with the community site. I do Ruby on Rails, Java, C, and *nix.

count me in

Nice, I have been waiting for a project like this for quite some time. Would love to participate. This is the way to go forward. I can help out with software design and development in various areas.

This sounds interesting. I’d like to work on this if you need any more UI developers. I’m very experienced with GTK and GNOME development, and have done a little bit of hacking using Maemo. Contact me if you want any more interface hackers.

I’d be interested in helping out. UI, Development and Supply Chain experience (and publishing too, if you choose to go the uber-e-book route)…

Love to help out!!!!!

We’re a design studio with a multifaceted team of Industrial designers, mechanical and electrical engineers, prototyping capabilities, PCB board design, UI designers, marketing people, and the contacts in China for manufacturing. We currently work with large corporations( Intergraph, 3DLabs now part of nVidia, HP, SAIC, Avocent, etc…) to design, engineer, prototype, manufacture, and market new products. If you can use our help let us know. I am sure we could get a team together here to make this a reality, pro bono.

I am C++, C# and PHP guy. I love beta testing and debuging. Please keep me in the loop on this one.

This looks awsome, Id buy two. Definitely interested in helping out with coding & beta testing

Sounds like an awesome idea. Also a computer scientist, done some FOSS work before, including kernel hacking. Primary language is Java, with plenty of web and network programming experience, though obviously kernel level hacking has been done in C. I’ve C++ experience too (prefer it to C, as it happens). I’ve done a few scripting languages too, primarily for administering my servers.

I’d love the opportunity to get involved in something like this; I’ve got a small embedded linux project on the go right now (awaiting hardware shipment!), so this would probably dovetail with that experience smoothly. Do get in touch if you think you can do with another hacker / tester on the project!

Cheers all, keep them ideas flowing!
Pete

I am in!

Would love to help in anyway i can

It’s a bad idea unless you could get the price down to 200 or less.

I would NEVER sacrifice 300 bucks for a crippled laptop.. when I could buy a NICE used one for 350-450.

Your objective is to have some type of portable portal to the internet. It doesn’t have to be a tablet PC.

What about the new generation of cell phones that will have projectors on them. Isn’t that a great opportunity for a device that can already potentially surf the net from anywhere.

Think about Head Mount Displays… these are basically glasses with screens in them.

Couple that with a cell phone that allows output to a head mount display… and POOF you have COMPLETELY portable internet. You could control it with the cell phone buttons or even a simple secondary interface.

The beauty of this is that your cell phone works as the processor and is already made to surf and have an internet connection. On top of that most people replace their cell phones ever 1-2 years which keeps the platform always refreshing.

This way your investment is cyclical instead of static. Instead of cutting corners to make a dirt cheap and likely less reliable Tablet PC you go for mass produced Head Mount Displays which couple to varies cell phones.

The only problem is it’s a cooperative effort, but the hardware concepts behind using your already portable cell phone which you replace often is superior than a one time dead end investment into a cripples Tablet.

That is, you’d have to get the cell phone makers to cooperate and make the jack and likely better browsing, but once you did… you’d open up a whole new market.

As I said the new projection cell phones COULD be used in a similar fashion, but in the end it will be a lot harder and you need a projection surface and a remote interface since you can’t move the phone around while it acts as an overpriced slide projector.

Head Mount is vastly underused and brings a lot of new options to the table BUT it’s also will within the grasp of full blow mass production meaning there isn’t a lot of work to be done.

It’s a HUGE potential market allowing people to visually interface any and all devices.. from cell phones, to laptops, to game consoles, PDAs, media players… whatever.

Heads Mount is only getting better also, with smaller one eye pieces being made and resolution constantly increasing while price declines. Perhaps even eye movement could eventually become the interface allow FULLY portable hands free internet use right through your cell phone.

Isn’t that really the ultimate in portable internet… no screen… no buttons… goes where ever your cell phone does ?

And who doesn’t have a cell phone… so most of the hardware costs are already offset and leveraged for you by the phone companies long term contracts.

It’s a very smart plan when you step back because not only does it work and provide the full portability that people would want, but because people already have cell phone it’s VERY fiscally advantageous to reuse that existing and already networked processing power.

Think about consolidation and cyclic hardware. Things like game consoles and cell phones get replaced more often and have their cost leveraged against their subscription potentials. That’s how you make a cost effective portable gadget… consolidate and reuse.

The Heads Mount glasses have many other uses also, so their investment is well within reason. I think the true portability however is worth far more than the cheap Tablet idea.

Image hands free internet nobody can see what you surf, you’re not carrying around a bulky screen, it’s networked through the cell phone, you can actually walk, stand in line, and still be able to use a device like that. It might turn out to be a great learning device as well, since it might allow you to use it and interact in the real world fairly effectively.

Making the perfect heads up display would be the trick such as one you can easily switch from real world to screen from or have screen transparency settings. Maybe make a couple webcam attachments so you can record video and stream right to the internet or just stream it to your eyes and you can see behind your or have spider vision.

It has A HELL of a lot more potential that the dumb ass iPhone.

Steve Jobs ain’t got nothing on me. Imagine all the cool gadgets you could actually use with a portable platform like that compared to the dumb crap that they sell for iPhone.

There’s always a reason not to do something – I think this is a great idea and I’ve often thought of spearheading something extremely close to this in the past. So I’m extremely interested. The first real challenge regarding the crowdsourcing component is managing the input. We’re going to get a ton of feedback and much of it will be irrelevant for various reasons. We need a means of filtering. VMWare’s forums has an interesting means of ranking posters so over time a poster develops a reputation – this sounds like a good start.

Some technical aspects I’d like to see:
-AGPS NEEDS to be in this device or at least optional
-The screen needs to be pretty tough, could something like the iphone screen be used?
-I’m not convinced an internal SSD makes a whole lot of sense. In my opinion, we should just use a couple of SDHC readers – one meant as internal and one meant for users. The internal one could store an image of the OS on one partition and an image for user data on the other. Upon boot, the image is copied in to a ramdisk and the system can live out of there for a time. SDHC is reasonably fast, small and I believe low powered.

-Given this is meant as an open sourced hardware project, the casing must led itself to modifications. Part of this entails having some leads on the inside that are easy to tap in to – in particular there ought to be a few open USB headers and power lines positioned to be easily leveraged.

-The general architecture of it has GOT to be x86 – I’m thinking in particular the Intel Atom would seem most appropriate, but there are alternatives. I’m pretty sure Via has made a mobile x86 CPU that could work well.

-QA will need to be organized early on. We need to consult our mother’s/grandmother’s as testers – get the opinion of someone who doesn’t really care about anything beyond being able to just see their email/pictures

-I’d be happy to help get some of the infrastructure for this going – I’m used to using Trac at work – I could help setup a Trac system for managing feature requests, bugs, releases and so on…

Very cool product potential…the logistics will be daunting but with the right partners you should be able to at least get the preliminary versions to market.

I’ve got a mech engineering background and an MBA, so I’m not much help on the dev side, but if you need help with product, marketing, BD etc happy to help how I can.

Hello,

I am an engineering student at the Milwaukee School of Engineering and I am extremely proficient in AutoCAD and have a copy of AutoCAD 2008. If you guys need any help with technical drawings or renderings, shoot me an email. My E-Mail address is tsondie21@gmail.com. I would love to help with this.

Thanks,

Tim Sonderman

This sounds like a great idea. I think that it should have a docking station/charger that would act as a stand to hold it up similar to a monitor. The dock could have a couple USB ports in the base to accommodate a USB mouse and keyboard. It could also have some larger/better speakers. I think that would be really slick.

Im just 16, not the biggest computer wizard for sure, but I wonder, will this thing be thick enough to have USB port or two? And what about drawing on the tablet?

I’d love to help, i’m a nerd kid who could give some input into user friendlyness, i’ve got a lot of great ideas, please contact me, i’d love to be a part of this.

I love to help where needed. Background in UNIX, sh scripting, python, and ruby.

I’m a old linux hacker (who says you cant make a BT client out of Bash and nc) and would love to help out, contact me with the details, ill bring something to the table, even if its even the table

Crunch tablet – sounds like a Kindle with teeth.

Here are a couple more ideas to toss around:
* Offer an attachable battery pack. It could attach to the edge like those on high-end digital cameras.
* Have a hardware switch for the WiFi. If you’re just using it for a reader, no need for the radios.

Please keep me in the loop.

Might be of interest if it could support stuff on our website for language learning.

Oh, and I’d love to help out however I could but my background is in end user support so that likely wouldn’t be of much use. Would be happy to help with any testing though and I’m a good photographer with good equipment. I’d be happy to do any product photos for marketing and whatnot.

I can provide a recently patented multitouch screen for that

www,scola.org

Sign me up!

I see infinite possibility for developing a “simple” tablet device just like this. I work for a company who has a vested interest in seeing products like this come to fruition and would be more than willing to lend any assistance I can. I have an engineering and business background and would love to help – be it in defining specifications for hardware, custom hardware development and evaluation, a certain amount of software or web development, 6S process improvement, or any PM/development role as required.

Great Idea, and Good Luck!

I could throw in a translation to German, as well as some marketing experience. If the device would come to sale, I would help selling the device in Europe and our company could offer service for the device, since we are already service partner for the major laptop companies.

Would buy 2 of these! I am a college student finishing up my 4 year degree in Computer Information Systems. My focus is on software development (Java, Web Design) and networking. I am also a Mac guy. Anything I can do to help, just let me know. Would love to beta test.

Sorry for the double post, but i hit submit before i could type my ideas:
-I believe a capacitive screen, much like the iPhone would be preferable to a resistive screen, however, each has it’s pros and cons. A capacitive screen, for example, can be used with bare skin, which would probably be much better for typing, and it has higher clarity as opposed to a resistive screen. However, a capacitive screen can’t be drawn on with a pen. Resistive screens lack the clarity of a capacitive screen, which would be another reason to opt for a capacitive screen. However, resistive screens can be drawn on with a pen, but since this is an internet tablet, i think that being able to use a finger would outweigh the benefits of using a pen. Additionally, if this is to be MacBook Air thin, using an approach similar to the Microsoft Surface, with cameras, is out of the question.
-The device should definitely have a screen similar in strength as the Apple iPhone, i.e, being able to be dropped without it totally breaking into one billion billion little bits.
-Materials: The OLPC project is a great example of rugged hardware design, a tough plastic case, or possibly MacBook Air like metal to give it a clean look.

I love this idea, and i would love to be a part of this, and i look forward to the finished product, even if i don’t get to help with it.

Justin Gerard
gamersedgepodcast.com

I do software testing for a living, so I could help in that regard.

I would suggest you to nix the SSD, as that alone will drive up the cost by at least $100-$200. I would suggest flash. You could then drop 4 GB drive in there at a fraction of the cost.

Bluetooth would be helpful should someone want to use an external mouse or keyboard. However some devices may require software installation which would complicate things. I’d probably skip that.

How about installing a VNC client? Or you could see if VNC would be willing to do a free web version for your tablet users.

Oh and since this is your idea, you should call it the Crunch Tablet or something to that effect. Firefox is great and all, but its name is not going to sell your product.

I think it is a fascinating idea. I liked the earlier comment about PDF support. Then I don’t have to lug books around on my commute. I would be very interested in it as a consumer and a tester.

I’m certainly interested, though I’m skeptical of the end outcome. It would at minimum be an interesting exercise, certainly.

Put me down as interested. Skills are Python, C++, a little ruby, and some former experience in RTOS.

Very interested to help out here. I have a lot of experience on the protocol and product spec / product requirements side, but less so on the programming side.

9 years (and counting) working at Cisco, expertise in video systems, IT and marketing.

An RSS reader would be nice.

I want to have one! Im no programmer, but I can translate to Swedish if thats any help…

would like to help out as project manager (producer). my experience is on the software side but I’d love to get involved with hardware as well.
my other life: http://www.myfirstmac.com

I would love to help. I’m just getting into programming, but this would help me learn more. I am willing to help in this way or with documentation or anything else required.

Michael,

I would setup a project management site(a la SourceForge) but allow for schematics, cad files, pictures etc as well as software to be hosted as soon as possible to capture the current excitement.

For hardware it seems that the Nvidia Tegra line of processors would be great for this product. They are ARM-based but linux would have not problem with that. It is basically a system on a chip. It would allow for great video playback and probably would be able to play some OpenGL games. Just attach a usb keyboard to your Tablet and you have a really good laptop. Probably blow all these netbooks out of the water.

The biggest issue seems to be that Nvidia is purely focused on the Windows Mobile market. I wonder what it would take to get them to open it up.

This looks great! Ever the faithful skeptic, here’s the problems:

1. The price point cannot be met. Wish it could, but it can’t. Nor should it. I truly a number north of $200 but short of a grand would be possible, marketable, and profitable.
2. Fantastic response, but a blog, nor open source, does not a piece of hardware make. Software can be adjusted, rewritten, and improved. But once they start pouring the plastic molds, changes to hardware are not that easy. So, who is coordinating all of this help? And who is making the decisions that some ideas here are to be left in and others are to be left out. (There’s always a trade-off and a couple of ideas here – well they would guarantee that comment #1 was prophetic).
3. How come I can’t get passed the thought that TechCrunch has used this forum to test the water or fan the flames of possible users out there. . .for a product that is really coming out (and that is already going down a production line somewhere).
4. What the world needs is a good 5 cent cigar. What we want is a portable, affortdable, and user-friendly device that is built for web, entertainment, and communication, at a price point that makes it attractive and economical. (Why am I waiting before buying another laptop – can anyone say Vista)?

I’m in…..

How about naming it the Foxlet?

Arthur, you are a spoilsport. Also, if techcrunch is really testing the waters as you suggest in 3. then you’re contradicting your 1. argument (“impossible”). And why do you say that it “shouldn’t be possible”?

Anyhoo, wish I had skills to offer but I’d like to help anyway I can, Spanish translation or dummy-testing…

Have you considered the Flock browser instead of Firefox? It’s got great social networking integration and many firefox extensions work with it, too.

i’d love to help. user experience / ui & branding. let’s do it!

Let me make this simple:

Techcrunch Web Tablet + Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device (MID) Edition = Perfection

Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device (MID) Edition: http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile

Crap, you could just slap Xubuntu Linux on there it runs on practically nothing and you could milk more features out of it.

I would love to be involved in this. We are developing software for the education market and something like this would be extremely powerful in allowing rural and low-income student access to e-learning tools.

how about iTablet which is a large scale iPod Touch, runs all of the apps from the AppStore (some graphics processing to scale up the images), has wifi, bluetooth, sound, camera (with video this time), etc? The cost is the screen. 8GB iPod Touch is $299. Bigger screen but no other changes other than graphics chip for $499… all those wonderful apps, all that music, all that non-open Apple lock-in…

Of course you can buy a $300 laptop today too..

I’m in if you need me. My experiences are in architecture, graphic design, and furniture, and I’m pretty much a design junky, so I suppose if you need help with drafting, 3d-rendering (looks like you may have that covered), graphics, product design, or anything else that I have not yet thought of, I’d love to help.

No real skills but have played with computers for many years. The one thing I would really like to see added would be a card slot like a SD slot and the addition of a e-book reader like FBReader. This would allow the tablet to be useful when not on-line. At least I am not aware of any web based text reading sites. Otherwise I am quite interested in the tablet, If you want the input of a old user, sign me up! I can test it out just fine here!

I’d be interested in helping out. 5 years doing development and package porting for an embedded Linux company, I’m doing C/C++ development for embedded file systems on BSD these days.

I would love to help as well. Please let me know how I can do more.

I’m pretty new to the open source scene, but I love the idea and would love to help.

I’ve thought about thoroughly and came up with the idea as not replacing your computer but rather accompanying it. What if you created a dock for it when you are home at your desk you drop it in and it becomes and additional screen the works with the desktop you have. Allowing you to simply drag and drop certain files to take with you and expanding your desktop usage. presumably if the device was cheap enough you could market it as the alternative to a laptop, for the price of a laptop get a desktop with more power and a tablet screen to go with it. maybe allow for expandable memory incase someone wants to put a movie or something on it.

I’m pretty damn smart, so having me help on this project just makes sense.

In regards to screen technology it might be worthwhile to contact Pixel Qi (Mary Lou Jepson’s company. She was behind the development of the OLPC screen). The OLPC screen is affordable, sunlight readable (which is a huge benefit for me), and low power. The next gen screens they are working on might be ready in time for this product?

I love this style of product development, and I’d be happy to show my support financially for this product. Open, transparent, and a solution for the people, by the people.

Thought I saw somebody mention a wiki before, but I’d suggest why not throw up a wiki with the specifications for this tablet in it, and let people have at it – give the specs some time to develop, meet once every couple of weeks to look at what specs have developed, what is popular and what are points of contention. That way the development of the final specification can come directly from the community and remain open, while TechCrunchIT, as the administrators of the project, can guide it from the high level.

I have a varied software engineering background in C++, Java, C#, PHP, Javascript, Linux, Windows, Palm OS and also, like many others here, a few prototypes sketched up for nearly the same thing, so at the very least I’d like to be kept in the loop as to the development of this project.

I’ve also been doing crazy web stuff on mobile devices since wireless LAN & the mobile OmniSky internet service cards came out for the Palm Visor back in the 90′s, so I have some experience with trying to cram full web applications onto that platform.

Thanks for giving this project a shot – and good luck to the team!

SixD

I haven’t seen anyone mention linux MCE (http://www.linuxmce.org/) slim client capabilities…this device would be an incredible/cheap audio client and entertainment controller (even if it’s just controlling a more powerfull HD device). Another open source/touch screen development that would be worth investigating is the chumby. Those things are really stripped down but have some interesting applications…

Don’t allow it to become bloated. The need here is for a portable window into the web, Google Docs, etc. It doesn’t need to be an all-purpose media player, or a desktop replacement. It doesn’t need tons of storage, or OpenOffice. The two most important aspects of it, to me, are the browser and battery life. It should be pre-configured to do all those nasty web things, like Youtube, Java, etc. People want it to just work, without having to hack together a bunch of patches to get Flash working, etc.

we will help you customize it with great art from TechEngraver.com and Etchstar.com. We’ll be your in house customization solution, just as we are for other leading tech OEMs! amazing idea.

This seems like something thats long overdue. I would like to help out in anyway possible.

Would love to be involved in any way possible.

im in it as much as i Could assist, Would be great to offer localization. i could help in marketing aspects and in the development of the concept. This kind of an open source software and a hardware project could be great. We hope that this could become a success and hit the markets soon.

Do contact me.

Anyone have any good ‘open hardware’ experiences, or have even seen it in practice? How does it work? Is it just a wiki of hardware specs that constantly gets adjusted by hardware testers?

Hi,

I’m working for VIA Technologies, Inc. as a BDM. VIA is the perfect hardware platform for this project with products such as x86 CPU 500MHz 1W TDP max. As for LCD/Touchsceen technology, I’m sure you’re already know about http://www.pixelqi.com from the OLPC project.

Thanks,
Nathan.

Great idea … small, open source, inexpensive chips, programmable (Python? Ruby?), energy efficient, USB interface … this will make a great computer appliance

I have been wanting to do something like this myself, and have a concept design.

I would be interested in helping. You already know my skills, you bought InviteShare.com from me.

I have a wide open use case – clinical apps in healthcare. To be effective some level of centralised command & control will be required. I’d be happy to contribute spec and design along those lines.

An amazing idea! What we can offer is an online platform that allows people to openly collaborate on the design, funding and development of this project (see http://www.fossfactory.org).

Nik you can start by creating a project on FOSS Factory, lay down the basic specs, and the community will give feedback on the requirements, pool their funds to support it, and even develop the project. On our system the project could be broken down into subprojects (and sub-sub projects etc) with each project having a monetary reward assigned to it (and each project being able to accept feedback, requirement fine tuning, and even code submission).

FOSS Factory also has a GIT version control system on it (we made sure that it is secure and compatible with SVN), and a bug tracking system. It’s basically designed to facilitate open collaborations on projects such as this one, with a carefully tailored balance between the cathedral and the bazaar models. As you can see, it’s a whole development system, not just a wiki or a forum.

Please contact me if you would like to know more.

Abdullah Bakhach
Director of Business Development
FOSS Factory
abakhach@fossfactory.org

Errr aren’t Apple going to announce the release of the “Mac Touch” sometime soon?

I’d like to be a part of this. We have programmers, electronics guys, and security folks (no sense having a device like this that can get wiped out easily) that I can bring to bear on this project.

It would be great to add support for playing divx and stuff, a real portable dvd player.
This may be great for playing RTS’s or OpenTTD too, if multitouch support is hacked into them.

I’d be happy to translate to Dutch by the way.

I’d be happy to beta test! Lol. I’m not much of a programmer or anything but I will buy one when they come out for the public (or testers).

I would like to be part of it in whatever way I can. Open is the way to go.

I’m your non-techie end user, so I’m not much help at development. Might be useful as a beta tester, though. Also, I notice that nearly all commenters are men; a woman’s point of view at the testing end might be helpful.

Everything I can think of that I’d want in a device like this has been addressed by previous commenters.

Great idea, except it creates more dependency on media providers and more consumers than producers. Too many consumers don’t produce anything in the markets they are consuming. If you want the net neutrality movement to have any teeth, you’re going to have to have some of the movement be an alternative media. If there’s no competition (all media companies seem to be anti net neutrality) then there’s no force to all the protests. This device will bring more eyeballs to the alphabet media corporations. The very eyeballs they lost for doing a shoddy job as newspapers and tv media.

If you want net neutrality to continue to be relevant in a practical way, then this device must be convertible into a publishing platform. And the conversion should be easier than using Twitter. Otherwise, I can’t support it.

We need civil enterprise not more mobile gawking.

Imagine tablet aware GIMP! Or tablet aware UML IDEs!

Also consider Flock 2.0 which will contain Firefox 3.

We need to create a massive peer to peer culture in content creation not just downloading Britney videos. It is the lack of a peer to peer culture that allows media companies to ignore net neutrality.

There’s a many centuries old meme that says that if you do not produce anything just shut up and pay. We are treated as a second class because the world values the image of being active. Well let’s give them the real thing. The same prejudice is present in eminent domain cases. I remember back in the days of linkexchange.com when some self-righteous corporate lemming said that the Internet was built for business and not for us peasants.

So long live LOLcat loving peasants because the Internet is theirs as well, but let’s make a tool that’s not limited to push media, nor pull media, but also offers the same simplicity to individuals who produce media.

Oh wow! I would be very interested. I’m a User Interface and usability designer by trade so I could definately provide help on that area.
I’m also actually currently working similiar project of my own. (purely touch-screen based user interface for “big screens”)

http://www.notebookdesign.com
http://www.corient.com
http://www.iagroup.info

We can do corporate designs or private designs on the casing. Companies want this to promote brand. It will bring the cost down further per unit. We have presence in Asia, US and EMEA.

HQ in Saint Louis. Chris @ 314-578-4808

I just love it!. Call it the “CrunchPad”. Add a stylus and a simple drawing pgm for doodling. Be sure to include some SD or microSD slots for user storage expansion. I assume you’re thinking 802.11a, b, g but what about n? How about some pop out legs on the back so you can set it at an angle on your lap or desk? If possible, the screen should be glare resistant so you can read it outside too.

The idea looks good but see the fate of OPENOEM who tried to make an open computer http://www.innovationstage.com/openoem/ – Please dont do the mistakes they did.

The user interface is the key.. Hide everything from user and make to feel him that he is using some paper thin device. Its good to use OLPC display technology which is cheap…
Provide audio jack as well.

if you build it, we’ll turn it into an effective remote control – see our iPhone/iPod Touch product airremote at airremote.com

What an incredible response! Now TechCrunchIT has started, why stop here? We could do a similar appeal for an electric car and probably get a lot further than a bunch of heel dragging fuel and automotive companies! All we still hear (today on the BBC at the Motor Show) is that “fuel cell technology is completely new”. It is? Let’s get a second project up and running for alternative vehicles!

Great idea if it can be done. I need (its all about me) bluetooth, WiFi, 3G, VGA out, USB.

I would absolutly love to help out in any way with this project don’t know if you all would need but i could get some 3d models and actual to scale cad drawings of the design. also i was wondering what about using the ubuntu mid edition? has support already for a lot of the things your looking for !
http://www.ubuntu.com/products/mobile

Sounds like a great ebook/reading device!

I’m a graphic artist/designer. I would love to help in any way possible.

I’m 2d20+4 excited about this project!

Shoot me an email.

I’d love to help with this project. I’ve been using exclusively open-source software for years now; and this would be a great step in introducing more people to FOSS and open hardware when it’s released. I will soon be a freshman in college with a major in electrical engineering, I will help as much I can with that department if I am allowed.

I also have some pretty good skills in the GIMP if needed.
Thanks to the guys at tech crunch for coming up with such an awesome idea.

I’ve been waiting for something like this tablet to come out for a long time, last month I finally gave up and just bought an EEE. The market needs something like this.

I hope I can help with kernel hacking, modifying drivers, or etc.

I am interested in working on the Web Tablet. I am a physicist, worked in microelectronics and had a startup on interfaces, so have experience with building this type of devices. Let me know

I would more than be happy to help with hardware/software for such a device….good idea!

I strongly agree that supporting ebooks/.pdf/.chm would be an excellent feature ,we could probably integrate support for chm/txt into Firefox. PDF support could be a little trickier.
I’m a software developer would be glad to help if i can.

Call it the “EyeBall”

After all, it should be nothing more than an eye on the web.

Help provide eyeballs to every web site who wants them and you will have industry support. Remember also to do nothing that will compete with others in hardware if you want universal approval…K.I.S.S.

Put no harddrive in it – instead put two USB ports on the FRONT FACE (facing up).

We can build it in one or more of our twelve notebook assembly plants right here in the US. Could cost less than $100 USD depending on the screen quality.

We would sell aprrox. 8 million units per year.

We have warranty sevice organizations in North America and EMEA.

chris.bylander@corient.com

I know nothing about hardware or software development, but I’d love to have one of these in my backpack. Just saw a rumor about Apple coming out with a table in October — want to bet it’s closer to $1,000 than $300? Open source hardware / software is the way to go. Brilliant idea!

Wow, like the others I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for something like this. Unfortunately I’m not much of an engineer, programming or otherwise so all I can offer is my guaranteed purchase. Good luck!

Great idea! It’s about time!!! My background includes a stint at SGI with a lot of the guys who did the Tablet-PC after SGI couldn’t afford to continue the development of the SGI-Tablet. I’ll bet you didn’t know there was an SGI-Tablet. We called it the WebTab, and it fit almost every one of your design criterion. Do look out for all the MSFT patents in this space, SGI sold theirs to MSFT and there are a lot of them. Open Source or not, I would think that MSFT would defend itself.

I’d be happy to lend a hand when I’m not fooling around on other stuff. Too rusty to program, but I still know how to market stuff and what folks want.

Beau

I’ve read about half the comments but need to get to work at some point today. I’m definitely in, even as a die-hard Mac user. This could be — and based on the feedback probably needs to become over time — an actual product line. As you envision it, it’s a great tool for the underserved at both ends.

I definitely see it in education and for my 84-year-old mother, who claims not to be bothered by the fact that her years-old windows machine is up on the second floor with a 2-foot-deep CPU hanging out in her face, just as she’s pretty much giving up stairs. (Yet hasn’t checked email in 4 months. You tell me.)

At the same time, I’ve been envisioning a bigger version – called it a ‘cafeteria tray’ after the approximate screen dimensions – for the creatives of the world, since the early 90s. So there are two models right there.

As for my contributions: I haven’t seen anyone sign up in the classic DR/DM copy role that can turn words into sales.

I also design – so I do whole projects and campaigns – and have been for 30 years, but I make it my business to keep the work updated. Nothing is worse, imho, than a creative who’s stuck in a 20-year-old style.

One request — can we make our version of Firefox so you can fill out a form with one press of the Tab key? That feature alone keeps me wedded to Safari, when Firefox does other things better.

sounds like a pepperpad to me.

http://www.pepper.com/solutions/web-devices.html

I’d love to help.

I think the biggest thing that should be kept in mind during the software development phase is the portability of the software over to other platforms and hardware. It would be great to have a nice distro that could achieve this with few modifications to fit other touch devices from handhelds up to 30″ touchscreens!

Also, remote desktop is a must for me, so lets make sure that’s in there somewhere!

Can we call it the Drifter?

Economical, not shackled to a location, loves to travel and tough…

Or…the TC Epiphany…

Wanderer…would make the theme song easy to choose for a commercial…:)

I’m always interested in lending a hand, would love to be on the list, virtual coffee preparer and also not bad at testing and requirements gathering. Let me know if you need yet another helper.

Great idea and sounds like a fun project…not sure why some posters are so negative about the possibility of completing the project, who cares if it fails, but man, what if it takes off?!? How fun would that be!

Thanks!

One general opinion upfront, mainly because it seems to be counter to much of what people are saying in comments: don’t forget the KISS principle.

A lot of people are going to be pressuring you to add lots of gimmicks and gadgets to this, but I think they’re mostly a bad idea, at least for the initial reference implementation. If it’s going to be fully open-source, then variants versions can add features as necessary.

But initially? I’d say that it would be smartest to stay laser-focused on the core idea, which is a pure Webtop. That implies some hardware is important (good Wifi, preferably 802.11n; as good a battery as you can afford; a kick-ass screen), but most of it can and should be deferred. I honestly don’t see much *need* for Bluetooth, or even necessarily USB, for a true thin-client machine. Sure, they’re nice — but not necessary for the core use cases, and it’s important to get the core right first.

Good software will be essential, but most of the critical bits exist already — heck, much of it exists as Firefox add-ins. So picking and choosing the right bits will be the most important job. Again, resist the temptation to write custom software as much as possible. (And there *will* be pressure to do so.)

These projects have a way of spiraling in complexity, and that can be death to them. You’re going to have to fight hard to keep it simple, but it’ll greatly improve the project’s chances.

Good luck! I think it’s a great idea, whose time has come, and I’m likely to buy one…

Please include bluetooth. It’s perfect for this type of device.

It would let people use a real keyboard/mouse if they so desired.
It would let people listen to audio through wireless headphones.
It would allow people to use Skype with a wireless headset
It would allow for the use of a cell phone as an internet connection when no WiFi is available.
It would allow for file transfers to and from many devices.
It would allow for others to develop hardware addons (GPS?) without having to crack the case and risk breaking the device.

I’d definitely be down to help with documentation, usability testing, or anything else that you could use help with. I’m really excited about this, proving that a community can do something like this would be huge.
KBD

At first I laughed and waited to see what will happen, when I started to see the flood of responses.. well. i’m not laughing anymore. As you can imagine open hardware is much more problematic then open software and having some experience in directing product management of “boxes” i know what it takes, and it’s not easy.

But… as someone who started as auto-didactic programmer and in years moved from bit-level programming to my last position as VP Marketing & Products i’m starting to feel the adrenaline..
So if you need a skeptic, customer experience biased , with “some” years hanging around product development, i’d love to contribute, requirement wise, business wise, beta-testing wise etc. (gee.. and i said no pro-bono anymore:) here I fall again

Please count me in. Also interested to sell it to geeks in our country. I’m running a Hardware computer store with distributors spread in entire country.

I’ve been looking for, hoping for, and needing a solution like this for years. Hopefully this idea will come to fruition and if my two-bits would amout to anything amid the flood of responses shoot me an e-mail and I’ll do what I can.

id like to help

let me know/include me in the site change. i can contribute along with the hundreds of others (programming), but either way id be interested to watch the progression.

A few things.

i think pdf is essential for this device to succeed. many documents on the web, as well as in corporate environs, are in the pdf format. I know acrobat is not open source, but the pdf spec is, open and there are many o/s readers available for linux.

The 4 gig ssd mentioned by the op is a bit overkill in my opinion and will add significantly to the price. , splashtop http://www.splashtop.com/, an instant – on system is already developed, and i believe needs less than 500mb for installation.
personally, i would rather have an extra 512 mb of ram (to guarantee performance) over an extra 2 or 3 gigs of space.

i would love to be a part of this project!

i’m interested in partitipating. pls notify me on proceedings

Wish I was useful to this project as anything but a consumer. I’ve read some of the naysayers commenting, and really, the reason alot of the things puported to compete against this concept are/were half baked, or seriously overpriced at best. If the iPhone was about 3x larger (and not 3x the price) I suspect that this blog would have never come to pass. Just a web browser that I can start up and use fast is all I need at home 98% of the time. An external keyboard (wireless) would be a nice option.

This sounds like a great project and I’d love to be involved. I have C/C++, Ruby, and web programming experience and have been looking to get more involved with the open source community. Let me know when the development site goes up.

Definitely like to help… It was something that I thought should exists for a while…

Can help with organizing/keeping track, and bridging gaps between expertise that seems to be gathering, got a lot of time, and a bit of experience in everything.

Accounting, marketing, web design, t-shirt printing, a bit of programing, promoting and a bias that every gadget should have touch screen features.

I think the key is to make sure the price is attainable, have great channels/chains for distribution and global local marketing, keep it at doing its minimal (focus on core hardware core software UI, simplicity, and battery life), and have the first commercial products out asap.

I have no programming experience, but I’d be happy to help in any way I can. =]

Make sure you make it easy for us to mod it. Add in an extra gig of ram, etc.
and Gimp/Inkscape would be missed. It is a tablet after all. (;

I am a hardware/software consultant, so I can be of some assistance with the build. I would like to help with the getting the system specs finalized and then help look for parts for the build.

fantastic idea. i’m very interested. if you plan on adding additional languages to this great little machine, please do contact me, i’d be delighted to help with the German translation.

I have a lot of experience documenting embedded Linux devices and would be pleased to be a part of the project. Please keep me in mind.

I would love to help in any way I can. I have experience with Java, J#, and C#.

I’m in for helping however I can. I can do web software development, hardware testing, general nerding… whatever I can to be a part of this one.

Unfortunately i doubt i’d be able to lend a hand in this.
Regarding Brian’s comment (#382), I think including Aviary (http://a.viary.com/) somehow would be pretty nice.

Good luck with this fellas! I’d love to see this come into fruition!

Im a programmer and id like to help too, I have experience in xul, and think it would be a good idea to create the whole interface in xul, which also allows an easy interface with firefox

I would definetely go for the stunning XO2 looks. A wifi tablet plus simple and plain agenda/notebook/e-reader, this thing would be hot and be the next Moleskine! And the output could help to make the OLPC v2 real.

I’d hope it’d have WebKit on it so we could have the pretty web instead of the plain and boring web you get with Firefox dragging their feet to adopt CSS3.

You sure would sell more if you had the ‘pretty web’ as a selling point with clean text rendering.

Another key point is the text rendering engine. If this isn’t perfect it’s gonna be a pretty looking paperweight. ATSUI grayscale is top of the line here for preventing eye fatigue and reducing eye-strain related injuries. Freetype is slowly catching up too.

And yes, PDF reader. For the comic book fans. CBR, CAR, and CBZ can be converted to lossless compressed PDFs. For portability better anyway.

yes! i’d love to help with the software…

-bowerbird

I’d like to contribute. My expertise is towards UI and Accessibility. In particular: color design. Not color design as in colors matching your personality, yada, yada. But color design as in helping to structure information. As in jet cockpits, architecture or UI design.

Firefox 3? Brrrrrrr.

WebKit is light years ahead.

Ask Aza Raskin, they clearly copied much from Safari.

But as Picasso himself said, bad artists copy, great artists steal.

Understand that Firefox will soon be the new IE.

We need to be encouraging a fractured competitive marketplace for browsers. Not another African dictatorship where it’s 50% for the Hutus and 50% for the Tutsis. Exactly what we don’t want is a Firefox vs IE.

What we want is many great browsers.

Proposing to name such an ingenious idea as the Firefox Tablet is firstly unimaginative, and secondly dangerous.

Don’t be fooled by “not for profit”. There’s big bucks going down. It’s the Mozilla Corporation after all.

In any event, WebKit is, from all points of view, superior.

Surely TechCrunch is hip to this?

I’m in for Firefox plugins and web programming

Considering the number of people who are interested in working on it software wise, It might be a good idea once the hardware has been hacked out to offer first run of the hardware with nothing on it as a dev-kit for the 200-300 dollars, some people would want to participate in making it web savvy, others like myself would be more interested in other apps. Which could be collected and offered via download. I have been wanting a piece of hardware exactly like this, for both web surfing and as a interface to my desktop systems…

What a great Idea !!!!, I’d love to use one. Please keep me posted

I’m very excited about this project. It sounds to me, from the specs, that you could probably mod an Asus EEE PC as a prototype. It has nearly everything and it’s in a tiny form factor. Just connect a 10″ touch screen to it and make a custom case and you’re pretty much there.

I would prefer Linux over BSD, but it’s really kind of irrelevant considering you’re main GUI is going to be Firefox.

Perhaps have a gyro or motion sensor of some sort, like the iPhone, so if you turn the tablet longways, the screen will rotate to accommodate. Yes, this is a direct rip-off of the iPhone, but it’s a great feature and adds functionality.

Have you looked into the development of Ubuntu Mobile Edition? It seems like it would be perfect for this project. Minimalistic hardware with a touch screen interface. It could probably be adapted.

I would be interested in working on this project. I only have limited open source experience, but I have worked with extensively with linux and C.

Wow. Just the clamoring alone should be confirmation that there is a market for this. I’m not a programmer, but I’d love to help with any proofreading, soft- or hardcopy, and end product testing. I handle my organization’s Distance Education for teacher professional development, so I have lots of experience planning for the lowest common tech-ability denominator.

Why are we still stuck thinking about an LCD screen??
Should we not be thinking about using Epaper??
This should increase battery life by an enormous amount. And colour is on its way.
Way better to read from also.. This way, as mentioned before it could be a note-pad or newspaper or book or whatnot..

Also, why not make the physical case OpenSource like OpenMoko has done??
That way, people can design their own cases and print them on their own OpenSource rapidproto machines (refer to RepRap)

The speeddial add-on for firefox should be capable of giving your initial button layout.

Awesome initiative guys.
I’ll be queuing up to buy one if you pull this off!

I would love to help troubleshoot and debug. Please email me.

Great idea. Would love to get involved.

I would be interested in working on this product on the software side.

Menon

I’m in, let me know.

Hi,
We are working with and organisation that can provide wireless device hardware design and build services (out in Asia).

Our belief is that this kind of hardware, wireless (connected to the 3g network) device is the future. We’re also in the early stages of concepting a platform to connect.

Keen to see if we can help bring this to reality!

Hi, im interesting in the electronic schematics, maybe i can reach anything.

Computer Engineer working for a company that builds Linux Based portable devices. I would be very interested in helping anyway I can. I know the platform is still up in the air so I was hoping to direct your attention to the DaVinci Processor from TI. It’s an ARM based RISC processor with an additional DSP core designed by TI implemented in one chip.

http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/davinci/dm355.html

It’s a great design and has a good developer community behind it and it runs linux just great. Look forward to a the official development website and any help that I can be.

I’ll have to go with any engine that can handle XUL and POW – the in browser server extension.

Oh yeah and Flock! Or bundle Firefox with Yoono, Zotero, and Stumbleupon.

Peer to peer culture (not just for videos folks) is the only firewall against net neutrality.

Aeons ago the Web community killed the TV of the Web – push technology. We then created RSS. End of story.

Don’t let this become a puerile clicky device. Encourage peer content production.

This sounds awesome!! I would love to work on this. I’ve been an interaction designer for eight years, I previously worked on mobile devices for a large mobile phone company, with a primary focus on multimedia applications.

If you want a resume I’d be happy to send it along. Brilliant idea!

I’ve been looking into this for years. Even figured out a way to do it as part of my job for the last year. I’ve learned a lot and would be happy to share for the good of the project.

For your SSD, I think a standard SDHC SD slot would probably work best in terms of price/power consumption/performance. SD is about as standard as you can get, and you can’t buy a Micro or Mini SD without getting an upconverter shell. Throw the OS SD card in the case (Surely 2GB would be enough for the OS, so you could actually use a cheaper non-SDHC here) and have another one or two SD card slots (SDHC) on the outside (file swapping).

Please keep me updated I would like to help if I can

I created the Atari STylus pen-based computer back in 1991 – around the same time as the Grid, Momenta and Apple Newton devices – I’ve been involved in various computing and consumer products over the years – currently as CTO for a toy company. I’d love to help as I could, with technical specs, manufacturing/supply chain contacts, whatever.

My biggest caveat is to FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT against all the lists of “required” features – your cost/weight/battery life will quickly get out of control – use the web/server/cloud for AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.

A good example: I believe I saw a “FriendBook” app for the iPhone – hold two iphones together, and shake’em – data gets exchanged. New hardware/communications stack/etc on the iPhone? Nope – just servers that notice 2 iPhones being shaken in the same “location” – so they must want to exchange data. Ingenious ue of remote resources.

I’m interested in testing the product and putting it through real-life scenarios. I have the ear of the search marketing community and can assist in evangelizing the product.

I might be able to help on the hardware site. Feel free to email me.

I would like to offer GoPC. It’ a floating PC desktop, or virtual desktop, with a full suite of desktop applications to rival Micorsoft and storage delivered from the cloud. Just a linking icon needs to be installed on the tablet as everything runs as a service from the cloud. It’s an implementation of cloud computing but presents at the application layer.

It will open a window to literally dozens of Linux Open Source desktop and web based applications that support all the common file formats for word, excel, powerpoint, pdf’s, etc. without any license costs. With everything running online nothing has to be stored or dependent on the tablet. It also has collaboration.

We wanted to offer this to the OLPC project. The Tablet would be perfect for it. A simple demo can be seen easily at http://virtual.gopc.net. The main website is http://www.gopc.net. It’s technically very mature and has been running live 4 years.

I would love to help, keep me in the loop.

Engineering student, happy to help any way needed.

I would love to help, keep me in the loop.

oh Screen size needs to be at least the size of a standard keyboard.

Call it a Wablet for Web enabled Tablet but whatever you do, don’t require it to be x86 based. There are much better chips out there like PowerPC, Mips, and ARM which can be excellent at both power conserving and are powerful enough. Maybe a TI OMAP based SOC with the added DSP capabilities.

Another negative with doing x86 is that it also lets one 800lb gorilla step in and screw things up. And love it or hate it, Adobe Flash has got to run on it and run well.

I hope you all can pull it off because ASUS and all the others have pretty much abandoned the low end( ~$250 ) and moved into the ~$500 range. You also might look into what is going on in Europe with that peoples laptop. It’s ARM based too I believe. Good luck.

Love this idea and would enjoy playing a role. Count on me for Sales and Marketing support and acquisition of exclusive premium content.

This didn’t register last time.

I am willing to do what ever you need me to do. Hell I want to buy one.

Personally, I would rather have a good e-book than another tablet pc or God help us, another Kindle. A good E-Book should open up like a regular book, be approximately 8X10X1-1/2, have a screen like the iphone on both sides, forward, back and scrolling buttons, have the ability to highlight text, change font sizes (for us old fogies that need bigger fonts). A USB and or a card reader. A replaceable battery, something like the Nikon EN-EL3e? with solar cells for recharging. No keyboards, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, MP3 Players, video games, GPS, etc. Just you’re BASIC BOOK that you can read! The outside could be covered with faux leather or nylon, with a zipper fastener or a simple Velcro strap. You should be able to down load regular books, text books, tech manuals, catalogs, newspaper articles, comic books, in other words, you should be able to down load anything that can be printed.

I would love to help any way i can. i am currently in an IT roll maintaining desktop computer hardware and some network equipment. end user testing would be fun

thanks

Name it the Foxlet.

I would love to help with the overall design of the unit. Alas, I suspect you’ve probably already got plenty of people offering advice and assistance in that department. So, I’ll offer my assistance with documentation. I fancy myself a decent writer (see for samples) and have a knack for making technical topics understandable to the average user. I also have over twenty-five years experience in the tech world to draw upon.

Also, I’ll ask this — why does it have to be wafer thin? Sure, you don’t want it as thick as a laptop, but unless you can get the thinness for the same price, that would be the first place I’d sacrifice a few millimetres.

I would add the capability to plug it in (via USB) to another computer in order to reload the OS. Make it look like a flash drive or something to the other computer so you can just drop an image onto it.

I would also argue that two or more USB ports (for keyboard and mouse) are far more important than making it super-model skinny. See, I would love one for my back hall to access the family’s google calendars and to leave notes to each other (gotta have a post-it note type application, btw) but for that, we’d want an external keyboard. And while fingers are fine for low-res applications like the credit card scanner at the grocery store, a real mouse/trackball is practically necessary for things like google maps (getting directions) and so on.

And since you *know* people will be putting these in their cars, you need a USB port for the GPS unit to plug into. Oh, and while you’re at it, try and make the input power 12v if you can, for ease of running it in the car. (Although, come to think of it, the slick thing to do would be to have a stand with integrated charging contacts in it so you just drop it in to recharge it and run off the mains power.)

Anyway, it sounds to me like you’re trying to do a modern version of an Audrey — which I’m all in favor of. In fact, if you can hit the $200 price point, I’ll take three of them (one for the aforementioned hall, one for the bedroom, and one for the Land Rover.)

Oh, and you might want to add in an IR transmitter (or whatever TV remotes use these days) so, with the right software, it could be a fancy TV/Cable remote control.

btw, the location of the power button in your mock-ups is a Very Bad Idea. You know people will be holding it like a newspaper and continually switching it off by accident. A better place would be near the center at the top.

To sum up. You want to make open source web tablet, with multi-touch screen that will cost under 200$, without support of any big corporation. Just one word on my mind. Impossible. That’s why it is Awesome idea. It could flip everything upside down.

I would do it in Apple style.
1) Keep It Simple, but
2) Remember about proffesionals and geeks.

1) Hardware. Basic version. Two main things. Display. Battery. For newbies display must be big (10?) and easy to use. Battery life should be more than 4h (let’s keep it real… i don’t belive in “2 days”). What’s more. No bluetooth, GPS, GPRS, 3G. My mom doesn’t know it exist and let’s keep it that way. One, maybe two USB (if they aren’t expensive). Remember you’ve got just around 200-300$. Headphone jacks, low end speakers, and a microphone – YES. A built in camera for video – i’m not so sure (depends on cost).
Software. Everything in the browser. Great idea. Of course you must redesign it for easy multi-touch screen use, but looking onto response, you wan’t have much problem with that one

2) Hardware. Web tablet will be open source, so different corporation will make different versions. But it must be possible to fit there things like: additional storage, memory cards (memory card slot), bluetooth, keyboard (usb), etc. I think that it could have various battery capacity.
Software. Simplicity for newbies, but you should allow people who know linux well to modify web tablet’s system. Install apps (not only web). It would be great to run emulator on this kind of machine.
Make space for hacks (sw, hw) and you will have all those people who don’t buy Apple.

Of course i don’t have to tell you how excited i’m about that project and that in my opinion it could be revolutionary not only for mobile devices, but also for web apps.

Unfortunately i won’t be able to help you (unless you need poor quality translation to polish, or just some thoughts . I’m still studing and i’m afraid that this project needs some experience (especially in hw design).

Can’t wait to see prototype, and of course to buy one

I might be interested in helping. I have programming skills in C, C++, etc and some minimal kernel programming experience. Add me to the list. Cheers.

Great idea!

I would like to contribute to this project if you need help contact me i have some experience

UX designer wanting to help here, drop a line anytime.

I’m offering GoPC, a floating PC desktop or virtual PC desktop. An implementation of “cloud” computing presented at the application layer it includes dozens of Open Source desktop and web applications pre-configured along with storage and management, but nothing more than a linking icon needs to be installed on the tablet device.

There’s full compatibility with standard file formats such as word, excel, powerpoint, pdf’s etc. It includes collaboration, email, chat, education, enterprise app’s and more. None of the applications or user data is installed or saved on the tablet.

It’s technically mature, been running live 3.5 years and a demo can be viewed at http://virtual.gopc.net or the main website at http://www.gopc.net.

We’re hoping the OLPC project will use it. I think the TechCrunch Tablet would be perfect for it. Technically it is trivial.

Michael has put his advertising knowledge in to a viral product and if this is going to give me N810 with a larger screen, I am in it! As software is largely available as open source, it is the hardware that we need to find, cheap. Touch screens are coming in those Asus EEPC (Newer ones) could be a source.

You guys are seriously awesomesauce for putting this together. Please put me on the mailing list for this one. I’m not much for programing or hardware, but I’d like to help out anyway I can, starting with this. Get on the horn with Light Blue Optics, they make portable projectors and could probably get you some sort of deal with them. Also check out Skyhook Wireless, for GPS over a connection. Look into Fring for IM and Skype support, and add Miro for podcast receiving. Also consider making it modular to save on pricing, so you could add on a projector, 3G, bluetooth, video out, and whatever else you can come up with as you come up with it. Best of luck, guys.

Been saying to my old Mum for years that this type of device what they need. Don’t forget that age group in your marketing. Other markets: would love to be involved.

Hello, I am very interested in this project. I’m an undergrad (senior) at Harvard studying Applied Mathematics, Economics, and Computer Science and I have a pretty comprehensive programming background but also a solid finance background as well so I would like to help out in any way possible.

This is great, and likely to give cloud computing a big boost. I’m still in school, but I’d like to help in anyway I can. I would love to work on the touchscreen, thoug I dont have much experience.
I know Python and C. Please put me on the mailing-list, this is too exciting.

The amount of support so far is amazing, but so far its stuck in a blog comment system. I’d be happy to help with organization of the project, be it in forums, people management, etc. Yes, right now it is just an idea (a good one) but if you’re actually going to do this, you’re going to have to get organized. My background is mostly in Web Design but I’m all around computer literate and would be more than happy to help anywhere.

…I am onboard

I am an engineering student, been a major computer nerd for some time, have built desktop and laptop systems. Also a Senior Member/Product reviewer on the Notebook Review and Tablet PC review forums, and am heavily interested in this project. I’d love to help out on the hardware of the system and in general development.

[...] TechCrunch: Help Us Build It TechCrunchIT: The Techcrunch Web Tablet Project TechCrunchIT: Techcrunch Web Tablet Part #2 [...]

Since the idea of this device is to use Firefox as OS, you should consider something like eyeOS ( http://www.eyeos.org ) so people would be able to work with a web operating system from the techcrunch device.

We create training to be delivered on mobile devices for the Medical, Real Estate Investing, OSHA, and Legal fields. This unit would be awesome to use to upload content for individual field study and also to connect with the websites for uploading certification tests.

Please keep me posted…we definitely want to be in on the beta…and to test out downloading our created content.

CJ Anderson,
Vice President and CLO , JIT Learning

Very cool project.

I’ve have 10+ years of experience in consumer hardware, battery powered devices and manufacturing. Founded, ran and sold a mobile CE technology & hardware company for 6 years backed by east coast VC – our product won Best of CES from Fortune. I can help with specifications, testing, graphics, marketing collateral, manufacturing vendor management, ID agency management.

You have a lot of volunteers already – given that I’m physically based out here in the far east these days, perhaps I can contribute with management and liaison with the hardware vendor. (E.g. Spec iteration with the vendor to hit target price-point, physically going and seeing the production set-up etc.)

I was kind of avoiding mentioning WebKit in my previous post, although I was definitely thinking about it. But since some others brought it up already I definitely want to second the idea. At least in terms of researching it while developing the system, before making any assumptions and just committing to Firefox by default.

I’ve used the WebKit API some, and it’s very nice and powerful. We could use it to develop a browser customized better for the tablet’s touch screen input I think. My impressions have been that it feels significantly more responsive than Firefox 3, at least on Linux. Firefox seems great for me on Windows, but not as good on Linux. This is just a general impression though, I haven’t done specific benchmarking.

Just something to think about further at some point.

I’d be interested in this device, I am onboard!

I would love to help.

I was pondering the applications for something like this; here’s some ideas I came up with:

Hotels — at this price (and if it had a lockable mount on the back — same as flat panel tv’s?) Hotels could see their way to put them in hotel rooms for guests to be able to see what’s going on and what services are available, as well as access the web, etc.

Waiting rooms — oil changers, doctors, etc. There are lots of places where people have to wait and may not have their laptops. Again, at $200, businesses could make these available.

Surveys, forms, etc. — Survey takers already use tablets; this would just be a less expensive version.

Photographers — This has been mentioned, but it’s a great market.

Photo frame — Sure, this could do so much more, but people already pay $200 just for digital photo frames and this can do so much more.

Seniors — Many seniors are already computer savvy, but for those still tech-shy, this could be a great, affordable introduction. (Plus, see the photo frame bit — seniors have grandkids.)

Cars — I mentioned this before, but plug in a GPS and you’ve got a great mapping device. That mounting option is important here, as is the USB.

Announcements — You know how they have those signs in hotels saying what’s going on and where each meeting/conference is? Why not put one of these on a stand and have it display a web page with the same info? That way, you don’t have to go to it to update it and you can have one at each door displaying the same up-to-date info.

btw, is there any reason the main storage couldn’t be a removable module (think of the Handspring Springboard module)? Even if it were just a card slot, then people could plug in their own 32gb CF card if they wanted, or go with the basic 4gb card.

Also, don’t put 47 different card slots in the device; there’s no need for the cost or the space for that when USB card readers are dirt cheap.

Sounds like a very interesting project. And by the looks of it, you have a great deal of interest! I think you’ve hit on something here.

I can create a VERY stripped down version of the linux kernel that would be perfect for your web appliance. Creating an image with just the drivers to your custom hardware can make it boot very quickly.

You’ll want to run an X-server and window manager, but we’ll pare it down to just the basics. Also, we can change the look/feel so that it matches your interface design.

I say go for it with all of the hardware features! Pack as much in as you can for the cost — the more the merrier. Ideally, we’ll need to write a services backend that interfaces with those devices seamlessly (much the way Ubuntu has done recently).

Also, a pet project of mine is an on-screen-keyboard that minimizes to a button and maximized to a full QWERTY. The original purpose was to control a computer hooked up to my television with a WiiMote, but I think it would also be perfect for your device as well. I’ll stick it on sourceforge just for this project.

Sounds fun! If you are still interested in another set of hands / eyes, give me a ring.

Worked on something similar that the company decided not to ship (took too long to develop and so the h/w was underpowered by the time it finished, web media is pretty demanding). One thought – if you end up picking an ARM or the like, consider making an SDK available under qemu so people can develop even w/o purchasing the h/w.

I second the motion for a FireFox status bar instead of a Gnome panel. You’re going to need meager parts for a sub-$300 device and running full-on Gnome just for a panel and keyboard doesn’t make sense on minimal hardware. I’d put status in a FF toolbar, then pick something like Fluxbox as the WM, running the keyboard through GTK libs.

I’d love to contribute by giving feedback and helping test the device either with a prototype (wink wink, nudge nudge) or a VM!

Dimdim will donate the collaboration software so people can do chat, desktop sharing, and more all within the browser with no additional software needed.

I’m a QA engineer for a premier UMPC maker and a former QA Engineer/EE for a premier PC Tablet company. I’d be happy to provide testing and test planning for this device. I have years of experience in testing tablet based computers and I think this product has great potential and would love to add my expertise.

JK

ok, i know what is beeing talked about is simple, but what about merging linux and firefox into an os

I would love to be involved in the marketing of this. I’ve a background in Web application and Internet connectivity services product management, if you’re still looking for marketing and business development folks.

Make it cheaper and easier to build — just make it a think client. Peace.

Please include bluetooth.
Please expose some connectors for docking stations.
Please include a light detector.
Please make the plastics kit easy to change (aftermarket addons, solar, induction, etc).
Please add micro sd.

Please don’t make it look like a mac.

i would love to be involved in this, what ever i can do to help! It would be great to have a tablet pc for web, and the possibilities are endless! We’ve seen that Asus have designed a tiny version of linux on a ROM chip on their high-end motherboard range. Also the intel atom chip is getting more powerful and better thermally designed making it ideal for a low profile web browsing tablet.
If theres anything i can do to help with this please, count me in!

oh, please add accelerometers too.

Very interesting project! I’d like to help too

I’ve been waiting for this unit. Good luck!

Would love to stay in the loop!

Why not make this a digital book as well?

then I’d really carry it around everywhere, all the time…

talk to the guys who have the Amazon Kindle screen technology.
or the ones who make the One Laptop Per Child screens.
anyone know more details on who these people / companies are?

I am in…

Sounds like a fantastic idea! Please put me on the list.

I love the idea and it sounds like a really fun project. Let me know how I can contribute and make this happen!

I can help make the interface pretty

I would be interested in contributing.

This project has a huge personal interest to me. This would be something I would use on a daily basis – for work and personal! I have a laptop, but it’s to thick/awkward/slow. A quick boot/thin/touch screen would be IDEAL.

Here’s what I can offer – something people typically don’t think about when starting a project. Distributor(s)! Getting your product to your customer can sometimes be half the battle. FireFold.com is a full fledged E-Commerce store dealing in cables/parts very related to this device. FireFold has a massive warehouse with a large staff which could house the products/move them to the customers. Contact me via Robbie@FireFold.com if you have any interest.

ok, count me in… i can do graphic and product design, spanish translation, and imagine things (at this point you must have an army of designers).

Maybe coordinate worldwide efforts to pitch in as many contributors as possible. (educational services, non-profits, donations, etc.)

Hint: if you guys manage to get:

- an OS inside the bootloader.
- SDHC card reader.
- Wifi
- one usb port
- sound from headphone jack only (no speakers).
- speaker
- crappy webcam
- 5 to 8 hours of battery
- a pen to write and touch the screen (no writing recognition) beside the touchscreen thing.
- a 12″ or 13″ screen (7″ to 10″ screen are lame)
- and no hard drive… (use online storage or SD card)
- 1 gb ram and a decent video card (decent as “my app doesn’t freeze”)
- enough swap drive to play a streaming movie.
- and a bag that actually holds the tablet with it’s charger, and a pouch to put SD cards

That would be awesome.

This is a great idea. I was excited about netbooks until I found out how small the screens are. The internet / web is a *visual* experience and an internet terminal should have a large screen. With something like this tablet, a 15.4″ screen with 1440 x 900 resolution (both minimum) would be ideal.

I am an Architect and budding UI expert (I have read a lot of books and have a lot of theories. I would offer input on both the software and hardware design with an emphasis on usability.

Sounds like your interface will be the browser, but I can do any other interface design, or sound design, if needed. Drop me an e-mail!

UE designer here. This sounds absolutely amazing! I’d be very happy to pitch in if you need me.

Hi I think it sounds wonderfull just hope its not overpriced and has a good touch – multi touch screen like the iphone. Sounds Great it should run linux and have firefox, wifi, flash, vlc, games etc
Please let me know when its out and where to buy XD

I’m a web designer and developer, currently resided in Singapore. Tell me if you need any help in my expertise.

I would love to help, as I was frustrated by the market for not creating such a nice tablet myself, but do not have the capital or business ability to bring such a device to market.

For the tablet, besides thinness, we need battery life and minimal bezel around the display. I’m not sure what’s the feasibility of ARM processor, if it can hold up to providing glitch-free hulu.com videos.

For the software, if we boot straight to firefox, we should have a folder to install offline web applications, like a notepad, a calculator, a unit converter, and a paint.

Ladies and Gentlemen, having worked for Intel Capital Europe and now started two successful European start-ups (Germany, UK), it would be an honor to support the business modelling, the execution and the marketing of the Web Tablet here in the European markets.
Keep me posted about your progress, best regards, Tom

I would absolutely LOVE to be part of a project like this, unfortunately I don’t know what sort of expertise I could offer.

We woud love to get ahold of something like this in Malawi. Our group places 10″ touchscreens at every point of patient care in hospitals and clinics treating HIV, TB and other diseases. Currently we use a modified iOpener which we add a touchscreen to, run Firefox in Kiosk mode and squeeze our own Linux distro onto a 16MB ROM. All of our specs (hardware and software) are open source and we would love to contribute anything we could. We have been looking for a piece of commodity hardware like this as opposed to building the electronics ourselves. A video of our device in use: http://www.baobabhealth.org/2007/06/26/patient-registration-video/ Our requests: do it and do it fast. You will literally save lives.

I have been thinking and researching about the similar device for few weeks now. Would love to join the team. Count me in. Background: embedded software.

I have many years of writing documentation in English and Spanish, in any text format and html. I would be interested in participating in this project to provide such documentation, both from a technical standpoint and from a client perspective. Additionally I could provide input including end user and web site testing.

I really hope you’re reading every comment , cost Im #491

How I can contribute :
1. I am based in Shanghai/China, and am willing to travel to meet with vendors suppliers if needed.
2. I am a manager at DHL, the world’s largest Logistics & Express company, I can try to do everything under my authority to provide air & sea freight at cost-price.
3. I interned as assistant to the Asia CIO of DHL in Singapore. We just might have a company that would be interested on piloting this product with its sales guys on the field.

Why I want to contribute :
1. I am an Apple loyalist. But if successful, this product will take beautiful design, ease-of-use and cost-effective technology to a whole new level. I want to be a part of it.
2. If the project kicks-off, I would like to explore an expansion of the project for social benefit as well (like OLPC)

Dhanur: yes we are reading every comment

we are sending out emails to each person who contacts and wil be answering questions with an FAQ post tomorrow

I’d drop $200 right now to reserve mine.

I want to use this tool for our “Lapchat” platform.

I’d be happy to help out with this project!

I can help with customising firefox (create, editing, adding extensions), I can help with and web design that you may require and i can also test the Web Tablet.
I’d really like to help with this brilliant idea!

Great idea!
I would like to help you with the hardware design sinse I’m indusrial product designer.

This sounds almost too good to be true, but hey I’ll definitely help out if I can. I’m an electrical engineer with experience in embedded systems (HW and SW).

I have been searching for companies to make this product for two years. With RDP and/or xRDP this is the ultimate one-to-one computing device for schools. See my vision that I posted awhile ago http://jstocksdale.googlepages.com . I am working with one company on this vision now, but I am certainly eager to see how your project progresses. Could be “the thing”. Please contact me if you want my help on the educational front.

I’m studying architecture in Poznan, Poland. This piece of hardware is all I ever wanted. I can surely help in simple 3D modelling and additional design, if you want to. It will be real pleasure. I’m into Linux since 2005, so software testing is also something for me, I think

+ Sorry for my English, I’m still studying +

Hello! I’m form Poland. I want help you whit marketing in west europ. I have lots of e-friend whit big and popular website. Please e-mail me!

I probably can’t do anything to help develop the thing. I will absolutely but it! Where can I register for that?

I mean BUY it, of course.

Put this tablet avaliable internationally (non-US countries) too.

hey i would love to design a little animation that plays when the user turns on the device. i could also record a tune in conjuction.

Hi,

I’d like to join to the table team too! I could help to sell it in CEE SEE regions.

Regards,
Daniel

Hi, I’m very interested in joining the team! Graphics of all kinds are my area of expertise although 3d is my main thingie. I’m currently working on an animated feature film and have earlier experience in making games for the Playstation 3.

Best regards,
Patrik

Hello! I’m interested in joining the team. I can help in translation (English – Polish), debugging, beta-testing. Please, email me.

Yours Sincerely,
Johhny

This is exactry what I wanted. count me in.
I’m a Japanese product engineer, lots of experience in localization works as well.
I think the good battery life is madatory.

Product design & engineering if you need it.

I’m ready to help too.

I would really like to see this happen, but I wonder if Nik is the guy to make it happen. I picked up this link which doesn’t mean he can’t, but it means all of us enthusiasts need to be careful:

http://www.gooruze.com/members/claycook/blog/119381/My-experience-investing-in-Nik-Cubrilovic-and-Omnidrive/

Love to be involved! (UK participant!)

great idea! Count me in!

This is something that I would love to see. My interest would be more on the hardware side secifically the LCD and touch interface as I’m been look into this of late for some other idea’s. I’m an Electrical Engineer.

Count me in (for firefox hack)

Interested as “potential customer” and happy to help with italian & french translations!!
Good luck

I will be great a VNC version, as already mentioned, to use it as a cheap tablet pen over a ‘remote’ desktop pc.

It will convert the tablet in a cheap alternative to this other device:
http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/index.cfm

great project !
count me in for german localization and translation.

If you need some tester I’am first
And You can count on me in for polish localization and translation.

Count me in.
French translation, beta testing, and general comments about uses and stuffs.

Please keep me updated. I am primarily interested in new and better types of eReaders, but this idea comes very close to something I’ve always wanted.

I can help with an perspective from within academia (where a lot of people are waiting for something like this in order to have a portable eReader with Zotera capabilities).

Thanks,
Matthias

I work as software tester in Trader Media (TMECC).
If i can be usefull in software testing, let me know!

Excited to see you charging ahead with this. I’ve been anticipating just such an “appliance” as part of an overall project to use open source philosophy (software, hardware, and social) to transform our educational system. I’m a retired Navy Commander with over 25 years managing projects on the cutting-edge. Just spent the last 6 years as a high school teacher, and have developed a vision that would put just such a tablet at each school desk in our country. I strongly encourage you to consider the student and classroom as designing. Two hardware aspects would be a fingerprint reader and ability to plug in keyboard. Also, I recommend designing with major components able to be easily swapped out, so that repairs and upgrades over the life of a Large school purchase could be accomplished in house. Would love to talk further.

I almost forget, i can translate from english to polish.

Sure, count me in. Looks awesome. Dunno how much I can help with, but I’ll find something!

I like the idea, and I hope it goes through well.

Sounds like an interesting idea. I’d be interested in contributing hardware or software wise.

Linux/Firefox/backend coding expertise offered – drop me a line.

Great idea! Count me in to! (development, translation,… whatever)

You’ve got a mail.

I’m interest in the project, i can help for French translation, mail me if your interest in

Fabulous idea! Should have happened long ago!

I second all the posts suggesting the e-book functionality /even if a power cable has to dangle off it for a better part of overnight reading in bed/.

My personal favourite would be dictionaries, translators and other books for studying languages.

Better still, I’d love to be able to read a book and have a dictionary running in the background so that when I click on a word or a phrase in a text the translation into some other language or pronunciation will pop up in the balloon. That would be a hit for all learners of foreign languages!

use this http://elinux.org/BeagleBoard and http://beagleboard.org/media.
or tegra from nvidia ( if will be open )

This project is wonderful!

As a french computer science engineer student, I would love to work for it. I can help for the dev, the translation, …

This is very exiting.
I’ll help wherever I can!

This sounds promising. I work in education/industry and am also a Microsoft administrator (MCP/MCDST) Please send me the particulars about being added to this testing group.

A little late to the thread i guess – however, i am very interested, have comp sci background, expertise in java/c++ app/server design, will help with any software dev required, and/or testing of the product emulated or further along, code/design review, any way possible.

Bismar has started to build one of an asus eeepc 900.
here is the link: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=693962

I hope he can help to build one.

sry, he has build of the eeepc 701.

I’ve started a google groups for this for people to get started immediately. I have been working on a similar project for awhile and have had some progress. I haven’t heard anything back from the organizers so I thought I would start a google groups in the mean time. If anyone wants to dive in, sign up at: http://groups.google.com/group/200-web-tablet

Now this could be the perfect hardware for something I’m working on which also has some similarities in the stack as well. Cool. Plus it will be the perfect toy as long as it’s bigger than the N180. The ‘web appliance’ is real close

I’d be more than happy to help. I work with After effects and am involved with broadcast right now so I can push for the product in non-US markets. I have a job with the Times group in December so I can ask them to market the product and send their sales guys in as this is a groundbreaking project. Once again let me know if you have any use for me because i’m more than happy to help.

As long as it has sunlight readable screen I’m in. I tried to read all comments but gave up pretty quickly. Better communication platform is a first thing to do.

I can understand all people here showing their interest.
It’s a great open source project and I’d love to be part of it if possible. I’d like to be a beta tester for this thing.

Would a button for turning of the screen be useful? Like someone said you could use it as a server even. Would be useful to be able to conserve energy.
For the CPU, maybe an arm? They seem to be powerful and good for multimedia purposes.

We have or have access to most of the team that put a browser into a Microwave oven for NCR Research a number of years ago so at least with such a tablet we won’t have similar radiation/heat issues to worry about. Probably now more software biased than hardware but we do still enjoy the odd hack and do employ an industrial designer.

Count me in I think It’s important that Empressr runs on the device

It definitely meets a huge unmet need of a non-profit or educational institution: having access to a technological resource that is affordable, accessible, and effective. I’d love to be involved in brainstorming the non-profit and educational benefits of this product.

I am currently in consulting, but have non-profit and limited web development experience… let me know if you need a hand.

Definately interested in buying. Can help with testing, general feedback, etc. This hits another market sweetspot like the EEE did. Expect Apple to do something like this soon though.

I stand by my earlier post that this should be an instant-on device (using Splashtop or an equivalent), and concur with another poster’s opinion that it should allow booting from SD (I think micro-SD) to allow for installation of alternate OSes. Essentially you’d have a slick piece of hardware with all your basic functionality built-in and instantly accessible. Everyone and their mother would be working on getting the perfect OS onto SD for it (check the eeePC forums if you doubt that.) Imagine consumers buying your $200 tablet then having the choice of buying their own SD card and installing, for example, the Netbook Remix of Ubuntu or buying an SD card from a third-party vendor with XP pre-installed…and being able to swap the OS at will.

My company, RedPost, makes a Firefox-running Ubuntu-based $599 device much like what this web tablet (our RedPost/Sign). We’ve just outsourced it to a Taiwanese company…I’d be able to offer some help choosing an overseas company and sharing the experience we’ve had.

$200-300 is a tough price point to hit unless you go high volume. There are lots of startup costs too…plastic moldings will run $50-60k just for the mold. With high volume, it’s not a problem…

Anyways, my company would hang these things on walls and use them as digital signs. Our web-based software connects to Firefox…we have a customized version of Ubuntu we use to run on our Signs, called Wicker, which may also be useful to this effort.

Anyways, I can help in whatever way is most helpful. Cool idea!

I failed to let you know I’m willing to help with designing the chassis. You don’t want that screen to crack uder a little pressure. Count me in.

Do you think it would be possible/economical to have 2 screens with the second screen being a Paper Electronic Ink type. That ought to bring power use down a lot as far as a note pad goes.

What one ends up with is an ideal mobile office, business, student, researcher etc device that allows you to take notes, source info from the web, store, convert to pdf’s or keep as html pages which can be accessed by the eInk unit to add notes as needed.

Maybe 3 surfaces 2 at the top alongside each other would be the screens – www on left, eInk on right, underneath a keyboard.

The reason i suggest keyboard is that folks like myself have trouble holding little pens and using tiny keyboards.

Relative sizes, how about open paperback book or a smidgeon larger with screens either side and keyboard/pad along bottom. It doesn’t necessarily have to be full size or even Qwerty. In fact it might be better if folks get used to biggish keys and in a new order that allows 2-finger typing to start with and, perhaps, a new form of touch typing. Either way it will maximise access to users across a wider range of skill levels and capabilities. Remember “cute” might look good but “carpal tunnel” lasts forever and there are penalties to be paid for at using your fingers at tremor level typing – fine motor movements are not designed to be continuously outputted (?sp).

Over at Zdnet.com (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=2282) Adrian Kingsley-Hughes started a post titled “The $200 web tablet … dream on!”. I don’t think he’s been following the trend in technology that well. I wanted to leave a comment but you have to register to do that so I’ll just leave it here. Here it goes:
Less than a year ago ebook readers cost over $500. no one would’ve believed Astak would dare to sell a feature packed 9″ version for $350 or that the Amazon would think of selling the kindle for $350 also. Before the dawn of netbooks, the cheapest laptops cost over $650 and now dell wants to sell their Dell E Classic for $299 in August.
Now, Mike has made it clear that this is a barebones web tablet, nothing fancy here. Just a multitouch lcd, wifi, camera, 512 RAM and 4GB flash. Why not. I actually see the cost eventually going down to $150. Don’t be fooled, manufacturers ride the wave of value vs. price. The price of the N810 web tablet has just been slashed to $299, it was close to $500 when it was released last october (less than a year ago). When the original iphone was released on the 9th of January, 2007 the 8GB version cost $599 about 2 months later it was cut down to $399. When the iphone 3g was released on the 11th of July 2008, apple set the prices at $199 and $299 for the 8GB abd 16GB respectively (maybe they’ll soon reduce it to $149 and $249 in two months time). Listen guys, the chips are getting smaller, faster, and more importantly cheaper. Chipsets are transforming into highly integrated chips; and if you think such features are accessible to for top-tier OEMs only think again ‘cuz a beagleboard cost $149 and it’s got a high-end TI chip; it’s more of a computer than a pda type device and it’s open source. You can download the schematics for yourself from the website (if you don’t know what a beagleboard is check out beagleboard.org ). Besides do you realise that this $200 web tablet is in some sense a low end ASUS EeePC with a larger touch-enabled lcd?
If you ask me, I’d say a $200 web tablet is very real and feasible. It just takes someone who’s willing to bring together a group of experienced hardware and software developers; like Mike’s doing right now. And it’s OPEN SOURCE!!!

This form factor would be perfect as an e-book reader also, so would highly recommend the inclusion in your stack selection for PDF, CHM, etc and some DRM e-book readers like Microsoft .lit or Sony’s format also if possible. to really make it very desirable.

I can help some with the software and hardware parts.

For me the best is to use a CPU that has more than 2200 D-MIPS/W, at this moments I only know that ARM cpus can make this criteria but is also possible for MIPS to comply it.

I bet to the development of a platform that support one or two screens and has a max power draw without screens of less than 2w and a typical one of around 500mW.

I like this features:

network tablet
PDF reader
comic book reader (I volunteer to help with this)
foldable double between screen 7″ and 10″ (800×600 minimum resolution, the OLPC screen is the ideal for me) or single 12″ screen (1024×768 minimun resolution)
Wifi
internal USB for use USB memory as cheap SSD (20% cheaper than equivalent SDHC for 32 GB models)

Everything in the post makes me want to go out and buy one of these. I just found this on Engadget, it is the Cowon’s 5-inch P5 and looks similar to this web tablet. The only downside at this point there is no pricing to see if the $200 goal can be meet.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/23/cowons-5-inch-p5-touchscreen-media-player-brings-the-haptic-hap/

Very nice and interesting idea. I can help with software development and beta testing.

^^^
GDX – throw in Bluetooth too – nice idea with internal USB for cheap SSD

Making the chassis a little more spacious would allow for modding like the EEE PC so more uses can be developed and hardware integrated e.g. GPS as a 3rd party mod.

This has the potential to be a killer device

I think this is a great idea and have been dying for something similar for a long time(atm, I do a lot of inventorying in a warehouse/MER). Was looking into tablets, but I think this would be an even better solution.

I’ve read a lot of the users feedback and suggestions on what should be added. All with merit. But I believe the original idea and course of the product, to be a dead simple browser with wifi and maybe skype, is all you need. I’m looking forward to reading more about it and letting my geek heart fantasize about the day when I’ll have one.

Keep up the good work!

My input, after reading a lot of comments:

1) Love the idea, I’ll buy one if you end up selling them for under $300
2) Keep it simple. Packing tons of features in might be nice, but we all know how hard feature creep is to undo, especially in hardware. Web surfing / phone with ability to install your own stuff (assuming you know enough to do so) is a perfect place to start.
3) Look at both Gecko (Firefox) and WebKit before deciding on a browser. Not saying which one to use, just saying don’t automatically assume Firefox.
4) Flash may be hard to distribute unless you’re prepared to sign stuff with Adobe. Gnash and swfdec are pretty good, but may not be “quite there” yet.
5) Yes, please to VLC or MPlayer or some gstreamer plugin for the browser for open media
6) Distributing Skype may be easier than flash, but still hard. Closed source and closed protocol. Distributing a SIP phone or a Jingle client (or a two-in-one) may be a better solution.
7) Make sure sshd is running by default on the system – geeks everywhere will love you when they log into their tablet from their PC for harcore config stuffs.

Finally, start a wiki/mailing list/github/all of them for this. Blog comments only scale so far. That is, if you’re serious.

This is seriously great stuff if it gets anywhere.

Very interested about how all this is going to be carried out. Just keep me in the mail list.

Please send me info on the project, I’m down to support!

Forget Skype. Use Voicestick instead!

http://www.voicestick.com
http://www.myglobaltalk.com

Here’s your baseline. This is exactly what you are looking for, this becomes a scaling up process, maybe replacing a few chips (to AMR?). I have no doubt, hardware wise, you can scale this up to 6″X9″ screen and same processing internals, for $100. It then simply becomes, get the kernel in there and working.

Onda makes the original, however, clones are everywhere, schematics are everywhere, and the 1 gig models retail for $20 or less. I would be willing to bet that someone has Linux running on one of these already.

TripleII

I’m interested. Most of what I do these days is testing.

Yes. Very much interested in seeing this project move forward. CS/Math student here, willing to help where necessary.

as a industrial designer and lover of open source… i’m definitely in.

I would love to help in anyway I can and I think this is a great idea.

First off, I am in.

I do have some reservations.

Just being a devil’s advocate here:
1. who makes those tough decisions, on which features go in and which don’t
2. when you start with build a product for $300, you have to nail down the hardware, as opposed to the software stack. why are we starting with a stack and a price target? Let’s pick one?!

btw, I can help with any backend software needs – OS customisation, C/C++, Java related work

For extra storage outside of what is needed to run the installed applications, I would suggest a USB flash drive storage that would be unique to the PC by having the design that would fit into a slot on the back that would give the back a seamless look. This way, different sizes of drives 4gb, 16gb, 32gb can be offered if someone chooses to customize at the time of purchase or down the road. I would include a 2gb USB drive standard with the device.

Hi

I’m a software consultant for a large software firm. I work with a lot of clients who would find this web tablet very, very useful and think it would be a massive hit with companies that have a lot of mobile workers. If it can be made for 200 dollars or less then it would be incredible. From my point of view, as long as it can access the web and has a basic operating system that can install simple VPN software it would be a very good proposition for a lot of people. I am not wishing to get involved to further any corporate agenda, but would like to participate in the development of a potentially great product for people.

My programming skills are pretty limited but i would be happy to participate in anyway i can. I’m happy to do testing or anything like that. Either way i would really like to find out what happens with this concept

Does anyone know when the dev website is going up?

MSI, ASUS, HP, they are all making what is being talked about here. All I see is everybody trying to reinvent the wheel (Laptop). What everyone needs to do is STOP and THINK about the KISS principle (keep it simple stupid). Every piece of hardware has a cost and a power requirement. Every time that you add a piece of hardware the cost goes up, power consumption goes up and battery life goes down. By the time you add in all the hardware that everyone wants to in this device you may as well go buy a laptop, because that is what you will have regardless of what it looks like. All the hardware will be off the shelf, the OS will be the only part that will be Open Source

ASUS is already putting together a linux image to run out of ROM. They have announced it will be a standard feature on all their new motherboard designs. With a little tweaking it may be possible to use their tech with your idea. It might be as simple as reflashing the ROM on one of their motherboards!

I would love to work on the interface design. I’m sure there are a whole bunch of people that are more qualified than me to do this but I would love to help. If you guys are going to form an interface design team, drop me a line!

I’m a Fine Arts Major currently working as graphic designer/interface designer. I can also help with French localization.

Interesting concept. I think you should integrate an input for a pc so it can become a monitor and then unplug it when you want it to be just browser.

I realy would like help with project, because I was thinking about such long time.

I’m curious. Not sure if my skills would be useful, but I’m in marketing and do some design work.

Heck yeah! This would be a perfect little “laptop” for the consumer that just needs web access to check on projects at the office. I’m all for it — count me in!

Off to a great start. Please count me in – I would like to help. I would like to see you keep the option open of using Google Android or other high-level OS maybe in a follow-on product. I understand your need to keep memory and power in check, and therefore you may not be able to do a full OS this time around. But cost permitting. a software stack capable of attracting more developers who are already doing mobile development for phones would expand the market tremendously. I think cost, screen and battery will be the biggest challenges to bring the device in at $200, but if you are able to pull it off I would hate to see it die if the development environment is targeted to too narrow a market. I really want to see this work out!

I have worked with the ARM platform in hardware and software design and development. This experience was put towards a device that you are describing by a small firm through a contract. The project made it quite far (finished design of hardware/software and was implementing the software) before the company decided it was not feasible to continue.

I would love to take this experience and help an open source project on any and all aspects. I am accustomed to working evenings, weekends, and some days on side projects so I would have plenty of time to contribute.

I look forward to hearing more, good job coming up with this kind of a project.

I want to help this become a reality.
Have a good understanding of C, but I think I could help
better in the consumer department.
Want to help in some sort of way.

If it’s under $300 and completely open I’ll buy two.

Count me in!
This looks to be an awesome project – I’ll try to help in any way i can

I want to help in any way! We can organize a team based here in Greece! Count us!

This is an interesting and ambitious project. I am a hardware designer with very relevant experience. I helped design a single board computer (SBC) that connects to a touch screen and LCD for kiosk style applications. The device uses a solid state disk and runs a custom Linux distribution.

On the surface I am inclined to say that the SBC is going to cost over $200 turnkeyed unless you are buying them in very large quantities. The LCD is going to cost around $70 and the touch panel will be around $50 for resistive. Projected capacitance like the iPhone will cost more.

If you are planning on selling a complete device then you should also budget several thousand dollars for plastic molds, not counting NRE’s.

Id like to help out any way i can. Im currently attending school to get my B.S. Electrical Engineering degree so I may be able to help out on the hardware part mostly. Just email me what you need help with and Id gladly assist the project.

Someone said that “Widescreen was a bad thing” for web browsing. That’s true. But this tablet is just a screen, with no controls to “Force” it to be percieved as either landscape or portrait. This means you can hold it at 90 degrees. Then it becomes a “Tall screen” display, like portrait-held paper, which is typically much better for viewing web content (And PDFs). Or you could look at two pages side-by-side.

I work as a UI QA/tester… I’m in.

I would love to contribute to the programming effort!

for those who mentioned epaper … it would be neat, but you lose out on touch screen capabilities / video rendering / anything movement based. I understand you gain a bunch in the battery life department but you lose so much of what the web is about and used for these days.

That being said, maybe there could be an epaper edition!

I would be interested in buying a couple. My epods are getting old and I hate Windows CE.

sounds like a super project!
I’m willing to help in any way possible, mostly for the unix as being a unix system engineer.

Cheerz

I’m going to defend the 4:3 aspect, and the cause is simple as the difference in the aspect ration between 4:3 (1.33) , DIN paper size (1.41) and letter paper size (1.29) is minimum but the difference with 16:8 (1.78) is unacceptable for e-book use, it lose to much effective area in portrait or landscape mode. Example image: http://img135.imageshack.us/my.php?image=aspectratiomn5.png

I also done some rethink my wished features and found that WIFI and Bluetooth and found that using USB part internal installed can lead to reduction of cost and there are some real tiny commercialized USB devices of both types. Depending of the device size is possible to accommodate up to 6 internal USB connectors with enough space for to have internal installed USB memory, WIFI, Bluetooth and even a 3G modem plus some thinks more, this also lead to a cheap basic configuration with easy expandability.

Wheres the faq…
gamersedgepod@gmail.com, please.

Hi, terrific idea, i had some arm9 and embedded linux experience and currently working on something similar in my spare time with an samsung s3c2440 development board and ill be more than glad helping this project. Please count me in. Regards from Argentina.

Hi there. I love your idea and want to help in any way I can. I am a web system administrator with knowledge of IIS, ASP.NET, LINUX and Windows Server. I work for a 2 billion dollar private company here in WI, USA. I am eager to help develop this splendid idea. Please let me know. Thank you.

This sounds awesome, I tried this recently but lack the technical skills.

Mechanical engineer involved with 3D CAD systems, thermal design, and hardware packaging and I can provide some assistance with part design and concepts.

I would love to be kept in the loop so I can soak some experience in (pure) industrial design while assisting anyway I can.

I want to start off by saying that I want to help with this project. I am a designer and programmer. I know that it can be done. Especially with the latest lines of mini computers coming out and operating systems like Damn Small Linux (DSL).

Here is a list of what I think that this thing needs!
- Internet browser – gecko or a striped down firefox will do.
- flash support – with the right type of resource management it will fly.
- VOIP – Skype or Gizmo whoever will support us.
- Office tools – a word and spreadsheet editor, a striped down open office for equivalent would be great.
- MPlayer – It is light weight and strong, you can’t go wrong.
- ATerm – if our market is everyone then why leave out the geeks who made it.
- VNC – a VNC client would make this the next best thing for a home media controller.
- a Sync Server – Register a computer and connect via the web to access your files.
? Java – a lot of simple enterprise programs are using java, and it is just another market, however, it can come with a little overhead that may be unwanted.

I have used DSL on a low end P2 equivalent and it ran internet, flash, and Open Office 1 faster than most computers. SD support is also just what we need to keep it slim and strong. Things like bluetooth are not that expensive either, but should probably be overlooked for the first run.

If we make this we need to make it so everyone will want one. Offering a laptop and cloud computing alternative would make it a must have for travel and business. Imagine surfing the web; editing docs on the fly; having entertainment at your fingertips; and pulling, editing, and putting files from and to your home computer. We can do it.

I would recommend starting a site so that we can better coordinate our efforts.

This looks like a really cool project. I would love to see more open hardware projects running open software. Also, the thin touch tablet idea might turn out to be one of the future forms of computers. It seems like a really good idea.

After scanning all the comments, I haven’t seen anyone mention documentation ( I know, we’re the unsung heroes of software and hardware development ). I’d consider helping out with the docs — how to customize the system, problem determination, localization… I also have more experience than I care to admit about writing translatable documentation in standard XML ( Dita ).

I’m in , this sounds great, my company is willing to give resources to this project, enginering time, etc. you name it.

I’m also skilled in Project Management.

I’m a C++ programmer. I’d be willing to do low level work on this. Who doesn’t want one of these?

I’d love to help.
Mainly with final testing (finding bugs, etc).

Hi,
I am a hardware engineer.
Whereever possible I would love to help getting this great thing off the ground!

Cheers,
Frank

Looks like you’ve got just a little bit of interest in the project!

Sounds like a great idea and I’d be very happy to be involved in the interface / product design and marketing end of things.

Guys…. wanna play hard ? really hard ? This all looks so great in theory .. but do not forget !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One Focus – - – - – Make it this way… !!!! Once the project is finish .. make it work the way that anyone with access to ebay can get the parts ! Within the price ! Can build it despite being tec – dummy !

Once working on this project … keep this words in your mind all the time

Btw – Atheros included ?

Hi, i ll be very happy when i’ll can test your FF table, i’m only 13 byt i know Linux very well. Please send a reply 2 my mail

Will be interested in helping in any way possible.

I’ve been reading ebooks on my pocketpc for years just waiting for a affordable alternative.
I have a lot of ideas and would be a good beta tester and I can help with translation of userinterface in to swedish.

Count me in. I can help in any part of the project.

Wow, big response. I did not go through each post, But I would like to assist by doing the technical writing for the project. Once everything is done I think a manual would be a good idea. Write up the specs, and show how to use it etc.

Im not a programming girl, I do web design, so I can also help with that if you plan to do a site for the product itself.

How long does a project like this take to complete? It does not seem like, a walk in the park. :

Aisha
http://www.aishaladon.com

Just my 2c:

Multi-touch (for zooming in and out) can possibly be left out and a resistive touch screen be used instead if a multi-touch display is too costly. For example, like the 7″ eeepc with 800×480 display, you can effectively display a webpage of width 1024 pixels at about 75% zoom. Then you can simply implement a double-tap system to zoom in to 100%. And there are already 7″ LCDs that display 1024×600, effectively avoiding the need to zoom entirely. If zooming is still desirable (for some reason), a thumbable (big enough) zoom slider should suffice as well.

Flash support is ideal, but wouldn’t that prevent the entire device from being open-source?

And the $200 price should be achievable, and it definitely can be produced for <$300. (I’m not sure about the eeepc in the US, but my local shops are selling the 7″ eeepc for the equivalent of about US$290). And the device does not have to be even as powerful as the eeepc (but we need to factor in the price of a resistive touch display as well, and the battery life of the eeepc is probably too short for a web tablet like this.

@Denys Fedoryshchenko
I’m not sure about the Geode LX. Unless the system is well-optimized, I don’t think it will support Flash well (though regular web surfing should be fine). The Kohjinsha SA1F00 uses the AMD Geode LX 800 and I can’t get it to play youtube videos smoothly (at a decent frame rate that would be considered smooth) without right-clicking and selecting a lower quality setting (but that is on WinXP though, not sure about Linux).

A browser and a ssh client are probably enough for me. Trow in a PDF reader and I’m not going to walk a single step without this tablet. I’m considering buying an eeePC, but I’d rather buy a 200$ tablet like that instead.

About usability, it would be nice to have a way of let use the screen both horizontally and vertically. The advantage for reading PDF documents should be clear and I imagine myself using ssh with the virtual keyboard at the bottom and the console at the top. With a small font there might still be enough pixels to get a usable amount of text columns and enough rows to read the output of the previous commands.

Computer Systems Engineering and Finance graduate.

Can help with hardware/software and overall system design. Also have strong finance and economics knowledge for cost analysis and pricing. Would love to learn who you have in mind for project lead, as this position will be integral.

You obviously have many talented and experienced software leads at Mozilla (from the sound of the post, that is who you have in mind for software partnership) But hardware? I’m not too familiar with many opensource hardware projects (GNU Radio, OpenPCD, could list what i know on one hand).

But this is an interesting concept. Please keep me in the loop. Would love to get involved.

If it was cheaper, ditching the multi-touch in favour of just regular touch-screen could reduce cost for the initial version.

On the iphone, multitouch isn’t actually used that much, you could definitely get away without it if it made significant cost difference.

I have been working on a personal portal project but needed a interface device just as you are suggesting. I would like to help in quality assurance as well as usability and system testing. Please add me to your list.

Cool idea…

Hi guys,

A good friend of mine posted this link to me today. This is an awesome idea and one that i personally would like to get involved with in my spare time. I head up the online Support at Yuuguu and have been brought on board to sort out the user experience.

If i can be of any help, then ping me on the email entered and i would be glad to take part.

I will be blogging about this tonight on our blog as it is a cool product that is much needed as laptops put off many people who just want to surf the internet.

Will email you soon Nik if that’s ok.

Neil

@Ryan Gonzalez
I do like that piece you made, especially the color scheme.

I’m thrilled that someone initiated an idea for an OSS web browser tablet. My background is in Comp Eng (specializing in computer architecture and embedded systems) and I have experience with electronic gadget building (USB interface driver writing, LiPo/NiCad charging circuits, low level assembly, some linux kernel). I’d love to help out with hardware selection, implementation and systems architecture.

I just could not get through whole two topics to read them, but i love the idea, but it may be also not a very bad idea (depending from costs) to have built in Blue Tooth, either for a cell phone (3G if you are missing wifi) or external keyboard if you do not want to use screen space for said.

I keep looking for a website dedicated to this to go up, don’t want people to forget about this and move on to the next shiny thing on the net. This would sell like crazy if you can do it for $300 or less. I wish it were already out I’d buy 2 right now.

I am able to contribute to UI and Graphics.

It looks like you have more help than you need — but I would definitely be interested in assisting if I can. I have skills in requirements gathering, business analysis, and technical writing (APIs and end-user documentation and pretty much anything in between). The project sounds both exciting and useful — a wonderful combination!

And just in time, look what the cat brought in: Intel Unveils New System On A Chip Designs (EP80579): http://www.hothardware.com/News/Intel_Unveils_New_System_On_A_Chip_Designs/ .
Anyway, if you need any more help with the programming part, count me in. I love the idea.

Generic immediately-understood names: “Web Tablet”, “Internet Tablet”.

I’m an industrial engineering student with a writing background. Love to help out in any way I can. What a great project!

I’m highly interested in this project and can help in certain regards. Feel free to contact me.

–Jon

SO where is the dev site? it’s been 3 days…

Of course, I am interested.
As a medical end user, I have been frustrated with apple’s delay and need a light touchscreen for forms and wireless access, so I have been building my own based on Intel ATOM and puppy with intention to put those 6 usb ports and U3 to good use. My programming skills are very strained.
Although the ATOM is thicker than I would like I would say that you should not be obsessed with MB Air’s thinness, it is the weight that is the key and having an ergonomic grip made out of the mb and hardware would be preferable to having to wrap your fingers around the lcd edge and reduce the unsettling cheap-feeling torque of a thin screen alone.
So you see my problem is finding the correct functioning touchscreen so I am on board and look forward to helping in whatever way I can.
BTW, While I love the new name, I am afraid that we will piss off Lou Dobb’s if it is called Tabu-La Raza

Sign me up,
Yes, I really am that bored. Pat

Yes, of course, I am interested.
As a medical end user, I have been frustrated with apple’s delay and need a light touchscreen for forms and wireless access, so I have been building my own based on Intel ATOM and puppy with intention to put those 6 usb ports and U3 to good use. My programming skills are very strained.
Although the ATOM is thicker than I would like I would say that you should not be obsessed with MB Air’s thinness, it is the weight that is the key and having an ergonomic grip made out of the mb and hardware would be preferable to having to wrap your fingers around the lcd edge and reduce the unsettling cheap-feeling torque of a thin screen alone.
So you see my problem is finding the correct functioning touchscreen so I am on board and look forward to helping in whatever way I can.
BTW, While I love the new name, I am afraid that we will piss off Lou Dobb’s if it is called Tabu-La Raza

Sign me up,
Yes, I really am that bored. Pat

I work for one of the larger touchscreen manufacturers.

We have evaluated and worked with a number of tablets in the past so I have a lot of opinions on the matter. I would be very interested in working on this project from both a personal and professional standpoint. Feel free to contact me regarding hard numbers and specific details.

Hi, this a great project. I’m an architect and as user, such a device would be great in my line of work. If can help in any way, drop me a line.

wish you all the luck, from Portugal.

I’m a technology business analyst with project management skills and previous experience as a web developer. I’ve been wanting one of these for years and would love to be on your team. Please drop me a line if I can help out in any way. Just put “web tablet” in the subject line so I can pick you out from all the spam.

May help with the casing mold. Have friend who make a living on designing and producing plastic molds.

Dude this is going to be great. I have been wanting to do something like this for a while but more integrated into a house, Im currently working on a Linux distro that will only take up a few megs of space it will have networking and firewall and file swaping and maybe e-mail support hit me up if you want my distro when its done

Graphic designer / beta tester. I’ll do all sorts of testing and designing if you guys want. I can only code HTML, PHP, MySQL, and that type, so I probably won’t be able to help you guys much, but still, I really want this project to kick off.

I love this idea and would love to help.
I’m In college, Mechanical Engineering major so I can help with the overall (big picture) aspect, feature list, hardware design and electronic spec aspects.

Keep me posted.

I’d like to contribute if I can. I’m a designer / researcher and I can lend a hand with usability testing and interface design.

Electronics Engineer (computing specialisation) by education.
Sr. Systems Engineer / Business Analyst by profession.
Experience designing portable, ruggedised, low-power computing systems.

What can I do to help?

I’d love to get involved. Hardware, application or design elements.

I’m a Java programmer, but also a writer who loves to tinker. I would love to help out with either writing documentation or just beta testing this sucker. It’s a great idea and one that I think (obviously) there’s a lot of interest in. As one other person said, if I could use it to read more than web pages, the sky’s the limit!

N800 has everything you’ve mentioned and costs less than $250. The only difference is the larger screen… Maybe take the hardware from that and add a bigger screen, usb hub, and bigger battery and then you’d be set.

Any updates? has a website been put together yet?

Count me in for buying one or two. I have been a tablet enthusiest for a while, but have yet to see on that will take the world by storm. That HP Pavilion tx2120us looks damn good, but the $1200+ for the great configurations makes it just a little expensive for that “second pc” category that I am looking for.

I had an hp TC1000 that was a 10.4 in tablet style laptop and was really in love with it. The trouble was always the pokey CPU( Transmeta Crusoe @ 1ghz), limited battery, and the heat. I was surprised by the versitility of products for the tablet interface (MS One Note in particular) and found the size very comfortable for taking with you. I have been drooling to get my hands on one of the an atom based system to see if it would be more acceptable for real world use.

Also for all the people that suggest the Nokia products I am gonna assume you never bought one. There is a reason that it didn’t set the world on fire. The small screen is one thing but 5 to 10 seconds to register a interface click is beyond epic fail. The damn things needed more of something, but it may have been they needed more of everything. More screen, more battery and way more performance. I have had my hands on and used for a few days the N800 and would rather have never touched it. SDHC was really their only win on that device.

UI and Interaction Designer, would love to contribute. Let me know!

I’d like to help, but I have no applicable skills here other than tester.

You can boom chi poo chi,
but can you zoom?

You can boom chi poo chi,
but can you gloom?

Boom chi poo chi.
Sign your doom.

Boom chi poo chi.
Sionara boom,
salutation boom,
salutation zoom,
well…. you can boom chi poo chi,
just please sign your doom.

Again children, I’m singing gospel. Pay attention and learn something.

I don’t know if anyone has suggested this… but it would be great if the other side of the tablet had a solar panel. It would extend battery life and could trickle charge it. granted, one that size might not generate a great deal of power…but if you’re miles from an outlet, some is better than none.

Hello,
This project sounds really interesting to me, if you need a native french translator for any part of the software I could help you.
Good luck !

I can contribute nothing but ideas.

I don’t use Opera personally, but I’ve heard it’s less intensive than Firefox, especially with memory. Also, something like Foxit Reader could easily provide PDF Support. Is there planned support for USB? Naturally WiFi will be there. Will it include a style with handwriting support? Slidout keyboard?

Looks like a very interesting project and I’d love to lend a hand. I’m an industrial designer in Chicago and have worked on a bunch of complex, small, consumer electronics. I’ll probably have plenty of time to donate over the next few weeks while people in my office are on vacation. If you need a SolidWorks expert – contact me.

I agree with the comments that display and battery sourcing will be the hardest part of the process, everything else just needs to be agreed upon in a well thought out design brief.

@652 (Konraden) Opera is much more memory hungry than FF.
@ the Naysayers – This project can be more popular than the iphone.

Use the Amazon Kindle as a model instead of the eeePC. Kindle is an inexpensive tablet with a very large screen and no top or keyboard. It accesses the internet, and it is doing well with sales.
What you are discussing is the same device with a browser. Firstly – expect Amazon to do the same.
Secondly – make sure your device doubles as a ebook reader.

And please keep me in the loop. Teach in a college and run a webdesign group, blah blah, I may not hold a candle to all the other quality volunteers, but if you want my help, you got it.

To SamGoody:

>> Kindle is an inexpensive tablet with a very large screen
6″ is very large???

>> and no top or keyboard.
Kindle does have keyboard

>> What you are discussing is the same device with a browser.
Kindle does have a browser.

What really different in Kindle is an eInk screen – an that’s a big one indeed, so no real comparison to the tablet proposed here. I can see myself owning both devices at same time. I won’t browse web on eInc screen, and I won’t read books on LCD screen, so I do need both. I own Sony Reader already, and tablet described here is something I was expecting to appear for last couple months, since rise of EEE. Hope to see something like this on sale soon.

I am interested in coming onboard with you! I am in both the IT and Education industry and I am interested to see how we can further extend this excellent tool for educational purpose.

Hi there, cool idea. I’d like one myself!

I am a graduate in int. management with experience in entrepreneurship/business development. For example developing business plans, seeking out contacts and joint ventures etc. I would like to participate and aid with the non-technical management aspects of this.

Hi,
I want one of these for my commute!

Electrical / control systems Engineer, happy to contribute.

-A

Sounds great. would love to be involved. Currently working on hardware + software consumer electronic product and can contribute.

Been wondering WHY no manufacturer has taken on this challenge for years. Everytime a vendor builds the simple internet device, it becomes a PSP, or a MYLO, or the N700/800/810 or even the iTouch! Your idea *IS* exactly what is needed. I don’t think the $200 goal will be achieved, but PRICE isn’t really the gate here… I JUST WANT A THIN, SIMPLE TABLET FOR INTERNET!!!!

I’m in! I would beta test this tablet for you guys!

I think you should call it the TCUP (TechCrunch Ultra-Portable)

We have been working on a Web Desktop/WebOS with a server cluster for individual collaborative apps. Why not use a WebOS, it saves in hardware cost for a HDD? We would be willing to provide the WebOS service free once we are finished with Q&A. We have even begun implementing video conferencing services into the WebOS. The WebOS is opensource but our individual apps are SaaS. This would go a long way in introducing our free Web Desktop.

I’d be happy to contribute … Branding, positioning, marketing and website copy and e-commerce process.

… and European promotion and roll-out.

We have been working on a similar product. It is more of a low cost, low power, fanless nettop (web appliance). We evaluted several processors, chipsets as well as different Linux distributions.

We support community based and open source development and willing to share our experience.

We can help on specification, hardware and software development.

Couple notes on the idea:
- $200 target looks doable in 2 years. Chips recently announced by Intel, Via and other makes this target possible
- I think big companies are also developing similar products but they are waiting for the right time.
- Flash player will require highest cpu performance in this device. I think Adobe is addressing this issue in new version. If they do, this will reduce CPU requirement and lower the cost

Exactly what I’ve been dreaming of. FINALLY, someone is making it a reality. I’ll be willing to help with software development. Can’t wait to test this out.

Hi. I have no coding experience (I’m more of a marketing/business guy) but would love to help in any way I can. Please keep me in the loop.

We would love to use this in our business and if it is going to be 100% Open Source initiative then it would by all means succeed. Larry Allison of Oracle tried it few years back and call it Tony but he was so greedy like he needed more money to add to his billions so he kept the project to himself and he lost.

This project must be kept as an Open Source to keep the cost down and to benefit many users around the world. The Open Source community has done a great job so far to humanity and mankind and it will always be as such.

It is important that the code source kept open so others can use it to build their own provided that they donate something of value to the Open Source Movement. Viva the men and women of the Open Source, and I salute them for their dedication. Good project and hopefully it would get of the ground soon.

Sign Me up!
I have been working on a $50 ebook reader that runs off a SD card. I am hoping to have a prototype by the end of August. Although if we can get a $200 color web tablet, Im game. I can help with code and possibly some hardware help (depending on which chipset you guys go with).

Sign Me up too!

We could build special web apps for the device.
What’s more open then web, and that’s an internet table or not?

Well, I’m really interested too in buying one of these. I thought often about such devices, and my results are:
forget quick responsiveness: a thin device mean no cooling space, thus case-cooled design (yeah, metal case would be great, but it’s not cheap and very low-power low-voltage components. This may include old mobile cpus, because new generations aren’t that cheap But AMD is coming up with Atom-like processors… That may be interesting.
Secondly: of the 200 bucks, invest a good part on the screen: that’s all we’ve got. We don’t care about good-looking cases or multi-touch screens (that would be GREAT, but it’s an optional). A big screen (12″) is fundamental (EEE-PC docet).
Thirdly: memory. Solid state disks are a bit costly right now… I think that perfect mass storage device are flash cards. Some cellphones uses flash also for RAM tasks, that could be an option to lower costs. I think that a good scheduler could help moving many tasks from RAM to flash-RAM, lowering product costs.
Try to use cellphone batteries: they are standardized, flat, widely available and – for compatibility reasons – cellphones manufactures try to keep their standards alive, allowing better batteries in the same shape and space over the time. e.g. nokia’s BL-4/5/6C.
Personally speaking, I think that $300 is still a great price for such a device… So, if costs goes a little up, that would be ok.
That’s all what I’ve got Maybe it’s obvious, maybe not.
Good luck!

Sign me up too

Please start with new site or part of this

Great idea. I want to have simple device for web. Simple is mean simple: core (CPU with contol logic, WiFi, memory), 1 x SDHC instead solid state disk, 1 x SDHC for external data, multitouch screen min. 9″ max. 12″, 2 x USB, audio I/O and large battery (or two for replacement without shutdown).

Sign me up!

I am a software developer working on embedded platforms. Uses mainly C/C++. Will love to help out. Count me in!

I’d be happy to represent the average “Joe Consumer” for the beta testing. I have some )old and limited) programming experience, but for the most part I am interested in a decent sized mutimedia and web experience. Like the iPhone, only larger and cheaper; or the Kindle, only in color, expandable, and with multimedia capabilities. This kinda sounds to me like what you’re trying to develop.

Please sign me up – I was actually thinking about a product like this recently! We can Beta this and share viral marketing – supply chain delivery solutions with your team.

I am definitely interested in this and happy to help.

Sign me up!

If it doesn’t include at least Newton-grade handwriting recognition, count me out. I’ve been burnt one too many times by Linux “tablets” that turn out to be laptops with virtual, hard to use, screen real estate stealing keyboards.

I want a Linux-based tablet that’s at least as easy to use as my Newton MessagePad 2100.

Sign me up as well!!!

I feel this product is really going to be the future and I would like to help in as many ways as possible. Apps, to aesthetics, to advertisement, and everything in between. I would really like to onboard on this project and willing to really invest great amounts of time and money.

Lets make this dream product come true people! Its long overdue!

Sign me up as well – I have some experince in 3d’in and a huge interest in visualisation and “product development” as in handy solutions to the everyday use of the product.

Anyway huge kudos to the project – it’s a bloody brilliant idea

I congratulate you on your goal to make a $200 web tablet. What I wanted to suggest to you is that you look at the technology for interface design that Jeff Han is showing at http://www.perceptivepixel.com. I was blown away when I saw a presentation of his from the 2006 TED conference. I reviewed your design goals and this may be overkill for what you need. There still may be a argument to use a subset of the interface in your application. I would love to hear what you think after you review the technology.

Best of luck, because I’ll probably be one of your first customers!

James McMann
San Jose, CA

Is the other site up yet to discuss this project?? can you post the link or email me?

Jonbstorey@gmail.com

I am in. Software Dev, Testing, Financing

I would take 12-20+ hours of battery life with a high-resolution (1600×1200 at 9″ as an example) monochrome/e-paper screen over a color screen any day.

And count me as a rare vote against feature creep here — kill everything but the high-res touchscreen and a power button, even Michael’s webcam. Keep it as simple as possible. If you want a $200 computer with a Web cam and a keyboard, get an Eee. If you want a $200 MID, get an iPhone/iTouch/Nokia. This needs to be the $200 9″ touchscreen high-res tablet or it doesn’t have a niche.

My 11 year old son would love this. He has Aspergers syndrome and loves researching on the net. Count me in.
Testing

1Ghz ULV Via C7 or Via Isaiah
Chipset Integrated GPU
1 GB DDR2 of ram
4 or 8GB of Flash memory and faster if it’s possible
2 Usb’s
1 Speaker connector with simple sound ship (AC 97 for example)
Wifi, Bluetooth and 3g if you want…
Stuff to connect some Memory Card’s (the most popular)
TFT/LED Touchscreen with “good” resolution (use led tech to reduce screen power consumption and get better image quality) + pen
slim “case” and this case should be designed to dissipate the heat of the CPU/Chipset/PSU… (use aluminium or something like that) because the surface will be big and the cpu will be low voltage (5W TDP), it will be fine and no fans requiered…
Lithium-ion Battery (but not explosive )

about the OS use linux, 2.4 Kernel or 2.6 but something “small” and simple, remove useless stuff (only the essential programs will be inside the OS) use simple and beautiful interface, without retarded options and menus “spamming” like other OS (Windows vista for example) using “on screen” key board and stuff…
The OS obviously will be optimized for the hardware, will use minimal space in HD and low ram use, and forget the use of retard “ubermegabeatifull” icons with 512×512 pixels and shit like that…

sorry for my crap english, i hope people will like this specs…

if you want to talk with me send me a mail to nvidiacochina@gmail.com or something like that

Bye!

nonono leave away all that hardware… keep it as simple as possible… decent monitor (14″ maybe, WXGA+), touchscreen, 1ghz CPU, 512mb RAM, Wifi, 2gb flash, linux, battery. done. no need at all for 3G, or GPS, or bluetooth, or USB ports, or card readers. definitely no VGA out (or in, for that matter). keep it as simple as possible.

yes, all those shit is useless… i just put it as optional “Wifi, Bluetooth and 3g if you want…”

the memory card ready maybe can be useful… but i think it’s useless too (use usb memory reader or something)

but at least 1 usb port is necesary to get “some connectivity”

Very interesting! In fact I have been thinking about this for some time also. Being a student I would love to be able to use this device for storing notes/books etc. Really cool.

I am in!

hi i think this is a great idea, and i’d be happy to help anywhere i can. Cant program yet, i’d try to learn for the project though ,and i could translate into german if needed and i m into hardware a bit. i’d also buy one for myself but another idea, how about getting some text editing program to run on the tablet, just to make some notes or something.

I also suggest using a WebOS as the browser homepage for this project. We’ve already done the work of creating a great experience for a web-centric user – check it out at http://G.ho.st .
G.ho.st also builds in storage in the cloud, and this storage is already connected to a bunch of third party web services, so no downloading/uploading required. Everything is free. Please get in touch.

Add me to the list.

We’d love designing the UI and building the start page. As well as helping with branding.

You guys better get the website up soon, or else people are going start forgetting about this and lose interest. If it ever gets up throw me an email.

I’m in. Would like to help with requirement spec definition and then throughout rollout.

I’ve had a need for a similar device for years. I’d like to learn more about this project.

Would like to track requirements and provide HW Supply via Our China Factory and Supply Chain

We have a similar Tablet profile and featureset already availableon 8″ TFT LCD and MIPS32 core by ingenic semiconductor http://www.ingenic.cn/eng/productServ/XBurst/pfCustomPage.aspx

OMG love the idea! Would def buy one.

Would also love to help out anyway I can. I tend to drift into graphic designing, but am willing to help out in any way.

Is there a name for the product yet? I like Surf Board. <

where is the site

I’m interested in this goal.

My ideas: xfce instead gnome (or LXDE), boot in 5 seconds (asus mobo?), light distro debian based, ATOM.

I’m programmer and I can translate manuals, apps, docs, into spanish.

Include a dockingstation where it is charged and can display photo’s at he same time.
I expect most serious users would want a separate keyboard, when they get tired of the on screen keyboard.
But especially the photo display is nice to give the thing value all the time

O, move at least the power and possibly other buttons to the side of the thing. The image shows the powerbutton where everyone grabs the thing and unintentionally switches it off.
Look at the blackberry where to place buttons. (on the side)

I want it to scroll easily, just with the fingers. I want to use it like a teleprompter for messages and presentations. Split screen capability. At $300.00, I would buy two or three of them. They need to connect easily. Pass them out to audience participants.

Needs intuitive internal navigation so I can get to any page easily/visually.

I would recommend that the whole back of the device be able to light up with different colors including the ability to flash the back panel. The light should be programmable. For example a Green lighted back panel might indicate a new message. A Red light might mean something different. I can’t figure out (maybe power issues) why someone like Apple hasn’t made the apple icon on the back of the MacBooks lightable (if there is such a word)?

Are you *still* tired of waiting? With over 1000 comments to your proposal, I would think you would want to mobilize right away and get things going in high gear. It has been a week now, but I haven’t seen any wiki for drafting specifications or roadmaps. Was this a serious proposal or just wishful thinking?

Have you thought about working off of DSL (Damn Small Linux) It’s a linux distro that’s only 50megs .

I’m not a big Linux expert, but it seems like a decent idea.

Source: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

How to make it inexpensive? It’s harder than we might think…

Why did all the other netbook manufacturers raise their end-product price points by at least a factor of 2? Asus’s Eee PC went from $200 to $400. The OLPC stunningly went from $100 to $300! These “budget” prices compare poorly to Acer’s lower end lines, which begin at $500 (and Walmart frequently sells the lowest end model for $400, on ad usually). $100-200 more and you can get a real laptop? Ultimately, that’s giving consumers a poor choice. A crowd-source project can do better because it shouldn’t care about value-add or creating a secondary market based on part-sales. Its first and foremost concern will be making a good product.

It’s my pet theory that hardware manufacturers fall into some kind of inverted slippery slope logic fallacy, where they assume that incremental increases in hardware performance will disproportionately add value to the final cost of a product. Ultimately, we end up with bloated hardware with way more features than we wanted, with a commensurate price, which we are unwilling to pay. Another problem is that it’s really easy for prices to slide slowly up, because cheaper priced hardware oftentimes has a huge performance gap compared to slightly more expensive kit. For example, after picking a thousand components that go into the final product, a few slightly more expensive components (combined with fluctuations in international exchange rates) can result in some serious price-point bloat.

I think the solution to these two problems would be setting some very rigid price-saving, performance limitations in the hardware spec and using the most generic, non-proprietary possible hardware available. I’m talking about using cordless phone lithium ion batteries and requiring that the system be fanless, before even drafting out what the performance specs should be. I say this because, as design progresses, you may find yourself wanting to increase the performance of the system, thus necessitating a larger heat-sink and fan, which in turn would require a larger battery for mobile use… Things can get out of hand without anyone knowing. A simple dollar limitation can also go awry, as annualized US inflation might be hitting double digits soon.

Cap that performance now, before the price starts to drift upwards!

Good luck! This is the most promising open-source project that I’ve ever heard of!

Sounds like a good idea. The XO for those of us not ‘connected’ enough to get our hands on one and mess around. But also, with a keyboard / UI for adults-sized fingers. Would be good. Now, here’s some roadblocks, as I see it:

1) Screen technology. We want to use something like Eink, so that it can be read in the sunlight. I’d really nice a decent ebook reader. But we also want color – does that mean go down the path that OLPC took, with backlit colour and sunlit monochrome? That would be okay. But all this stuff is still pretty expensive technology.

2) screen size. What is the minimum that people will put up with? I’d take a smaller size and smaller price, as long as resolution is halfway decent, because I have good eyes. But others might not be able to tolerate small fonts.

3) battery power. extremely important to me. Since this is a new system, we’d get to choose a chipset that consumes very little power. Intel Atom line is obvious, but there are other CPUs that might do an even better job.

4) how would this hook to the Internet? Obvious solutions are wifi & 100BaseT, but there are various cellphone based technologies that might be nice as well. But building all of these in would be a waste, as they’re not available in many places. So, it would seem to me that the best idea is wifi+100baseT (ethernet) built in, plus some expansion slot for other datacomm cards. I am not sure if a pc-card interface, or a mini-pci, or one of the newer standards would be better.

I work on wifi mesh networks for a living. I’d be willing to contribute some time towards software development of this aspect of it. Particularly in regards to 802.11s (proposed IEEE mesh standard), as I am working on this anyhow.

More comments…

Not sure everyone here wants an ebook reader like me. Maybe a more traditional LCD is called for. I am also having second thoughts about having 100baseT built in. Lots of people won’t use it. But if we have a pc-card slot, then they can drop in one, or the cellular datacom cards I mentioned. It’s tempting to load everyone onto the USB bus. If the pc-card solution is given up in favor of USB, there needs to be plenty of USB ports. I don’t want to have to disconnect from my Internet connection in order to move stuff to my flash drive!

The battery packs need to be easily rebuildable. LiIon batteries only last a couple of years. The shell and controller of the battery can be kept and new cells loaded in.

fanless operation is a must.

how far into multimedia would we go? displaying regular old html is no big deal, but once you start audio having full motion video things get expensive. Would this device support adobe flash? wmv?

For debugging purposes, access to some serial console and JTAG is pretty important. The ports for this can be in some out of the way location, like under the battery. That would also be a good place for a removable flash card (SD card? mini-SD?). There needs to be flash memory on board for a bootloader, but it could be just 8MB, or even less.

Some thought towards usage is required. For instance, a lot of these devices could end up as public kiosks of one sort or another. Make sure it can be locked down, both physically and in software.

There needs to be some interface for configuration. Using the web browser would seem to be the easiest thing. The interface should have an ‘essentials’ interface, in which most commonly used functions are where you’d expect them to be, and perhaps another page for ‘advanced’ features, replicating some of the ‘essentials’ functionality but adding things for corner cases, such as wifi country selection, dhcp client on/off, etc.

We have to think, then, about if we are only going to be running a web browser and there’s constraints on resources because of the low cost required, why use X-windows at all? Is there some way that Firefox can directly use the screen? Or maybe it would be better to use Mozilla for mobile devices (mini-mo), maybe mini-mo supports such a mode.

A small solar cell to keep the battery charged would be nice. I am not saying a completely solar powered device, but just a small panel to keep the batteries topped up, because all battery technologies have self-discharge, i.e. they run down (leak) even when they’re not being used. I’d like to be able to leave my tablet on a shelf and pick it up when I need it, and not have to worry if it’s got enough juice.

Bob Keyes , you have good points in your comment, the size is the more crucial part to make it cheap. For example a dual screen device with the size of 2 dvd cases have enough space for to put in it 2 OLPC screens (this screens are quite cheap) a USB wifi module,a USB 3g modem, bluetooth, 2 internal USB memory and a 3.2v 6000mah li-ion battery, 1GB RAM plus some more hardware. And they are quite interesting CPUs like the TI OMAP3540 (3D accelerator + video DSP) capable of decoding a H264 at D1 (DVD resolution) using less than 500mw or the Analog Devices Blackfin BF561 (600 MHz Dual Core, and the ideal part only cost 30$) that have a max dissipation power of around 1W and if I’m not wrong it is also capable of decoding H264 at D1 with less than 500mw. A device using the Blackfin and the anterior hardware description without 3G modem, with resistive touchscreens can cost without problems less than 300$ in the market and have more than 8 hours of autonomy playing two D1 videos (one for screen).

Found this today, for $179 and it is open source, has a touch screen and wifi.
http://www.chumby.com/

Also, I would look into cellphone technology. Cellphones are small, and they have a lot of features that I would love in this project, ie. MP3 player, microSD card reader, touch sensitive buttons, web browser, mini usb port used for charging and device connection, bluetooth, ….like my Motorola Krzr k1m! XD.

I’d love such a tablet. This is just what I thought I’d like when the ASUS eeePC was announced. So I gave this project some thought.

What I’d like to do with this tablet:

* to be carried easily (in a train, in vacation, etc.);
* to browse the Web wherever there is some wifi;
* to read ebooks (with or without wifi);
* to see, sort, delete and publish the pictures I just took with my digital camera;
* to draw directly on the screen (that would be marvelous)!

On the software:

Since the all thing is opensource, I want to be able to easily change the OS. I’m not meaning to install anything else than GNU/Linux, thought. It’s just that I want to be able to choose the software and the interface I want to use. I don’t want the hardware to be locked with a preinstalled software solution. I want to be able to install a photo application, a mobipocket reader, or just replace the OS with an Ubuntu for MID (for instance).

On the hardware:

An USB port would be useful. I want to be able to connect my digital camera, a memory card –throught and USB adaptor– directly to the tablet. On the go I want to be able to view my pictures on full size, sort and delete my pictures, as well as publishing them on the Internet. The USB port could be the AC connector for the tablet, hence removing the need for a dedicated AC connector.

The USB port could be used to connect the tablet as an USB key on another computer, and to change the software on it, or just accessing the stored files easily. Wifi is nice, but there is no easy filesharing software (as far as I know).

The screen doesn’t need to be big, it just needs to handle a standard 1024×768px, for browsing easily. I’d go for a 8.9″ for instance. Do we really need something bigger? This tablet is something we will carry regularly (on a daily basis in my case), and I don’t want it to be a bother because it’s too big.

I’m wondering about the 512MB RAM, it looks like a limitation. Since RAM is cheap nowadays, I think it would perform better with 1GB, with no real impact on the retail price.

On the gadgets:

A 3G connection would be nice as it would permit to connect more easily to the Internet, but it’s not necessary. Bluetooth would be a gadget on such a device, and it can be easily added throught a small USB dongle. The USB port must not be in the way, thought (ie. not where we put our hands). Note: with a 3G phone that provides a bluetooth modem and a USB bluetooth dongle on the tablet, we can have a Web connection…

In fact, there is one gadget I’d love with this tablet: it’s the ability to use a pen and not just my fingers on the touch screen. I’d just start The GIMP, Inkscape or a paintchat, and I could draw directly on the tablet. It wouldn’t be a Wacom Cintiq of course, but it would be nice to do some digital drawing, in the train to my work

What you are essentially setting up here is an interface for cloud computing – so why not call it something along those lines
- The Cloud Computer
- CloudCast
- CloudCrunch
- Cloud Tablet
- Cloud 009
I wish you all the luck with your vision, and its transformation into reality.
This would be a marvellous innovation for education also.
Cheers
rozzie

also interested to chip in if this really is a go

I would love to help in any way I can. I have a degree in CS with 2 years work experience in Java and C#. I have read a good deal of everyone’s comments and they all raise good points. Let me know if I can help in anyway.

I am a PCB Designer, and would enjoy working on the design of this. I didn’t have time to do more than skim the huge number of comments, however the idea is a good one. Feel free to get in touch with me by email.

Is this project going anywhere? I did some research on CPUs. I think that the Atmel AVR AT32AP7000 is the best CPU for this project. It consumes very little power (less than half a watt!), has support for all sorts of things built in, like USB, and lcd controller, native java, ram and flash controllers, etc. It’s performance isn’t too bad: 210 DMIPS, which is a little faster than a 200 Mhz Pentium Pro or MMX (but there’s a certain amount of bogosity in performance measurements as a whole). It’s cheap in quantity of 1000 ($13.30, perhaps cheaper). A development board is available for $70. It is fully linux compatible, and linux is the primary platform that the manufacturer supports so you know it will be debugged.

I started looking into browsers other than Firefox. Opera and WebKit might offer better performance, but straying from the Firefox path makes this device less attractive. With that in mind, I think that optimization by the addition of as much ram as is feasible is the best way to keep performance high. I am going to do some research, to discover the maximum amount of ram this CPU will support.

So, if there’s a mailing list or forum for getting this project going, please let me know. If I don’t hear something soon, i’ll start my own forum and post it’s address here.

Is the dev site up yet?

I would be interested in contributing from an application point of view.
My recommendation so far is to keep a tight FOCUS on what the device is intended to do, rather than add useless features that dilute the value proposition.
Almost everyone has written about the HARDWARE requirements, but shouldn’t this be engineered from a users’ point of view?
what do NORMAL people want to do with such a device? What would they use it for? How would they want to use it? There need to be clear answers to these questions, otherwise feature creep will take over.

The chumby is a great example of “technology push” – i.e. technology looking for a solution (which is great for tinkerers like us, but not so great for everyone else). I wouldn’t want this project to follow a similar path.

See this 99 dollar Jointech mini laptop at http://www.jointech.com.hk/jl7100.html
Prices dropping

count me in. if you need some hardware shematics or circuit(including PCB) designing

Count me in – actually, 2 years ago I suggested this device to my corporate people (will remain unmentioned) and it went through about three approval layers before it was killed. They said the Nokia device was too close to compete. My whole point is that we all want a tablet that is about the size of a sheet of paper (a4), or its worthless.
Can I suggest an increase in target price? I would target for $499.00 and add a few things like 100Gb RAM Drive – for transfeering large files to networks and portable devices, a couch level charger that is just two chrome “pipes” that hold the device so you can see it next to a chair, without the need for a coffee table or something like that. Add IRDA capability (and maybe RF) so you can use it to control your Multi-media devices. I have a lot of ideas for this device, as I have been trying to get one built for a while now.

JK over on JKontherun is wondering what happened to this project.

http://www.jkontherun.com/2008/07/so-what-happene.html

Where’s the dev website?

YES !!! i am in and would like to help customizing the linux part

This is great.
I’d buy one for my living room if it had:
1) A charging cradle that allowed it to double as a picture frame / handsfree video viewer.
2) An IR transmitter allowing it to be used as a Philips Pronto type device for home automation.
Neither of these would necessarily have to be included with it but could be sold as accessories.
For the IR transmitter, I’m thinking that there could be a recessed space available like the old laptop PC-card slots. In fact it could probably even use that format. This could be covered up for aesthetics, but could pop open to allow users to add modules such as Bluetooth (if it’s not built in) or in my case an IR transmitter.
I think a superbasic version to achieve the $200 target would be great, but it should be quickly followed up with a premium version with better performance and more connectivity. I’d easily pay $700 – $800 for a nicely souped version that could play video.
Allowing it to be snapped open to add RAM or swap the battery would also be essential.

A (very) nice design feature would be setting up the power and audio inputs in such a way that they could easily be interfaced in a dock (i.e. ipod). This would allow the tablet to be used mounted on a wall (or simply stored there when not in use). At $200 each, I’d buy 4 for my home and several for the office.

Nice idea I like it but, I would suggest Firefox, Thunderbird, and graffiti or xscribble or some kind of HWR input in addition to the soft keyboard approach. Nice idea, I hope it takes off. If I can squeeze some time in I might be able to contribute, I do have a bit of experience in this area.

Qualifications:Helped develop the o-rings on the Challenger
New mantra: Guaranteed Success

Honestly though, interested in helping with my engineering and business background.

I’m in for the Beta test. Advantage is that I do =not= own an iPhone, so I’m looking at the interface of such a thing for the first time. Will thus provide completely fresh insights.

Don’t reinvent the wheel — collaborate with moblin for the OS/software aspect.

“but it should be quickly followed up with a premium version with better performance and more connectivity.”

I would disagree, because in my opinion this will over complicate the device and stray away from the main intentions and purpose of the device.

keep me in the loop

This look exactly the kind of thing i’d like for sitting in the living room/kitchen

nice to have remote access to my server without booting up the laptop

Keep me informed

Mark

Guys, you can buy it now for $300 if you need one fast.

Eyball computing – ushering a new
era in mobile computing.

These small, rugged, low-cost systems are ready-to-go out of the box and make a perfect complimentary computing device for anyone on the go.

So user friendly there isn’t even a manual – just turn them on and put them to use. They feature rapid start-up, productivity software and automatically detect and connect to hot spots.

At about half the size, weight and cost of a regular notebook, a netbook is the perfect complimentary computing device to stay connected.

DISPLAY SIZE: 7″
OS SUPPORT: Linux / Windows XP
MEMORY: DDR2
SLOTS / MAX: 1/512M
HARD DRIVE: SSD
AUDIO: HD Audio
BATTERY CELLS: 4
MICROPHONE: Y
WEB CAM: No
Specifications
Display 7″
Intel CPU & Chipset ?
Operating System GNU Linux
Windows XP compatible
Color Pure white/Blush pink/Sky blue/Lush green/Galaxy black
Ethernet Communication ?
WLAN
Memory 512 MB (DDR2)
S.S.D. Storage (Solid-State Drive) 2G
Camera No
Audio Hi-Definition audio
Stereo speaker
Microphone
Battery 4 Cells, 2.8~3.5hrs*
Weight 0.92 kg

CONTACT: chris.bylander@corient.com

No news… no news… I haven’t received any email… and where is the dev site?

I worked on developing a project just like this a few years ago. Had tons of interest from people that wanted to buy it, no interest from anyone that wanted to help fund the startup. Got good press, had a great concept, etc. but I just could not get it off the ground at that time.

It made a lot of sense then and it makes even more sense now that so many costs have been driven so much lower in the last 5 years.

If you can keep this a mostly systems integration project and avoid costly custom design beyond the case $200 cost should not be a problem. $200 retail is not do-able if you need to make any profit or re-coup operating expenses.

I’ve mothballed my old site on my tablet concept here http://www.foxdot.com/dotdesigntech/

I’ve got experience in talking to several OEM’s and device makers about this as well so I know how to pitch it.

When I did it was a bad time (dot-com crash, no one wanted to fund consumer electronics (was before iPod and iPhone obviously)

Time might be right now.

Feel free to check out what I had done and let me know if you’d like my input.

Todd

You had me at ‘under $300′.

Its awesome to see how many people working in related fields are interested in getting in on this.

Definitely go XCFE.

You have to add an accelerometer.

If you plan to design it and then open the specs for anyone to use, then you have to go Linux/GPL.

@Rob: I wouldnt hold then to that 300$. It was 200$ a few days before that. Now its 300 and once they spec the thing could be 400$ and its not really their fault if that is the cost. Its like the 100$ laptop that costs 180$. If you price it too early, you end up having egg on your face.
They should have stuck to ‘low cost’ instead of saying $200.

Of course, if its not made by Apple, it wont sell.

I’m an EE R&D engineer for MIT Lincoln Laboratories… I’m greatly interested in assisting in the hardware design and development of the system. Most recently i have been working on ultra low power high data rate portable comms.

About the prize, one think is the goal prize and other is the final prize. For me the goal prize is 200$ but if we are able to obtain a final prize of 300$ or less we also meet our real goal that is a affordable tablet computer for web, e-book and other low power uses.

Running the number, I can’t see the device being less then $400 at this time. You can buy the Asus mini computer as a basis, and stripping it down, but the large touchscreen is the price buster. Even on a 12″ convertable tablet, the touchscreen costs $200. Can someone prove me wrong on the touchscreen pricing?

@maxx:

I’m not sure if the touchscreen you’re referring to is a resistive touch one or one of those in the tablet PCs (those where you use the special pen), because I think the latter is more expensive.

By the way, to those suggesting e-paper to reduce battery consumption, perhaps a transflective LCD display could be used instead – like those in iPods and many mobile phones where you can still see what is on the screen even thought the backlight is off.

It’s tomorrow… or later..

Let’s Start Working on it.

Why can’t we get a wiki up and running with the FAQS on it.
and a roadmap. Create Rules of the Game and other Group Frameworks

Setup the development frameworks.. and get moving on it .

yeah, it appears TCIT has lost interest… someone needs to set up a forum. let’s get this thing started people!

Anything I can do to help, I’m in. I currently work at a smaller university, but I’d be able to show this off to a couple thousand students to generate some interest. Any word on a Wiki or official page for this project?

Good call I have been looking for this for some time.

Two possible names Mozipad or XULtool.
Other good names would be Stratus, Cumulus, Nimbus. Playing on the cloud computing idea.

Here are my inputs for content I love the basic premise just run firefox and allow it to
be expandable from there through add-ons and USB attachments. I believe feature creep and trying to be everything to every one is what keeps the standard commercial products from hitting this sweet zone.

Hardware wise I see these these open source projects get bogged down when it comes to tooling cases and firming up hardware requirements. I see a modular approach being the best solution for this. Design a case design so it can be built with off the shelf components from a hardware store. This saves 10s of thousands in capital and allows the form factor to be more flexible. Battery is the biggest bugger for price and size on these things especially with decent size screen, so make it an option. Personally I would use something like this with out a battery.

Base model as I see it.
run linux with a firfox face.
12 inch 1024×768 screen
small speaker
headphone jack
microphone jack
USB port
< 1 min boot time.
Have flash installed or just allow it to be added easily

Multi-touch interfaces are awesome (fingerworks.com) I have used a TS for years now and hate going back to a normal mouse set up. That being said they are power hungry and susceptible to electrical interference. It is doable though fingerworks technology drives the iphone.

USB – for all the extras:
Storage, Bluetooth, 3G, Camera, GPS, Keyboard, Mouse, etc…

Offer various battery sizes as an add-on for different use requirements

Count me in to help out on mechanical engineering stuff.

I would love to help.

I’d say use a OMAP35xx like that used on the BeagleBoard. It is more than capable of doing what you want. In fact a beagleboard and a small DVI LCD should be able to do this easily. Battery life for the LCD will be the only real problem.

Just a suggestion, This device would be really really cool to run Ubuntu Mobile Internet Device (MID) Edition. Check it out. It’s really cool. If not installed by default atleast make it able to be loaded.

If you had the abiltiy to store a java applet for RDP and Citrix connections, which are can be done via the web. The project might take on a bigger meaning that just web browsing, but still not over burden the overall project.

Two weeks now and still radio silent?

I’m no product manager, but it seems pretty obvious the first thing to do is get some organized polling underway to measure the demand for the various features under discussion. I presume this would be best done by side-by-side comparison, like “We can keep it under $200 with a 12 inch LCD, but going to 15.4 inch jacks it up to $240. Which would you buy?” My hunch (hope?) is that the results would lead to 2 or 3 different product threads, each of which could either proceed along its own development roadmap. And after a little inter-project competition, maybe we could then try to converge on a single/preferred solution?

In any case, most of us thought the purpose of the original article was to start a serious development effort. What’s going on?

I’d love to help!
I’m a graphic designer. I can make pretty much anything you need, graphics-wise.
cadenmoore@gmail.com

I’d love to help on the 3-d design/mechanical analysis/ market research.

Hi,

I can help with the system software part – linux and device drivers, programming microcontrollers etc. Do let me know.

Regards,
Radha.

Only a few weeks into the project, and it’s already forked!

[...] kimileriyse CrunchTablet gibi fikirler var.Yorumlarınızla projeye sizde katkıda bulunabilirsiniz buradan [...]

I’ve been looking at this issue for a while. The hardware is already there just needs to be repackaged. These chinese companies are producing these sub $100 laptops. A touch panel would loose the expense of the keyboard for the expense of a touch screen. Approach one of these companies to repackage it. Put Puppy linux on it and its done!

Hi

It should include:

+ HSDPA – no net tablet should be restricted to WiFi only, too behind the times,
+ USB client & host,
+ Bluetooth for headsets & connecting to cell phones,
+ 5 – 7 inch screen, 1024×600,
+ audio jacks
+ Include a Media Player as well as Browser,
+ Include VoIP or Skype, + video would be good,
+ Looong battery life & loooow weight,
+ fit in a pocket.

You might want to use:

+ TI OMAP Cortex CPU for much longer battery life
+ Have a look at http://www.openpanda.org
+ You may be in competition with Google Android devices

All the best

I would be very interested in helping with the UI design, thats if this opportunity is still available?

I really like this product I want, and I would be more than happy to help as much as possible and in whatever way possible
I have job experience with vb6, c++, c#, sql and javascript

I would be happy to help as beta tester, I’m sure can debug it very well!

would love this product. would love to help. is there a dev site up for it yet?

what’s happening next? how can i help?

lol

why wouldn’t you just buy an archos 7?

http://www.archos.com/products/imt/archos_7/index.html?country=global&lang=en

This is an exciting initiative. I think this kind of project could revolutionize our consumption societies more profoundly than we expect.

I also think that it is a rare opportunity to include from the start strong environmental thinking into the design. I am deeply convinced that the community will be more than willing to embrace stronger environmental requirements than the traditional industry usually does for consumer products.

Cloud Computing is a good opportunity to reduce the environmental burden of computer technologies since, theoretically, a purely web tablet is a lot less subject to obsolescence than traditional computers. It is much easier to design a web tablet that will sustain the passage of time because the burden of technological changes will reside mostly in the cloud. Furthermore, in terms of product reliability, I know for a fact that it is possible to design this kind of product with an average life expectancy of 10 years or more, without significant impact on costs. It is for example a standard expectation in the railway industry.

I suggest as one of the specifications for the tablet that it is designed to operate adequately for some number of years, for example 5 or even 10 years. This should be done not only by choosing reliable components but also with a product architecture that is as much as possible immune to technological changes.

This is a fantastic opportunity to make a significant step towards a more sustainable economy. I plead this community to consider this requirement. Otherwise, we may end up again with countless “Dead Simple Web Tablet”, with all their toxic components in our neighborhood dump in just a few years.

Finally, I think “Crunch Book” would be a very cool name for the product.

hey,
i have researched building laptops from desktop parts in the past, and I would like to help out with the hardware components, as well as anything else that could use an extra hand. just send me an e-mail please! =]

Please please please can we have an update?!

I’m just a beginner web designer, but would love to get involved and help out in any way I can.

…Because an Archos is more like a PSP alternative. Too small.

+ fit in a pocket? You’ve totally missed the point. That market segment is already being addressed by a company in Cupertino.

Hmmm…think about it. A 10-year old cellphone would still work, but do you use one or want one? The feature evolution will occur in the cloud, but display technology is evolving at a rapid rate right now so I expect we’ll see a realistic lifetime of 2-3 years. The good news is the the power consumption of touch-screen displays is likely to go down a lot.

Go here: http://www.ipicinnovations.com

Saw this posted in the other fork. These guys could probably use your tablet if you can make it.

Just found out about this project. I may not be great at debugging, compiling, or any other current needs, but what I am good at is PR. Let me know what you need.

I can also do prototyping, but my guess is there will be no shortage of volunteers for that.

-Nicholas

p.s. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest using Atom to power this thing. It’s cheap in large quantities, cheap enough in smaller ones, and powerful enough to run anything you would need on something like this. Including flash. =]

Heh.. Surfboard ..

I am a Software Engineer in college but this is exactly what I have been wanting but not wanting to spend 2k for one. I will help out in anyway possible. I have wanted one of these for a long time and even if I can’t help create it I would love to know when it is coming out so I can purchase one.

All that I can say is wow, I would like to help with beat testing to, also would like help with marketing it online…

would be great to have toolkit to create web apps for it something like the iphone apps…

bluetooth, wifi and also usb port ..

This is what I’ve been dreaming all these years! A cheap tablet PC! why? because the future of consumer computing is tablet PC.
I’m tired of carrying around a notebook; netbook keyboard is not ergonomic; iphone display is too small.
So? yes we need a cheap tablet PC! 8~13″ display would be great.
But before we go too far, I think we need a clear specification as a milestone.
So how’s the project going now?

I love this, i love it i love it i love it!

I would like to beta test it, beause i really want to help but i have no experience with anything that could help this product.

ps: If you reply to this comment, please notify me via email (jamysanjay@gmail.com). I never watch comments

Is the project dead?
I was very excited about it =(

Hi, I believe our retail customers could be very interested in running our saas application on such a device in store. So if you need someone investigating the commercial potential, please get in touch.

/Peder

Im interested in beta testing and debugging. Please email when you guys have an idea of setup.

I think this is an absolutely brilliant idea. If I may, I would like to see some kind of bookreading ability as well, a simple pdf/text reader.

You have no idea how much I need this… I need it to ready .doc, pdf, etc. I currently use my smart phone to teach out of… I store notes on it. But, if I could have something larger I’d love it. I had a Nokia n810, and it was pretty good… but I returned it.

I would be next to useless in creating this stroke of brilliance, but I would definitely purchase one. It’s an amazing idea!! And why not just call it the TechCrunch Web Tablet?

Hi, I’m a mechanical engineer by training and I’ve wanted to see this product for over a year now. Add my email to the list and send me info on the dev site. Thanks, Noah

I really want this, and am willing to help if you want it.

i’m into embedded bsp development. this is one awesome project. count me in.. and ofcourse i’m planning a lot of addons to it.. bst wishes to all…..

Is this project still going? I would be very interested in buying quite a few if its going to be ready soon.

This looks like something many would be interested in purchasing. There’s actually a niche market where this would be highly beneficial; medical EMR/EHR. If you can put an RDP and/or Citrix client on this and use a good screen from Pixel Qi (XO Laptop screen maker), this would be an *OPTIMAL* EMR tablet.

I’m a UI/UX designer, I’d love to help get the UI sorted. Let me know if you’re interested and I can get a sketch ready.

I’m interested in helping out on the technical or business / marketing side of things. I can program, spec, and or do bizdev. Location: New York

Techncruch, you write: “the new dev site which will be up in the next few hours” but fail to mention where this dev site can be found. TC search don’t come up with the right answer either. Please make a link, thanks!

The world wants updates! Where is a news feed I can follow?

Think hard about support so the product doesn’t get a bad rap from the beginning. You don’t have an established infrastructure for this so you will need to contract and manage third parties. Not a problem though, lots of successful companies started this way (can you say Compaq). You do need some strong management for this. And a customer evangelist internally. I would be pleased to help.

Hi,

I am a website designer, and am currently studying interface design.

would love to help out

Familiar with vb, C#, javascript, as well as C++, java, flash, and python. I’ll be happy to beta test and debug, if you ever need me

APRIL FOOL !!!
you dumb suckers…

I’d like to see it involve bluetooth to allow for wireless sync with laptops desktops. That would also allow the addition of higher quality tech than whats on there.

I’m with Darnell on this subject.
I would be happy helping (or at least trying to help) to add languages and more then happy to beta test it in Hebrew

Video playback is also a required feature. Codec loading, etc. Also, GPS support.

I have had the similar idea for a while but never got around to doing it until recently.
Just to come up to speed with new development since the last research I have done I came across your post. First of all I like to say I am very interested in participating on this project in any way I can and since I am a computer engineer with various technical subject expertise, I think I can help.

Anyhow, the main reason why I was researching this topic was due to the luck of books in several 3rd world counties I visited and the need for this type of device. With a simple device like this being available in school libraries and small kiosk in villages that don’t have access to big library of books make it easier to manage and start quickly. The potential is limitless. They don’t need access to internet (that can come later) the main deficiency comes from the fact that they don’t have books and the books they have are very old. I have seen since books that are almost 60 years old being used by school because they just can’t afford to buy the books and maintain a library for all those book to shelter. I have been involved with an organization that tries to supply books to these villages and in most cases we are able to find donors but the big issue has always been delivering it to them. Just send a set of books cost a lot of many, imagine for example we want to send several books about math so a few students can share that and multiply that with many subject we want to cover … Now you can see the problem, books are heavy, easier to destroy, lose, and most of all harder to share. I think a device like this solves all of these problems and more.

So, as you can see I have been thinking about this for a while and I truly like to join the team so I can make this part of my dream a reality by helping create this amazing device.

DanielM

http://www.slashgear.com/albatrons-tee-pc-makes-it-through-the-fcc-0925746/

Albatron built it – going throught the FCC as we speak…

Wonderful idea.
How about a jack for an external keyboard or killer handwriting recognition?
I’m completely out of my depth regarding tech specs and programming, but I’m hell on wheels when it comes to a technology/IP contract, if that helps.
Otherwise, please put me on the list of eagerly waiting buyers.

Hello,

I’ve been developing a device like this for some time – target price point has been $130 per tablet. My issue is that I don’t have any legal or prototyping resources whatsoever…I’d love to contribute to a project like this, but I’m unfamiliar with the legal issues surrounding having something that’s both open-sourced AND commercial, as I’d want to make money from my ideas – also in the works is a very low cost replacement platform for paper. I’ve been working on this for a very, very long time and do need some protection for my input.

If you guys can help out, fire me an email and we’ll talk. Quid Pro Quo, as they say…

I’m interested greatly in this project, I would quite like to try writing my own linux distro for the machine but i would first need some technical specications -I’m guessing this thing will have an arm processor as standard, but with half a gig of ram and the memory capacity, a powerful lightweight distro could be written with a lot of applications.

Will it have bluetooth? I think that a lot of people would like to be able to sync this with either a bluetooth GPS device for navigation or to their 3G phones to surf the web when there isn’t a hotspot…

From a cost standpoint this device carves an entirely new niche. Great idea if the hardware cost, especially a reasonably sized touch screen, can be had for under $200. There are significant software concerns but if the hardware isn’t cheap enough this won’t fly. Who is the vendor for the touch screen?

Alley Insider are thinking along the same lines, speccing their desires to Apple:

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/apple-tablet-ipod-touch-hd

My background is in hardware project mangement (military training systems) and technical writing. Don’t know what I could add, but would like to help.

I think this is a fantastic idea. If this device had some way to simultaneously use an internal touch screen keyboard for document editing, and an external hard drive (my ipod would be perfect), I could see my desktop going cold for days at a time. I’d only need the desktop for my big graphics programs, and that’s really only an occasional thing. A device like this might actually demonstrate to most of us how little we really need the endless bells and whistles on a three-thousand dollar laptop or a big power-hungry desktop. I see plenty of reasons why the big boys don’t like this idea. Think how much cooler my office will be without that 500-watt power supply on all the time. Count me in.

Brilliant idea, but it seems like the project is dead !

Check this

http://eeepc.itrunsonlinux.com/the-news/1-latest-news/248-google-android-netbooks-on-their-way

I’m putting up a Wiki and getting this off the ground. I’m tired of waiting. Let’s do this. Stay tuned, link for the wiki should be up in a couple of minutes.

Wiki is pending review.

If approved, URL will be webtabletproject.wikia.com .

Setting up a PayPal account for funding donations. Link for that will be on the wiki.

i’m in too. i have working experience as a tester, programmer and product manager.

one user said that would be a good ideea to use cell-phone microprocessor which i totaly agree with. this way you won’t need to put coolers on the tablet so the design won’t be affected and also the cost will go down for the tablet. for just firefox or skype and somoe photo viewing and maybe listening to music too it’s quite enough.

This is a great idea. If the project is still undergoing, I would love to help out. I am an ASIC engineer and was part of Core-2 Duo design team. I design cell phone and application processor chips now.

Hi !

If I can help… I’m interesting by this project.
I feel better for technical matters, but I don’t know what this project need as human ressources (If they are 1 000 programmer, one more isn’t necessary, i think).

I’m student in french university for a Master in e-business. And I can develop with web technologies and with C language. I use linux (Ubuntu/Debian), unix (OpenSolaris) and windows(95/98/ME/NT/XP/Vista).

Best regards !

I am college math professor using the MyMathLab and Mathzone course management systems software. A tablet PC like this would be extremely useful in education where the latest big advances are in the elimination of standard textbooks. It would be very helpful to be able to write on the tablet screen with anything (like a pencil or pen) and have the writing recorded as it is input. Also, being able to change the screen resolution like they do on the iPhone would be great so that students could see the entire problem page or quikly and easily zoom in to a specific area. Being able to write would allow students to submit their work woth different Hw problems, etc. I would like to help in some way. I can beta test or give input into what features might be desireable for this to be come a great educational tool. It could be called the iTeach.

Rob Knight

I am college math professor using the MyMathLab and Mathzone course management systems software. A tablet PC like this would be extremely useful in education where the latest big advances are in the elimination of standard textbooks. It would be very helpful to be able to write on the tablet screen with anything (like a pencil or pen) and have the writing recorded as it is input. Also, being able to change the screen resolution like they do on the iPhone would be great so that students could see the entire problem page or quikly and easily zoom in to a specific area. Being able to write would allow students to submit their work woth different Hw problems, etc. I would like to help in some way. I can beta test or give input into what features might be desireable for this to be come a great educational tool. It could be called the iTeach.

Rob Knight

Wow, sounds like a really exciting product! I’d love to beta test, and also I might be able to help with advertising.

Wow, that sounds like a really great project!

I’d certainly be interested in beta testing, and I might also be able to help with advertising.

A great thing to implement would be flash (as seen on the archos 5.) Also, I think that basic facilities for video and other things would be a good idea. For the screen, I think that two screens should be offered, in 5″ 800×480 and 7″ 800×480 formats.

One other thing I recommend adding is software for third party applications to be added wirelessly. This has literally led to the success of the touch, and shouldn’t cost much to implement. I’m willing to try and write a program for this, but I have no experience at all in this sector. Saying that, I’m already good on the computer and am a quick learner.

Sorry, one more thing. I’d also be very happy to write the instruction manual.

I love the idea of this. The only forseeable problem is that an onscreen keyboard would quickly wear out the display, and possibly leave ugly fingerprints on the screen(I’d hate having fingerprints on my screen if I was in the middle of browsing) I also think that it’s too much to incorporate so much software off the bat. Up the memory a little, and let the consumer decide what to install. Software is what makes a computer cost so much in the first place.

I hope to see these on the shelves soon!

I have been involved with both embedded hardware development and implementing Linux software stacks on them and would love to get involved in this type of product.

Let’s get this going.

I’d be happy to help you translating this to Finnish

I am in for anything. This is a great idea.

From my point of view it is a perfect Couch/TV item if :

You add a STRONG Infra-Red module up front so it can become the universal remote/web tablet for the home. Strong as in 8 meters. Not 8 inches…

It’s also all that is missing from the Nokia tablet. Would have bought one if they had included the remote function.

Is there a list of hardware somewhere for us to look? I wan’t sth similar but based on a pico-itx and I’d like to have a peek in this project

Open Pandora is the device you really want!:
http://openpandora.org/

I would love to help with this in any way. E-mail me if you need anything

I would like to see Windows 7 beta run on it.

Can you demo it running Windows 7?

You will need this(How to install Win7 using USB):

http://www.blogsdna.com/2016/how-to-install-windows-7-from-usb-drive-without-windows-7-iso-dvd.htm

I’ll buy a prototype for a reasonable amount and test it for you. I surf 6-8 hrs a day and read e-books and listen to audiobooks 4 – 6 hrs a day. I don’t need wifi don’t trust it. A SD card slot is a must. Sign me up!!!

great product! I await this with baited breath.

I have thought that something like this was needed and here it is! One thing I’m not sure how it would be done , but that I had envisioned is, I as a web developer can imagine coding on this but without a too; it cant be done.

maybe since there will be programs like skype, filezilla and aptana

could be added too.
but maybe not.

Are there going to be ant usb ports or anything?

My family has a manufacturing company in China, we are a high quality mid volume odm/oem manufacturer (10,000 pieces/run minimum) and would definitely be interested in helping out when you’re ready to take this into production.

I have a love of all things open source and wouldn’t mind giving apple a run for their money for their overpriced hardware if you guys want to take this to the next level. You have my email.

Not really, I´ve always been fascinated by touchscreen… since the 80´s when there were some devices in brazilian airports that used touchscreen over green phosporous monitors… but thanks for the tip…

Woah, this is a great idea.
I’ve been ebaying all day looking for a cheap basic web tablet that doesn’t cost $500.
For me a web tablet just needs a Browser, Some storage, a USB Port, Bluetooth, and WiFi.

I’m really looking forward to seeing this through to the end.

HI,

I am a junior undergrad with computer science major.
I am good at kernel internals. I would like to contribute to techcrunch tablet

I’m definitely in, working with similar things for years…

OK, I’m interested in something like this too.

I’m looking for a flexible e-Reader for my daughter and worry about the proprietary nature of devices like the Kindle or Sony.

I’ve even accept a B+W version to keep cost low.

The new Cheap PCs are cool but I’ve yet to see a $300 tablet version.

I’m interested in your tablet to be more cost effective and accurate in shelve reading in our library. If your tablet could run MSOnenote, I believe we can use the catalogue in the stacks looking for our books and document it on the tablet. Later, we could possible download, or import to MSExcel for cataloging. Please keep me in mind… this sounds interesting and fun!
“D”

Hi, this looks very promising!
I am interested in participating in development and if this goes open source look into build an waterproof, riggid version for yachting-applications (tactics, navigation etc.)

I wanna help out with this if possible, possibly as a beta tester

I would like participate too.

We must focus the efforts on hardware more tan software specifications. It will only take a few weeks to developers’ communities around the world to release software candidates.

The tablet must have connectivity options, and at least one wired expansion port to add a keyword or expansion dock, maybe a USB por.

The design must be necessarily open and adding only open technologies.

Futures version could have multi-touch option.

Just thinking, we should maybe try and include a headphone jack if it is going to be an internet based thing. I could help with advertising if you needed it. This would probably be a government product for schoolkids if it were to be reliable. Maybe we can sell it to Microsoft for their new brand of retail stores.

Hmmm, that happened didn’t it. Never think anything Apple patents is going to happen.

I’m an Industrial Designer in school right now. I’d love to be involved with prototyping a machine like this, it would make an amazing portfolio piece.

Hi,

I’m very interested in your initiative and would really like to participate. Whom should I contact?

I have a background in communication systems (a mix of computer science, electrical engineering and mathematics) with a specialization in security and wireless communications.

I’m currently developing a humanitarian project to improve the quality of education in developing countries through seminars and using a low cost technology. I had the intention of developing a platform similar to what you are proposing. It looks as if you got a heads start and there’s no point in re-inventing the wheel

I would be delighted to help out with marketing, advertising, media relations, or any other task on a volunteer basis. Please send me an email and I will forward you a resume.

I’d like to help in any way possible. I have also got a group/team of mates that would be more than happy to help.

Love it.Just love it. If I could suggest one minor addition – use a display similar to the OLPC XO laptop, which allows full daylight readability. This combined with a simple PDF plugin for firefo would give you a very competitively priced ebook reader as well as a web browser. Peronally, I’d be more than happy to shell out a bit etra for this feature.

Also, I love the Open-Source from top-to-bottom concept, and would be more than happy to contribute a few dev hours to this project.

Sign me up!

I’m not a software developer and the type of hardware you’re wanting to work with is something I’m not familiar with. I realize that this is almost a year old but I have Quality Assurance experience (8 months). I have not earned any official cerification or degrees. But, I would love to test this device for you if you’ll let me. Otherwise, let me know when i can purchase one

Hola, great site here I am looking for fans of our favorite celebs. If you have any sexy clips with someone, i will appreciate your help In exchange I can upload some top hottest stuff from my hd here. Regards! Waiting for links with good stuff, and free of course

Any idea when/where we’ll actually be able to buy this?

Want to show you some rare celeb galleries from my big archive. Just look what Sharon Stone do in time of crysis and big depression!

You should make a big screen wall mount version. That’s once you have the original out to consumers. You should also consider adding touch sensitive light buttons like on the Lenovo Thinkpad series. Have them automatically switch for Skype and Firefox. You should add email support. You should also develop an application like Windows Tablet PC Input for handwriting purposes. Also an application like OneNote or Windows Journal should be included. You should let it have GUI support. Have a button inside the battery case to get FireFox or any other application out of Kiosk mode. Have a higher end model for like gaming purposes or a person who likes to run more intense applications. You should add multiple OS support. Make the hard drive replaceble in case consumers want to get a larger size in gigabytes. Add a figerprint scanner for multiple user support, so that way, each user can customize the application settings.

Definetly email me when they will be available.
Hope you like my ideas,
Sam Clark

You should make a big screen wall mount version. That’s once you have the original out to consumers. You should also consider adding touch sensitive light buttons like on the Lenovo Thinkpad series. Have them automatically switch for Skype and Firefox. You should add email support. You should also develop an application like Windows Tablet PC Input for handwriting purposes. Also an application like OneNote or Windows Journal should be included. You should let it have GUI support. Have a button inside the battery case to get FireFox or any other application out of Kiosk mode. Have a higher end model for like gaming purposes or a person who likes to run more intense applications. You should add multiple OS support. Make the hard drive replaceble in case consumers want to get a larger size in gigabytes. Add a figerprint scanner for multiple user support, so that way, each user can customize the application settings.

Definetly email me when they will be available.
Hope you like my ideas,
Sam Clark

if you want help in graphic design and promotions for the crunchpad, id be glad to lend a hand.

Hi! I am absolutely wowed by this project. I would love to help and actually have a great (imho) idea for a keyboard interface that would make typing much easier. I know input isn’t the main focus here but with a little keyboard interface tweak, inputting text could be a _lot_ more comfortable.

Awesome work guys! Hope to hear back…

Luis

Zooming & scaling are good. Changing screen resolution is not. Electronic screens have only one resolution. Learn the controls your desktop software provides for image sizing, including fonts.

I am more than willing to help out with this in anyways possible. I am a web application developer, anyways I can help I will!! Keep me up-to-date

Don’t forget to provide Silverlight support, e.g., Miguel de Icaza’s Moonlight for Linux! More and more major sites, Olympics, Playboy, Facebook, are incorporating Silverlight content. Not having this would create ever-increasing holes in the Internet browsing experience!

I’m quite interested in working with this project. I think it’s also suit for “Digital Signage” market because it’s easy to customize firmware on Linux or Mozira, if play movie contents as HTML and FLV with touch panel function.

Actually I’m working on computer periferal makers in Japan and work in Taiwan as product mangaer. Therefore I could try to find manufacture or EMS who will be interested.

Also we have R&D team in house, so we might support mechanical.

Please feel free to contact me.

thats what i was waiting for, a small device with a touchscreen where i don´t need a needle to use it.

If there is a “i am interested to buy one” list, add me there and send me a note if the first batch come in. Or leavee me a note if you need help (i.e. translating) in any way.

Is the dev blog public? And where?

best regards from Southern Germany
Anton

just let me know when and where I can buy one, or two. If I have one I know my daughter will have to have one too. I think it is a great Idea, the perfect lazy boy tablet. Make sureit can be used in direct sunlight as well please.

Cheers

I would love to help, but the most I could do is testing. More importantly, I would love to be part of a mailing list if there is one.

Hi all,

Whats the current status of this project?

Ive got lots of interst in this from a lot of people, but an update to the progress would go down well

Lots of good ideas being dumped in here though, I personally thing this should happena lot more often…in fact there needs to be a specialist collaboration method for carrying all this out…so web developers out there…thats another lil project to get happening

I’ll help promote this.

I would like suggest that PXE boot option for bios
so it could be used as Linux thin client.. K12LTSP.org etc

cost could be kept down.. ie no on board OS is required for thin client only PXE boot.. works over wireless as well. all the CPU power is gained from the LTS server..?

It seems this project is dead.

Very interesting, I’ve been following this for some time, and every time I look at it I’m more interested. It’s like the good things about netbooks combined with the iPhone. It’ll really fill a niche market I think for people who like a device for writing and reading, not necessarily “hard” computing. I’ll be more than happy to review this device and write about it on my site, as well as pass information along to some other people involved in the field.

Very interesting project. I would like to contribute with some usability issues and perhaps even some mechanical design inputs, but I do not know where to look? (Sorry, I have not read all the 19 pages of comments).

Can someone point me in the direction of where the collaboration takes place?

I’m a pilot, very little tech ability, but in need of something like this to run digital instrument approach plates and have web access on the ground as well. Currently using a Sony E-Reader and running PDF plates, but wishing for a bigger screen and web access when needed. Great idea and I am definitely a potential consumer. Thanks!

“the new dev site which will be up in the next few hours”
Hi, can you show the link to the website so that we can follow up? As soon as you have it ready, i’ll buy one

Fascinating project. If your looking for simple and light weight, I would strongly urge you take a look at moblin 2.0 beta. Would be a great direction to go. http://moblin.org/

i lve this i had an idea just like it but simpler yen more complex as far as the os though my idea was a full os on a tablet withe a touch screen and a power button on the back that is my idea but yours is better i think i like idea a lot i will help in any way that you need also if you want i have TONS of ideas that are all useful

Beautiful idea. Awesome project. Needed technology.

Still interested, what’s up with this guys?

This system will rock if you really release it at $300. It looks like it could be the ultimate e-reader, too. If the battery life is more than a couple hours, you have a winner. If so, put me on your waiting list.

Is this project the Touchbook?
http://www.alwaysinnovating.com/touchbook/

I have a few ideas…
1) extra storage… definitely have a usb port for flash drives
2) plug-in support for text document viewing. maybe open office type plug-in? very streamlined?
3) a broad protocol IM program?
4) a notepad program for reminders?
5) and finally a dock to set it in at night not cables and lay it on a table a nice upright dock that could work as a multi positional holder for it.

Looks very nice, I think this will be a good thing for students and more people.
Great, really I like it.
Thanks for the post.

Although that would make the software particularly lightweight, I don’t think many consumers will appreciate that since it lacks the eye candy neccessary for selling the thing.

It would be a cool idea, however, to have the entire UI as vector graphics, allowing for seamless zooming.

If it comes in black, I want one. With LCARS on it, preferably.

I would like to help you design the mechanical structure of this device. I am a mechanical engineer from cornell university, and have experience working for a ce company (hillcrest labs) as a mechanical engineer.

According to our opinion, any device which is mobile, should have a GPS and a digital compass. These are going to be necessary components.

Well, accelerometer isnt too much more expensive to add, considering that almost every digital device is coming with these nowadays.

Looking forward to the Tablet.

has there been any additional info on this tablet, as it seems like a very good idea… if not, perhaps we the people should start another tablet, and using the technology currently available, it could be made better for cheaper.

a LED touch screen would probably run at about $80 for a 10 inch model

a 400mhz processor would probably be around $20

and you could easily get the wireless, battery, case, ect., ect. for $150 or so….

the integrated camera may be harder to do, because it would cost more, but its our decision what to have on this tablet, right?

sadly I have to pessimistic as well, if you can get some major investors you could have a chance, but anyone who put money into this would prolly see that 200$ price point as a deal-kill, i know i would, I know more than a few of the big names in internet marketing and I could talk around and see if I can generate some interest, e-mail me if you want

Does anyone know what has happened here? We were promised an update among the comments of another article, yet have seen none. This project is a very intriguing one, how can TechCrunch go without updating us?
It apparently has failed, seeing as the lack of updates.

The keyboard looks difficult to use. Add an optional ergonomic keyboard, much larger, with keys that fan in the direction the fingers naturally fall. Could even offer this in different sizes, or scaleable, to fit any hand. 

Nice project you have here! It’s some months since last comment, but I wanna tell you about the Cloud OS that gOS is developing. It consists in only a web browser with some links with icons to most used websites.

It could be an excellent OS for your web tablet. But, if you want another linux OS with more options, you can put Moblin v2 inside.

Keep working on this excellent device and please contact me for news!

HOTTT. I’d buy a web tablet, no question. When you develop it, would you go through a company, or what? How would you distribute? If this were legit, I’d be really excited… at the moment, I have doubts.

anything i can do guys?

Now I get it – it is the Crunchpad – http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/07/04/crunchpad-prototype-coming-this-month-be-available-asap/

I’d better ride a faster horse next time.

Hi, this idea of a tablet Web Pc is great, this thing amazed me, as I read about the ideas of this marvelous project, I thought this is going to open the way for the “nettablet PC’s”, as you read, this is a new division of portable computers and this sits between the handheld Pc’s, netbooks and smartphones.

I now nothing about programming, but I can give ideas. If this thing is going to have firefox with a linux kernel, let it accept any application, it will be fabulous to have a nettablet like this.

It needs a long runtime battery, for entry level, about 6 hours, rigurous power management, not going for the Intel Atom N270 processor(at 1.6Ghz it will be a battery eater); more memory, both solid state and RAM, at least 8Gb solid state and 1GB of RAM. More USB ports, at least 2 or 4; Ethernet 100/1000 interface, WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluethoot.

Video output,VGA or DVI; microphone input, line in, out nor built in microphone; 1.3 or just 1.0Mp web camera; another card reader, for compact flash.

Scratch proof screen; ability to run video games, video memory of 32Mb.

Well, that’s all. I’ll be waiting to see the finished product.

One thing, to the people of tech crunch, good luck with this, wish you the best success.

Thanks for reading my post, bye and take care.

Emails alerting the mailing list to new postings on CrunchPad’s blog link to the oldest page of comments, from July 2008. To read anything new, it is necessary to scroll and page through a full year of comments. This needs to be changed. The link should be to the newest page, for one-click access to current postings. This would encourage comments on comments, and frankly make us look more credible as co-designers of an open-source project for a dedicated Web surfing device. One would hope such an ambitious crew would know how to design a Web page.

I want one of these for everyone in my house — as long as they don’t get too warm. That is my biggest issue with a lot of the skinny tablets (including Mac ‘books) and smart phones — my lap and/or thumbs feel like they’re being slowly burned!

Make sure it includes microsoft office. 99% of what I do is web, email, word, excel. It was that way as a student and is the same as a business owner. That plus PDF support and two USBs is all I need. Why hasnt someone created this yet? It would be hotter than the iphone.

I’m a lighting design grad student and this seems like something that would be awesome to keep a few files on in order to catch up on paper work, possibly edit and look at what I need to do, even surf the web when tech and rehearsals get boring. This would be something simple and effective to keep, look up, and edit simple paper work, such as excel worksheets and word type documents. Not much is done to help technicians in the theatre world and this would definitely be something that could help. I do not have much technical experience but if possible would like to test run this project in order test it for durability and usefulness. A way to keep simple notes via stylus would be useful too. Thanks.
-Jono.

Well, Office is NOT going to happen. Open Office however, can be done, but will risk a little bit of speed/space.

We have a marketing problem brewing. Too many people seem not to understand the costs of all their fantasies. The point of the CrunchPad is it’s a great compromise: huge but incomplete functionality in a perfect form factor sold at a low, low price. It crosses most people’s actual needs in a computer with their desire for a thin ultralight at the price of an iPod Touch.

So many comments say, “Under $300 Web tablet? I’ll buy two if you add 18 USB ports, 12 SD card readers, full functionality of OpenOffice, filing system to strore my documents, 3TB storage, 36-hour battery life with 5-minute quick charge, ultra high resolution fingerprint-proof screen, and hardening to twice military standards.” Folks, that ain’t a CrunchPad anymore; it’s a tablet that costs more than most laptops on the market today. Stick with the vision: Just FireFox on a touch screen. If you want to write or store documents, do so online (maybe, if you’re lucky, with an HTML-5 enabled office suite that allows you to edit documents offline). If you want other functionality, pay the price for a costly laptop or wait for the price of add-on technologies to drop.

I want a CrunchPad for my mother. At 80 years old, she has not used a computer since typing on a Wang word processor 25 years ago. A CrunchPad she could understand. A BloatPad, no way! I also want a CrunchPad for myself, for all my work in the cloud.

Know your market!

I’d love to work on the HCI (or otherwise) part of it..

How will you guys fit a battery? And if it is capable of running photoshop I WANT IT.

i highly doubt it that requires high specs

why isn’t the dev site up yet.

I think the link is broken its not working for me.

Just received Alex’s comment that the link from the CrunchPad’s mailing list to this forum is broken. It is, and has been for many months. The link should lead to the most recent post, so readers could readily comment. Instead, it links to the oldest message, one from the summer of 2008. With thousands of old messages and hundreds of old pages to scroll through to get to current work, the site can’t build a strong following. CrunchPad has been notified before, and appears to have no interest in fixing it. Too bad. Their street cred in technology and marketing would be better if they showed this basic knowledge of Web design and respect for their followers.

I can help with object-based/java programming and language translations! Please let me know if this is still an active project.

Wow, great ideas.
I dont have much knowledge in programming or HR, but i can translate it to Spanish if needed.
Just send me an email.

Good luck!

If a danish translation is needed i’d love to help.

Id love to stay intouch with this thing. Please add me to the email list. Or direct me to how I cann keep up.

I really would like to contribute to this project, however the skills that I have are of average proficiency and you probably already have people who are better at the things I do than myself. I’d be glad to do testing or whatever but you probably already have people more qualified for it than myself.

Best of luck with the project and I hope to be seeing results in the near future!

This project looks amazing! I teach second graders and at the college level. I’d love to test some of these with 8 year olds and adult learners. Best of luck and let me know how I can help. Any way to get these to interact with a SMARTboard? Just something to think about for the classroom market…Thanks!

This sounds awesome! I would love to help with development and testing.

I have a mainframe Project Management background from the UK – need professional user interface and usability testing, or Team oversight?
I can touchtype relatively fast – want to know how screen works with a real user? I’d prefer a proper keyboard or my HP2133 keys (soon to be HP5101 or Crunchpad – but let’s test your screen keyboard first.
What about bluetooth for an external keyboard or mouse?
I’m in Singapore if that helps.

With that amount of international interest, localizing might be one of your requirements. I can do English to Dutch if needed.
I am a long term embedded software engineer, that experience might be of use too.

Great initiative!

This is a great idea, I’d just like the system to be open enough to have a package manager that would allow me to install Opera. It’s fast, lightweight, andwith Opera Link I just sign into the browser from any Opera browser and quickly have all of my bookmarks, speed dial and many other vital bits for the browser.

Also, looking at many of the lighter linux distro’s like TinyMe will give you a good list of tiny programs to use, like Abiword instead of OpenOffice’s Writer. It uses less resources, and is more than featured enough for the uses it’ll be put to.

SDHC compatibilit is a must. I’d love to be able to have to slots like the Pandora does. If this tablet has usb ports, please position them in a way so that we can make modificatications to it, like internalizing some usb devices. AT&T sells a wonderful set of 3G usb devices that are supported by the linux kernel if I do remember it correctly. If so, I would definitely buy one for this tableet, internalize it myself and have internet access everywhere. It would cost me $10 more than my current prepaid phone plan with Metro, but it would allow for so much more functionality. Since you’re adding Skype we’d have a cheap cell phone with this combination of the tablet and the usb device. It would be completely boss and everything else on the market.

Imagine making a voice call with this device while quickly scribbling notes or surfing the web in a wifiless area. I was planning to buy a Pandora, but if you guys make this tablet please let me know, I’ll be a day one buyer. Just let me know in advance so I can budget for it accordingly, I still have bills to pay!

Is there some type of mailing list that interested parties can be added to? I’d like to be kept up to date on a project as ambitious and magnificent as this one.

I’d also like to volunteer as tester, f I don’t get one of these for free I’ll pay to do so. I’ll definitely internalize the AT&T device after extensive testing of in the usb port. I’ll even try to internalize a usb hub and post a howto on how to do so if I succeed. I’ll also mess around with installing Fedora on the device if it’s possible to do so via usb to give people a how to on messing with the OS and how to use that os. Fedora is also lightweight and very efficient. You do need to use Autoten to update the codecs, but after that it’s brilliant. I’m no linux master, but I can a least get it to automatically load a browser to configure it with lightweight programs that would be good to use on the tablet. It’d be easier if I have the source for the on-screen keyboard you’ll be developing, if not I’ll just have to use the useability keyboard.

Fedora 10 on a pc with 1 Ghz Pentium III and 512 MB of ram runs firefox and open Office smoothely at a 1360×768 resolution, so on this tablet it should be just as brilliant if not moreso since the resolution is lower. Please allow for installing other os’s and programs.

Just copy and pasted this from the other page. If the project is still running I’d love to become a part of it. This has become my dream device, I want it so badly. If $200 is a goal that has become too difficult to obtain, then try for 300. More costlier and less must buy right away, but that can be offset by adding more things to the tablet like its’ own pen and a bit more memory so that it could have a 3rd major option, drawing. Drawing at a high enough res to make people turn heads and run for this.

Count with me im lamp developer

Please add me to distro for release of prototypes/production units for purchase.

Hello,

I know i’m kinda late to the discussion, but I would love to help out in any way I can. I am studing engineering currently although I would love to beta test this and maybe invest as well.

keep me posted.

Where is the development site?
I’d love to get in on this, but there are a lot of qualified people already onboard… really I just want the hardware so I can play with it… where oh were is the dev site?

I am a college math professor and I am very interested in joining in your $200 tablet project. Please contact me and let me know how I might be able to help.

Great idea…! I’d def buy one…!

Not sure if its been mentioned, but would it include the ability to play media streaming from a NAS or another computer…? UPnP/ DLNA device…

I’m really interested in.
I’m studiing now computer science, and use everyday a tablet, with ubuntu ant Xournal (http://xournal.sourceforge.net/).
I think it should run on this tablet too! And I hope this tablet is a lot lighter than mine;-)

Very interested in how this is developing. Have some suggestions on features to include (if not already on the list), and ways my teams can use this product . How can I get more info on progress and ways to help?? – Jim C.

Must have gps we need it!

hey, i really like what your trying to do and it would be something i would get since it’s cheap and it’s simple to use. i could probably help design the tablet just give me the software i need and the designs and demesions and ill try to do my best!

I would love to help however I can, shoot me an e-mail.