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I was rather amused to see that it's still possible for the big sites to completely Slashdot themselves. That's what apparently happened this morning, after TechCrunchIT declared that they were getting into the hardware game -- the site was totally inaccessible for several hours, presumably because they got slammed with traffic.
Now that things are back up, I do recommend checking it out, especially if you're a cool-toys geek and double-especially if you might have something to contribute. The idea is pretty simple: they're planning on taking a fairly standard Linux stack, and focusing on building the web tablet so many of us want. Thin as a MacBook Air, teeny solid-state hard drive, thoroughly underpowered for anything *but* the Web (but not intended to be used for anything other than the web), easy to use and *cheap*. Open source from top to bottom, so that anybody who wants to produce a knockoff can do so.
It's damned interesting, and I suspect they could pull it off: pretty much all the necessary software pieces exist, so they just need to be put together into a commodity package. If they can manage it for the sub-$300 price they're targeting (and I don't see much reason why they couldn't), I'd buy one in a heartbeat: it fills the niche between full-powered laptop and smartphone quite nicely. Exactly how much I'd use it would depend on how good a touchpad keyboard they have, but even with a fairly crappy one I can think of a bunch of ways I'd use it...
Now that things are back up, I do recommend checking it out, especially if you're a cool-toys geek and double-especially if you might have something to contribute. The idea is pretty simple: they're planning on taking a fairly standard Linux stack, and focusing on building the web tablet so many of us want. Thin as a MacBook Air, teeny solid-state hard drive, thoroughly underpowered for anything *but* the Web (but not intended to be used for anything other than the web), easy to use and *cheap*. Open source from top to bottom, so that anybody who wants to produce a knockoff can do so.
It's damned interesting, and I suspect they could pull it off: pretty much all the necessary software pieces exist, so they just need to be put together into a commodity package. If they can manage it for the sub-$300 price they're targeting (and I don't see much reason why they couldn't), I'd buy one in a heartbeat: it fills the niche between full-powered laptop and smartphone quite nicely. Exactly how much I'd use it would depend on how good a touchpad keyboard they have, but even with a fairly crappy one I can think of a bunch of ways I'd use it...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 07:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 08:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 08:55 pm (UTC)"Parents of teenagers might be interested in using a BUG to track their kids' driving habits. With a built-in GPS, an accelerometer and almost 512Mb of memory, it wouldn't be difficult to track where kids go, and how fast they went. Such a device could be mounted in the trunk and would have the added benefit that if the kid decided to remove the unit and stash it at the library, where he told his parents he would be, the device could sense that it was being moved, using the motion detector module, and start filming the event—busted! "
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 10:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-22 10:44 pm (UTC)Or in other words: I'd rather actually get the thing, and have it be a totally stripped-down, wholly functional $200 webpad, than have them over-reach and never actually ship. (Or wind up doubling the price to $400 by accident.) My guess is that the likelihood of success is directly related to how focused they stay...