Ben NanoNote
The first time the NanoNote was put into my hands it was “simply” an electronic dictionary. But when I heard the music, watched the video, and played around with a few of the applications it became clear to me that I was holding an ultra small notebook computer, or an ultra small netbook. I saw beyond what I held in my hands. But the only way to make that vision a reality, in my mind, was to open the device. Open it for the software development required and open it for the hardware enhancements we would need to make. As it stands, the device is a great beginning. We call the first version “ben” signified by the chinese character 本 which loosely means “origin” or the beginning place.
Above all else the size of the device offers a compelling promise. In today’s market we see a variety of devices all competing for that valuable space in your pocket, purse or backpack. We see capability being pushed into phones. We see notebooks shrinking to netbooks. For us the NanoNote has a unique form factor in this dynamic marketplace. It’s small enough to be a “phone” and capable enough with its color screen and keyboard to work as a netbook or ultra small notebook.
The technical specifications are relatively straightforward. It is powered by an Ingenics XBurst processor, which is a MIPS compatible core, clocked at 366 MHz. The roadmap for this processor family is strong with follow-on versions. Strategically, we think that Chinese processor suppliers have competitive MIPS compatible CPUs and developers who are keen to work on a processor that can compete with ARM/Intel offerings will find that the NanoNote presents an interesting and cost effective development platform. That CPU also has the ability to boot from USB. This makes the device instantly “unbrickable”. Nobody foresees a situation where they will “brick” their development platform, but Murphy’s law rules and “unbrickability” is a key design criteria at Qi hardware.
In addition to having a unique processor, the NanoNote comes with a color display. That immediately makes the device a candidate for development aimed at image content. We were pleased to see that the device could support playback of video files and that the display of pictures. With the right software you have a small form factor video player, or small photo album device. And if you add in the fact that it can record and playback audio, then you open up other possibilities. We’d love to see a device dedicated to displaying Creative Commons content.
Finally, the last thing that appealed to us was the storage. Currently the flash in the device stands at 2 GB, but going forward we can increase that to 8 GB. And the device has a microSD slot and supports SDIO. With microSD cards supporting up to 32 GB of storage, it’s clear that the device has the ability to store and use a good amount of data. We can see users storing music on the microSD, or OpenStreetMap data, or an offline version of Wikipedia, or OpenCourseWare, or photos, or movies, or caches of the web. You name it. But the microSD slot gives us more than that. Through SDIO we belive that we can support SDIO peripherals such as Wi-Fi over microSD, GPS over microSD. There is even a camera that can be attached via the microSD slot.
I think 1 Micro sdio slot and 1 SD sdio slot would be the route to go down and make the usb a host/slave using USB2GO on the go (http://www.usb.org/developers/onthego)
USB2GO allows a device to switch between acting as a master or a slave device.
[...] @vegyraupe you mean on one of these cool guys? ^_^ http://www.qi-hardware.com/2009/07/21/nanonote-features-and-benefits/ [...]
I wonder what will be the price. Zipit 2 has wireless and sells for USD 49 and otherwise is quite similar to this device and is open enough too (linux.zipitwireless.com). Add wireless and touchscreen, sell it for $50 and it may be the winner.
Hey,
We know the zipit, but we don’t want to make our devices more expensive, or tie people into a subscription model, so for now we want to keep our device as simple as possible. But the more stuff the zipit folks develop (and really open up), the more we can use in future NanoNotes, so it’s great thanks for the heads up!
/mirko
Hi Steve,
I like the concept, and would like to see a couple of features in the design.
1) Two micro sd slots. One needs to be SDIO for peripherals, the other can be a plain SD slot for extra memory.
2) Transflective screen. I want to be able to use my PDA outside, without hammering the battery to get contrast. This is a must have in my opinion. A good transflective screen can be read in bright sunshine without the backlight running at all. The 640×480 screen on my old Acer N300 was spot on.
3)secondary power socket. If it charges via USB, it would be nice to have a small secondary jack in point for a solar panel or other charger so I can charge while having a phone connected by USB.
That’s it! :-)
Like minds….
I definitely like the idea of 2 microSD slots for exactly the reason you state. Also,
having a secondary external power ( other than USB) is high on my list. basically, if you are using USB to run a peripheral it would be nice to have external power. WRT the screen,
That’s something as well that bears inquiry
Thanks for taking the time to respond civilly to my inflammatory post. I regretted posting such a negative comment almost as soon as I had hit the “Submit Comment” button.
I guess I was disappointed, because I had hoped you folks were going to adopt the gta02-core as your starting point. But I’m sure you considered that and other options, and I know you’re much more familiar with the issues than I am.
I hadn’t realized that you had made a blog post about the lessons you took away from Openmoko. I’ll be very interested in reading that.
I was really, really rooting for OM to succeed.
Good luck with your new venture!
No worries Ken. If you recall from reading the community list I have a pretty thick skin and have posted my share of comments that I wish I had on a string to pull back. WRT gta02 core. I am in constant contact with Werner and working with him to keep the faith alive. he maddog and I all want to see a free phone. As I said elsewhere there are many paths to that goal. I know quitting is not one of them. One path, the path OM took, is to try to create the phone from scratch. I found that trying to do both hardware and software was too large of a task. I thought either SHR or Android would have been a good solution. GTA02 core tries to continue down that path, but with the difference of open hardware first. We are working in the same spirit, starting with simple functioning open hardware first and then adding capability over time. Another path is the path FSO is taking with anti vendor ports. On the Open hardware front we are already posting improvements to the NanoNote design.
Like your other visitors to this site, I am happy to see this new organization take shape, and I wish you great success.
Having said that, I find it hard to imagine a way in which you can be successful with your current product roadmap. It seems to me that Openmoko (the corporation) had a viable product and business model, which they screwed up. They had severe corporate ADHD, and excessive personel turnover. The Openmoko community also behaved poorly, by fragmenting their efforts over a dozen different software distributions. But the basic idea of selling a maximally open cell phone built from components one or two generations behind state-of-the-art seemed like a clever idea. It would never gain even 1% of worldwide market share, but in a world with 3 billion cell phones, even 0.01% of the market could support a small business that sold old hardware at premium prices. Hobbyists and geeks (like me) would be happy to pay a premium for a cell phone which could be built into a robot project, or could be used for remote system management, etc. There are a lot of exciting things which can be done with hardware one or two generations old.
In contrast, I think your NanoNote is doomed from the start. A portable computer with no wireless capabilities is just not interesting in this day and age. You compare it with a netbook above, but I’m unaware of any netbook on the market which can only connect to the network via USB. It is essentially a pocket-organizer class device, and there’s no future for such products. There is absolutely nothing such a device can do that a mid-range smartphone cannot do as well or (in most cases) better. I’m sure you plan to add wireless features in future models, but I doubt you’ll get the chance to do so, because your initial device will not attract significant developer interest.
I urge you to consider adopting a different initial product - one with at least some wireless capabilities.
I’m sorry my post is so negative. I really do hope your venture is a success.
Thanks for your comments. I’ll try to address all of your points.
Well, the roadmap is open. Essentially that means the roadmap is whatever the community and our users want it to be. Like all roadmaps it has a first product. Beyond that it’s
open for discussion and change.
I won’t comment on much of this. I have a blog post on the lessons we took away.
Let me see if I can explain. The roadmap aims at a final product. It starts with a first device and then over time adds capability. That line of products is called NanoNote. The initial product, like initial computers, has no built in wireless. However, like laptops of old, we have peripheral access to Wifi. The SDIO slot will accept a small card that gives you
wifi capability. then, we will look to mirate this capability into the device. Think of
how wifi found its way into every computer. it started as a peripheral and then becomes integrated. The same will happen with GPS and GSM. Initially available as peripheral components, then integrated.
Even as an organizer or dictionary or device to hold wikipedia there is a big enough market for us to continue. The company was sized for smaller markets. WRT to smart phones. We don’t compete against smart phones. We are not closed, we don’t lock you into carriers, we don’t cost hundreds of dollars. My pickup truck is not a ferrari.
See above. WRT to wireless we have two options for the first device. The first is a wifi device that plugs into the SDIO slot. We are working on getting the GPL driver as I speak. the second option comes from a developer who is completing a device that will extend
the capability of our device beyond wifi. In the beginning we are not aiming at having
huge numbers of developers, rather developers who are focused on key areas. So, one set of developers will focus on openwrt. another set will focus on getting wikipedia on the device. another set will focus on IM. Another is focusing on GPS applications, you can put a GPS device into the SDIO slot. This way we can focus efforts. At OM we found that having all this hardware capability really de focused the software effort.
We did a lot of searching for a device that met our requirements.
1. Was a working, shipping design. At OM we suffered because the hardware never
really had the bugs taken out. So mass market quality.
2. Unbrickable. About 50% of OM users purchased a debug board. If you mess about at
the low levels of hardware you want a device that you can’t brick.
3. Open for hacking.
4. Open documentation of hardware.
5. A manufacturing partner who would let us modify and redistribute the design.
The device we found that met these requirements did not have built in wifi. So, wifi is
high on the list of first features to add. It’s added first through SDIO, then through USB host, and then integrated. the benefit of adding first in a peripheral way is that people can begin to work on the software if they want to. At the same time people who are focused on GPS can start their effort.
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Bodyc