Due to various personal reasons and the general direction of the OpenMoko platform I am going to call it quits on the blogging front.  I haven't updated in a while, but have kept the page up since it still continues to get traffic.  It's a real shame since I was excited about the project, and still am, but I just don't feel that the progress made on OpenMoko in the last few months is enough to warrent my attention.  It's a shame since right now I am locked into a Verizon ENV2 phone, but it's stable.  I may even shift my interest towards developing iPhone applications, since the dev kit is very impressive and the software usable and stable.

Thanks to those of you who visited and commented, I wish you luck with the Moko, and I will continue to follow news about the projects

Engadget, among others, is reporting that a new piece of OpenMoko hardware will be announced in either March or April. Unfortunately, due to lack of details this could be nothing more than the offical debut of FreeRunner which was announced right before CES. I think it would be very exciting to see a complete redesign of the hardware.

Hey there nothing new about OpenMoko, but I thought I would give away some invites to join the Fon community since it promotes free Wifi sharing around the globe (specially in europe), and is the largest wifi community in the world. All you do is plug in the router at home and register it with your account, and you than have access to any fon router around the whole world. They already have hotspot map for around the world, and paired with OpenMoko's GPS it will be easy to find free wifi.

The invites are part of a program "Fonero gets Fonero" which allows current users to send out invites to people to get 75%off the $39.99 wireless router shown above making it $5.99, and the antenna is only two dollars more. The total shipped is only $12.99!

The fonera is a pretty good router and all the stats are shown here:

https://shop.fon.com/FonShop/shop/ShopController?view=product&product=PRD-001

It runs on a modified linux distro some of you probably have heard of called OpenWrt....it also has an atheros chipset *cough* aircrack *cough*

All I need from you is a comment after this article where you put in your Name, Email, and Website, than in the text box what country you are from and a little message if you are so inclined. Only one invite per person though, any comment from the same person twice requesting an invite will be disqualified. First 10 that comment get invites sent to their email

I am out of invites, if you would still like one here is a poster below that is willing to share:

hi, i’m having 18 invitations, too.
mail me at fon_connect@ich-will.net.de

he will send them asap (please: only *1* per person)

A half serious interview with Sean Moss-Pultz

http://www.fsckin.com/2008/01/20/interview-with-sean-moss-pultz-ceo-of-openmoko-ninjas-are-better-than-pirates/

he likes ninjas more than pirates and can bench his own body weight.

Hey, sorry its been almost a month since updating, but we finally have some new interesting news about the mass market version of the neo

The details are all here:

http://gizmodo.com/339965/openmoko-launches-neo-freerunner-open+source-smartphone-for-the-masses 

next week we should have some interesting new info!

http://downloads.openmoko.org/snapshots/2007.11/

The link above is where to download the newest offical snapshot for OpenMoko. Apparently it can make and recieve calls most of the time, however battery life is still a major problem due to some power management problems

Off the the site:

Major changes since OpenMoko 2007.1 August Snapshot:

• Performance and stability improvements all over the stack
• New features in the PIM applications and the mediaplayer
• Revamped dialer, application manager, and neo device daemon
• New application: openmoko-browser (webkit-based)
• Lots of tiny little things under the hood...

Please see the OpenMoko Wiki for installation instruction

It looks like the software is maturing nicely, and we should have a usable phone too. I have also read that the Wifi drivers are very strong and getting ready for GTA02's release. Here is a guide to flashing your OpenMoko on Ubuntu:

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Installation_guide

I recommend the Ubuntu environment, and a good place for any non Linux user to start is my buddies blog Ubuntu1501. It is a great place to learn about Linux and learning about all the powerful tools that comes with it.

I picked up the latest issue of Linux Journal today when I saw the Neo1973 on the cover. I havent had a chance to read it but I will update this post later after I do. I glanced at it, and it seems to be a developer interview about the project. Hopefully it will contain some new information since we have been a little bare on the news lately...

For all you Linux Journal subscribers here is the link to the digital issue
http://www.linuxjournal.com/issue/164

Update: I just finished reading the article, and It was mostly about the philosophy of the project, and how they hoped to cause a shift toward open source mobile phones. He talks about the evolution of the project and the community behind it, but no new details are really given. The most exciting thing is that they appear to be in contact with some cellular providers and are trying to make a deal with one to help promote the phone. The article explicitly states that OpenMoko will always be open, but they are looking for a service to help promote the idea of an open source phone.