First Prototype of Open Source TechCrunch Tablet 64
holy_calamity writes "Big mouth tech blogger Mike Arrington decided earlier this year to 'teach gadget-makers a lesson' and make his own portable, touch screen web tablet. The first, very rough, prototype is complete. Despite the claims it would be fully open source — even the hardware — there's no sign of a project site or any other openness yet."
Digital picture frames... (Score:5, Informative)
... will inevitably evolve WiFi functionality and touch screens (now that the patents on touch screens are expired) and in 12 months or so, we'll see devices exactly like Mike Arrington is thinking of, for $200 and then for $100.
We're only at the start of the "let's see what we can cram into a tiny box and run under Linux" phase of the Chinese computing industry. It's going to be huge IMO.
No way anyone can compete making something by hand but as an experiment, it's very cool.
Re:Wow, very cool! (Score:4, Informative)
He's required NOTHING by the GPL until he releases it.
Users rights are ultimate under the GPL. It's only after you release it does the GPL trigger its full effects.
Re:Opinion in the OP (Score:5, Informative)
I know this is hardly a journalism site. And let's face it the MSM does the same thing the Author of this piece does. Crap like "Big mouth tech blogger Mike Arrington" isn't proper journalism, it's insulting. The opinion of the writer should never go in the story.
Yeah, I've given up on the networks already.
He is not even correct. "there's no sign of a project site or any other openness yet." I found it in 5 minutes of looking. From http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/we-want-a-dead-simple-web-tablet-help-us-build-it/ [techcrunch.com] you get "We'll be coordinating the project over at TechCrunchIT. Leave a comment there if you want to participate and weâ(TM)ll be in touch soon." That links to http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/07/21/the-techcrunch-web-tablet-project/ [techcrunchit.com] which continues on at http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/07/21/techcrunch-web-tablet-part-2/ [techcrunchit.com] so it has an open community working on it. Not sure if it is bias or laziness.
Re:Wow, very cool! (Score:3, Informative)
There's CellWriter [risujin.org]. (it depends on gnome though, and I have no idea how up-to-date it is...)
Re:Wow, very cool! (Score:4, Informative)
Well hell, Compiz already has the basic handwriting tools: Annotate.
There are better tablet tools: ;). The stylus calibration code in the Wacom driver sucks big time though - 2-point calibration instead of 4-point, so there can be precision issues.
- Cellwriter does cell-based character recognition. It can be trained to recognize any Unicode character - in this aspect it destroys the Windows offering.
- Xournal is a great note taking application, and has PDF annotation support - handy when reading e-books. No pressure recognition like Windows Journal though, but GIMP and Inkscape have it.
- There's also an array of onscreen keyboards. I found Ubuntu's Onboard to work best, and it can be run at the gdm prompt to enable keyboardless login. There's also Matchbox Keyboard which you can embed into Gnome screensaver password prompt.
- xbindkeys is great for handling hotkey commands.
- GIMP and Inkscape are also fun with tablets - a TC1100 can be a very cheap alternative to Wacom Cintiq
- Firefox Grab and Drag extension is great when you browse web pages with a stylus.
- KDE has a gestures application, though it's not maintained too well.
- Compiz is a bit annoying with a stylus, but the problems can be configured away.
- USB Wacom tablets do not work beacuse the driver sucks as mentioned above.
Overall Linux works surprisingly well with tablets unless you have an USB-based digitizer (most are serial-based). The only big things missing are cursive handwriting recognition and a decent gestures application.