OpenMoko's Neo FreeRunner to ship this spring to developers.
(Credit: OpenMoko)OpenMoko is upgrading its Linux-based mobile phone with a faster processor, Wi-Fi networking, and better graphics abilities, the company said Thursday.
The Neo FreeRunner has a faster 500MHz processor, compared with 266MHz for the Neo 1973 introduced last July.
It's also got built-in hardware for 2D and 3D graphics along with new motion sensors that can trigger automated behavior. The wireless networking supports the 802.11b/g standards.
The company will preview the new version at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week and begin selling it to developers in the spring.
OpenMoko is a subsidiary of First International Computer, based in Taiwan.
View complete CES 2008 coverage from CNET.
OpenMoko's Neo1973 Linux-powered phone
(Credit: OpenMoko)Google's Android project has stolen most of the thunder, but another Linux-based mobile phone effort is still making a go of it, and on Wednesday, OpenMoko announced it's gained a measure of independence.
OpenMoko now is a separate operation of its parent company, Taiwan-based First International Computer. In addition, the company announced two new employees: Steven Mosher, vice president of worldwide marketing and formerly of Creative Labs; and Wolfgang Spraul, vice president of engineering and formerly of DataViz. In November, the company hired Carsten "The Rasterman" Haitzler to be lead graphics architect. Haitzler is creator of the Enlightenment window manager software, which he said he plans to extend for mobile devices.
OpenMoko's first phone, the Neo1973, went on sale in July. Also on Wednesday, OpenMoko said Dash Navigation is using its software to power an Internet-connected GPS device, the Dash Express. FIC Mobility will manufacture the device, FIC said.
- Marc Fleury dings Apache Software Foundation -- JBoss founder says Apache should get over the BSD license and work with other Java projects such as JBoss or Sun Microsystems' OpenJDK rather than replicate its own.
- Harald Welte leaves OpenMoko -- He's getting back into GPL enforcement after "quite a bit of internal friction" at OpenMoko, an attempt to make an open-source mobile phone that began at Taiwanese company FIC.
- Ulrich Drepper: Energy saving is everybody's business -- A call to arms for programmers to make their code interrupt the CPU less often, and a hint that Intel's Arjan van de Ven is working on something beyond the PowerTop utility.
- CIFS Server at OpenSolaris.org -- Some evidence of cooperation between Sun and Microsoft after what looked like a lot of vapor in the air. CIFS is Microsoft software for networked file systems; supporting it makes it easier for non-WIndows machines to fit in. Ask Samba guys.
- Jeremy Katz: Fedora Linux partition desizing -- A video of a new partition-resizing tool likely to arrive in Red Hat's Fedora 9. This partition stuff is still a huge technical challenge for Linux; when will we finally get beyond primary vs. logical partition limits from ancient x86 machines?
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