OpenMoko
Since last year’s CES, OpenMoko has gotten out of the mobile phone business and into the mobile device business. The WikiReader, $99 and available since late last year, is all of Wikipedia on a mobile device, without cellular service. Consumers can buy the device and get updates on-line for free or $29/year for updates via SD every six months.
Like the OpenMoko phones before it, the WikiReader is entirely open source, with software and hardware designs available at http://github.com/wikireader.
This is the perfect gift for a youngster who needs an encyclopedia on the go but isn’t mature enough to handle an expensive mobile phone or laptop, or for someone who needs encyclopedic content but doesn’t have a computer. One of these may be in my 90-year-old grandfather’s future.
VIA
According to VIA‘s Stewart Haston, international marketing specialist, the Nano is the leading IGP, as it outperforms Atom consistently in almost all categories. Lenovo won a best in show award for its Ideapad S12, which uses the Nano, and Samsung also won an award for one of its notebooks. Deals VIA won with these two companies were giant wins for the processor and chipset manufacturer. Another major win for VIA was the contract for the C7 processor in the OLPC XO 1.5. The C7 is much faster and more power efficient than the AMD Geode, which was used in the XO-1.
In 2010, VIA will introduce USB 3 controllers for its motherboard chipsets and SATA->USB3 controllers for add-on chipsets.
While VIA’s Nano ITX and Pico ITX formfactor motherboards have been around for a while and have the Nano processor, the company introduced this year a Mobile ITX formfactor—a C7-based computer on a module for embedded applications. It will likely be paired with an add-on board for connectivity.
