Community Updates/2009-04-05
From Openmoko
This update is for the period from March 20th - 03rd April 2009. As always, we have more new applications, updates to some of the previous ones and more events that are happening. The last major event that happened was the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose where Sean Moss-Pultz presented the FreeRunner mobile phone to designers and engineers. There has also been quite a bit of news with the buzz fix and the talk that Sean gave at the Openexpo - the challenges Openmoko faced and the future of it. GTA03 being no more, what we can look for in the future and the recent developments within Openmoko.
Contents |
Period 20, Mar ~ 03, Apr, 2009
Distributions
- Om2009 - Paroli work continues with Mirko trying to get the elementary in and etk out. More details about this is in the mail from Mirko to the community mailing list.
- QT Extended Improved There are some patches for QT extended improved on debian rootfs with 2.6.28. Refer to mail
Applications
New Applications
- Simple application to test touch screen It is a gtk program which prints:
- mouse location
- mouse button press (and its location)
- mouse button release (and its location)
Some argued on maillist that similar functionality exists in xev X Window binary.
- Black Sheep: Fight insomnia! Start this software, count the sheep
- Chronometer: It is in early stage - it has stopwatch with split, big display and big buttons
- bicirutas his application looks for mtb routes in www.bicirutas.net (routes in Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany). It gets the current position from the gps system and downloads nearby routes. Then you can follow them with TangoGPS application.
Application Updates
- Linphone 3.1.0: A preliminary bitbake recipe for the latest linphone release. Binaries for fso-milestone5 are in http://openmoko.truebox.co.uk/repos/mazikeen/fso-milestone5/ipk/armv4t/
- BikeAtor0.0.6 : Like TangoGPS BikeAtor can display OSM Maps V0.0.6: Configuration changed and Speedometer improved
- CoovaChilli: It turns your phone's WiFi network into an Ad-Hoc Hotspot! Other computers can then connect to your WiFi signal and get a captive portal. From the GUI, you can configure multiple Hotspot setups and easily switch between them. You can also review the current active sessions and authorize, release (DHCP lease), or completely block a device on your network.
- Shortom 0.3:The third version of shortom with some new interesting features.
- Finger friendly alarms: Version 0.2.1 of ffalarms which adds support for SHR (tested on SHR testing)
- OpenBmap Version 0.2.0 released of the GSM cell, GPS logger. In order to keep a high quality of data, we store GPS quality, speed, GSM signal strength, etc... Help us build a free database of GSM data, together with GPS coordinate!
- Yaouh!0.5.1 Released
Community
- Sean Moss-Pultz presented the FreeRunner mobile phone to designers and engineers at the Embedded Systems Conference in San Jose, California this week. Moss-Pultz calls the phone a “seed” that provides a rapid start for developers to create devices based on the phone’s open OS, open CAD and open electronics.
- A follow up announcement to Openmoko's presentation at ESC has been an official price drop. FreeRunner is currently selling through the Openmoko webshop for $299 USD, for a limited time only.
- Extracts from Sean's talk at Openexpo about the successes, mistakes and challenges Openmoko faced and where we see ourselves for the next couple of months in the mail from Steve.
- Steve posted a statement on recent organizational changes with respect to the sales and marketing department, after rumors of Andy's departure from Openmoko were confirmed.
- Also from Steve, some answers to some confusion that some of us had about the offical buzz fix can be found here.
- ModemManager project has been started at FreeDesktop.org to provide a DBus API to GSM/3G adaptors.
- Some interesting tests of the battery current against display brightness and GPS power mode.
Event News
- 2009-04-06/08 CELF Embedded Linux Conference | ELC 2009 San Francisco, California.
- 2009-04-18 Openmoko Fix it Party | Repairing buzz hardware bug live and for free, Barcelona.
- 2009-04-18/19 Open Source Developer's Conference | OSDC will hold in Taipei, Taiwan.
- 2009-05-12/13 OSiM Asia | The Kowloon Shangri-la hotel, Hong Kong | Openmoko will give a speech