Nokia N810 and other handhelds

[Brian Chabot]

Ben Scott wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 2:25 AM, Bill McGonigle <bill at bfccomputing.com> wrote:
>> ... the ever-elusive 802.11 SD card. ;)
> 
>   Does such a thing actually exist?  Google seems to think so, but...
> there was an 802.11 card for the Sony "Memory Stick" form-factor, too.
>  They're impossible to find these days.  I think they only ever made
> like six of them.  [That being the anticipated market demand for
> Memory Stick 802.11.  ;-)  ]  Worse, the drivers had a tendency to
> crash the OS fairly regularly.

I have one!

I found an overpriced Palm brand SDIO 802.11 card back when I was 
playing around with a Tapwave Zodiac. (Remember those?  Once again, 
remarkable hardware.  PalmOS.  And absolutely NO marketing to speak of. 
  It died a quick death, but remains one of my all time favorite 
handheld systems in terms of capability and ergonomics.)

>   How in the name of the FSM's balls Apple managed to convince
> everybody the iPhone is somehow exempt from the above clusterfsck
> remains a perplexing mystery to me.  The iPhone is actually worse,
> because in addition to the carriers wanting everything locked up we've
> got Apple wanting everything locked up.

I see Apple succeeding in community software development where Tapwave 
crashed and burned.  With Tapwave, the Zod ran PalmOS, so it could run 
any of the Palm apps out there - but - some of the more awesome features 
of the Zod's hardware were locked out unless you got your app digitally 
signed by Tapwave.  This, of course, cost Tapwave time to test the apps 
and the developer money.  With the iPhone, Apple controls distribution 
and simply passes the costs on to the users by charging a pittance above 
whatever the developer wants to sell the app for.  It worked.

> 
>   It would be nice to see some market organization here.  You'd think
> all the various players would want to get behind a common OS that
> doesn't have huge costs, isn't owned by a single vendor with conflicts
> of interest, has a strong community, large existing code base, and
> powerful features. 

Sounds like Linux.

 >  Yet I've seen several attempts at bringing Linux
> to the handheld world, and none of them could get out of their own
> way.  Poorly managed development efforts, legal entanglements, failed
> promises.

Oh, right.  Never mind.

> 
>   And I want my flying car.

These guys are still trying:
http://www.moller.com/
http://www.volanteaircraft.com
http://www.labicheaerospace.com/
http://www.terrafugia.com/
http://www.urbanaero.com
http://www.macroindustries.com
http://www.pal-v.com/

Or if you prefer a motorcycle, this might be interesting:
http://www.thebutterflyllc.com/sscycle/sscycle.htm


Brian
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