The slim Neo1973 cellphone that will be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week bears little resemblance to the two-pound brick it commemorates – the phone used by inventor Martin Cooper at Motorola to make the first cellphone call in 1973.
But the Neo hopes to post its own small landmark as the first to be based on an all-Linux platform, according to its maker, Taiwan’s First International Computer.
FIC has been promoting the OpenMoko platform as open source Linux-based software that can offer new opportunities for developers, enthusiasts and enterprises to configure phones just how they want them and not how a manufacturer like Nokia dictates. MontaVista is providing the Linux kernel, Trolltech the middleware and Sean Moss Pultz, FIC’s product manager and OpenMoko “evangelist” is assembling a posse of Linux devotees to help develop applications.
This first phone may only have geek appeal at an unsubsidised $350 and we suggest a subtle penguin motif somewhere to entice Linux followers.
Chris Nuttall, San Francisco
