Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Well, they told us straight out that the beta SDK won't be released until March 2009. Would they really release a new piece of hardware at the same time as the beta SDK?

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

He was there. I watched him give his part of a presentation. I believe you were sitting in on the multimedia presentation at the time.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

You're kidding. Oh well. He didn't have any hardware to show, did he?

And I might have been in the front room chatting with developers, too. It seemed like there was someone there who could answer any of my questions. Not all the same person, of course. But wow.

Off topic a bit here, but...

It was fun to be at c-base, and look at my link-local list of contacts and see the name "rob taylor" show up. "Please wave your hand," I type, and this guy at a nearby table looks around and starts waving. I'm surprised, of course, because he's using an IBM laptop, not the usual Mac laptop that most link local users have. "How come you're on link local?" I ask, and he says, "Oh I'm the guy behind the telepathy suite; I'm running Empathy on my laptop."

I hope the collabora guys get Bonjour / link-local fixed for Diablo. It is very cool.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Resistive, "normal" touchscreen only; this senses pressure (actually closer to force).

I have an HP tx2000; it has a dual-tech screen with a resistive touchscreen (fingers and plain stylii) and a Wacom digitizer with a passive (but special) stylus. The stylus takes no batteries, but distinguishes tip vs. eraser, has pressure sensitivity, a side button, and moves the cursor around when hovering up to ~0.5" over the screen. (Also, when it's within this range, the computer ignores input from the touchscreen, allowing you to rest your hand on the screen while writing. There's no reason I know why a capacitive multi-touch sensor can't be similarly combined with a digitizer, though I'd bet the digitizer uses substantial power.

I'd really like to see such a dual screen in the N9xx, with the digitizer shut down by a switch in the silo.


As for what multi-touch is good for anyway... finger-tracking!

When you're using one finger (or stylus) on the display, touching it with another finger doesn't have to drag the pointer over to the centroid, but can keep it with the present finger. This could also make two-thumb on-screen keyboarding go a lot faster, as you wouldn't have to guarantee you lift before your other thumb hits. To say nothing of Pyano.

Even if you only use one cursor, and no gestures, a good finger-tracking (and switching, when appropriate) algorithm can make a multi-touch display a lot less glitchy. I'd be thrilled to see this much, although gestures and such are cool, too...

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

The problem with "cool" things is you get tired of them very quickly (as other things are becoming "cool"). Better stay with technologies that aren't the cool stuff du jour but will remain useful tomorrow.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

thats what i see when i see multi-touch, not those demo friendly gestures, but being able to control multiple things on the screen at the same time. or have a shift key in software.

hell, give me bomberman with multi-touch :D

who needs hardware gamepads ;)

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

i cant even do this in my brain, why would i want to do it on a screen? ;)

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Ah, you poor souls without ADHD. :D

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

This is what I did, isn't it?


The Zaurus was also a new platform (QT). The Zaurus had an adequate browser at the times. Opera and even Netfront worked fairly well. Flash was not a big thing at the time.
I still have a few zauruses (zaurii?). The main problem is that they do not support wpa (I know they can with a different wifi card) or bluetooth (and yes: I have an adapter).

Still: I see the 770 as the only successor to the Zaurus. Sharp tried to bring a linux palmtop to the market, and quickly backed out (I had to import the second one from Japan). Nokia started where they left.


It's my job to read legal stuff and spot the errors and I like being sarcastic. ;)


The masses are losing already. Telcos make their main profits from sms, ringtones and premium services. The telcos are only interested in keeping this situation running. They don't care if 10 linux geeks find a way to run voip as long as the masses keep buying pre-configured branded phones.

You seem to forget that it is a number game. The telcos don't care about anything as long as it is not conveniently packaged in a preconfigured phone. Then they get nasty.

For the future N900, this means that it will not be designed to be a voip over hsdpa only device. Nokia knows how nasty the telcos can be, telcos are their main customers. Of course, it could be that Nokia decides for a frontal attack, but I seriously doubt that. Still: they went for a frontal attack with music sales, so maybe I will be surprised...

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

As I pointed out, the mobile network providers already have taken steps to prevent that from happening.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

There was some humourous talk about this at the summit. Someone suggested that Nokia will release a big finger-shaped-and-sized stylus to use with the multi-touch screen, since they promised to remain stylus-compatible on the software side.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I think that they may believe that they have, but they haven't. No, really. They haven't. In the current marketplace, they have, but when everyone has tiny linux laptops in their pockets, it will all look silly. Whatever they do, someone will work around it, then publish it for everyone to use. And everyone will use the new workaround. Soon they'll have to give up plugging all the holes in their stupid old-fashioned dike. Seriously.

Just wait. You'll see. Just a bunch of ISPs.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

No, if my memory is sound, they showed a photograph of a Beagle Board during that presentation.

Of course, with the quantity of allergy medication I had dumped into my body that day, and the number of times I'd had to use my rescue inhaler, there's a not insignificant chance that during the presentation they actually showed off the next three Maemo devices and the captured alien technology upon which they're based, and I just didn't notice. The summit building was pain for me, and C-Base proper was death. I think I met, face-to-face, a great many nice people and learned a lot of neat things during the summit, but I may well have spent two days chatting with an armchair and a coat rack.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

They said multitouch and haptic were part of the Maemo roadmap, but they were NOT slated for Maemo 5.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I didn't hear that "not slated for Maemo 5" part. Thanks.

And sjgadsby, you certainly did talk with me, but yes, you did spend a lot of time in deep conversation with the armchair. ;-)

(fun pics by the way)

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I believe ( everything is blurry at this point ) it was in the Desktop by Rodrigo Novo (Nokia) and Matthew Allum (OpenedHand) session. I was distracted with othr items at the time but someone asked if they were confirming multitouch for Fremantle and he asked another Nokia person ( don't know who ) whom confirmed that multitouch was off the table for Maemo 5.

That is my understanding and I could be wrong, but it jibes with what I understood.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I meant a seperate page for the Germany entry, but it was just a suggestion to consider. I didn't look into who contributed what and such.

The Zaurus did provide a new platform (Qtopia, later 3rd party ROMs with OPIE, GPE, ...) but the browser was IMO too slow, or not adequate enough. Flash and Java are 2 examples, but also the layout of webpages was often bad in my experience.

Sure, one can run something like pdaXrom, but geez, that is so slow...

It was still revolutionary, at least in my experience, because it was the first mobile Linux platform I ever used.

Compare this to my NIT expeirence. Out of box I was able to surf. Flash worked, layout good, page loaded faster than I was used to.

Does WPA2 still not work with later Linux kernel + CF WiFi cards? This is one advantage of the NIT. It comes with such hardware included. Although the GPS chip leaves much to be desired.

Agreed. When I hear a Nokia representative say they invented the tablet/Linux market, I have to giggle. They learned from their predecessors. Got mine from Japan too.

Ah, that explains :)

Yes, but the economy is tightening, and people are also used to IM protocols. I imagine people with tight budgets or cheapskates (read: the Dutch ;)) are interested into this functionality.

At very least one could also combine the NIT with a cheap (open source) telephone for the phoning having a nice Linux system ready for 3G usage.

Oh, and you can use SIP over WiFi at home just like before.

Thing is, the 'N900' is aimed at the general public; not 10 Linux geeks. Its the combination of software, the hardware, and the target audience (and probably many more factors) which has potential. Not only 1 of these.

Usability/integration game, too.

EDIT: T-Mobile 3G FUP (3 GB) PAYG for 2 GBP a day

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Something similar happened during the web presentation, though I didn't catch anything about the "no multitouch" answer being for 5 only. It's nice to know it still may appear further down the line.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Ah, well, you can understand how I might suspect you of being a very well-mannered coat rack.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Does qole really look like Quentin Tarantino?

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

What do you think?

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Thanks for the commentary to all that were there. Seriously has been a great read and I wish I were there.

Thinking I'll just apply for a few positions with the Maemo group here in the US, and maybe get to take those ideas and run with em a bit ;)

Apple, Google, and Nokia getting it...man the end is near.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I think I'm skeered.

But I like how Nicolas Cage was gracious enough to get in the third shot.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I would like to thank Nicholas Cage for his work on MicroB

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Ahahah . . . poor timeless. . . .

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Hey, he had Billy Bob Thornton's full attention.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Texrat: ...You haven't commented on Baloo, Handful, or rm_you yet in that picture.

And "skeered"?! What the... ?! I have no idea what that means. Can we make a rule about you and fake accents?

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Only if we can make a rule about you and juvenile internet memes.

EDIT: that came out coarser than intended... but if I made it longer and more politically correct then it would lose all parallelism with your line, which would throw the universe out of kilter, and End All Life As We Know It.

I'm gonna have to leave it. :p

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Frankly, I wonder what the motives really are for most people. It seems that everyone has gone mental about reducing their phone bills. I see people with a very comfortable salary who will go out of their way, spend time and effort, risk losing their number and the capacity to phone for weeks, tie themselves to long (typically 2 years) unchangeable contracts for saving, maybe, 5 or 10 Euros a month. Sorry, but I don't get it.

And the quality of service can be abysmal too, which is not due to voip but to the voip providers. Maybe I'll give some examples:

-about 2 years ago, I travelled to New Zealand. I can't go further away from home (Europe) while staying on this planet. Because I had a tablet, and long distance calls can be expensive, especially from hotels (although there are calling cards with quite reasonable rates), I arranged a sip adapter at home and installed gizmo on the tablet. From voip to voip the connection was cristal clear (and free) from Dubai, Singapore, Australia and NewZealand.

-since I put 10$ on that gizmo (sipphone) account, I have tried to use it to call regular phone. I still have over 9$ on the account. The quality when I call phones in Europe is so bad that I can't use it. It's obviously sipphone fault: the connection from their networks to the pots in Europe sucks.

-this year I opened another account with sipgate, because they give me a german phone number for free. Same story here: quality is fair when I call to Germany, abysmal when I call to France.

So I wonder. Are people really content with poor quality calls? Do people, in general, phone so much that the savings are substancial? A friends daughter spends her life with her cell phone. Even in that case the savings would barely be worth it.

It is a behaviour which defies logic. Besides, most people save pennies on their calls, but are fools for anything else. They spend 2-3€ per ringtone which they change every week while it is quite easy to use any free mp3 as ringtone. They fall for 2 years contracts because they want to buy the "latest" phone for free. They use premium sms at 2€ for 140 bytes. They send mms pictures when in vacation at 5€ the mms, etc...

I don't get it. I could, with a stretch of my imagination, understand why it is important, for many people, to be seen with the latest iPhone whatever the price is (for example). I don't get it when, at the same time, their motivation to have it jailbreaked is to use voip.

That, and fake Rolex or Vuitton bags, I don't get. Sorry.


The future N900 may be aimed at the general public. Probably. Nokia needs an iPhone competitor. I am not disputing that.

What I doubt (but I don't see the future) are:
-that a voip enabled cellphone would disrupt the market. My e51 can use voip over hsdpa out of the box, BTW.
-that this is Nokia's idea for the N900. Telcos are Nokia's main customers. I don't see Nokia directly aiming at their business.

Besides, telcos have an ace up their sleeve: they can always lower call rates to voip levels. I explained why this technically a better solution for them. I can also say that they can afford it: call charges make only a fraction of their business nowaday (less than half in Germany). Of course this may not be sufficient, since the customers are not rational in their choice and strongly believe that voip is "free" while cell rates are "expensive" whatever the price actually is.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Yes, multitouch is certainly on the table of considerations, it's a part of the touch UI equation. But nothing has been currently announced. :)

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

For me it would be enough to have single touch actually working, and not registering multiple clicks with a single tap.
Oh, and a device that doesn't break after a year of mild use...

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Oh yes. *sigh*

When typing on the vkb, i haave a lott mmore multiittouch thann I''d eeverr waant.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

bah, upgrade to diablo already...

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

...where I still have the same problem (edit: nevermind though, since my n800 is dying it won't be a problem any longer)

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

i did when diablo was available.

double-clicks seem tto get woorse

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I believe one of the afternoon presentations (I think it was "multimedia" on Friday, track 2) featured an actual board that was meant to be used in a demo. We only really got to see it waved around though, as it seems they did not have the right VGA connector to hook it up with the room projector :-)

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

If this results in app authors not using caching, or forgetting about an "offline" mode, they'll get a slap for reasons I outlined ages ago. Primarily:

1. Data is expensive, or has usage limits.
2. HSPA coverage is patchy at best.
3. Planes are offline zones.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

Indeed. I chatted to brontide a little before leaving using Bonjour in Pidgin in Ubuntu. A breeze to setup; would've liked to have it on the tablet as well.

Will have another look to see if it works after a clean reflash in the next couple of days.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

I can say first hand that Nokia had VoIP in mind when developing the 770. Nokia is not directly aiming at the telco business; they are doing an end around.

Re: Dr. Ari Jaaksi on Maemo 5
 

There is a nice overview of Maemo 5 here:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...tablet-os.html