with the tablets, nokia has always thrown a lot of hardware in there and let devs hack in it by leaving it (somewhat) open.

Just like n810 took hacks for USBotg host mode, etc. N900 has infrared, fm transmitter, front camera, etc that most other phones on market do not have. Also like FM radio is there but someone had to write software for it.

unfortunately the front video camera integratnig with gstreamer and codecs has been kind of beyond much community effort because it borders on closed and/or undocumented parts.

It kind of works now, but is supposedly better soon