Surprised no one mentioned this here. (I didn't catch this article on the forum search, so unless the underlying device was discussed somewhere, I didn't find it)

Beagle Board based DIY MID. Yeah, it's ugly ... but if you focus on that, you're missing the point. Someone has made a MID with the Beagle Board. Upon which Mer could run...

It'd be interesting to see what DIY things could be done to refine it. There are various USB thumb keyboard products out there that could be cannibalized into a slide-out keyboard for it, things like that.

Personally, I'd go to 7" screen size, and try to make something like a 5-row keyboard version of the Samsung Q1 Ultra (which only has a 4 row keyboard), or a smaller version of the PepperPad. Not the pocketable device that many here want, but could be interesting.

Anyone else have thoughts about it?

(oh, and, it was also on engadget yesterday, as well)

only thing missing is someone taking it upon themselves to mass producing the parts needed beyond the beagleboard.

The Pandora guys might be interested :-)

Maybe I'm missing something but I suppose this one doesn't have battery, or even possibility to add one? It needs to be plugged into a charger all the time, thus not exactly very usable as a MID...

from what i understand, the custom daughterboard handles the battery...

You're correct... I didn't look the detailed report before posting...

I think this is a great step forward. It just goes to show that with some creative thinking you can come up with great products that a lot of people want. Or ones that are truly useful.

To me, the most important part is the idea that mobile devices are becoming less and less of a "big players only" market. We don't have to wait for Nokia to deliver our next NIT. We don't have to fret over the end-of-life of the Zaurus or Clie or whatever. It's like open source, only for the devices themselves.

Next we need someone to figure out how to fit a beagleboard into an old N770 or N800.

Anyone....anyone?

Not gonna happen.