So I have this idea that you could take a Zaurus-like box stripped down to bare minimum and have it dedicated to running a single application, Mozilla. Plug in a wireless card, and make enough of them to sell for about $100 or $200, cheap enough for poor people to afford.
Then put up a few hotspots, charge $10 a month for unlimited download to these devices, and make a living thereby. Or convince a city council to do so.
It's just an idea, and I'm already making a living, so it's all speculative, but here's my question: Being that the Zaurus still sells for just under $1000, how could this happen:
a. Acquire a boatload of used Zauruses from Ebay b. Make a contract with China for Zaurus-lite thingys c. Some other form of hardware device I don't know about which already exists, and which costs less. d. Angel investors, inspired by the noble cause of closing the digital divide.
Any suggestions?
-Jared
Jared wrote:
So I have this idea that you could take a Zaurus-like box stripped down to bare minimum and have it dedicated to running a single application, Mozilla. Plug in a wireless card, and make enough of them to sell for about $100 or $200, cheap enough for poor people to afford.
Wow. It just was released, and runs on Debian:
http://www.maemo.org/index.html
The Nokia 770 device will sell for about $300 initially. Now I gotta go find a city council who can sponsor all the poor people in the city owning one of these.
I've been thinking of this idea for years, now it is finally viable. Yay.
-Jared
My only problem with the Nokia is that is it obviously designed for righthander use. Stylus in the right and nav buttons on the left. Approx. 1 of 9 people will hate that setup, me included. :) It's not hard for me to use a mouse/trackpad with my right hand, which I do normally, but holding a pen or stylus is difficult.
Jon.
On 6/30/05, Jared jared@hatwhite.com wrote:
Wow. It just was released, and runs on Debian:
http://www.maemo.org/index.html
The Nokia 770 device will sell for about $300 initially. Now I gotta go find a city council who can sponsor all the poor people in the city owning one of these.
I've been thinking of this idea for years, now it is finally viable. Yay.
-Jared _______________________________________________ Kclug mailing list Kclug@kclug.org http://kclug.org/mailman/listinfo/kclug
Why not just look into older Pentium II laptops with Type II PCMCIA slots? I bought one a year ago for $240 ($275 after upgrading RAM from 64 to 128MB; $40 for the 802.11g wireless card), they're bound to be cheaper now and certainly by the time any city-wide program is implemented.
Using Pentium II laptops means its still portable, left/right-hander equal use, and the end user might even be able to afford one of them with little to no city/county/state subsidies. End users may not have the battery life for extensive use away from a power outlet, but even a Zaurus or Nokia phone needs a power outlet for charging.
I upgraded to 128MB to be able to run OpenOffice.org, but 64MB (or even a little less) is good enough for Mozilla. Depending on the office needs of the end user, Abiword and Gnumeric also run nicely in 64MB.
--- Jon Pruente jdpruente@gmail.com wrote:
My only problem with the Nokia is that is it obviously designed for righthander use. Stylus in the right and nav buttons on the left. Approx. 1 of 9 people will hate that setup, me included. :) It's not hard for me to use a mouse/trackpad with my right hand, which I do normally, but holding a pen or stylus is difficult.
Jon.
On 6/30/05, Jared jared@hatwhite.com wrote:
Wow. It just was released, and runs on Debian:
http://www.maemo.org/index.html
The Nokia 770 device will sell for about $300 initially. Now I gotta go find a city council who can sponsor all the poor people in the city owning one of these.
I've been thinking of this idea for years, now it is finally viable. Yay.
-Jared
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One other point about the Nokia: I don't know of any wireless Internet plans for wireless phones which are less than $30 a month (most are $40 and up). Additional costs sour the plan for poorer users.
--- Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
Why not just look into older Pentium II laptops with Type II PCMCIA slots? I bought one a year ago for $240 ($275 after upgrading RAM from 64 to 128MB; $40 for the 802.11g wireless card), they're bound to be cheaper now and certainly by the time any city-wide program is implemented.
Using Pentium II laptops means its still portable, left/right-hander equal use, and the end user might even be able to afford one of them with little to no city/county/state subsidies. End users may not have the battery life for extensive use away from a power outlet, but even a Zaurus or Nokia phone needs a power outlet for charging.
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Actually, you can run OpenOffice with just the 64MB of memory. You just really, REALLY, wouldn't want to.
--- Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
I upgraded to 128MB to be able to run OpenOffice.org, but 64MB (or even a little less) is good enough for Mozilla. Depending on the office needs of the end user, Abiword and Gnumeric also run nicely in 64MB.
I know you *can* run OpenOffice.org in 64MB, I did...once...<shudder>.
Heck, I ran StarOffice 5.1 in 16MB of RAM (plus a swap partition)...once...<shudder>.
--- John Townsend tragicallykarmic@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Actually, you can run OpenOffice with just the 64MB of memory. You just really, REALLY, wouldn't want to.
--- Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
I upgraded to 128MB to be able to run OpenOffice.org, but 64MB (or even a little less) is good enough for Mozilla. Depending on the office needs of the end user, Abiword and Gnumeric also run nicely in 64MB.
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Leo Mauler