Gentle persons: Kirk's question about PDAs is forcing me to tip my hand about a fun toy I picked up last week at Best Buy.
The Best Buy Insignia Infocast is an internet appliance that looks like a digital picture frame but acts as a window into internet-based information and multimedia. Cost: US$170 (Caveat: Best Buy has no idea how to sell this thing. I went through two sales people and a manager before we could find it in the store). But, under the covers, it is a hacker-friendly 800MHz ARM-based computer with 2GB RAM, an 8 inch 800x600 LCD touchscreen display, 802.11b/g WiFi, 2 USB2.0 ports, 7-in-1 media reader, and embedded Linux (2.6.28 at the moment). All the user applications are Flash-widgets but one can easily hack to bare Linux. It runs off a 120vac wall-wart rated at 5v/2500ma but rigging up a rechargeable battery pack would be child's play. The moment I saw mention of it on HackaDay I was in love with it. Like it's older but lesser cousin, the Chumby, the Infocast has a growing user community at forum.chumby.com, wiki.chumby.com, and elsewhere. I bought it with thoughts of my robot project with my grandkids, but my first attempt at hacking has been to compile and run Nano-X with a VNC client to see how it would function as a wireless remote EMC2 display. It was a challenge finding enough information but through brute force and ignorance applied over the weekend I got it running. On my first attempt, screen updates are slow and color mapping is corrupt but I'm sure I'll sort things out. Another user got Qt and a web browser running on it, so I have an alternative to Nano-X available if need be. Figuring out useful touchscreen interactions will keep me occupied for a while. Just thought I'd mention it. Regards, Kent PS - it's fun as an Internet appliance too. Right now mine is alternating among webcams at Marienplatz Munich Germany (where my sister lives), the Sydney Harbor bridge (where my heart is), Southwest Harbor, Maine (where I'm about to spend a late vacation), and several information sites (NYTimes headlines, Engadget, and Hacker News). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Start uncovering the many advantages of virtual appliances and start using them to simplify application deployment and accelerate your shift to cloud computing. http://p.sf.net/sfu/novell-sfdev2dev _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
