Smartphones, cellphones, fic, fic-gta001, linux

FIC's Linux-based Smartphone

FIC's taking more than just a page from the Linux community with its FIC-GTA001 smartphone—its taking their entire playbook. Hoping to capitalize on what is essentially free programmers for the project, FIC is releasing a Linux-based smartphone complete with an SDK (Software Development Kit). This allows end-users to develop their own programs and functionality for the phone (picture an army of geeks making sure you can play back DivX on your phone).

The phone itself has a 2.8-inch VGA display, USB mesh file sharing, multi-touch sensor recognition, GSM, GPS, 128MB RAM, a Samsung ARM9-based processor and MP3 playback capabilities. The concept of their multi-touch gestures is that you can use two fingers to control a variety of tasks, such as two finger scrolling like the PowerBooks and MacBooks. Some demo pics of the gesture abilities after the jump. Even though the phone will probably only sell to DIY-ers and Linux enthusiasts, there may be some interesting applications that come out of this.

– Jason Chen

FIC Linux Cellphone - can it capture the imagination of the open-source community? [Slashgear]

12:54 PM on Tue Nov 7 2006
By Jason Chen
8,797 views
10 comments

Comments

Hanzo at 01:44 PM on 11/07/06
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This interface is going to probably suck big time. Too bad too, since I will likely buy it.
jonnyforest at 02:50 PM on 11/07/06
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This looks so much cooler than the Greenphone. My first impression when I saw the photo was -- yes, now we're really getting somewhere. But Hanzo is right, the interface probably will suck for a while.
Theophilus P. Wildebeeste at 02:55 PM on 11/07/06
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Didn't Apple patent two finger scrolling on Touch sensitive control devices?

If so, I smell a lawsuit.
ozeira at 03:07 PM on 11/07/06
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What always bugged me about touch screens, aside from finger streaks, is that your finger hides the information directly underneath it - hence the stylus.

I'm curious to see if somehow the multi-point input can overcome this.

Also curious to see what kind of scroll speed can be achieved as pictured. Anyone have an idea of what scroll speed for lists (MP3, email, etc.) is generally?
quixote at 05:45 PM on 11/07/06
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That is so-o-o cool looking. I don't even want a touch screen phone. The interface is totally inconvenient. I want a clamshell with a qwerty keyboard (like that German Roads phone. when is that coming out? Huh? Huh? When?) But I'm going to have to sit on my hands and squeeze my eyes shut tight not to race out and buy this thing. It's the only truly gorgeous phone I've ever seen.

/starts dreaming. imagine if the Roads phone was half its weight, and looked like this when closed. a-a-a-h/
nevyn at 05:49 PM on 11/07/06
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All of that multitouch goodness seems to be taken straight from Jeff Hans FTIR project -- http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/ . Not that I mind, more devices making better use of touch screens is just great. I'm looking forward to trying this device out.
hughjass at 08:36 PM on 11/07/06
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WTF is USB mesh file sharing and how might that work? I do hope that's wireless USB...
IGGI at 08:32 AM on 11/08/06
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Here is the sick part, for those who think the interface will suck. Since this is an open source thing - hell, you could make a skin to have it apear as the Danger Sidekick GUI, or Palm, at least the look and feel.

Awesom-ay.
Krystian Sz. at 08:51 AM on 11/08/06
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If it's open source, then the interface can be custom, even self made!
flufftronix at 04:46 PM on 11/08/06
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But what about all those tepid and moist moments where touchscreens will be useless? For serious; I DJ'ed a crazy dance party last month and had to wipe off my laptop screen every five minutes. Trackpad = useless. If I had to make an emergency phone call with a touchscreen I'd be up the river.