
We Want A Dead Simple Web Tablet. Help Us Build It. - demandred
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/07/21/we-want-a-dead-simple-web-tablet-help-us-build-it/
======
gm
Well I'll be damned...

Is this a case of Arrington actually trying to make something happen instead
of watching things happen?

I for one, am surprised. I am very happily eating crow. Not that anyone should
care, but I have always disliked Arrington and the other bunch of observers
because they think they're important when all they do is watch things happen
and then write about it.

I hope this succeeds, and I hope they carry it through to completion. I will
buy one of these for sure when it comes out.

~~~
webwright
Watching things happen and writing about it IS important. There's no shame in
admiring startups but not spinning one up.

Of course, he HAS spun one up. He's got a big blog network in lots of
countries, built up Crunchbase with a team of great devs and a reportedly cool
API, etc. TechCrunch has tons of custom software. And it's profitable.

~~~
gm
Admiring's fine, it's criticizing that I have a problem with. It takes all of
half a second to say "Twitter stability sucks," but it takes a LOT more work
to actually make a Twitter that is stable. Anyone can say what's wrong with
the world.

~~~
mattmaroon
Criticizing, too, is important. Without it, Twitter's stability would never
improve. Hell, even with it, it seems unlikely to happen.

~~~
martian
Arrington reminds me a lot of the character of Anton Ego in Ratatouille. A
vicious critic. This speech (by Ego) in particular comes to mind:

[POTENTIAL SPOILER WARNING]

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a
position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment.
We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the
bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the
average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism
designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something,
and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind
to new talents, new creations. The new needs friends."

------
imp
He really is just describing a Nokia N810 tablet. When a reader suggested
that, Arrington replied:

"yes, although we want to build it a lot cheaper and have a much bigger
screen."

So, he expects to replicate the N810, but with a bigger screen and better
price? How is he going to beat Nokia and still make a profit?

~~~
fallentimes
I don't think he cares about the profit portion.

~~~
imp
Okay, cool. In that case I'll take two.

------
bprater
Didn't the XO project give us some indication on how difficult it is to create
this type of thing?

And unless Arrington is ready commit to this project full-time, it is going
nowhere fast. I suspect that he is using his clout to simply trying to get
into the inbox of vendors.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love one.

I suspect Apple is working on something like this. We have the technology of
Air and the technology of iPhone. Their love child could fill this gap.

I don't know going OS-less either. I think "Grandma" mode would be fine,
otherwise, I'd rather have more control over the box.

~~~
dhbradshaw
OS-less might be worth it if it allowed the thing to turn on and off in less
than one second.

~~~
bprater
My Mac does wake up in about a second right now. However, I see your point and
totally agree.

------
willarson
This is asking for speculative work on an awe-inspiring scale, and I find it
brazenness to be a bit hard to swallow. Arrington wants other people to build
something he wants, and will not pay them for it. Instead, he is offering a
promise to _eventually_ open source the design specs.

Regardless of whether or not this project ever amounts to anything, and I
don't believe it will without an individual at the epicenter with the talent
and taste to make final decisions on all details, this is a scam for those who
are contributing to it. I hate spec work posing itself as generosity, and the
humanitarian effort this most closely resembles is King Leopold in the Congo.

------
rickd
I thought everyone here at HN was ....well, to put it simply, less negative. I
mean, YC is all about doing _new_ things, _revolutionary_ or even just
_evolutionary_ changes to existing products or markets. Thinking outside the
box. Changing! (etc etc ad nauseum).

Why did this thread devolve into "it can't be done" or "it can't be done that
cheaply" or "it's just product x" or, finally, "its just revision n+y of
product x"

I mean, ok, you think it's a crap idea: fine. You don't like it: fine. You
have another product that fits this niche for you: fine. But I don't get why
everyone is dumping on this.

Let's keep the conversation constructive at least. Saying "it can't be done
for x$" and laying out the prices of the components you assume is furthering
the conversation. Saying "it can't be done"- and leaving it at that- is
useless.

~~~
h34t
My negative bias comes from having attempted a hardware development project in
the past, with similarly ambitious and optimistic time frames, only to have
reality kick in and demoralize the team by having the project drag on and on
far beyond our projections (but well within industry norms).

I think it's an awesome, exciting project that the world wants to happen. But
if it turns out that the original timeline is skewed heavily toward irrational
optimism, it may be demoralizing to those involved to have their expectations
repeatedly quashed. However I may be wrong here, because if the supply chain
company that's involved is being realistic and has experience, I may be the
one who is off-base about the timeline.

(I posted more details of my experience on the main thread).

I agree with you that a lot of comments on here are negative without adding
any value, ie. no new data / insights, just content-less, emotional pessimism.

------
sd
Back at the 2001 Comdex, Bill Gates announced that by 2007, such devices would
be the most popular form of PC in the U.S. Although his timing was off, I
think Gates was definitely on to something.

Yet as brm notes, it's probably going to take more than just the open source
community. Open source seems great for advancing the bleeding-edge; but
honestly, unless money is on the line, how many devs are going to cut out
their cool feature that they spent hours developing, just because it's hard to
use or might make the device more complicated?

Perhaps, a team (but not necessarily a large team) of hackers devoted full-
time to making a successful interface / kiosk for this might make it big.
Perhaps, such a business might make a good fit for Y Combinator. ;-)

~~~
jkent
In Gates' 1996 'The Road Ahead' he was talking about the convergence of
devices to what seemed like a mobile, touch screen web browser (within 5
years, a bit optimistic).

He talks about the wallet pc, a sketch of which looks like an iphone in
landscape mode.

Why didn't Microsoft try this?

~~~
raganwald
I owned a TabletPC. I argue they did try it, and did a decent job of it.
However, the big roadblock was the fact that they are at the mercy of their
hardware vendors.

Consider multi-touch. When Apple decided that multi-touch is the future, they
simply started building it into their laptops. If Microsoft decides multi-
touch is the future, they build an API and some of the vendors offer a few
models with multi-touch and the market decides whether it wants to pay a
premium for multi-touch or not.

Meanwhile app vendors sit on the sidelines while everyone plays chicken and
egg. This is why tablets went nowhere... the market refused to pay a premium
for tablets, so the vendors only made a few, which kept prices high, which
kept sales low, and so forth...

------
brm
Dead simple is near impossible to create with this many chef's stirring the
pot already

~~~
mechanical_fish
Yep. Three words: "Openmoko Train Wreck":

[http://www.vimeo.com/1366042?pg=embed&sec=1366042](http://www.vimeo.com/1366042?pg=embed&sec=1366042)

After I saw this video, I really appreciated the time and money the Apple
engineers must have spent in designing the iPhone keyboard.

I've got a new policy: I refuse to get excited about open-source vaporware.
Talk is cheap. Design is expensive, and having one thousand people work for
one hour each is no substitute for having one person work a thousand hours.

~~~
Tichy
Any information on who actually worked on OpenMoko? Just because it is
OpenSource doesn't mean that there are zillions of volunteers working on it.
It might still just have been one company that screwed up it's product.

------
river_styx
Isn't he basically describing an iPod Touch with a bigger screen?

~~~
yangyang42
... but only wants to pay $200 for it.

~~~
deepster
...and he only wants to pay you with a free tablet!

~~~
aardvarkious
I didn't see anywhere that the early prototypes would be free to developers:
just that they would get first dibs.

------
biosoup
I did a research about this subject and it could be done... even with price
around 200$.

They will face two big problems: 1) touch screen \- what type they would use?
how it "lights"? weight? 2) battery \- capacity? POSITION of battery! and few
other problems such power supply (integrated?). CPU, RAM, SSD are not
problems, they are cheap and really easili intergrated, OS is not problem too
(already seen such devices with Linux).

And the last thing is design... lets face it. It's important how it will look
and feel when carrying. And I'm not talking about catching the right size of
it (in my research A4 is too big and A5 is too small).

So lets see what will happen... I offered I will try to help them, what about
you?

------
noonespecial
As of this time, the touch screen will make the $200 price tag impossible. The
$300-$400 is very possible however.

If they do build it _and keep it open_ (which is by no means a given when it
comes to stuff like this), it could be a wonderful success.

------
ivankirigin
Can someone point out a successful open source hardware effort? I'm tracking
bug labs, open moko, and some router efforts.

None are mainstream. None come close to the appeal of Apple products.

Hardware is really hard. Most people reading TechCrunch probably don't
understand this.

~~~
Tichy
Doesn't mean that hardware has to remain hard forever. Maybe something could
be done to make it simpler. Some things already have been done. For example,
it is very simple to build your own PC out of readymade components.

~~~
corentin
By hard, we don't mean "difficult to understand and master"; one can learn
electronics on his own in the same way he can learn programming. The tools and
skills required are on par with software (well, the tools are usually better);
it's just that hardware requires much more capital and time to build, and you
have to deal with a lot of logistics and business issues.

A small team with no capital can build a ready-to-ship software product. A
small team with no capital can build a working hardware prototype, but the
step from prototype to actual, ready-to-sell product requires lots of
resources.

~~~
Tichy
And I think that can change, for example because of Rapid Prototyping, Build
On Demand and so on.

------
h34t
I will be amazed (and applaud them) if they can pull this off as fast as he
anticipates. I am no expert on hardware design, but I did manage the
development of a touch-enabled control panel and electrical system for a home
appliance, and it required a hell-load of work from a few dedicated staff over
3-4 months (and that was just to get a decent prototype -- refinements took
additional months).

Mind you, we had a couple of things going against us -- (1) a brand new cross-
cultural team, which meant learning curves and inefficient communication; (2)
we did it in China, where something as simple as renting an apartment can turn
into a full-time job for two weeks due to their culture of distrust and
inefficiency... (doing it in the U.S. must make things a lot smoother), (3) we
didn't have the benefit of being able to take advantage of a lot of existing
software, so as to avoid doing a lot of custom coding, and (4) we had trouble
finding proper parts which could both do the job right & pass electrical
inspections for european/US markets, whereas I'd imagine that their supply
chain company should be able to find good parts quickly and easily.

Maybe all of their advantages will result in a stellar timeline. Or maybe not.
(When we began, we also thought we could get it done in a month or two.)

------
martythemaniak
My two main thoughts on this are:

1\. It won't cost $200. The Nokia N810 has similar specs and had a price drop
to $300, so I don't see how this will happen. It might be possible to source
the parts for 200, but not build it, ship it and make a profit.

2\. Why not use Ubuntu MID? I have not used it, but it was made for these kind
of devices. Certainly much easier and cheaper than writing custom linux/ff
code. Just add Firefox with a preset homepage to the startup and you're done
:)

~~~
biosoup
Do you think that they want to make profit? Didn't Arrington said that the
whole device will be open source?

~~~
vaksel
Open source just means Arrington won't need to pay coders to write the
software, and will get to enjoy discounts from people who have contacts to
help build the hardware.

~~~
Herring
You say that like it's a bad thing.

~~~
vaksel
just clarifying, since it sounded like he thought open source = non-profit

------
tocomment
I'm betting Apple has a patent on just about every part of this thing. I hope
someone can tell me I'm wrong.

~~~
cubrilovic
great point and something we have looked into. nothing like an Apple v Open
Source patent war

------
danw
Sounds like an Asus Eee PC with a slightly different form factor or a Nokia
Internet Tablet to me

------
st3fan
The next OpenMoko.

I'm usually pretty excited about plans like this, but the way Arrington talks
about this project makes me wonder whether he actually has any clue about what
he is getting into.

Specially, the part where he said that they will put together a nice software
stack and then see on what hardware that will run. It is a very wrong approach
in my opinion. Software is not the limiting factor here. It is the hardware.
There should be a fine balance between the hardware and software choices for
this thing.

Ah well, they are probably having fun.

------
gamerates
I do a lot of reading online (one of my fav. sites being:
<http://www.aldaily.com/>). I've been searching around for something like this
for a while. Something that is easy to read on like the kindle, but can surf
the web. Basically what I've been looking for is a sort of digital reader. I
still print out a number of longer articles just because I find them easier to
read on paper (and much more portable).

This seems like a possible solution to that problem and could be the future of
the news industry.

------
rms
This isn't going to happen for $200 until <http://www.pixelqi.com> starts
selling their second generation screen.

------
rms
A perfect tablet like this would go a long way toward solving #2 on the YC
idea list. Also see Canonical's UMPC GUI.

------
god
Do we really need that button on the front?

I would find it much cooler, if the front was symmetrical and without any
buttons. It would probably be eays to put a little on/off switch on the back.
I would like a switch, that shows in a physical way if the thing is on or off.
Buttons are much more confusing.

------
rw
[http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/2689707981_6c5fc0c808_o....](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3177/2689707981_6c5fc0c808_o.jpg)

I don't think it would be using Windows Firefox!

~~~
cubrilovic
haha def not

------
mannylee1
Tell me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the parts alone cost around $200. I am not
saying that this is impossible, but reliable batteries alone have got to be
pretty expensive.

~~~
cubrilovic
the price point we are at in our spec already is at $150 so we have left $50
or more to add cooler shit

~~~
rms
Where are you getting the screen?

~~~
cubrilovic
our supply chain guys sourced it - we haven't set yet if we are going LCD or
exact specific specs (we need to run power tests). the dual touch pad sitting
behind it is coming out of a company that hasn't seen their tech integrated
into a major product yet.

im sorry we cant mention company names just yet - we are doing this through
proxy (ie. using a supply chain company, design firm and manufacturer). I am
hoping I can publish the full tech details at some point in the next 24h and
we can go from there

~~~
noonespecial
It always seems like it works out this way. Secret sources to be named "soon".
Untested near-products that aren't quite ready for release...

Lets do it with stuff we can get and see what happens:

Main Board: (truly open, schematics and all) : <http://beagleboard.org/>
($149)

Screen : Lilliput 8" 1024x768 touch screen ([http://www.case-
mod.com/lilliput-809gl80npct-lcd-touch-scree...](http://www.case-
mod.com/lilliput-809gl80npct-lcd-touch-screen-vga-monitor-
charcoal-p-1206.html?src=fr)) ($259)

Network : 802.11g wifi (<http://www.usbgear.com/USB-Wi-Fi.html>) ($30)

Battery: 7.4v LiIon 5200mAh (4 hours run) [http://www.all-
battery.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&...](http://www.all-
battery.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=2210) ($50)

Case: Injection Mold plastic
([http://www.emachineshop.com/molding_machines/injection_moldi...](http://www.emachineshop.com/molding_machines/injection_molding.htm))
($10)

Cost to build a single one, ignoring volume discounts and cost to assemble:
$498. Being able to make one without _a proxy (ie. using a supply chain
company, design firm and manufacturer)._ : Priceless.

~~~
rms
this is too slow, but it costs $6. [http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-
sbc.php#ts-7800-seri...](http://www.embeddedarm.com/products/arm-
sbc.php#ts-7800-series)

What can you get for $50 worth of embedded mainboard?

------
ph0rque
Pixel Qi should allow the touch screen component to be very inexpensive...

------
rms
Wait for the new OLPC.

~~~
cubrilovic
like saying wait for peace in the middle east (both UN initiatives)

~~~
rms
They are doing much better at iterating the OLPC than making peace in the
Middle East...

------
lurker
is techcrunch spamming YNews? why would copies of the same story be at the top
of the news list?

~~~
cubrilovic
hey I just found this thread! (read the site every day though)

------
kimboslice
I want in!

------
andrewbadera
goodie, an EEE cloned as a tablet. so? next.

