Seems that some people at Microsoft are taking offense at Nokia naming the 770 the Internet tablet. Since, unless you lived under the rock over the past few years, Microsoft advertised Tablet PCs (running Microsoft(r) Windows (r) XP (r) Tablet PC(r)), naturally, and now the term would seemingly get diluted. Seems like Microsoft would be all over this if (a) the term tablet hasn’t been used so widely throughout and (b) they only sold 600K of those Tablet PCs in 2004, so it’s below the radar of the legal department. Plus, the differentiation of Tablet PC (notice the PC in there) versus Internet tablet should more or less provide the buyer with the right expectations of what exactly they are getting.
A paragraph at MobileRead forum tells us that Plucker, a popular open source e-book reader, has been ported to Nokia 770, with a screenshot provided.
Plucker was originally started as a Palm OS application to enable the Palm owners to read the e-books and browse collections of HTML files offline, but currently you can find a Plucker viewer for pretty much any popular operating system out there. Sample readings in Plucker format can be downloaded on the official Web site, so one can now enjoy Definition & Reality in the General Theory of Political Economy by Thomas Colignatus in their pajamas, reading, supposedly, on Nokia 770. The e-book reader itself would be a useful addition to the 770 applications family, as, being open, it also provides for some DRM for authors and publishers willing to distribute their works in Plucker format.
Don’t miss the LinuxJournal interview with Dr. Ari Jaaksi of Nokia. Now we know why Nokia went the Linux path, why out of all the distros Debian was chosen.
An interest fact - Nokia 770 battery is the same as any other Nokia phones, so it’s not a lock-in situation that Apple has with iPods, where only a single source is available, and the price is quite high.
It looks like Slim Devices, manufacturer of a really neat Squeezebox, a home media player that connects to a wired or wireless network (review by DesignTechnica, an older review by PC Magazine and a tutorial on hacking the Squeezebox with Perl) will be offering support for Nokia 770. That’s according to the company CTO, Dean Blackketter, posting in maemo-developers:
We’re planning on adding support for the 770 to the open source SlimServer music server and our hardware player, Squeezebox.
Om Malik could be fueling a rumor about the real reason behind Apple and Intel alliance - slim devices:
Secondly, I think Apple will exploit Intel’s chips for often rumored Tablet PC, that could have features in common with Nokia 770 tablet. I would not be surprised that Monday morning, the announcement circles around XScale, or low powered Centrino chips.
Before the official launch of Nokia 770, the company will sell 500 devices to the developers and donate the proceeds to GNOME Foundation. Says Nokia:
Nokia, which recently launched the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet, announced today a developer device program at the GNOME User and Developer European Conference (GUADEC). The developer device program will sell 500 Nokia 770 Internet Tablets for 99 euros and donate the proceeds from the sales to the GNOME Foundation.
The Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is based on Linux and widely deployed Open Source technologies like GNOME. At the core of the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet is Hildon Application Framework, which is based on GNOME technology. This technology has been adapted with extensions and modifications to evolve a user interface framework that is better suited for handheld category devices.
Wall Street Journal provides a clue on why Nokia is not supporting VOIP or Skype right out of the box. Actually, it’s Ben Wood, a Gartner analyst from the UK:
“Perhaps they were reluctant to upset some of their existing customers,” Mr. Wood said, referring to the cellphone service providers.
We mentioned before that Movial is already working to fix the problem.
Associated Press story on Yahoo! News has details on Nokia’s 770 model.
There’s no hard drive but rather 128 megabytes of onboard flash memory and a memory card slot. Nokia says the device is not intended as a rival to Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod or other MP3 music players. A software update is expected early next year to add features such as voice-over-Internet telephony and instant messaging.
Nokia has the official site for 770 up and running. Expect the device by Q3 2005 in selected countries.