OpenBook Project

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OpenBook is an open source hardware and software project which goal is to start a "light tablet" movement by designing a computer tablet that suits most users needs and design an all-round (probably Linux powered) tablet. Everyone can contribute and help to shape the OpenBook hardware and software specifications on the OpenBook Project homepage.

The future device could be a light, letter sized LCD or electronic paper display tablet with touch screen, Wi-Fi, few GB of flash memory, decent battery life and a price of under $500 - that could be the specs of the OpenBook. While aiming literally between MIT $100 laptop and a consumer Tablet PC the project wants to stop wasting both software and hardware resources and still be highly usable.

The OpenBook initiative started because there is no product that would meet this requirements on the market today. The initiative's goal is to maintain an open specifications of the OpenBook. The project does not want to manufacture the tablet itself once the right specifications are ready but rather to create a market demand and let different manufacturers to produce it. Technology in usability does not change every two years to force you change the hardware. When software changes the device can be easily re-flashed gaining the new features.

The OpenBook could ship in two display modifications - a normal LCD and an electronic paper display for long battery life performance. The OpenBook might look like the Electrovaya's Scribbler or TabletKiosk's products. However, a light keyboard is planned (probably similar to foldable Palm traveller keyboard) with a stand so that one could deploy the device conveniently on the table and write.

1 Competition
2 Specifications
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Competition

The Pepper Pad 2 is not light enough in comparison to OpenBook aims. It still has a hard drive and does not feature a decently sized light keyboard (folding from the bottom) - like the Palm travel keyboard once was. The Pepper Pad already featured a Linux OS though.

Another potential competitor in the ... of the tablet usage is the Microsoft's UMPC. However, the UMPCs again have hard drives by default and are too thick. They also have too small display and run mostly Celeron processor, which is in comparison to ARM architecture extremely ineffective.

Another extreme is the iLiad from iRex Technologies - it is firstly an e-book reader and features only an e-ink display and no keyboard.