Shonzilla, a pattern-seeking animal

NY Times reports on a “secret” memo leaked out from one of T-Mobile’s partners which lays out T-Mobile’s vision of bringing Android platform to home devices like home phone, tablet, etc. allowing for tighter integration with devices like phones, photo frames, digital cameras, security systems, webcams TVs.

Since NY Times is a failry reliable source and the fact it’s becoming apparent that Android platform will become pervasive, I can say this is great news and that Android is the space to watch. Back in December 2007, I’ve also written about the possibility of Android becoming pervasive in my initial rant about Android.

[via NY Times and brianjdixon]

“Google is hard at work on a new version of its Linux-based Android mobile platform. The new branch—which is codenamed Cupcake—introduces support for several important features, including an on-screen keyboard. This critical feature, which was missing from Android at launch, will make Android a viable platform for touchscreen tablet devices that don’t have hardware keyboards.”

After GiiNii Movit tablet, that was showcased at CES earlier this year, there’s another one running Android OS coming from Archos that’s coming in 2009 Q3.

I bet Android developers are salivating now… ;-)

TechCrunch wants to build “A Dead Simple Web Tablet For $200” that’s as slim as Apple Air and is based on Linux, FireFox, and Skype - technologies that would enable regular internet users to Get Things Done.

This initiative launched by Mike Arrington cause a significant number of comments at TechCrunch. People suggesting ideas and offering their know-how are coming from various backgrounds: server-side software development, web development, Linux hacking, user experience, hardware design…

Although I’m excited by an idea and would like to get engaged (if I weren’t swamped by invoicable and fairly interesting work already), I’m a bit sceptical. A couple of reasons:

• So far not a single crowdsourced hardware project has succeeded .
• Serious coordination is needed in such a multi-faceted project (concept design, hardware design, software development, industrial/UI design and user experience all tied together)
  
• Seed money is necessary (preferably backed by a consortium of companies without a conflict of interest in the web tablet market niche)
• Better invest time&effort into further expansion of a community around one of open mobile platforms like Android, OpenMoko, LiMo, and last but not least Symbian. As an added bonus, you get to phone your friends (and fellow collaborators). :-)

Anyway, my (founded) skepticism aside, I believe TechCrunch should rise to the occasion and show more committment in this initiative. They could do thins in several ways:

• Approaching potential partners. Perhaps the “home of crowdsourcing”, Cambrian House, or more hardware-oriented CrowdSpirit should be involved as well.
• Taking pre-orders. Committed future customers can be used as angel investors. Has this be done before?
• Build a serious community. Community (web site) dedicated to this effort would be a “Web2.0 way” to structure an direct efforts is necessary in such a complex project.
• Start small by modifying existing open-sourcesoftware, then iterate. Today, software is almost free replicate but can become more expensive to produce than hardware. Though, hardware design has a higher barrier of entry and it takes some viable software platform solution in order to build hardware for it, especially on a crowdsourced project. Therefore, I would start by modifying open-source software and testing it out on commercial multi-touch tablets out there.
  

Interested? You have skillz? Help them build it!