fidzu : Maemo

With few exceptions, the product talk around the upcoming MeeGo mobile operating system has highly-focused on netbooks and cell phones, and understandably so. Intel's legacy contribution to the joint effort, Moblin, was designed for the former while Nokia's equivalent, Maemo, has been the foundation for the latter.

Less discussed is the opportunity in automobiles… but it's definitely part of the picture.

Automotivating

When computers first found their way into cars, it was in the form of electronic controls for combustion control, braking and other mechanical functions. Flaky at first due to the extreme environmental conditions and the immaturity of the industry, these systems are now taken for granted.

The next frontier is in-vehicle entertainment, guidance and other passenger-oriented activities. None of these are particularly new in parts, but what is fairly novel outside the realm of science fiction is a truly integrated infotainment experience incorporated into the vehicle.

To this end, Intel and Nokia both are key members of the GENIVI Alliance, launched in early 2009 and self-described as:

Intel has been very active on this front, pioneering a powerful embedded solution for automotive computing called Low Power Intel® In-Vehicle Infotainment.

Applications

Nokia has demonstrated IVI concepts of its own in the past (Ford Mustang, Renault Twingo), but these have been more proof-of-concept than anything for actual production. More recently, the announcement of Nokia Terminal Mode for smartphone-car interfacing looks immediately practical. Interestingly, Nokia is partnering on this with another GENIVI member, car stereo manufacturer Alpine. At this time I don't have information if this ties into GENIVI at all.

From a practical standpoint, Intel has the lead here based on its embedded systems work described above. But Nokia's expertise in mobile communications will be highly critical in making this venture work. In other words, this pairing looks more ideal all the time.

Competitors

Nokia's dalliance with N800s in a Mustang can't come close to what Microsoft has done with Ford via SYNC. This popular solution has expanded its range beyond Microsoft's own products to even include iPhone support. However, as a closed system I can't see it coming close to the potential that GENIVI offers, especially given that latter's membership (more below).

Possibilities

Some time back I envisioned an internet tablet ecosystem where Nokia's "connecting people" mantra truly manifested. I imagined (with something like the N800 in mind) a web-enabled touchscreen device that would be my companion throughout the day, in various use cases: sitting on my desk autopaging through an electronic photo album, firing off an alarm to wake me, informing me of appointments for the day, guiding my vehicle to those appointments, alerting me to items and events of interest as I navigated, and serving up detailed information on and around my destinations as I walked that final distance to them. For those unwilling to live with the bulk of an N800, I pictured the tablet staying in the car but seamlessly handing off its accumulated info to a cell phone of choice to serve in that last mile.

I can see IVI enabling the automotive aspect of this scenario, and then some. Automobiles stand to finally fulfill fantastic visions dating back decades. This goes beyond the usual items of infotainment, too- with these systems in place, semi-automated vehicle driving gets a great deal closer to reality.

But as rich an experience as we are poised to receive, there will come some pitfalls. Already cell phones are being increasingly targetted as devices of dangerous distraction in automotive mishaps. More and more municipalities in the US alone are passing laws and regulations geared toward discouraging "driving and dialing". When our cars truly become our home away from home, as advents like GENIVI will enable, sticky legal issues will likely increase. It will be up to the solution providers to not only follow relevant laws but also act responsibly in general while adding to the infotainment experience.

Going forward

MeeGo's open source nature vis-a-vis netbooks and cell phones is one thing; to pull off an open source automotive infotainment paradigm is something on another scale entirely. If someone had suggested such a thing to me a few years ago I would have scoffed… but reading through the list of GENIVI Alliance members (which includes not only industry giants Intel, Nokia and Alpine but also Garmin, GM, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Navteq, Pioneer, Peugot, Renault and more) leads me to believe Microsoft will soon be facing more than it can handle in this space.

In automotive parlance, GENIVI has traction, and MeeGo is the vehicle that will provide the spark. Developers, get on now or get left behind!

Filed under: Inviting Change, Mentioning Maemo, Mentioning MeeGo, The Process and Product Frontier, The Write Stuff Tagged: Alpine, automobile, automotive, BMW, Ford, GENIVI, GM, In-Vehicle Infotainment, infotainment, Intel, LinkedIn, Maemo, MeeGo, Microsoft, Moblin, Navteq, Nokia, Peugot, Pioneer, Renault, SYNC 0 0

11 Mar 2010 9:39pm GMT

"Unlock" your phone to a few new cool settings. Tweakr has to be standard in every N900, it should be integrated into the OS. But for now it can be downloaded in the Maemo testing section and it will install itself to your phone settings as a new menu called extras. Scroll down after opening the phone settings to setup tweakr. First there is the wonderful and long waited setting option to "clean" and trim your desktop. Finally you can arrange your shortcuts and bookmarks on your desktops with "Snap icons ...0 0

11 Mar 2010 8:35pm GMT

Just a few weeks ago I wrote about the beta version of JoikuSpot for the N900 and was able to use it for downloading data when connected to my computer. I spent the last couple of weeks bouncing around with a Sprint Overdrive and Palm Pre Plus with Mobile Hotspot, but tonight when I needed a connection I ended up putting my T-Mobile SIM back into my trusty Nokia N900 and firing up Joikuspot. I then discovered that the beta version had expired and JoikuSpot graduated to a full version, called Premium, for the N900. The great news for those who are reading this site and are probably one of the early adopters is that you can buy JoikuSpot Premium Linux (N900) Edition for just 7 EUR, which is less than half the regular price. This launch price is only available to the first 1,000 people who purchase the application. BTW, this works out to about USD$9.50.

I purchased the full version immediately and am actually posting this entry from my MacBook Pro connected to the N900 wirelessly. With the fast T-Mobile 3G data signal, this solution is awesome and will result in me not needing to turn on the Verizon HotSpot option on the Palm Pre Plus. If you have a Nokia N900 on T-Mobile I HIGHLY RECOMMEND you go buy this application right now.

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11 Mar 2010 3:45am GMT

July 2009 saw a glorious moment for Maemo unfold - one that was met with great enthusiasm by the community - the creation of the 'Maemo Devices' organization within Nokia. Melding both software and hardware under one corporate umbrella was a very welcome sign for the future of the Maemo platform, and its importance within the Nokia corporation. Maemo 5 and the Nokia N900 were the first fruits of the Maemo Devices organization, as the Linux OS was brought into mainstream spotlight.

Fast forward to February 2010, only a few months after the N900 sales start. A pivotal moment occured in the Maemo world, with the announcement that Nokia's Maemo operating system would merge with Intel's Moblin to form MeeGo, a project supported by the Linux Foundation. With Maemo 5 just out the door, and Maemo 6 around the corner, the maemo.org community has been active speculating what this means for the future of the devices and OS that they hold so dear to them.

Peter Schneider, head of Maemo marketing at Nokia, joins the discussion in this concluding part of the Mobile Tablets! interview with him.


1. MeeGo is a merging of Maemo and Moblin. Can you give us an overview of of how the MeeGo project is administered, such as roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders?

PS: Not sure what a "3^rd-party hardware manufacturer" in context of MeeGo is because everybody is a "first class participant" in MeeGo, but imagine that any device manufacturer can take the MeeGo software from the upstream project, make the necessary hardware adaptation to let it run on their hardware, and channel the enhancements back to the MeeGo project to stay in synch with the upstream project. While we will see a variety of different mobile computing devices from mobile computers to netbooks, Nokia will continue to use MeeGo for pocketable mobile computers in our portfolio.

PS: We've been rather verbal already in the Open Source in Mobile event in October 2009 that we want to focus on user experiences not on the operating system development in-house where we expect significant synergy benefits by working together with the leader in computing i.e. Intel. With our first MeeGo-based device in the second half of 2010, we intend to create an iconic flagship experience. That's the focus now.

'Post-Mortem' by EIPI:

The MeeGo concept fits Nokia's current products lines such as high-end cellular phones and the Booklet quite nicely. The 'original' tablet market has been left untapped by Nokia since the N810 stopped production. I know for a fact that many in the community would be excited over the prospect of a 5" MeeGo powered tablet coming from Nokia.

The MeeGo concept is mind blowing if you allow yourself to think it through a bit. One could have a MeeGo powered phone in their pocket, a MeeGo based navigation unit in their car dashboard, a MeeGo MID or tablet in the backpack for when more screen real estate is required. In fact, this is what I recall the Mer project envisioning say about year ago. Seems like we are getting much closer to a Linux environment surrounding us. And it appears that Nokia will have a large influencing role in that.

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11 Mar 2010 2:42am GMT

Firefox for Mobile Introducing the Website Problem Reporter for Fennec - http://ahdesai.wordpress.com/2010... 19 hours ago from ahdesai » Mozilla - Comment - Like

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11 Mar 2010 2:16am GMT

Nokia is currently transforming itself from a hardware company to a hardware+services (solutions) company. At MWC 2010, we spoke to Tero Ojanperä, EVP of Services, in order to get an insight into current progress. Over a wide-ranging interview we cover a number of topics around Nokia's service strategy including how Ovi fits into Nokia's software platform strategy, the thought processes that led to free navigation, the importance of services compared to phone hardware, getting content onto the Ovi Store, the importance of partners and much more.

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10 Mar 2010 11:02pm GMT

Bookmarklets are bookmarks in the browser designed to add one-click functionality to a web page. On our desktops, we save bookmarklets by dragging a links to to our browser's toolbar. It's different on mobile devices. I checked the Nokia N900, Nexus One, iPhone, and the Nokia N97 mini and noticed only the N900 can quickly save bookmarklets.

bit.ly bookmarklet on the Nokia N900

A couple of bookmarklets I use a lot are the Bit.ly sidebar and
Wordpress Press This. Here are 100 more that you might find helpful.

You can also watch this video in HD on Youtube. Subscribe to the channel to preview the latest videos before they get published on the blog.

To save a bookmarklet on the Nokia N900, long-press on the link and add as a bookmark. You can access it later by clicking on the bookmarks button on the lower left corner. That's it!

It's not that easy on other devices. Saving bookmarklets on the iPhone requires syncing with a computer. There are other ways, but again, it's not as intuitive as the N900. I also tried saving a bookmarklet on the Nexus One and the Nokia N97 mini, but failed.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

• Video: How to Enable The Hidden Portrait Mode On Nokia N900 Web Browser
• Video: Google Maps Mobile on Nokia N900 Web Browser
• Video How to: Install .deb Files on Nokia N900
• New Nokia N900 Video On Photos and Sharing from Maemo

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10 Mar 2010 5:15pm GMT

I've been cooking this post for a couple of weeks, but due to many reasons, I was not able to publish it; until now.

Since Feb 19th, I have left my job at INdT. I remember as if it was yesterday. Almost 5 years ago, I was moving from the Central region of Brazil to the Northeast, 2.500 km away from home, in search of new challenges in my professional career and also in my personal life. I was leaving a very good job in the technical center of one of the biggest (if not the biggest) bank in Brazil to try something new and very exciting.

The proposal was to join a selected group of highly skilled people, whose task was to ramp up an arm of Nokia here in Brazil, focused on research and development, which I had never heard about before. That was how I met the Instituto Nokia de Tecnologia, or simply, INdT. The thing that really caught my attention was the possibility to work directly with FOSS, while getting very well paid for that. What could ever be possibly better than that? ;)

By the time, besides of being a Linux user at home and having programmed using Open Source Software since the college, I had never actually contributed any single piece of code, documentation, translation or whatever, to an upstream project. Mostly because I had not yet understood the actual dynamic of developing software in the open. I was simply afraid of what was waiting for me on that corner.

I think those were new seas for INdT as well. Some of the guys that joined by that time, already had prior experience on the area, but a big part of us didn't. For this, and many other reasons, every day at the office was a different, joyful and exciting learning experience about the FOSS universe. That is something I am very thankful for.

As it happens very often with any company, it is necessary to make important decisions and focus on given areas. Unfortunately, and important to say, in my very own point of view, I realized that my piece of contribution to INdT had already been given. I really hope that it was useful somehow.

Time has come to find new opportunities, motivations and challenges in both professional and personal life. I'd like to thank very much and wish all the best to everyone I had the opportunity to work with during all this time. See you around!

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10 Mar 2010 4:00pm GMT

Some time ago there was decision that BUG 1.x will not be supported with next version of BUG Linux. As a result I ended in situation when I worked on handling device which I never saw.

It was not first time - in OpenedHand times I had this quite often but it is not a problem because my "hardware park" covers nearly whole ARM family:

• armv4t (s3c2410 in Openmoko GTA01, EP3907 in Sim.One)
• armv5te (at91sam9263, at91sam9m10 on Atmel boards, PXA255 in Zaurus c760, Sheeva in Marvell Sheevaplug, omap1510 in Nokia 770 tablet, ST88n15 in NHK-15)
• armv6 (omap24xx in Nokia N810, i.mx31 in BUG 1.2/1.3)
• armv7a (omap3530 in BeagleBoard B7/C3 and in Nokia N900)

So I am able to test binaries on other hardware or even in QEMU.

But few days ago I got information that developer version of BUG 2.0 will be sent to me. To make me more happy I ordered few books from Amazon to get them with package (inside US I got free posting). And today package was delivered by FedEx courier (their tracking page said Friday as delivery day).

Package reminds why recycling is easy: UPS package from Amazon (the one with books which I ordered) was repacked and got FedEx papers:

But box itself is not interesting - stuff in matters. After taking books out I got lot of packing bubbles and my eyes were presented with first level of things:

And then second one:

Everything unboxed:

And again but this time without packaging. From left-top to right-left:

• BUGduino module
• camera module
• OMAP3 video module with HDMI and VGA outputs
• new LCD module
• LCD screen with touchscreen (for LCD module)
• battery
• BUG 2.0 dock with serial (miniUSB), Ethernet, USB host, JTAG connectors
• BUG 2.0 rev. A
• two BMI adapters
• BMI cable extender

Look at new modules. First goes BUGduino which is Arduino thing with BUG connection. I do not know how it works but I knew that John Connolly did some programming for it.

New LCD module - QVGA like before.

Video module with HDMI and VGA outputs. This one is BUG 2.0 only as it uses OMAP3 signals and needs BMI slot with video signals. Yes, new BUG has only one slot for video - two screens configuration is not possible anymore. But hey - you can even connect 150″ LCD ;)

New camera module. I do not remember how many Mpx it has (old one had 2Mpx).

BUG 2.0 itself. Notice two microSD slots - one will be used for system, second is for user. There are just two buttons now, no LCD, no joystick. Also buzzer got removed in favour of headphone connector.

New hardware requires new BUGDock. What got changed? Serial is now present as miniUSB connector instead of DB9 so is easier to use with today computers (not everyone has 7 serial ports in desktop). Power and headphones connectors were removed because on-board ones are reachable. And JTAG connector is present. To tell the true I like old dock more then current one. But thats mostly because of angle connector instead of flat one. Anyway before BUG 2.0 will hit market there will be new dock for it.

And thats how system can look. BUG 2.0 with Dock and two modules connected by adapters.

Now I am waiting for Bug Labs guys to appear in the office to get informations how to boot it ;D

All rights reserved © Marcin Juszkiewicz BUG 2.0 arrived was originally posted on Marcin Juszkiewicz website

Related posts:

1. Serial cables for BUG
2. New BUGbase - now with WiFi & Bluetooth
3. BUG has arrived

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10 Mar 2010 3:53pm GMT

We are looking for an experienced software engineer and an architect for the browser team:

• Architect
• Software engineer

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10 Mar 2010 1:10pm GMT

In an article titled 'Phones to offer X-ray vision' and published on the smh.com.au portal, an Australian professor, Dr. Christian Sandor, revealed that researchers at the University of South Australia working with Nokia to build an ''X-ray vision'' mobile phone application which it hoped could be introduced in the next two years.

Dr Sandor said the technology could not be used by peeping Toms to see into people's houses because only the exterior views of buildings and streets were held in the databases.

Christian Sandor explained the application worked by using the phone's camera. Users pointed the camera at a building and an image of it would app... .. . 7 1

10 Mar 2010 10:28am GMT

We are looking for the Browser Q&A specialist.

Do not wait! Apply now!

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10 Mar 2010 8:51am GMT

This article has been in my mind quite a long time already, but now I finally had time to test MADDE and write something about it. MADDE stands for Maemo Application and Debugging Environment. Before going any further, I want to say that this is not a MADDE tutorial, this is about the MADDE and [...]14 0

10 Mar 2010 6:45am GMT

Promises are debts, so I've been working on SeriesFinale for Diablo in order to finalize all features that I left unported in previous version.

So I'm happy to announce that SeriesFinale for Diablo reaches version 0.3.

Besides finalizing the port, this version also integrates all features that Joaquim provided to SeriesFinale for Fremantle v0.3.

I've uploaded the new version to Maemo Extras Devel, so if you have it in your repository catalogue, you'll find SeriesFinale in the Application Manager.

Now, only a step remains to reach the head of SeriesFinale for Fremantle \o/

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09 Mar 2010 7:14pm GMT

Hi folks as we know Nokia N900 does not support sending DTMF request to the operator for credit check and other details.

Finally there is a way to do so with a click of a widget . The widget used to send DTMF request is called the USSD Widget. It is developed by Guseynov Alexey , Martin Grimme.

The widget has two ways of sending the DTMF requests one is by typing the DTMF in codes in USSD dial Pad.

And the other one is USSD Widget

So its now possible to see the DTMF response in the homescreen. This widget support automatic widget checking and many other customizations like font color, widget background colour etc..

The USSD widget need runtime components like

• python-hildondesktop
• hildon-desktop-python-loader
• pexpect
• ussd-common

And the USSD components like

• Ussd-pad
• Ussd Widget

You can Download the package with all components here.

Then transfer the contents of zip file to root of N900 i.e N900/

Then goto X-Terminal and Type

sudo gainroot

then

type cd MyDocs

place all the contents of downloaded zip file to root of N900 i.e N900/

then type

dpkg -i filename.deb

example:

dpkg -i python-hildon.deb

likewise install

python-hildondesktop
hildon-desktop-python-loader
pexpect
ussd-pad
ussd-common
ussd Widget

Have a look at the video tutorial for more brief explanation

Let us know how it worked for you..

UPDATE:

To enable root in Nokia N900. Goto App Manager in N900 and find the app called rootsh in utilities or download it from here and transfer and install. Then you can type sudo gainroot. It works fine. Sometimes it asks for password.When it does just exit the X-Terminal and type sudo root.

Similar Posts:

• OMG : Nokia N900 PR1.1 Firmware ChangeLog is Huge !
• Video : Firefox Mobile for the Nokia N900
• Nokia brings Qt port to Maemo5 , shows it off on N900 on Video
• N900 Short Video Walkthrough
• No other phone comes close to Nokia N900 in the Browsing department , Speed Test Video inside

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09 Mar 2010 6:39pm GMT

I'm doing a talk today in the Bossa Conference about using Midgard as a content repository for mobile applications. As part of my presentation I wrote some simple example code for using the Midgard APIs in Python, and thought they would be good to share to those not attending the event as well.

The idea of a content repository is that instead of coming up with new, isolated file formats or database setups for your application you can just work with objects and signals, and let Midgard handle the rest. This is something that lots of people are doing with CouchDB as well, but we feel Midgard, with its light footprint and native APIs for languages like Python, C, Vala and PHP fits better in the mobile applications context.

Installing Midgard

Midgard packages are available for many different Linux distributions through the OpenSuse Build Service. To find the right repository for your setup, go to the OBS project page. For example, on my Ubuntu Karmic netbook the URL to add to apt sources.list is deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/midgardproject:/mjolnir/xUbuntu_9.10/ ./. Then I just:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python-midgard2

Midgard is also available in Maemo extras and for OS X on MacPorts.

Defining a schema

The first thing when developing a Midgard application is to define your storage objects. This is done using the MgdSchema XML format. In this case we're doing a simple "attendee" object that amends Midgard's built-in person record with information related to the conference:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Schema xmlns="http://www.midgard-project.org/repligard/1.4">
    <type name="openbossa_attendee" table="openbossa_attendee">
        <property name="id" type="unsigned integer" primaryfield="id">
            <description>Local non-replication-safe database identifier</description>
        </property>
        <property name="person" type="unsigned integer" link="midgard_person:id">
            <description>Person attending the event</description>
        </property>
        <property name="registration" type="datetime">
            <description>Registration date of the attendee</description>
        </property>
        <property name="likesbeer" type="boolean">
            <description>Whether the attendee likes beer</description>
        </property>
    </type>
</Schema>

Then we just save this XML file into /usr/share/midgard2/schema/ so that Midgard will find it.

Initiating the repository connection

Once the MgdSchema is in place it is time to import antigravity and start hacking in Python. The code works pretty much in the same way in other languages Midgard is available for, but Python is used here for the sake of simplicity. First we load the Midgard extension:

import _midgard as midgard

Then we setup the repository connection. With these settings we will store our content into an SQLite database located in ~/.midgard2/data/midgardexample.db:

configuration = midgard.config()
configuration.dbtype = 'SQLite'
configuration.database = 'midgardexample'

# Open a Midgard repository connection with our config
connection = midgard.connection()
connection.open_config(configuration)

As this is the first time we're interacting with the repository we need to tell Midgard to prepare the storage for itself and also for our new openbossa_attendee class:

midgard.storage.create_base_storage()
midgard.storage.create_class_storage('midgard_person')
midgard.storage.create_class_storage('midgard_parameter')
midgard.storage.create_class_storage('openbossa_attendee')

Interacting with data

First we create a person object with our attendee:

person = midgard.mgdschema.midgard_person()
person.firstname = 'Leif'
person.lastname = 'Eriksson'
person.create()

Then we create our attendee object and link that with the person we just created:

attendee = midgard.mgdschema.openbossa_attendee()
attendee.person = person.id
attendee.likesbeer = True
attendee.create()

Querying data

Later we'll want to find out about all Leifs attending the event. We do this by using the Midgard query builder:

qb = midgard.query_builder('openbossa_attendee')
qb.add_constraint('person.firstname', '=', 'Leif')
attendees = qb.execute()

The query builder returns us a list of matching attendee objects. We can go through them and also fetch the associated persons:

for attendee in attendees:
    person = midgard.mgdschema.midgard_person()
    person.get_by_id(attendee.person)
    if attendee.likesbeer:
        print "%s, %s is attending the event" % (person.lastname, person.firstname)

Then we can update the persons with their email addresses:

    person.email = 'leif@vinland.no'
    person.update()

For basic data handling, that's it! When you need more, you can extend objects with file attachments or parameters. You can also create joined records using Midgard views. Midgard provides D-Bus signals, transactions, centralized metadata, synchronization and many other things.

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09 Mar 2010 3:50pm GMT