Open source notebook - VIA OpenBook
Posted on May 27th 2008 in Video of the Week, Mobile computing
VIA has released the open source notebook project - the VIA OpenBook. It’s not a product you can buy at the local electronics dealer, but rather a unique approach to mobile computing. VIA has opened the architecture of its latest product design to the public, making CAD drawings available. Basically, if you’ve got the resources to manufacture the casing, and put together electronic components, you can build your own custom tailored open source notebook.
Some of the specifications are:
- Processor: 1.6GHz VIA C7®-M ULV Processor
- Chipset: VIA VX800 unified chipset
- Memory: DDR2 SO-DIMM up to 2GB
- HDD: 80GB Hard-Disk or above
- Screen: 8.9″ WVGA 1024X600 LED screen
- Graphics: VIA Chrome9 HC3 DX9 3D engine with shared system memory up to 256MB
- WiFi and Bluetooth
- webcam, and more…
Here’s the video in which Richard Brown (VIA Technologies) explains how the idea of an open source notebook came to be:
It would take a hell of an enthusiast engineer to put this together as an individual, but the project will allow small manufacturers to make some very interesting variations of the new notebook. I am guessing some pretty interesting products are about to hit the market, and for a low price as well. BTW, the new notebook can run Windows XP or Vista, and most (or all) Linux distributions.
