Born On The Fourth Of July: Openmoko’s Neo FreeRunner
by Imran Ali
Last Friday, pointedly coinciding with Independence Day celebrations in the US, Openmoko launched the latest edition of its open source Neo handsets, the FreeRunner. Unlocked from carriers and running an open OS, the FreeRunner really is a product of independence day and stands in stark contrast to the impending iPhone launch next Friday.
Features such as a tri-band radio, wifi, touch screen, Bluetooth, A-GPS and graphics acceleration are kinda mundane now ,and actually so is open source software. What’s quite unique about the FreeRunner is the remixability of the handset’s physical form factor.
Openmoko has made available downloadable Pro-Engineer format CAD files under a Creative Commons license for the developer community. Sadly, the CAD files aren’t available for lower rent 3D software, which might encourage further experimentation. Nevertheless, it’ll be interesting to see how the developer community adapts the insides of FreeRunner to various form factors and application areas.
You can find the CAD files here…
