[HH] Almost Completely Open Source Laptop

[Federico Lucifredi]

All correct, except it was the book that put No Starch Press on the map, not O’Reilly — I am a proud owner of the first print, it is a fscinating course in reverse-engineering hardware.

I need to get Bunnie to sign it next time I run into him!

Best -F

PS: Tom, you really have a handle on the news! 


On Apr 2, 2014, at 10:28 PM, Kurt L Keville <kkeville at MIT.EDU> wrote:

> Wow... your Google Alerts must be working overtime. This was only announced
> today at EELive! Bunnie Huang is held is considerable reverence at MIT for
> being one of the early guys to reverse engineer game consoles. IIRC his first
> O'Reilly book got recalled as part of a MS lawsuit and then re-released with
> some redactions. Apparently you can now get the original e-book from his
> website...
> 
> Quoting Tom Metro <tmetro+hhacking at gmail.com>:
> 
>> The Almost Completely Open Source Laptop Goes on Sale
>> http://mprod.wired.com/2014/04/novena/
>> 
>> Earlier this year, the two Singapore-based engineers fashioned a
>> laptop made almost entirely from open source hardware, hardware whose
>> designs are freely available to the world at large. They called it
>> Project Novena. Anyone could review the designs, looking for bugs and
>> security flaws, and at least in theory, that meant you could be
>> confident the machine was secure from top to bottom, something that's
>> more desirable than ever in the post-Edward Snowden age.
>> ...
>> Starting today, you can order your own pre-built Novena laptop through
>> the crowd-funding site Crowd Supply, and it will ship out in the
>> coming months.
>> ...
>> The project is part of larger movement towards open source hardware.
>> ... If you share designs, others can make them better. The new,
>> commercial version of the Novena does include some parts that are
>> closed source, such as the processor, but Huang and Cross have tried
>> to minimize these as much as possible.
>> ...
>> ...designed so that you can readily expand the hardware that's inside.
>> "Half of it is empty," Huang says of the machine. "It's designed with
>> the thought that you would add to it yourself."
>> ...
>> You can purchase a version of the machine, including the aluminum
>> case, high-definition display, and motherboard for $1,195. For $1,995,
>> you also get a battery and a 240 gigabyte solid-state hard drive.
>> ...
>> You can also buy just the motherboard for $500 and use it with your
>> own case.
>> ...
>> All versions of the Novena run the open source Linux operating
>> systems, and they're powered by an ARM processor... Yes, these
>> machines are a bit underpowered by today's standards, and they're even
>> more expensive than a premium laptop...
>> 
>> 
>> It's less of a laptop and more of a portable:
>> 
>> The aluminum version of the machine is unusual in that the display
>> sits on the outside of the case. When you lift the case lid, you see
>> not a keyboard but the insides of the machine. That makes it easy to
>> add new components. You then attach your own external keyboard, as you
>> would with an iPad or some other tablet PC.
>> 
>> See the photo, but basically it is a "pizza box" configuration, where
>> the display makes up the lid. You open the box and prop the display at
>> the desired angle with an easel stand. Exposed in the base of the box is
>> the motherboard. I guess it is up to you to tote around a keyboard
>> separately.
>> 
>> 
>> The pitch is that this is open design for improved security, "...it's
>> open source, for people who care about the security, privacy." But the
>> article doesn't explore any of the specific of how they accomplished
>> that, such as all the usual proprietary binary blobs that would need to
>> be replaced.
>> 
>> 
>> Lifton also emphasizes that if you purchase one of these laptops, you
>> shouldn't think of yourself as an investor in company. You're simply
>> getting a laptop at a lower price than others will in the future.
>> 
>> As crowd funders of the Oculus Rift recently were reminded, when the
>> company cashed out to a Facebook acquisition, and the original
>> supporters were left out of the windfall.
>> 
>> The SEC has changed some of its investment rules to potentially
>> accommodate taking an equity stake in a business through crowd funding.
>> I wonder when we'll see sites designed to facilitate that, instead of
>> these pre-sales online stores.
>> 
>> -Tom
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> 
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_________________________________________
-- "'Problem' is a bleak word for challenge" - Richard Fish
(Federico L. Lucifredi) - flucifredi at acm.org - GnuPG 0x4A73884C