Smart Home Blog

Yesterday a new version of OS2007 Hacker Edition for Nokia770 was released. Bad news: Skype, Adobe Flash 9 and support of flash memory more than 2Gb are not included there (developers explained that fact by difficulty to port those software to Nokia770 hardware). Good news: device works more stable and much faster. I re-flash my Nokia yesterday. Visually it boots faster and all applications are lunched faster as well. Good work, guys! The new OS2007 Hacker Edition can be downloaded here.

I didn’t install Plutohome or LinuxMCE Orbiter yet. I’m going to upload all its dependencies to the Maemo Extras repository first. I hope it’ll make a process of Orbiter installation much easier. So, after I install the Orbiter and test it I’ll write my impressions here. Stay tune!

According to LinuxDevices Sprint will offer a Mobile WiMAX-enabled version of Nokia’s N800 Internet Tablet to North American customers next year. This is a good news for North American N800 users because they may be part of Sprint’s grand scheme of making WiMAX-based 4G wireless services available to over 100 million people during 2008.

Dr. Ari Jaaksi, Nokia’s director of open source, said the WiMAX-enabled N800 would “most probably” include WiFi and Bluetooth as well. He felt that interference problems could be minimized, noting, “We had the same interference with Bluetooth and WiFi initially, but we solved that.”

It seems that Windows monopoly in the UMPC area is gonna be ended. TVease, producer of HTPC based on Ubuntu and MythTV, is planning to port full Ubuntu Linux distribution including OpenOffice, GIMP, MythTV to the Windows-based UMPC Samsung Q1. Since that company produces media centers with MythTV inside I suppose that the target of that port is a possibility to run full featured MythTV on UMPC.

Linux folks already tried to run (not install) Ubuntu on Q1 in LiveCD mode. So, TVease decided to expand and improve that. Well, let’s see how it’ll be. We expect release Ubuntu for Q1 of at least official announce on August.

[via eHomeUpgrade]

According to Maemo.com Nokia has released an update for its Internet Tablet OS 2007 edition. The update (version number 4.2007.26-8) includes Skype client support, Adobe® Flash® 9 browser plug-in, improvements in online use times and single memory card support up to 8 GB. Another great improvements are increasing battery life in case of using wireless connection and better sensitiveness of touch screen.

So, it’s a good opportunity to re-flash my N800 and check how it affect the Plutohome Orbiter work.

According to LinuxDevices.com at least two large online retailers are selling Nokia’s 770 Internet Tablet for $140 (originally it was priced at $400!). It’s really amazing price because some universal remote such Philips Pronto or Nevo are much expensive (as you may know Nokia770 can be used as control panel for home automation system Plutohome and for music streamer SlimServer).

That news is good for all folks who decided to use Nokia770 to control their homes using Plutohome. Together with Plutohome developer Christian Miron we modified SDL Orbiter to have possibility run it on Nokia770. Also, I created a simple Maemo application to handle the Orbiter easier from Nokia770 UI.

The latest (and mostly stable) version of Plutohome Orbiter for Nokia770 can be found here (os2006 and os2007 Hacker Edition). Also, you may try the Orbiter on your N800 as well.