[Freedombox-discuss] Kickstarter's initial goal was reached

[Philip Hands]

On Wed, 23 Feb 2011 14:22:02 -0500, James Vasile <james at hackervisions.org> wrote:
...
> The problem with numbers is they imply precision that doesn't always
> exist.  There is no detailed hidden budget.  $500K is an estimate of the
> resources it would take to actualize the vision.

Hi James,

If I had that money to spend on such a project, I'd probably burn some
of it on getting a decent hardware design sorted out, and publish it as
an open design to encourage its production (a la Arduino).  The little
plug computers that exist all seem to be either anoyingly broken in some
minor (or major) way, or rather too expensive to have mass appeal.

One feature I'd definitely want to include if designing from scratch
would be the ability to draw its power from USB phone chargers (on the
basis that we're going to be knee deep in the things soon) and the
ability to use two of them, so that (given that they're cheap & nasty)
the Freedombox can send you an email pointing out that one of its PSUs
has died.

Just an idea -- it might well be easier to assume that android phones
are going to end up cheap enough, and use one of them as the hardware
though, since that gets you economies of scale without any effort on our
part.

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
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