The Neo FreeRunner is an open source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

 smartphone

Smartphone

A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...

 that is developed by the Openmoko

Openmoko

Openmoko is a project to create a family of open source mobile phones, including the hardware specification and the operating system. The project was sponsored by Openmoko Inc....

 project and manufactured by FIC

First International Computer

First International Computer, Inc. is a Taiwanese computer and components manufacturer, that designs and manufactures computer products and electronic components for other electronics equipment manufacturers worldwide. The company's products include motherboards, embedded computing systems,...

. It is the successor to the first development phase smartphone Neo 1973

Neo 1973

The Neo 1973 is a smartphone developed by the Openmoko project to run the Openmoko Linux software platform. Furthermore other platforms have been ported to the Neo 1973, including Qt Extended, Debian and Android....

, and is intended for users with a high demand for customizability.

The Neo FreeRunner started shipping on June 24th, 2008 and is currently priced individually at US$250 and at US$200 each if purchased in multiples of five. A debug board is available for US$99.

The Neo FreeRunner includes features that were not present in the development release of the phone (Neo 1973). The changes include 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...

, SMedia 3362 graphics accelerator, two 3D accelerometer

Accelerometer

An accelerometer is a device that measures proper acceleration, also called the four-acceleration. This is not necessarily the same as the coordinate acceleration , but is rather the type of acceleration associated with the phenomenon of weight experienced by a test mass that resides in the frame...

s, Samsung 2442 SoC

System-on-a-chip

A system on a chip or system on chip is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single chip substrate...

, and 256 MB of flash memory.

Functionality

As of the 2008.08 software revision only the GSM phone module is working reliably; the Freerunner's hardware does not yet have fully functional software interfaces. The software development is split between Qtopia

Qtopia

Qt Extended is an application platform for embedded Linux-based mobile computing devices such as personal digital assistants, video projectors and mobile phones...

 under X11, GTK, FSO, Debian

Debian

Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...

. There are also some derivates of the Openmoko

Openmoko

Openmoko is a project to create a family of open source mobile phones, including the hardware specification and the operating system. The project was sponsored by Openmoko Inc....

 main distribution SHR and FDOM (Fat and Dirty Openmoko). The vanilla Qtopia distribution is recommended by Openmoko for users not wishing to use early development stage software, and FDOM for those who want to test the latest features and fixes without worrying about stability.

It is also possible to run Inferno

Inferno (operating system)

Inferno is a distributed operating system started at Bell Labs, but is now developed and maintained by Vita Nuova Holdings as free software. Inferno was based on the experience gained with Plan 9 from Bell Labs, and the further research of Bell Labs into operating systems, languages, on-the-fly...

 on OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner.

Android has been patched to run on the OpenMoko Neo FreeRunner by at least two different developers.

OpenWrt

OpenWrt

OpenWrt is a Linux distribution primarily targeted at routing on embedded devices. It comprises a set of about 2000 software packages, installed and uninstalled via the opkg package management system. OpenWrt can be configured using the command-line interface of BusyBox ash, or the web interface...

 can be compiled for the Neo FreeRunner.

In media

The Neo FreeRunner makes an appearance in William Gibson

William Gibson

William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...

's 2010 novel Zero History

Zero History

Zero History is a novel by William Gibson. It concludes the informal trilogy begun by Pattern Recognition and features Hollis Henry and Milgrim from Spook Country, the middle book, as the protagonists.-Plot:...

, as the phone initially used by the character Milgrim.

External links

• Neo FreeRunner article on the Openmoko wiki