Neonode
Encyclopedia
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
manufacturer of mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s. The company was founded in 2001 by Magnus Goertz and Thomas Eriksson. They have approximately 50 employees and have their premises at Biblioteksgatan by Stureplan
Stureplan
Stureplan is a high-end public square in central Stockholm, between Norrmalm and Östermalm. The square connects the major streets Kungsgatan, Birger Jarlsgatan and Sturegatan...
in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, the capital city of Sweden. The company's products have patented technologies known as "zForce" and "Neno". Neonode has produced three handset models: the "N1", the "N1m", and the "N2", which were available as of August 2007.
All three products feature a common optical touch screen technology that is unique to Neonode in the mobile phone industry. A launch in the USA was expected some time in 2008.
The Neonode N2 phone was sold through retailers in most parts of Europe and via direct sales from the Neonode website.
History
The childhood friends Magnus Goertz and Thomas Eriksson founded Neonode in 2001.In March 2002 Neonode showed its mobile phone for the first time at the German IT trade show CeBIT and before December the same year they arranged a press conference at "Fryshuset" in Stockholm. They got much attention for their innovative creation, resulting in a pre-order list of approximately 20,000 persons.
In the beginning of July 2004 released their first model "N1", which the company had planned to release two years earlier. In March 2005 an upgrade came, the "N1m". The added "m" indicates that the previous VGA camera has been replaced by a megapixel camera. Other updates were vibrator, triple band and a better battery.
On the 22 January 2007, Neonode and SBE, Inc. announced that the two firms have agreed on a merger. On 13 August the merger took place and the company was publicly traded with the symbol "NEON".
In February 2007, Neonode unveiled their new product called N2 at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. This was the firm's first all-new product since the N1 and the first new release since N1m. The new product brought with it a new lighter and minimalistic design, along with new features including a 2 Megapixel camera, Quadband GSM and Bluetooth
Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...
.
On the 9 December 2008, Neonode AB, the wholly owned Swedish subsidiary of Neonode responsible for manufacturing the N2 handset, filed for bankruptcy.
Per Bystedt, CEO and Chairman of Neonode, Inc. stated, “For the past six months we have focused on turning the business around and solving the financial situation of Neonode AB. We continue to have great belief in our technology and believe we have a competitive product in the Neonode N2 but without sufficient funds we cannot continue operations.”
Parent company, Neonode Inc, intends to continue to operate as a technology licensing company, focusing on developing and marketing the Company’s patented touch screen technology, zForce to third parties. Neonode Inc. is currently working with its major stakeholders on a plan for a complete restructuring of the Company.
zForce
Neonode removed the traditional keypad on their mobiles – instead they have an on-screen keyboard.This makes Neonode easier to use with one hand, just sweep over and tap the screen surface to access the different features displayed.
Infrared light beams form an invisible grid over the screen and finger location is detected as the beams are crossed. Neither a stylus nor any pressure is needed. (Light beam touch screens date back at least to the HP 150, from 1983.)
Neno
Neno is Neonodes custom graphical user interface (GUI) controlling the Microsoft Windows CE operating system. Neonode devices runs Neno from a removable Secure Digital cardSecure Digital card
Secure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...
. Neonode made new updates and versions available on their website.
N2
- Operating system: Windows CE 6.0Windows CE 6.0Windows Embedded CE 6.0 is the sixth major release of Windows Embedded Operating System targeted to enterprise specific tools such as industrial controllers and consumer electronics devices like digital cameras. CE 6.0 features a kernel which supports 32,768 processes, up from the 32 process...
Pro - Display: 176 x 220 PixelPixelIn digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
s (Width x Height), 16-bit Colour TFT - Audio: Hifi stereo 48 kHz playback
- Memory Storage: miniSD / miniSDHC
- Connectivity: GSMGlobal System for Mobile CommunicationsGSM , is a standard set developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to describe technologies for second generation digital cellular networks...
Quad band: GSM850,GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900 MHz, BluetoothBluetoothBluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...
, GPRS - Size: 47x77x14,7 mm (WxHxT)
- Weight: Approx 60g
- Imaging: 2 Megapixel Fixed Focus Camera, Still pictures, Video play-back (MPEG, WMV), Video Recording (MPEG4) (not yet, but planned in further updates)
- Messaging: SMSShort message serviceShort Message Service is a text messaging service component of phone, web, or mobile communication systems, using standardized communications protocols that allow the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices...
, Support for long SMS, MMSMultimedia Messaging ServiceMultimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from mobile phones. It extends the core SMS capability that allowed exchange of text messages only up to 160 characters in length.The most popular use is to send photographs from...
, Predictive textPredictive textPredictive text is an input technology used where one key or button represents many letters, such as on mobile phones and in accessibility technologies. Each key press results in a prediction rather than repeatedly sequencing through the same group of "letters" it represents, in the same,...
input, T9T9 (predictive text)T9, which stands for Text on 9 keys, is a patented predictive text technology for mobile phones, originally developed by Tegic Communications, now part of Nuance Communications....
(English, Swedish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Norwegian, French and Greek), Call history (dialed, received and missed calls) - Audio: Audio player (MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, WAVWAVWaveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
, WMAWindows Media AudioWindows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
), stereo 48 kHz playback, Custom ring tones (MP3, WAV, WMA), Alarm application - Entertainment: Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer (HTML-browser), 2 integrated Games.
- 3rd party software.
- Software development environment.
N1m
- Operating system: Windows CE 5.0Windows CE 5.0Windows CE 5.0 is a successor to Windows CE 4.2, the third release in the Windows CE .NET family.It was first released on July 09, 2004. Like its predecessors, Windows CE 5.0 is marketed towards the embedded device market and independent device vendors...
and 4.2 - Display: 176 x 220 PixelPixelIn digital imaging, a pixel, or pel, is a single point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable screen element in a display device; it is the smallest unit of picture that can be represented or controlled....
s (Width x Height), 16-bit Colour TFT - Audio: Hifi stereo 48 kHz playback
- Memory Storage: SDSecure Digital cardSecure Digital is a non-volatile memory card format developed by the SD Card Association for use in portable devices. The SD technology is used by more than 400 brands across dozens of product categories and more than 8,000 models, and is considered the de-facto industry standard.Secure Digital...
card up to 2 GBGigabyteThe gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is... - Connectivity: GSMGlobal System for Mobile CommunicationsGSM , is a standard set developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to describe technologies for second generation digital cellular networks...
Triband: GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900 MHz), USBUniversal Serial BusUSB is an industry standard developed in the mid-1990s that defines the cables, connectors and protocols used in a bus for connection, communication and power supply between computers and electronic devices....
1.1 - Size: 88 x 52 x 21 (H x W x D)
- Weight: 94g
- Imaging: Megapixel Camera (1024x1024), Imageviewer, Videoplayer (MPEG 1, MPEG 4, WMV)
- Messaging: Short message serviceShort message serviceShort Message Service is a text messaging service component of phone, web, or mobile communication systems, using standardized communications protocols that allow the exchange of short text messages between fixed line or mobile phone devices...
, Support for long SMS, Multimedia Messaging ServiceMultimedia Messaging ServiceMultimedia Messaging Service, or MMS, is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from mobile phones. It extends the core SMS capability that allowed exchange of text messages only up to 160 characters in length.The most popular use is to send photographs from...
, Predictive text input, T9T9 (predictive text)T9, which stands for Text on 9 keys, is a patented predictive text technology for mobile phones, originally developed by Tegic Communications, now part of Nuance Communications....
(English, Swedish, German, Spanish, French and Russian), Call history (dialed, received and missed calls) - Audio: Audio player (MP3MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, WAVWAVWaveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
, WMAWindows Media AudioWindows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
), stereo 48 kHz playback, Custom ring tones (MP3, WAV, WMA), Alarm application - Entertainment: Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer (HTML-browser), Games, 3rd party software downloadable
- Organiser: Calendar, Tasks, Phonebook with storage capacity of 1000 contacts, Add an individual picture for each contact, Synchronize with your PC using ActiveSync (requires extra software free of charge from Microsoft)
- Miscellaneous: Large touch-screen, On-screen keyboard, Screen saver, Vibrator, Calculator, Updates available at the Neonode website, USB memory functionality, use N1 as portable storage device
External links
- http://www.neonode.com (official web site)
- http://www.redneo.com (unofficial forum for neonode users)
- http://www.neono.de (unofficial German fanpage for neonode users)
- http://forum.neono.de (unofficial German forum for neonode users)
- http://neno-art.org (site to download and upload themes, wallpapers, videos and ringtones for neonode phones)