Friðrik Már

Yesterday saw the public release of long-anticipated touch-screen über-phone openMoko, whose goal it is to provide a truly free phone (as far as its software goes, anyways).

Currently the openMoko project is on “phase 1″, where they are specifically aiming at developers, and with its sleek look and open design I’m personally finding it difficult to resist.

They’re selling each phone for $300, which is a lot less than the iPhone, but let’s not forget that this is a development version - it won’t be perfect and it won’t be supported. But it still comes with a headset, a little pouch, a stylus, a 512MB MicroSD card and a whole lot of open-source love.

Its sleek look and irresistible touch-screen adheres to the formula for novel phones (look at the hype around the iPhone), and with the advantage of being “free”, the phone quickly becomes pretty lovable.

To the average user, the free part may sound like a principle for the geeks, but it actually brings along both advantages and disadvantages.

As with all things open, development takes time, and users have no patience. While commercial, dedicated companies have the liberty of working in peace, openMoko will release phones that won’t be perfect. It’s even happened already. Neo1973, the first version of the phones, is short of 3G compatibility and a camera, at a quick glance. Also, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if reviews led to some disappointments in the user interface as well as being rough around the edges.

But there’s still no lack of bright sides; an infinite number of possibilities, coupled with a large number of people collaboratively working on a project that concerns thousands certainly adds up to a desirable concept.

The case of Linux/BSD and the endless open source projects we’ve seen through the short life of community-created software, proves that the power of community can lead to amazing things. Quite frankly, that’s something I’d like to be part of.

It may take some time, but I think Mr. Moko is here to stay.

Douglas Adams said:

The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form takes three times longer to say than what it’s short for.

An amazing turn of events at the Icelandic Industria Fooseball Stadium led to the surprise of millions of onlookers, as beloved IT guy Friðrik Már Jónsson made his first victory on the field. Unlike numerous other times that Friðrik participated in fooseball matches, this time he was not backed by a superior partner, but nonetheless mastered the quite unexpected victory.

“Obviously this is a really important milestone to me,” the summer employee informed the Federal Fooseball Agency in blissful joy, saying that he hopes for there to be many more. “I had no idea I could ever pull this, especially by myself,” claimed the employee, noting that his many games of trial, suffocated by an overwhelming amount of errors, eventually had turned out for the good.

This victory has officially placed Friðrik on the top-30 list of fooseball participants within the Icelandic league, effectively classifying him as an authentically human player within the league.

Friðrik’s opponent, Steinar Hugi, claimed that he wasn’t embarrassed at all, losing against the incredibly unskilled player, and happily informed the agency that losing is good once in a while.

This historical event has led many to believe that anyone is able to learn to adequately play the sport, raising hope for the National Fooseball Federation, of getting fresh fooseball players into the honourable sport.