[LINK] Chip Company Unveils Open Source PC Design

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

Chip Company Unveils Open Source PC Design
By Dylan Tweney
05.27.08, 6:00 AM
Wired
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/pcs/news/2008/05/via_design

Call it the Tom Sawyer approach to selling CPUs.

VIA Technologies, the self-proclaimed No. 3 maker of Intel-compatible 
processors, has unveiled a new "reference design" for ultra-portable 
computers based on the company's own low-power chips.

Making a reference design is common fare in the high-tech industry. 
Chipmakers like Intel have been doing it for years as a way of proving 
the technical viability of a product concept. What sets VIA's approach 
apart is that the company is posting the computer-aided design (CAD) 
files for its OpenBook PC under a Creative Commons license. Anyone with 
design skills and a burning desire to get into the PC business can 
download the files, modify the design and go into business selling ultra 
portables.

Taiwan-based VIA will even help aspiring Michael Dells find Asian 
manufacturers to do the hard work of turning those CAD files into real, 
plastic-and-silicon products.

VIA's design is on the commercial end of a growing spectrum of "open 
source" hardware. On the other, more noncommercial end are hackable 
hardware kits like the Arduino platform, which was used by many 
exhibitors at the recent Maker Faire in San Mateo, California. Open 
source aficionados were also buzzing last week about the release of the 
OGD1, a development kit that could be used to create open-source 
graphics cards.

If VIA's idea takes off, it could help add more juice to the 
already-humming market for ultra portables. That market, which had long 
foundered on the impractical aspirations of a tiny minority of 
mobility-obsessed hardware geeks, took off in earnest last year with the 
success of the Eee PC, Asus' $400, Linux-based ultra portable.

For industrial designer Scott Summit, VIA's move is part of a gradual 
shift toward more highly-customized manufacturing, in which small 
companies and even individuals are able to design and build their own 
products, thanks to the decreasing costs of fabrication.

"The idea of open source manufacture is taking shape, and we're going to 
see more of it because the barriers (to highly customized production) 
are really starting to evaporate," says Summit.

VIA's design calls for a 2.2-pound PC with an 8.9-inch screen, a webcam, 
up to 2GB of RAM, an 80GB or larger hard drive, and built-in Wi-Fi and 
Bluetooth (or, optionally, WiMax or 3G cellular data). It's not wanting 
for ports, either, with an Ethernet jack, three USB ports and an SD card 
slot.

The design is aimed at smaller design-manufacturers and upstart PC 
companies rather than big PC manufacturers like HP or Dell, who create 
their own designs (like HP's new MiniNote) from scratch.

"When we look at reference designs, they're helpful, they're insightful, 
they give us an optimal layout from an engineering perspective -- but 
they don't target what we're aiming for," says Stacy Wolff, a notebook 
design director for HP.

VIA's hope is that its design will encourage new designers to make ultra 
portables that are a little less ugly than the usual fare. It's a bet 
that the PC market will soon follow in the footsteps of the cellphone 
market, where what's under the hood is less important than how it looks.

"It's not really about the components inside at all," says VIA vice 
president Richard Brown. "It's personal jewelry."

Almost makes the idea of starting your own computer brand sound a little 
sexy, doesn't it? And for the chipmaker, it's not far from the notion 
that if you want to get a fence painted, start painting it yourself and 
try to make it look fun

-- 
 
Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
brd at iimetro.com.au