Neo900

Neo Life

2018-03-01T00:00:00+01:00

Neo Life

Congratulations are due to resident project leader Joerg Reisenweber, who recently joined a new open source, privacy promoting hardware research and development company by Private Internet Access' parent company. Employment was negotiated in a way that PIA's parent company would allow him a large minority of his working time to be paid to work on the Neo900 project on his own terms. This indirectly supports the project by both ensuring Jeorg is financially sound, and also that his work does not limit his involvement as leadership in the project.

Thanks for helping keep our project alive PIA!

PIA would also like to thank Neo900 supporters for staying strong with the project so long by offering a special discount for its VPN.

Happy Neo Year!

2018-01-01T00:00:00+01:00

Slow and Steady

Since joining the Neo900 team, metacollin has been doing a terrific job of putting together the layouts and has been an undeniable asset for assisting with KiCad integration. Sadly, that participation has been cut short due to a family emergency and has been temporarily put on hold. We expect to be back in motion shortly after he returns.

We appreciate the understanding and patience of the community and look forward to making progress during this new year together. Thank you everyone for believing in this project and helping it come to fruition.

Work begins as a new engineer comes in! Welcome metacollin!

2017-09-03T00:00:00+02:00

Kickin' it with KiCad and ballin' with metacollin! Work begins as a new engineer comes in!

New members

The road to layouts and manufacturing has taken some winding turns, tested the team's resolve, and reminded us all of the gloomy state of affairs for hardware openness in the industry.

Nevertheless, the Neo900 project has remained uncompromising in its agenda to provide a completely open and transparent stack for all its developers and users. Ultimately, this stance has caused us to take pause when dealing with mainstream layout engineers and foundries who would have Neo900 conform to their interests. This has ultimately led the team to turn to Freenode for what it was intended for -- open source collaboration -- and utlimately discover a new team member.

We welcome metacollin to the core team, an experienced electronic design engineer, native KiCad expert and active contributor to the KiCad project.

metacollin's invaluable addition to the team not only makes v2 of the Neo900 prototype more of a reality, but provides us the necessary KiCad support when needed.

Status of development

As metacollin settles in to his role of layout engineering, and managing the production and assembly of the first run of the proto_v2 boards, we'll have more technical updates to share.

The current expectation for v2 prototype layout completion is 5 weeks.

The whole Neo900 team thanks the community graciously for their much needed patience as we continue to build and bring this project closer to your palm.

Is it time for privacy yet?

2017-07-18T00:00:00+02:00

Moving forward on layouts for proto v2! Migrated to KiCad! [introducing our new communications officer sn0wmonster]

Is it time for privacy yet?

What do you do when you realize software solutions to closed hardware problems don't work? Do you settle for the illusion of privacy? Do you sink deeper in sunk costs fallacy and find ways to defend the corporations?

My handle is sn0wmonster. Some might know me as the founder of Taskhive. It's a decentralized, freedom and privacy focused freelancer marketplace. It's an experimental software and network solution to a social problem. The irony is not lost on me that secure software is only as good as the hardware its run on. I concede that as far as revolutions go, there is no greater or more important cause than that of the fight for open source hardware. Without it, our tools of sharing can easily become twisted as weapons against us. Skynet wins.

As far as hardware solutions go, the Neo900 will never be a state-of-the-art mobile gaming machine. Nor a bitcoin mining rig. It is not designed to artificially restrict itself and require scheduled replacement. It is, however, a practical solution to a difficult to solve problem.

When I stumbled upon the Neo900 project, it caught my attention by promising a basic freedom we all deserve. It promised us the right of control of what our devices do. For over a decade, we've waited for a proper GNU/Linux hand-held to materialize. We continue to be marketed lipstick on a pig as a legitimate solution. Closed-source firmware blobs running Android chroot can not be called open any more than a scooter can be called a hoverboard.

You can imagine how ecstatic I was to find a true cyberpunk project of this nature: taking a system designed to control us, and hacking it up to empower us. It's hard not to be a little excited; the Neo900 is what hacking is all about.

It goes without saying that the Neo900 project is a first of its kind. From its developers it demands focus, constant re-education, and an absolute obsession for details. It's not something I felt comfortable passively watching from a distance, merely hoping it succeeded. I knew I had to get involved somehow. For me, the best way I can do my part is to help provide news and announcements to the community at large. I've stepped in officially to do so.

I encourage everyone else to find a way to do their part as well, to lend a hand -- or a coin -- to seeing this project through to its end. If you're not sure what you can do to help, just ask! You can find us on irc.freenode.net in #neo900

What has been completed so far?

We updated and released the proto_v2 whitepaper in January 2017. We will use this design for the new layout. It's essentially the Neo900 with its brain outside of its body: a BeagleBoard_xM that shares an identical processor. This makes it easier to work on and minimizes failure of OMAP integration. It also provides a working testbed and development board for our community software developers (freemangordon, Pali, and parazyd, to name a few).

We migrated from Eagle to KiCad. This wasn't easy and it took some time to get right. The resulting freedom and more reliable future-proof production environment was definitely worth the time invested. Migration involved redesigning the schematics (i.e. circuit diagrams) in KiCad (thanks Werner and Joerg!) based on the original Eagle schematics made by Nikolaus.

To facilitate the migration to KiCad, Werner developed a very nice (read: legendary) tool called eeshow. It facilitates cooperative concurrent schematics design under KiCad. Thanks Werner!

We moved from the KiCad footprint editor to fped, where ceene designed our footprints for use in the layouts. Thanks ceene!

We use git and eeshow to facilitate collaborative editing. The KiCad project files are stored directly in the project git and accessed directly with eeshow.

We sourced all the N900 units for the Neo900 pre-orders.

We contracted with a layout technician who will be using KiCad.

What held us back so far?

Long time supporters will remember one of the original project co-founders, Nikolaus of GolDeliCo, was originally set to provide the layouts using Eagle EDA CAD. Eagle however is only up to that task with Nikolaus' own router extension plug-ins written for MacOS. This was not optimal, but alternatives seemed less appropriate at the time. Things were on schedule and moving along quite nicely. That is, until PayPal reminded all of us why they are a poor choice for donations and pre-orders, with a surprise account freeze (now luckily solved).

Prolonged illiquidity from Paypal and Nikolaus assigning all available timeslots to his other project Pyra, ultimately ended in Nikolaus exiting the project for a lack of available time. At this point we were forced to reassess our options. We didn't have the proper tools to continue with Eagle, which presented a daunting challenge that would involve a complete migration to KiCad instead. Thankfully, not only did we accomplish this migration successfully, but it turned out to be the right decision, evading a pay-to-play change in business models introduced by Autodesk's acquisition of Cadsoft-Eagle.

After ages of searching for and negotiating with several layout technicians, we've finally contracted with the LNAFIN company for the proto_v2 layout engineering. As it turns out, the agreed contract was more beneficial than expected: the CEO of LNAFIN is interested in supporting open source endeavors. That translates to a better deal for us. Critically important, they also support KiCad, which is arguably difficult to find. Thanks to ravelo for arranging the introduction with LNAFIN.

How are the funds holding up?

All pre-orders and kickstarters carry with them that ominous chance of failure, but we're proud to say that the current funding is sufficient to take us through to assembly and testing of proto_v2. Once it is sufficiently tested and ready, a kickstarter will be formed to fund the necessary production numbers for the final run to production. No one wants this to succeed more than we do, and great sacrifices have already been made to ensure funds are used appropriately.

What to expect next?

We plan to build up to a dozen of the proto_v2 units for further testing, eventually opening the kickstarter campaign for proto_v3. Prototype v3 - with luck and absence of Murphy - will be identical to the "mass produced" final version.

Testing of proto_v2 will likely reveal some minor bugs that will be fixed before moving on to proto_v3, utilizing the already tried and true BB-xM/GTA04 CPU_et_al core.

Expect regular news updates and announcements from here on out care of sn0wmonster.

Thank you all for continuing to make the Neo900 possible, and please know that the fight isn't over yet. When the time comes, we'll need your help again, and will continue to use it sparingly.

Microblog: 2016-12-25 09:34:19

2016-12-25T09:34:19+01:00

It's Krampus time! https://neo900.org/news/2016-week-52

It's Krampus Time!

2016-12-25T01:42:00+01:00

proto_v2 layout under way! More N900 units! HackerBus and IR updates! Meet at 33c3!

Prototype version 2 Layout

As expected, work on the proto_v2 layout started this month, and is progressing nicely. The layout is being done by a community member who is making a special effort to learn how to do her work on free software, now that we use KiCAD. We find it significant that we could choose a member of the Neo900 community to bring this prototype to life. We're very thankful to ahycka for taking up this task.

We also want to thank ceene and atk for their help in the setup of the repositories: the layout is a production-ready document that could impair our company's capacity to reach its goal if an ad-hoc competitor would decide to take it to a factory without us being involved. So, for now, it's top-secret ;o) and only accessible to our engineering team. Of course when we're done with it, it will join the rest of the public code, after all Neo900 is a free hardware project, and once we have produced your device, we welcome others to make more.

Werner put up a howto review the schematics for those of you who would like to lend an eyeball or two and make bugs shallow.

Sourcing N900 Units Continues

We received another 40 N900 units to metamorphose them into upgraded Neo900 devices. That makes about 140 Neo900 devices in the making. We still need to source 75 to cover our current demand (not counting the 114 NeoN boards ordered by people who already own a N900), and another 450 to reach our end goal of 800 Neo900 produced. Sourcing N900 is a slow and hard process (they need to be in mint condition), so if you find any, pass the word! Kids, beware: we've spotted one recently pulled by Krampus (note the spacer frame!):

Hackerbus, IR, and Buttons

Soon after our last news in November, the Hackerbus whitepaper was updated with the following changes:

GPIO_d now uses configurable VAUX3 as supply, not a fixed 2.7 V rail
documented alternative Hackerbus pin assignment

A couple of days ago, the InfraRed Whitepaper was updated with the following changes:

the IR logic is now controlled through an I2C-accessible register in the logic chip (Silego), not through GPIOs
the receiver is designed to filter at 30 Hz, not 10 Hz
added slew rate control for the transmit LED
added an analog switch to completely disable the receiver

Finally, Joerg is reverse-engineering the Enhancement Interface Control (ECI) of N900 (which is also present in Neo900) and started documenting it. The device's jack can be used to implement a multibutton-headset control protocol and support headsets with volume control, play/pause functionality, etc. That means we can have free software to control undocumented features of Nokia hardware that wasn't used before, and our friends from Maemo are on it! Joerg posted some very technical details on IRC.

Are You Going To 33c3?

If you're going to the Chaos Communications Congress next week and want to have a friendly chat about Neo900, hellekin will be around, joinable on the GSM network. We'll update this page with more information so that we can setup a meeting!

What's next?

In 2017, as soon as the proto_v2 is out we'll launch a new crowdfunding campaign to help us reach out to more people and reach our objective. In that context, Neo900 will be present at the [Conference on Privacy and Data Protection] in Brussels, end of January. This is the most important conference on the topic in Europe, gathering professionals and researchers from around the world. More on this later!

The Neo900 team wish you a great celebration for this end of year.

Last Steps To Prototype V2

2016-11-19T00:00:00+01:00

proto_v2 schematics ready for peer review!
Should you buy a new phone or wait for Neo900?

Neo900 Prototype version 2: Last Call for Review

On November 8, 2016, the proto_v2 schematics were updated to the current version. We finished the last few improvements and our layouter is scheduling the layout to start in one week. We repeat our invitation to give the schematics a peer review: it's your last chance to peel your eyes on these schematics and be picky about details that our engineering team might have missed. Hopefully you won't find anything, but as Joerg says:

I've learned to be humble and not do fortune telling.

We expect that during the layout phase more options for improvements will be found (and integrated), and that some modifications will happen that won't change the functionality but affect the schematics, e.g., rearranging pins that turn out to be disadvantageous, and so on.

Next Steps

The layout phase will begin next week, and should be ready in time to start the production of about 10 boards before the end of the year. Some of these prototypes will be handed to selected developers from the community for testing. We hope for this to happen before February 2017. In parallel the engineering team will start with integrating the CPU on the NeoN board itself for next (and - with luck - final) prototype; during the testing phase, probably a month, they will integrate fixes for any issues that may arise from testing the proto_v2 boards.

Layout Phase

The layout is the drawing that shows where components, copper (and more) will go on the PCB. This represents the exact geometry of the result, and can be used to produce the board. In KiCad, the layout can be made using pcbnew. Once the layout is ready, we can start producing the PCBs.

PCB Production

PCB production comes in three phases: first the bare board manufacture, without any components; then the assembly where the components are soldered to the PCB. Once the cooking part is done, each board needs to be tested for compliance with the design: booting, flashing, automated runs of programs, etc.

Prototype Assembly

We're almost there: the boards come back to us from the fab in working condition, or so they say :). We run a few more dozens of tests, visual, and mechanical checks, before assembling them within the case and connect the BB-xM that serves at external CPU during this prototype phase. We run more tests, package them, and ship them to our esteemed developers.

Developer Tests

Our volunteers run tests, install OSes and programs, boot, flash, and use the prototype, and report to us anything that might come up at this point. Hopefully no or only minor defects are detected and can be fixed. Then after a month we know whether we can safely step to the next prototype...

Prototype Version 3

As soon as proto_v2 is ready, we'll kickstart a Spring crowdfunding to ramp up pre-orders to enter the "economic zone", that is the point where we have enough orders to make the production doable without running into debt. Currently that's 800 units. Get ready to share the love: your help convincing others will help the project succeed beyond expectations.

The third prototype is the release candidate. If all goes well with proto_v2 and no unexpected delays occur until then, it will take us about 3 months to follow the same process and produce proto_v3. At this point the final production is nigh, and we hope for the first run of Neo900 to start in time for Fall 2017.

As always with delays, we cannot really set dates in stone (that's what global corporations do because they have the workforce and capital to bend time to their will.)

Should I just buy a new phone or wait for Neo900?

The specifications were made two years ago and to some it may sound old already, given the pace at which the industry offers new features. That's certainly a valid point of view if you're looking for the latest gizmos. But Neo900 still has features you won't find in these mainstream smartphones — nor any other phone that we know of (see also the recent article by Tor developer Mike Perry on Future Work: Baseband Analysis (and Isolation).)

If you want to compare Neo900 to anything else, you'd rather pick its category of smartphones: like Hoox M2 or the Cryptophone 500. Both try to address similar issues with privacy and security, however, only Neo900 combines both a free hardware design, and a hardware approach to modem isolation, among other things.

If you need a smartphone right now, you might want to pick one up readily, and sell it when we're ready. But of course we build to order and not for the shelf, so there won't probably be any devices for sale on the free market anytime soon. Hence we'd rather secure your order now.

Better Go For a NeoN Board!

A better solution than relinquishing your freedom to some shiny gizmo would be to get your hands on a refurbished (or new) N900, and order a NeoN board for later update. Note that we can't accept send-in of a single N900 for upgrade, this exceeds our logistics capabilities. You should feel confident with the (relatively simple) upgrade procedure that we will provide for you, only involving a screwdriver. So if you have the cash and didn't pre-order one already, please, go ahead and support Neo900: every pre-order reinforces the project, every donation helps us and boosts our confidence that we can deliver free hardware to free people.

Microblog: 2016-11-09 12:02:30

2016-11-09T12:02:30+01:00

Dear #Neo900 supporters, please find the updated schematics for proto_v2 and other goodies at https://neo900.org/resources

Buh-Bye, Spooky October!

2016-10-28T00:00:00+02:00

Yet another spooky October week: power, flexibility, URL loss, debacle... Well, almost ;o).
Must be the season...

Neo900 Power Tree Grew Up

"The power tree looks perfect", Joerg said. The power tree shows the distribution of electricity in the system.

Our current draft for the power tree in proto_v2 still has specificity for the BB-xM assembly (since that acts as external CPU for testing the prototype), yet it anticipates the final design, so we can ensure the components can already be put in the right places.

BB-xM Connection to `proto_v2`

Connecting the BeagleBoard-xM was not obvious though. At first Joerg and Werner considered using FPC. Then Joerg remembered the Sony NT-1 digital audio cassette recorder from 1994, that used a flex PCB folded 4 times to fit the case! o_O

Then they decided a ribbon cable would do the job just fine, without all the weirdness, and added difficulty and costs.

This draft illustrates how BB-xM and proto_v2 will be placed with respect to each other; notice how the UPPER PCB extends far beyond the rear of the case and connects to the BB-xM. This is how we build proto_v2 to use BB-xM instead of the embedded SoC.

Buh-bye horrible URLs

OK, we did it: no more terrible QUERY_STRING URLs in our public Git repositories that where unreadable, hard to remember, and hardly pastable. Now everything looks like it's made to last:

before: https://neo900.org/git/?p=misc;a=tree;f=meme
after: https://neo900.org/git/misc/tree/meme

Redirections are not in place yet, so if you find an old URI that's broken please blame how900 on Freenode and it will be fixed soon.

Oh, and we ditched Gitweb for CGit, killing one stone with two angry birds.

Eeplot Debacle!

W. Martin Borgert (AKA. 'debacle' ;o) opened a wishlist bug to the Debian BTS to package eeshow, Werner's "Schematics renderer and viewer for KiCad". His "justification for packaging" is a nice praise for Eeplot:

Eeplot fills a gap: So far I was not able to produce a searchable PDF with KiCad, because it always made plotted lines from text. Eeplot does it right!

Praise debacle :D

There are News and News

In the last couple of months we've been experimenting with publications to find our marks in delivering timely, updated, interesting, sometimes humorous contents (or vice-versa) and keeping you informed of the development of the Neo900. It's not always easy to ponder what's newsworthy and what's not, and how to convey the spirit of Neo900 as well as noteworthy 'events'.

So far we only had news hard-coded into our website. Lately I've been trying to find balance and distinguish several types of 'news':

weekly updates on Neo900 development, that are short summaries of current events (like this one)
discoveries about my personal EE n00b view trying to understand what our great engineering team is doing, thanks to their patience and will to share knowledge (like that one)
and longer, more in-depth articles addressing Neo900 labs research and the Neo900 features and market. E.g., the ASN.1 vulnerability.

So in the coming weeks and months I'll restructure the website to reflect this undercurrent dialogue informing experts and profanes alike on the pulse actualizing Neo900.

Thank you for your attention,

hellekin for the Neo900 team

P.S.: I'm now how900 (~Neo900@neo900/coreteam/communications/how) on Freenode IRC

Neo900 Board-to-Board Connectors vs. the Tombstone Effect

2016-10-22T00:00:00+02:00

There is software. There is hardware. There is nightmare. Hellekin's venture into the scary world of Tombstone.

How to Connect Boards and Live with it

To many, EE looks like Lego: you put colorful pieces together and they all fit well. As you contemplate masters at work, their movement look natural, their painting obvious, their sculpture seamless.

You may think it's an easy task for hardened engineers and OpenMoko veterans to fit the pieces of the puzzle together. Well, not quite. As colorful as they are, the pieces tend to give headaches from sourcing to placement (and replacement). Electronics engineers not only have to deal with the inherent complexity of their field, they also need to care for the economics part (are these pieces available? Will this supplier be shipping in time? Etc.)

Trying to follow the daily conversations between Joerg and Werner regarding the details of the Neo900 design, I often feel like a trainee who knows not enough to wonder in awe, and just enough to understand this is definitely not as easy as they make it look. They start throwing TLAs all around and then obscure deep-links that get you to PDFs that cannot shy in comparison to EU law and bureaucratic jargon: in my library, they'd all go to the same 'encrypted books' where I store Chinese and Farsi presents I might read when someone visits and knows the language. Yet these two seem like ballet dancers at the Bolchoi, catching meaning in mid-air, responding to each other with references I can't fathom, yet alone catch a causal link between one line and the next.

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.
-- Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut

For example: how do you connect the UPPER board of the Neo900 with the LOWER board?

Easy I'd say: align the UPPER and LOWER boards, place the components according to the specs, and let the reflow machine do its work: done. Right?

Que nenni! How would you lay butter in a closed sandwich? Each board has its components applied separately, so the boards need to match exactly. We're talking precision here. A tenth of a millimeter or two. Well, I'd say, with Werner 'littlefinger' Almesberger on our team, we can do magic. Indeed, you'd reply, but magic doesn't exist.

In theory, apply the map (schematics) to the territory (the SMD) works. But in practice, there are many details to look out for that may ruin the show if not considered carefully. Without going to the extremes of mass-manufacturing mishaps like the recent exploding Samsung Galaxy Note 7, which seems to have been a terrible disaster, but when put into perspective, only represents a mere 0.01% of devices produced, and a total loss of 1% of their annual revenue, electronics has its non-deterministic magic, like the Tombstone effect: this happens when the solder paste applied to each component's pads don't melt evenly, creating torque that will lift the tiny critter on its side.

Watch this video on GoblinRefuge.

See, when the solder paste changes phase, it can happen that a component moves from its original position, it drifts slightly from where it's supposed to be, and that "slightly" can make all the difference between a working device and a wasted circuit. No matter how precise you are, nor what soldering technique you use, here you enter the fantastic realm of chemical complexity, fluid mechanics, and homegeneity.

In the prototype phase, you would resolder the faulty component and that would take a few hours at most. But in production, this type of event can ruin the batch. Samsung didn't fall for this, but for pressing a bit too much the Lithium Ion battery, leading to a fragile battery: when they heat up, a damaged cell can ignite the volatile and flamable chemicals filling the pressurized battery. This happens all the time to many products: from hoverboards to Tesla cars, and even laptops and iPhones. Cases abound over the years. Of course the larger the production, the higher the probability of something going wrong.

Fortunaly it's not as scary as it sounds: production lines are aware of these issues and engineers making machines take a lot of precautions to lower the probabilities to extreme rarity. But still, it requires a lot of attention.

I learned about the tombstone effect as an extreme (and fun) illustration of drifting components: that using SMD technology, sometimes a small component can float in the soldering paste as it liquefies, eventually leading to this funny effect (also called Manhattan effect for its vague resemblance to the skyline in New York City--it would take a serious amount of unluck to 'grow' several capacitors at once).

Joerg wanted to explain to me the problematic of using B2B connectors between UPPER and LOWER boards. The case is different from either the exploding batteries and the tombstone effect, as the connectors are rather large components. Yet, their relative alignment on the board require a precision of about 0.2 mm so they can clip in easily.

In the course of my understanding I went from awe to boredom, since I discovered that kind of considerations can look scary (especially when it concerns mass-production and the consequent recalls like the case of Samsung Galaxy Note 7) but are in fact one in a myriad of elements experienced engineers need to take into account on a daily basis. And that's what makes the difference between looking easy and being easy.

Here, a small insight into the complexity of research & development, and how it goes way beyond simple puzzle solving: sometimes, venturing into puzzle design can be puzzling. Bottom-line: at any scale details matter!

Schematics Wrapping Up Towards V2

2016-10-15T00:00:00+02:00

Schematics

This week the ee repository received the most commits, as Werner and Joerg are wrapping up the design for the upcoming proto_v2 layout. If you want to see the result, you can always check the latest version of the schematics PDF. In the same directory (https://neo900.org/stuff/werner/tmp/ee/pdf/) you can find older versions. If you're feeling brave, you can access all the files directly from the Git repository, following the instructions in the README.

Updated N900 Image

parazyd released fresh ARM builds of Devuan and the associated test image for the N900. This is the first step in upcoming support for Neo900 by the Devuan project. We've spotted conversations on #maemo-ssu between parazyd and freemangordon, who takes care of the Maemo CSSU repositories. Cooperation in free software, as we like it!

Neo900 Freenode Group and Design Overview

2016-10-08T00:00:00+02:00

As we're getting closer to the layout for proto_v2, we prepared the following summary of Neo900 design to describe its structure and mechanical constraints. But before that...

Neo900 Freenode Group!

Neo900 is now an official [IRC] group on Freenode!

This not only means that we now really "own" all Neo900 related channels so they are safe from possible "hostile takeovers", we also may now assign 'cloaks' (virtual hostmasks) to team members and supporters of the project. A cloak is the assigned right part after "@" of the full username in IRC. So instead of ~jr@123.234.213.231 you see for example ~jr@neo900/coreteam/joerg when you do a /whois joerg-neo900 or hover over the nickname with the mousepointer.

Neo900 Design Overview

The design consists of three boards, as shown in the drawing on the first page of the Neo900 IO Expanders white paper.

We reuse the case of the Nokia N900, and the shape of LOWER and [BOB] (Break-Out Board) is determined by this. The "bounding box" of LOWER is 106 x 56 mm.

The goal for now is to make what we call the "v2" prototype, where UPPER can be as large as we like. After that, the UPPER for the final product will be similar in shape to LOWER but a little smaller.

We maintain an interactive block diagram that illustrates to which board the various subsystems will go. Here is a snapshot of our schematics. You can download a snapshot of the design files, that live in the following repository: https://neo900.org/git?p=ee

The final product will have an OMAP DM3730 processor, memories, etc., but for v2 we keep things simple and use a Beagleboard-xM as external "brain", and just implement the peripherals.

We expect the final UPPER to need 8 layers, due to the 515-pin 0.4 mm BGA of the OMAP. UPPER of v2 should be considerably easier. We expect LOWER to need at least 4, probably 6 layers. BOB is simple and 4 layers should be plenty. All boards should be 0.8 mm.

This video shows an earlier prototype (only LOWER, basically just modem and a few switches):

Watch this video on GoblinRefuge.

A later mechanical-only prototype, showing dummy UPPER and LOWER boards:

BeagleBoard xM and Time Travel

2016-09-29T00:00:00+02:00

BB-xM Unboxing

Hooray! Joerg received another 3 BeagleBoard xM that will be used as "virtual SoC" for proto_v2.
Six more are coming to complete the stock of 15 announced in the last newsletter.

Meanwhile, schematics final cleanup and footprint validation are progressing.
Tip: we're packing as many LEDs as the chip can offer, which means programming LED phun ahead!

Time Travel

Updated: BTW, Joerg received a box with 6 more BB-xM boards.

No, those are not these 6 BB-xM boards that we ordered two years ago.

Incidentally, the next day we received news from the latter lot from Mouser, who suffered an obsolescence issue
with their supplier CircuitCo: apparently CircuitCo 'forgot' they had discontinued the product.

Good timing!

September 2016 Update

2016-09-22T00:00:00+02:00

On our way to proto_v2 layout! Schematics are rolling with Eeshow. Reaching out and European hacker events.

Neo900 v2 Prototype

Recently we received 15+ BeagleBoard-xM to serve each as a virtual SoC for proto_v2. As soon as the layout and PCB manufacturing & assembling of proto_v2 is done, we expect to have 10+ working prototypes that Neo900UG will ship to its team members and selected Free Software developers.

Since we moved to KiCad the schematics work has taken pace: our engineering team already updated the BOB (μSD, flash, hackerbus, etc.), some LEDs (including a component change, and a design omission for which Joerg found a nice solution), much improved IR design, sensors (eliminated two chips and replaced/upgraded two others), a complete redesign of the SIM Switch, plus smaller changes on a few more sheets.

More schematics updates are upcoming: WLAN, ECI, IO expanders (new), keyboard matrix, BB-xM interconnect, LOWER-UPPER interconnect pin assignment, etc.

Since we moved to KiCad the schematics work has taken pace, and our engineering team is slowly but surely going through the redesign of the SIM switch and the numerous details that need attention (including making the automatic design checking (ERC) not cringing so much on known issues and false alarms like missing connections in order to show the real issues.)

At some point we're likely to call for a public review of the schematics, before moving on to the layout phase. If you're interested, please let us know.

Eeshow: A Visual Schema Diff Tool for KiCad

Werner announced Eeshow, a set of programs to visualize differences between version of schematics produced with KiCad's Eeschema. It's free software released under the GPL, and you can read more about it, including a walkthrough of the GUI, at https://neo900.org/stuff/eeshow/.
Eeshow's code lives on Neo900's git repository.

Where Are We At?

To break even, the project needs to produce and sell 800 Neo900 devices. Currently, we have around 350 pre-orders, and sourced a bit more than 100 N900 units to refurbish.

While we're moving on with EE, we still need to acquire hundreds more of N900 in a good shape. So, keep looking!

We also need to reach out to more people. Another visit at the Chaos Communication Congress can offer some visibility. We're also considering FOSDEM. Are you going to these events? Here, again, if you have ideas and motivation to bring in more people, you're welcome!

About the ASN.1 Vulnerability

2016-08-12T10:00:00+02:00

A recent vulnerability disclosure threatens billions of smartphones. What's the fuss about it? How does Neo900 fare against this threat? Hint: pretty well.

ASN.1 Vulnerability

Following the decision of NIST to deprecate usage of SMS in two-factor authentication, this vulnerability disclosure confirms the pertinence of the unique design of Neo900 that, among other features, isolates the baseband chip (modem), making it dependent on the CPU (and the OS) to access anything else on the system, and preventing remote activation of the chip in the first place.

Lucas Molas of Programa STIC discovered a Heap memory corruption in ASN.1 parsing code generated by Objective Systems Inc. ASN1C compiler for C/C++ potentially affecting billions of phone users worldwide. ASN.1 is used in many protocols and data formats, including cellular telephony. The proprietary software vendor received a bug report via plain text email on June, 1^st, 2016, according to the CVE-2016-5080 released on July, 18^th, 2016 to the public in a coordinated release with the vendor.

Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) is a technical standard and formal notation that describes rules and structures for representing, encoding, transmitting, and decoding data in telecommunications and computer networking.

A vulnerability found in the runtime support libraries of the ASN1C compiler for C/C++ from Objective Systems Inc. could allow an attacker to remotely execute code in software systems, including embeded software and firmware, that use code generated by the ASN1C compiler. The vulnerability could be triggered remotely without any authentication in scenarios where the vulnerable code receives and processes ASN.1 encoded data from untrusted sources, these may include communications between mobile devices and telecommunication network infrastructure nodes, communications between nodes in a carrier's network or across carrier boundaries, or communication between mutually untrusted endpoints in a data network.

The proprietary software vendor released a hot patch (v7.0.1) available upon request to their customers, and will integrate the fix in the upcoming v7.0.2 of their compiler.

On July, 1^st, Programa STIC mentioned that memory corruption bugs in ASN.1 related components of an LTE stack have been announced or hinted at in several infosec conference presentations over the past few weeks and its (sic) likely the same or similar bugs will become public soon.

How is Neo900 Affected?

The short answer is: this vulnerability that potentially plagues most commercial phones on the planet, won't affect Neo900 like it will other devices.

In our last communication we noted that Neo900 is the only phone that provides a hardware protection from rogue behavior of the modem.

In fact, the GTA0x design contains two unique features to detect and/or prevent suspect activity:

the modem is detached from the power source, unlike other smartphones, so that the modem has to be authorized by the CPU before it can perform its tasks.
the modem and the CPU do not share RAM, which prevents a whole range of attack vectors where a rogue modem, either by design, by "lawful", or by illegal action, could take control of memory segments pertaining to other subsystems and inject malicious code.

Neo900 takes advantage of this and incorporates circuitry to give the CPU the capacity to monitor:

the modem access to power and its consumption
the activity of the modem antenna
the activation of the GPS part of the modem
other interfaces (e.g., digital PCM audio

Therefore, although the modem in Neo900 may or may not be affected—we cannot know since all baseband chips are proprietary black box designs—Neo900 is designed to not trust the modem. In other designs where RAM is shared and a rogue modem can access the power supply at will, the attack surface is infinitely larger, and exploiting a vulnerability such as the ASN.1 bug will grant access to the whole system.

But with Neo900, the attack surface is much reduced, and a compromised modem would need yet another major vulnerability in the USB hardware or the (well understood and proven) free kernel driver to subvert the CPU. As long as there's no proprietary vulnerable binary blobs in the Neo900 APE, we consider the chance of a modem bug bubbling up to the rest of the system without a way to control it and fix it in software negligible.

Our exclusive Neo900 design is more valuable than ever!

Thank you for your attention,

– hellekin for the Neo900 team

P.S.: Feedback is welcome! Did you enjoy reading this post? What else should it have covered? What do you want to read in the news? You can tell me: hellekin at neo900 dot org.

Footnote: from Openmoko Neo 1973 and FreeRunner, to Golden Delicious GTA04 and maybe the upcoming Pyra, and of course Neo900, GTA0x design supports modem separation, although not power separation in Neo 1973 (GTA01). ^^

Microblog: 2016-08-10 18:41:03

2016-08-10T18:41:03+02:00

Not a black box in your hand, not a tracker. I run free! Yet I stay by your side. I look familiar! Yet my <3 is unborn. Who am I? #Neo900

Microblog: 2016-08-09 22:21:30

2016-08-09T22:21:30+02:00

Neo900 summer update (part one, #KiCad) https://neo900.org/news/migrating-away-from-eagle-to-kicad

Migrating away from Eagle, to KiCad

2016-08-09T21:00:00+02:00

The Neo900 team decided to move away from proprietary software Eagle and converted its schematics production to the KiCad open-source Electronics Design Automation (EDA) suite.

The Migration Update

Summer time! People travel more, roast a bit in the sun, enjoy some time off. Well, except Werner, who lives in winter, and the rest of the Neo900 Team who can't stop making progress, as good samaritan workaholics we are. Before jumping to our main feature on KiCad, let's review Neo900 project updates since June.

Neo900.org Server Migrated
More N900 Sourcing
Whitepapers Update
From Eagle to KiCad

Neo900.org Server Migrated

Last week we completed the migration of Neo900.org services, including Neo900 Shop to a new server. The old one was running out of space, and dangerously approaching capacity, especially when slashdotted.

If you encounter any problems with the new server, please report them!

More N900 Sourcing

After dowsing for a while, our boots in China confirmed the source mentioned previously! We already received 20 more N900 units responding to our quality criteria for enduring the metamorphosis into brand new Neo900 units for you lucky (and patient) early birds. 20 more units are on the way, and we expect more to come. We're already at 70 units and counting.

Again, if you know where to find some affordable stocks of N900 units, please contact us!

Whitepapers Update

While we're at it, and to continue building momentum for our main feature today, like if you were too early at the movies, let's have a look at what our mad scientists concocted since last June.

We have updated the SIM Switch document in section 4 to reflect the added counter-surveillance monitoring capacity to the SIM cards, and in Appendix A to discuss the physical placement of the second SIM card.

A new paper discusses IO expanders, that provide more IO than the CPU has, and come with the added benefit of simplifying the connections between LOWER and UPPER boards.

Finally the Infra-Red Subsystem paper was updated to define the IR transmitter control logic, using a mixed-signal array similar to what's used for power selection in the SIM Switch, and to simplify the LED driver, making its design more robust.

You can always follow our whitepapers updates directly from Werner in the Neo900 Announcements thread on talk.maemo.org, and access the whole up-to-date whitepaper collection from the Resources section at neo900.org.

And now, without further ado, our main feature!

From Eagle to KiCad

When Joerg took charge of the Neo900 project, the electronics design was made with Eagle, and was updated using that tool ever since. Nikolaus Schaller was the Eagle virtuoso, with his own homegrown set of Eagle extensions to cope with the demanding task at hand, but the tools and workflow associated with this solution didn't allow for collaborative editing of the schematics and layout.

In 2016, Nikolaus faded away from Neo900, absorbed by the finishing touches to our cousin project Pyra. Just a few weeks ago he confirmed that he couldn't follow up on the layout for Neo900, which prompted Joerg and Werner to consider alternatives.

In the EDA market, besides Eagle, there's Altium. But Altium, although it's probably powerful enough to serve our needs, shares a major flaw with Eagle: it's proprietary, and moreover, quite expensive. Our rationalizing mind wants to say there's cognitive dissonance in using non-free software for a free hardware project. And in hindsight, this sounds like a good rationalization.

Among the open-source alternatives to Eagle, Fritzing didn't match our need for multilayer board support; between gEDA and KiCad, the choice was easy: the latter is much more poweful and popular, backed up by CERN as part of the Open Hardware Initiative, and the community is more active.

How does the move to KiCad influence Neo900 development?

The only major downside comes from the reduced access to Nikolaus' OMAP know-how, although we hope he will be able to review our work. On the other hand, we're no longer slowed down by uncertainty with regard to the future role of Golden Delicious in Neo900: this used to cause change requests to pile up, and we used white papers as a means of documenting what we couldn't change in the schematics in a timely manner.

That gives us wings: with KiCad, we can now provide a more transparent development process and operate in a more schematics-centric mode, using white papers only where something actually needs explaining.

KiCad's routing capabilities are superior to Eagle's:

Demo of the KiCad router

Moving to KiCad proved to be quite an improvement over the corresponding Eagle experience.

What's the progress on converting Neo900 schematics from Eagle to KiCad?

Progress is surprisingly fast. We already completed the bulk of the conversion, and are now fixing bugs (some discovered during the conversion, and also in KiCad.)

In the coming weeks we're going to work on incorporating material parked in whitepapers (see above), e.g., define the BB-mX interface for prototype v2 that would save on costs and enable testing our circuitry all the same.

Being able to put our schematics under version control moves us away from the Stone Age, into the present. You can watch the evolving contents in our eletronics engineering Git repository.

Thank you for your attention,

– hellekin for the Neo900 team

P.S.: Feedback is welcome! Did you enjoy reading this post? What else should it have covered? What do you want to read in the news? You can tell me: hellekin at neo900 dot org, or in the comments.

Microblog: 2016-08-09 11:12:00

2016-08-09T11:12:00+02:00

e.g. to grab our Electronics Engineering repo: git clone https://neo900.org/git/ee.git

Microblog: 2016-08-09 10:53:28

2016-08-09T10:53:28+02:00

You can clone our repositories via HTTP again, see https://neo900.org/git/

Microblog: 2016-08-09 10:48:53

2016-08-09T10:48:53+02:00

Upcoming newsletter will talk about KiCad... Stay tuned.

Microblog: 2016-08-06 17:30:19

2016-08-06T17:30:19+02:00

We migrated neo900.org from an old troublesome server to a shiny new machine. Testing the ublog.

Microblog: 2016-08-05 23:13:24

2016-08-05T23:13:24+02:00

Werner creates groundbreaking tools for kicad: graphical schematic diff. Check our git for sch2fig and eventually eeschow

Microblog: 2016-07-28 06:03:23

2016-07-28T06:03:23+02:00

second quarter of the generous donation from our annonymous supporter arrived. Many thanks!

Microblog: 2016-07-28 06:01:36

2016-07-28T06:01:36+02:00

A little tool to allow KiCAD subsheet sorting: https://neo900.org/git/?p=ee

Microblog: 2016-07-25 08:23:24

2016-07-25T08:23:24+02:00

new vulnerability found in modems http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/07/software-flaw-puts-mobile-phones-and-networks-at-risk-of-complete-takeover/ - Neo900 immune design more valuabe than ever

Microblog: 2016-07-25 08:19:28

2016-07-25T08:19:28+02:00

migration to KiCAD proceeding better than we hoped for

Microblog: 2016-07-25 08:14:16

2016-07-25T08:14:16+02:00

another 20 N900 on their way, 20 more ordered

Microblog: 2016-04-17 02:01:29

2016-04-17T02:01:29+02:00

A nice specs comparison on our sister project Pyra: https://www.pyra-handheld.com/wiki/index.php?title=Comparison_Chart

Microblog: 2016-04-15 16:21:00

2016-04-15T16:21:00+02:00

http://neo900.org/stuff/joerg/random-media/unbox_24_N900/ http://neo900.org/stuff/joerg/random-media/N900_24_one-sample-inspected/

Microblog: 2016-04-15 15:17:40

2016-04-15T15:17:40+02:00

http://neo900.org/stuff/joerg/random-media/unbox_24_N900/

PayPal resumes: Neo900 sources again

2016-03-25T21:00:07+01:00

After 6 months of PayPal trouble the situation has been sorted. Neo900 has resumed buying components for the upcoming production run.

PayPal Unfreezes Neo900's Account

The PP issue got solved "by timeout" (180 day rule).
— Joerg

This is good news! Since last September our assets were frozen (the “WikiLeaks Syndrome”) as our “case” was going through a Kafkaesque process that finally ended on January, 25th, 2016.

After blocking Neo900's account, PayPal had to decide whether Neo900 is a crowdfunding project or a pre-selling project.

"crowdfunding": means the money is used to support every step of the project, including risk.
"pre-selling": means the money is to increase the volume of an already financed production: delivery is certain, and the underlying effort is already covered by other sources.

PayPal initially recategorized us as pre-sale, imposing a whopping $200,000 insurance reserve: effectively freezing your 40k EURO assets for 180 days. We'd like to thank you again for your continuous support, and numerous efforts and supporting letters. All funds where eventually released when reaching the 180 days threshold.

Component Sourcing Resumes

Right after PayPal unlocked your contributions, we could resume buying components to build the new boards.

Unfortunately, 500 N900 units that we had secured earlier were missed due to accumulated delays with pre-orders and the PayPal freeze.

Incoming: more N900s

In order to break even, our earlier estimates pointed at 500 units sold. After the 6-month PayPal delay, our estimate bumped break even to ~800 units. This means we must communicate a bit more (and better) and Joerg proposed to do Community PR, where the brainstorming has started.

Recently, a large number of units—more than we need to break even— appeared on Aliexpress: our boots on the ground in China are active to evaluate those N900 allegedly from Russia. If you know where to find some affordable stocks of N900 units, please contact us!

Hello Neo900 Community!

This article was brought to you by hellekin, who joined the team to facilitate communication with you.

I was called to join the Neo900 to relieve our dears inventors from the public relations tasks, and let them focus on the technical and operational sides of the project.

I'm not a PR professional, but a long time free software activist and accidental coder. A member of the Dyne.org Foundation, my activity covers a diversity of projects ranging from system administration to code, web development, and community building. I participate in a few free software projects such as Tomb, Dowse, and Devuan. I also volunteer time to the GNU project in the webmasters team and with the GNU consensus project to coordinate development of free social software.

Last August at CCCamp15, I was softly coerced into accepting a N900 phone from Werner with the hope I would go back a week later to Buenos Aires and hand him the device for dissection. Unfortunately I didn't come back yet, but I learned to live with my new pet.

You see, my last phone ended up dying slowly on the roof of a random bar in Paris, sometimes in 1999. My friends had been harrassing me to get one, then harrassing me for not answering it, and finally stopped complaining when they learned I had no phone anymore. Go figure. I was happy with the situation until Camp.

You can imagine how an inexperienced user who didn't follow the evolution of smartphone technologies since before Y2K can build expectations about a phone. I had mine: it should be flat, multitouch and HD, about the size of a Galaxy S10, and of course free hardware, the only way the user can ensure the phone is not spying on them.

Interruption and built-in privacy wiper were the two main blockers for me to get a phone again. I was still waiting for my dream phone.

My lack of experience with smartphones make me an excellent guinea pig for user interfaces. My friends can't stop wondering when they see me fail at using their device for simple tasks. But if you wonder how a clueless person can handle tech talk about phones and communicate for Neo900, here comes a little context.

I had been curious about free hardware since I met Sébastien Bourdeauducq in the /tmp/lab hackerspace near Paris. We share some fun memories of making an ad-hoc street demo of MilkyMist One in Amsterdam. The OpenMoko project was great and the OpenMoko Neo Freerunner design attractive, although a bit clumsy to handle and the display too small. So I kept waiting.

When Werner introduced me to the Neo900, I stubbornly dismissed it for the form factor. Although it brought to life my desire for an Internet device built on free hardware and free software, I could resist the tentation to crave this slider with a ridiculously small keyboard: I'm not a thumb-writer! So when Werner sneakily handed me an N900, via my partner, to "keep in touch during the camp", at a moment most vulnerable as I was leaving my angel shift in the kitchen, circumspection had me.

Long story short: I've been traveling to 4 countries lately and have 6 SIM cards in a little box. Using the keyboard to SSH into a remote machine or editing text isn't as bad as I expected. I still prefer my full-size keyboard but I took some notes on the N900, and it's great for ad-hoc interventions on a server.

Having passed this barrier to usage, I'm eager to see what the hardware upgrade to Neo900 can bring in terms of performance. The N900 falls a bit short and shows its age.

But more importantly, and this is why Neo900 has a special place in my heart, it's the only phone that provides a hardware protection from remote activation of the baseband chip. Even a secure phone like the Cryptophone, besides not being free, cannot prevent the baseband chip from requesting power on its own, because it's using stock hardware, and all commercial phones (I know of) connect the baseband chip directly to the power, without CPU intervention, hence without any control from the OS. With the Neo900, you are free to choose whether this pesky lurker needs access to your phone's radio or not.

Thank you for your attention,

– hellekin for the Neo900 team

P.S.: Feedback is welcome! Did you enjoy reading this post? What else should it have covered? What do you want to read in the news? You can tell me: hellekin at neo900 dot org, or in the comments.

Microblog: 2016-03-25 02:05:57

2016-03-25T02:05:57+01:00

PayPal resumes: #Neo900 sources again http://neo900.org/news/paypal-resumes-neo900-sources-again

Microblog: 2016-03-03 21:09:59

2016-03-03T21:09:59+01:00

A big WELCOME to hellekin, our newest team member taking up on the task to update our web appearance

Microblog: 2016-01-26 12:48:52

2016-01-26T12:48:52+01:00

Finally our PayPal trouble timed out, so we can focus again on making proto_v2. http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1496288

PayPal trouble delays project

2015-12-06T15:52:42+01:00

If you have been following the project on IRC (Freenode #neo900) or on talk.maemo.org, you will already have read that we are having problems with payments made through PayPal.

We have now collected some more information, and we would like to give you a comprehensive update on the situation, and how it affects progress of the project.

What happened

PayPal established a "reserve" on the account of Neo900 UG, preventing the project from using the balance of currently EUR 37'934, which at the time of writing represents more than two thirds of the liquid assets of the project.

While communication with PayPal has been polite, we were given the impression that our funds would be liberated within a reasonable amount of time, and we provided PayPal with the information they requested at various points in the dialog, PayPal have not removed the blockage and have not even clearly indicated as to when they would be willing to do so.

Timeline

In June, PayPal surprisingly blocked withdrawals from the account of Neo900 UG. The explanation we received was that PayPal needed Neo900 UG to provide various pieces of information regarding its business, and that the block would be lifted once we provided this information. Incoming payments were still possible.

Since some banks occasionally block accounts while waiting for routine paperwork, we were not overly alarmed at that time.

Towards the end of July, PayPal also blocked incoming payments. Given that we were at the time busy preparing for and then attending CCCamp2015, it took a few weeks before we could provide all the requested material, which we did at the end of August.

A few days later, PayPal allowed incoming payments again, but also informed us that they would establish a "rolling reserve" on the account, with details to follow in the following days.

We interpreted this to mean that incoming payments would be held for some days or weeks, to ensure their validity. This still sounded somewhat reasonable.

The next shoe dropped in September, when PayPal revealed the conditions of this reserve:

almost all of the existing balance in the account would be held for the reserve.
a percentage of all incoming payments would be held to further grow the reserve, until reaching a total amount of USD 200'000. (We had about EUR 40'000 in the account at that time, to spend mainly on advance purchases but also on on-going development.)
PayPal elected to set the percentage to withhold to 100%.
the conditions for releasing the reserve were not clearly spelled out, but there was an implied suggestion that funds entering the reserve might be released after remaining there for 180 days.

Considering that the project operates with minimum margins, just having most of its assets frozen for an unknown amount of time would be disastrous.

PayPal wrote that such a reserve was normal for "card sales", suggesting some confusion on their end.

We were hopeful that these aggressive conditions were merely the result of a misunderstanding, and PayPal themselves suggested that the reserve could be lifted or at least improved once additional formalities are completed.

We continued to accept payments through PayPal during all this, expecting PayPal to act in good faith and to see a speedy resolution as something in their own interest. However, after several exchanges with PayPal failed to produce results, we decided to prevent further damage and removed payments through PayPal from our shop.

Payments made by wire transfer to the Neo900 UG bank account are not affected by all this.

Why are they doing this to us?

When blocking the account, PayPal indicated that they only needed additional information about the account owner (Neo900 UG) and that the blockade would be removed once the information was provided.

PayPal indeed did as promised, but replaced the blockade with the reserve. Once again, the message was that more information (the company's registration number) was needed to loosen the reserve. That loosening never happen, despite providing the information.

PayPal also suggested that our supporters may not be sufficiently aware of the crowdfunding nature of the project and the associated risks, which in turn would increase the risk of unhappy customers wanting their money back.

In further communication, there have been hints that the reserve may be loosened after a while, or that part of the funds could be released if we can present paid (!) invoices for project expenses, but we basically got the impression that PayPal are stalling, and are not interested in releasing the funds the project needs to proceed.

One may now think that PayPal are simply malicious. Some people who had experienced similar issues seem to have reached this conclusion. However, we eventually found (thanks to "ravelo" who pointed us to it) a much more plausible explanation: PayPal may simply be responding to the chargeback risk that comes with accepting credit cards. Unfortunately, PayPal choose to do this in a way that is extremely intransparent and harmful.

Why did we use PayPal at all?

Neo900 UG initially only accepted payments through wire transfer. However, after many supporters asked for a means to pay by credit card, due to wire transfers being difficult and expensive for them, we looked for a way to accommodate these wishes.

Directly accepting credit card payments is known to be difficult, especially for a small start-up like Neo900 UG, but PayPal quickly emerged as a supposedly friendly option.

While there had been reports in the past about similar incidents, PayPal have not received much bad press in the last years, and we felt that these issues must have been resolved since. What we did not understand at the time is that using PayPal would not solve the underlying problem inherent with accepting credit cards, and in fact make it worse.

PayPal proved to be very popular. For example, the project received in September almost 60% of the payments through PayPal.

Consequences

PayPal's aggressive blockade of most of the assets of Neo900 UG has the following consequences for the project:

to avoid throwing good money after bad, we no longer accept payments through PayPal in the shop. We continue to accept payments through wire transfer (SWIFT, SEPA).
If international wire transfers are expensive or difficult in your country, you may want to consider to use TransferWise, which may offer better conditions.
in order to avoid misunderstandings of the kind PayPal allege, we have also posted a summary of how this project is financed and we have made small changes to the terminology used to describe our project on neo900.org and in the shop.
since most of the liquid assets of Neo900 UG are blocked, we had to halt all advance purchases.
we had to suspend all technical work for the time being, to focus the remaining resources exclusively on restoring the financial viability of the project.

Communication with PayPal

Several supporters of our project have contacted PayPal to inquire about the status of their payment and to ask that it be passed to Neo900 UG.

The most common responses were:

PayPal assured all our customers that their payment went through and that it has been credited to the account of Neo900 UG.
While this is technically correct and we can see incoming payments in the list of transactions and the account balance, it is at the same time misleading in the sense that all this ends up being part of the reserve and we cannot withdraw and use it.
PayPal refuse to provide customers with any details about the state of payments that have been credited to the account of Neo900 UG, claiming privacy policies prevented them.

We therefore think it unlikely that payments that ended up in the reserve can be liberated through a dialog between our supporters and PayPal.

However, we believe that PayPal may change their risk assessment if enough customers assure them that they want payments to be liberated to Neo900 UG and that, if PayPal complies with this request, they will consider the transaction as successful and fully concluded, even if the project should fail to deliver or run into any other problems.

We believe that such statements from customers would give PayPal the assurance that, if chargebacks should occur regardless, they could counter and successfully challenge them.

How to fix it

We contracted a lawyer and had her send a letter demanding that PayPal release the funds. PayPal responded one month later basically reiterating their position and stating that the hostile blockade should not have surprised us, for their terms and conditions grant them sweeping liberties.

Furthermore, since PayPal so far has not provided clear indications of which payments are affected by the "freeze", and we cannot deduce this from the information available to us, we have asked PayPal to provide us with a list of the transactions affected. We are awaiting a response to this request.

To strengthen our case and to ease PayPal's worries, we would like to ask you, if you have made a payment to Neo900 UG since April 2015, to consider contacting PayPal on your own, assert that you understand the crowdfunding nature of this project, and request that your payment (which may or may not be affected by the freeze) be released.

For your convenience, we have prepared the following template:

Dear PayPal,

regarding my transaction, ID <transaction>, the seller Neo900 UG
(haftungsbeschraenkt), informed me that PayPal has frozen the funds
in a "Reserve".

To my knowledge, this is due to a misunderstanding whether this
transaction constitutes a pre-sale or a crowdfunding payment.

I hereby want to make clear that it is a payment for crowdfunding, and
I fully understand the risks associated with that. So I would like to
request PayPal to release 100% of the funds to the seller, upon which
I would consider the transaction as successful and fully concluded.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I hope Neo900 UG will
swiftly gain access to the funds to complete the project.

Kind regards,
<name>

In the above template, please fill in the following fields:

<transaction>: the ID of your PayPal transaction (e.g., 3UF390823E5159484)
<name>: your name

We are very sorry about this complication that delays project progress and unnecessarily molests our customers. We hope you nevertheless keep up with your incredible support and enthusiasm.

Thank you for your help!

– The Neo900 team

Microblog: 2015-10-06 22:07:28

2015-10-06T22:07:28+02:00

Neo900 UG congratulates Max Schrems and supports http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2015-10/cp150117en.pdf Cheers jOERG

Microblog: 2015-09-09 03:19:00

2015-09-09T03:19:00+02:00

New SEARCHABLE pdf schematics version at http://neo900.org/stuff/eaglefiles/proto_v2/3-2015-09-09/GTA04b7-jr-2-beautify_fonts.pdf Cheers jOERG

Microblog: 2015-09-04 16:34:51

2015-09-04T16:34:51+02:00

We gonna order N900 mech parts 1st batch next week. Please place your preorder *now* if you want to be part of 1st batch. jOERG

Microblog: 2015-09-04 16:22:45

2015-09-04T16:22:45+02:00

PayPal payment is possible again. Please, if feasible at all, use bank transfer SEPA/SWIFT nevertheless. Sorry for the inconvenience.jOERG

Microblog: 2015-09-01 16:50:40

2015-09-01T16:50:40+02:00

PayPal payment presumably back to normal during next 72h. Sorry for inconvenience. jOERG

Microblog: 2015-08-16 14:54:17

2015-08-16T14:54:17+02:00

Check out the lightning talk from CCCamp15 by Werner: http://neo900.org/stuff/cccamp15/lightningtalk.mp4

Microblog: 2015-08-09 08:24:46

2015-08-09T08:24:46+02:00

For CCCAMP15 I am AFK for the next 14 days. sorry for any delays in answering your mails this will cause. jOERG

Neo900 on Chaos Communication Camp 2015

2015-08-08T17:10:42+02:00

As we have already announced in our uBlog, the Neo900 project will be present at CCCamp2015 next week near Berlin!

UPDATE: the talks are available at our resources page!

We will have the following presentations:

Lightning talk about Neo900 security features:
Friday, August 14, 16:30
At the lightning talk location.
Full-length talk about the Neo900 project:
Saturday, August 15, 15:00
BER village, probably in the Bühnenzelt.
Paul Kocialkowski will give a lightning talk about Replicant:
Time and date to be announced, probably Saturday, August 15.
At the lightning talk location.

Furthermore, he will give a longer talk on software freedom and privacy/security on mobile devices, time and location to be announced.

You can also find us at the Neo village.

There, you can look at our prototypes, we can talk about anything that didn't fit in the formal presentations, or just stop by for a beer :-)

See you at the camp !

– The Neo900 team

Microblog: 2015-07-29 17:42:18

2015-07-29T17:42:18+02:00

Why Neo900? See https://www.buerger-cert.de/archive?type=widtechnicalwarning&nr=TW-T15-0062

Microblog: 2015-07-26 23:11:17

2015-07-26T23:11:17+02:00

Meet us on the CCCAMP15 https://events.ccc.de/camp/2015/wiki/Village:Neo. There will be several talks by Werner and Paul

Microblog: 2015-07-24 19:16:08

2015-07-24T19:16:08+02:00

We have a first prototype for the spacer frame, milled from acrylic: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1477808

The Neo900 shop - Grand opening for pre-orders

2015-06-01T03:47:42+02:00

It has been a while since the latest newsletter. We would like to update you on the current project status, and announce the opening of our shop.

If you have made a loan / donation in the past, you should already have received a mail with this information and another mail with your voucher code in the last few weeks.

If you have no such mails you may want to check your spam folder or contact us at contact@neo900.org. In order to help us find your payment record, please provide us with as much information as you can, such as:

the date when you made the loan / donation,
the e-mail you used at the time,
how you paid (e.g., bank transfer, PayPal, via GDC refund), and
any payment reference you used.

We have completed most of the design of the subsystems of Neo900, and we have tested some critical components. For details, please follow the links on resources page. Some of the highlights:

an interactive block diagram
the infrared subsystem
the NFC (Near-Field Communication) subsystem
our unique Hackerbus
and last but not least the schematics

Assorted R&D and sourcing examples:

the elusive memory chips
we even found spares for the speakers
secured source for N900s, for upgrading to Neo900. Samples
precise PCB shape

As a result, we now know which major components we will want to use and we are about to begin purchasing parts for production - especially those that have long lead times or that are difficult to find.

In order to make these purchases and also in order to know how many parts we need to source, and in cases where there are multiple choices, which variant, we now ask prospective Neo900 owners to place a pre-order and make a down payment.

Pre-orders can be made in our online shop: https://my.neo900.org/

We have prepared a walk-through that explains the various steps of placing a pre-order.

The amount of the down payment depends on whether you choose a NeoN board, for upgrading your existing N900, or a fully assembled Neo900. Please note that the down payment is only a partial payment. We will ask for the final payment before production starts, which we estimate to be towards the end of this year.

We also have updated our cost estimate, taking into account the details the R&D work provided. Unfortunately, the total cost of the NeoN board has increased from the original estimate in 2013, to a large part due to the weak Euro. This is our latest cost estimate: http://neo900.org/estimate

We analyze the effect of the Euro to US dollar exchange rate here: http://neo900.org/exchange

The above cost estimate is for the NeoN board. The fully assembled Neo900 will cost approximately EUR 130 more, also plus any applicable taxes.

Our shop has already been open for a few weeks for supporters who have already made a donation / loan, and we now invite everyone who is interested in obtaining a NeoN or Neo900 to make their pre-order.

Please try to place your pre-order before the end of June (2015), so that we can purchase materials in a timely manner, and especially while some older parts (N900) we need for compatibility are still available.

If you have questions or experience difficulties with the shop, please don't hesitate to contact us at contact@neo900.org or post in the shop questions thread on talk.maemo.org

Thank you, and happy pre-ordering!

- The Neo900 team

Microblog: 2015-05-21 17:42:46

2015-05-21T17:42:46+02:00

Someone announced our webshop on Slashdot before we did :) The server is a bit struggling with the traffic, sorry for inconvienience!

Microblog: 2015-05-18 03:30:25

2015-05-18T03:30:25+02:00

Quick info - we've just sent all the shop vouchers to our donors. If you donated >= 100 EUR and haven't got one - please holler!

Microblog: 2015-05-04 21:44:11

2015-05-04T21:44:11+02:00

Largely unnoticed by public, we updated and improved our http://neo900.org/faq

Microblog: 2015-04-15 18:59:37

2015-04-15T18:59:37+02:00

Great progress in testing reworked BB-xM with Neo900's PoP (1GB RAM and OneNAND) - kudos to freemangordon! http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1467283&postcount=2389

Microblog: 2015-03-26 08:08:33

2015-03-26T08:08:33+01:00

Fundraiser campaign for sourcing components inofficially started, see http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1464976 ff - please hurry

Microblog: 2015-03-18 16:27:44

2015-03-18T16:27:44+01:00

Not surprised about: http://mer-project.blogspot.com/2015/03/some-doubts-about-gpl-licensing-and-bq.html TA Carsten!

Microblog: 2015-03-14 21:39:58

2015-03-14T21:39:58+01:00

Many exciting new details in the updated Neo900 IR white paper: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=1464081

Microblog: 2015-03-07 18:57:36

2015-03-07T18:57:36+01:00

Success to boot Linux on 1GB-pimped BB-xM, to QA the PoP chips :-D

Microblog: 2015-02-25 02:15:33

2015-02-25T02:15:33+01:00

Check out the preliminary version of Neo900's Hackerbus specification! http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1461954#post1461954

Microblog: 2015-01-05 20:20:58

2015-01-05T20:20:58+01:00

excellent whitepaper NFC: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1455411 - many thanks To Werner Almesberger

Microblog: 2015-01-01 02:18:31

2015-01-01T02:18:31+01:00

Happy New Year to all our fans! wishes the Neo900 team

Microblog: 2014-12-29 14:01:16

2014-12-29T14:01:16+01:00

Highly recommended read: http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297

Xmas Update

2014-12-27T22:48:12+01:00

A lot has happened since our last newsletter. Let's sum up the current status of the Neo900 project, donations and technical progress.

This update has been put together by our great supporter, Oksana A. Tkachenko. Thanks!

Approximating from the number of donors, we're right now at around 400 devices secured to build.

We have already started to source "risky" parts for board itself, like 1GB RAM and RGB LEDs for keyboard backlight. Risky components are those that are hard to find and/or no longer manufactured and we need to secure them early, in order to avoid nasty surprises later. The RGB LEDs are a tad on the "too expensive" side before we collect funds for sourcing risk parts, since we need 6 side-facing RGB LEDs per board (for keyboard backlight).

So far, we have received around 1000 camera buttons and 70 1GB RAM chips, to evaluate their usability in proto_V2.

We will have 2 BeagleBoards-xM reworked to employ the 1GB RAM PoP to test the chips. We are working for some BB-xM with 1GB RAM to happen before new year, so that we could test our proto_V2 with final memory footprint on beagleboard. Schematics for proto_V2 (to connect to those 1GB beagleboards) have all the subsystems defined already; they will be finalized after the holidays.

We will also test the finger-or-stylus detection in the prototype, connecting surface of resistive touch screen as capacitive electrode to CRTOUCHB10 chip. Accelerometer/magnetometer (BMC150) and gyroscope (BMG160) are changed to a single BMX055 chip. We are also looking into feasibility of adding a humidity sensor.

The newest revision for proto_V2 boards has been finished by Nikolaus and is now being reviewed by Joerg and Werner. We do our best to make proto_V2 the best prototype ever built. We aim to get all bugs brushed out before we run a real board spin, to reduce the number of board spins needed, since they are expensive and, for us, take a lot of time. Next step after proto_V2 evaluation will be building of a proto_V3 which might count as a final device already.

Our laboratory has also got augmented by another tool for R&D, a digital oscilloscope: DS1054Z by Rigol.

Werner is regularly updating the interactive block diagram of Neo900 and has completed 3D scans of the N900 case.

Sebastian has given the talk titled "Crafting The Private Phone" at OHSW2014 in the end of November. As usual, video and slides from this talk are available on our resources subpage.

Last but not least: Happy New Year from the Neo900 team!

Microblog: 2014-12-21 19:11:46

2014-12-21T19:11:46+01:00

Proto_V2 rel2 schematics: http://neo900.org/stuff/eaglefiles/proto_v2/2_204-12-21/GTA04b7.sch.pdf Kudos to Nikolaus! Happy XMas!

Microblog: 2014-12-19 09:27:56

2014-12-19T09:27:56+01:00

got 70 1GB RAM for eval, http://neo900.org/stuff/joerg/N9_1GB-RAM/DSC02144.jpeg & *. 2 BB-xM are about to get reworked

Microblog: 2014-11-29 16:17:46

2014-11-29T16:17:46+01:00

Livestream from OHSW talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahPFCFooBv0

Microblog: 2014-11-29 13:21:30

2014-11-29T13:21:30+01:00

First videos from OHSW2014: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP_U91ipVWsF_2EiG3s6BKA/feed - Agenda: http://ohsw.org/ - Neo900 talk @ 16:05 CET

Microblog: 2014-11-28 23:37:54

2014-11-28T23:37:54+01:00

https://devuan.org/ https://devuan.org/ https://devuan.org/

Microblog: 2014-11-19 16:28:34

2014-11-19T16:28:34+01:00

Good luck to http://jolla.com/tablet ! A project we love to see succeeding when it lives up to its promises

Microblog: 2014-11-18 15:46:31

2014-11-18T15:46:31+01:00

ANNOUNCEMENT: starting to source risk parts for board itself, like 1GB RAM and RGB LEDs for kbd backlight.

Microblog: 2014-11-13 16:15:48

2014-11-13T16:15:48+01:00

seems some still havent noticed the fine http://neo900.org/stuff/block-diagrams/neo900/neo900.html interactive diagram :-D

Microblog: 2014-11-07 14:42:19

2014-11-07T14:42:19+01:00

OHSW2014 agenda is there! Come to Munich @ Nov 29 or see livestreams. Don't miss our talk: Crafting The Private Phone! http://ohsw.de/

Microblog: 2014-10-31 13:51:03

2014-10-31T13:51:03+01:00

some pseudo tear down of domesheet: http://neo900.org/stuff/joerg/random-media/domesheet/ And see updates in block diagram!

Microblog: 2014-10-29 17:29:20

2014-10-29T17:29:20+01:00

Check our latest stuff in http://neo900.org/stuff/block-diagrams/ ! Better than text specs :-D

Microblog: 2014-10-27 15:09:18

2014-10-27T15:09:18+01:00

Thanks to Juho+FMG+jonwil we got some great info + great success on OpenSource PA bits: http://wiki.maemo.org/Porting/Audio/Q_and_A_RE-PA

Microblog: 2014-10-23 11:08:20

2014-10-23T11:08:20+02:00

Welcoming Juho onboard FPTF team. N900/N9 first hand experience as PA responsible. Our chances to sort audio just increased by factor100

Microblog: 2014-10-21 20:15:36

2014-10-21T20:15:36+02:00

considering TRF7970A instead of NXPs PN544 for NFC. Definitely has better documentation thanks to TI standard on this

Microblog: 2014-10-13 07:46:26

2014-10-13T07:46:26+02:00

A few new photos of the mozilla device donation and battery charging: http://neo900.org/stuff/joerg/random-media/55/. Thanks again to mozilla!

Microblog: 2014-10-10 21:29:48

2014-10-10T21:29:48+02:00

Ivaylo Dimitrov aka freemangordon, head/proj-lead of FPTF, asking for more sw-devels to help. Please meet him in freenode IRC

Microblog: 2014-10-06 12:01:08

2014-10-06T12:01:08+02:00

A huge Thank You to Mozilla and Henry Langi, for the hw-donation that just arrived in good condition

Microblog: 2014-10-05 04:09:09

2014-10-05T04:09:09+02:00

first draft of proto_V2 schematics (partial), other goodies too. New subpage: http://neo900.org/resources

Mini October Update

2014-10-05T03:47:42+02:00

Coming back from some extended period of silence, we have published a bunch of new stuff that we've been working on during the past months.

a paper detailing the infrared subsystem of Neo900
second draft of the next prototype schematics (currently under development, about 80% complete)
an updated version of the Neo900 block diagram
3D scans of the plastic case

To collect all these things in one place, we have created a Resources subpage where you can find our papers, talks, videos and documentation. Expect more to arrive soon!

Microblog: 2014-10-04 20:32:53

2014-10-04T20:32:53+02:00

First draft of schematics proto_V2 will soon be available on Neo900.org - stay tuned

Microblog: 2014-10-01 20:54:33

2014-10-01T20:54:33+02:00

Filed roundabout 10 forms and sent 15 mails, did 4 calls, to malke mozilla donation happen. Awaiting fedex

Microblog: 2014-09-20 18:20:24

2014-09-20T18:20:24+02:00

3 more bb-xm arrived. Thanks a lot to Vladimir! Got:4, want:6. Anyway proto_V2 brains secured

Microblog: 2014-09-20 15:47:34

2014-09-20T15:47:34+02:00

first beagleboard-xM arrived and tested for basic function (booting). 3 more to come

Microblog: 2014-09-14 01:40:03

2014-09-14T01:40:03+02:00

BTW: Confirmation mails up to 2014-09-13 sent. If you donated via bank or GDC (not PayPal) and still haven't got one, please let us know!

Microblog: 2014-09-14 01:27:08

2014-09-14T01:27:08+02:00

Turns out that last "latest numbers" post was underestimated a bit. After correcting turns out we're today at 346 devices total to build!

Microblog: 2014-09-04 19:19:32

2014-09-04T19:19:32+02:00

latest numbers: 242 money transfer devices + 69 PP devices = 311 devices total to build. Thanks to all supporters!

Microblog: 2014-09-04 19:16:56

2014-09-04T19:16:56+02:00

we just finally nodded off contract with GDC about proto_V2 building. Everybody smiling, let the joy continue

Microblog: 2014-09-03 22:38:00

2014-09-03T22:38:00+02:00

JackPair https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh6yF79FkAA Neo900 UG thinks this is a great thing. Pondering to embed.

Microblog: 2014-09-03 20:45:09

2014-09-03T20:45:09+02:00

Received quote for proto_V2, looks good. Finally back to comfort zone re joy in work

Microblog: 2014-09-02 18:04:43

2014-09-02T18:04:43+02:00

:wpwrak: now with 100 um: http://neo900.org/stuff/werner/scans/

Microblog: 2014-08-31 23:22:40

2014-08-31T23:22:40+02:00

6 pcs beagloard-xM ordered and paid, in preparation for proto_V3 (formerly known as V2)

Microblog: 2014-08-31 15:12:04

2014-08-31T15:12:04+02:00

Werner started scanning the case :-D first results: http://neo900.org/stuff/werner/scan/n900-bot-inside-500um.png Stay tuned for more to come

Microblog: 2014-08-28 11:39:48

2014-08-28T11:39:48+02:00

Company holidays finished. New whitepaper about IR: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=1437131&postcount=4. Cheers, jOERG

Microblog: 2014-08-16 16:08:53

2014-08-16T16:08:53+02:00

Sorry I missed to announce company holidays. I am back in 2 weeks. jOERG

Microblog: 2014-08-11 03:02:47

2014-08-11T03:02:47+02:00

Confirmation mails up to 2014-08-08 sent. If you donated via other means than PayPal and still haven't got one, please let us know!

Microblog: 2014-08-08 02:35:55

2014-08-08T02:35:55+02:00

Today's the last day of the transfer period. If you still haven't transfered your donation from GDC to UG, hurry up! http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=93498

Microblog: 2014-07-28 15:21:13

2014-07-28T15:21:13+02:00

again a tiny movie about batt hotswap: http://neo900.org/stuff/media/video/battswap/fastbattswap_slomo.MOV

Microblog: 2014-07-27 22:28:28

2014-07-27T22:28:28+02:00

Some people ask if they can still join the waiting list - yes! The donations are still active!

Microblog: 2014-07-27 22:12:33

2014-07-27T22:12:33+02:00

Confirmation mails up to 2014-07-22 sent. If you donated via SEPA or GDC but haven't got one, please let us know.

Microblog: 2014-07-24 12:55:15

2014-07-24T12:55:15+02:00

recent numbers: 225 devices, 33k EUR account ballance. GDC´s Proto_v2 quotation pending

Microblog: 2014-07-12 08:37:52

2014-07-12T08:37:52+02:00

Huge Thank You for awesome support to all donors! Seems PayPal is quite popular. 23 donations via PP so far.

Microblog: 2014-07-11 12:12:18

2014-07-11T12:12:18+02:00

Comprehensive Newsletter Part2/3: http://neo900.org/news/july-trilogy-part-ii-the-present

July Trilogy, Part II: The Present

2014-07-11T11:41:41+02:00

This is the second part of our set of three news articles - "The Past", "The Present" and "The Future".

With the much needed reorganization already finished, the technical work can continue. Let's sum up what's the current status of the Neo900 project.

Project organizational structure

Neo900 UG (haftungsbeschraenkt), a German limited liability company, is the single responsible entity to run the project. Now after Werner Almesberger joined, the Neo900 core team consists of Werner, Sebastian and Joerg.

Golden Delicious Computers announced that they are willing to do subcontractor work for Neo900 UG, which is the way the project's R&D will work from now on. The core team is in close communication with Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller of GDC to define details of the next prototype.

Donations

Approximating from the number of donors, we're right now at around 160 devices secured to build. We take 200 devices as a safe threshold where production becomes feasible, so we're still not past this point. However, there are still a lot of donors who haven't responded yet to GDC regarding the fate of their donation. If you happen to be one of them and you still want a Neo900, please check our page for GDC donors. Don't worry, we will take the original date of donation into account, even for those who received a refund from GDC and transfer that to the Neo900 UG from their own account, so all promised benefits of early donation will still hold.

We are quite certain that we will eventually pass the 200 devices threshold, but there is something else to keep in mind: we now have to begin ordering "risky" components. Risky components are those that are hard to find and/or no longer manufactured and we need to secure them early, in order to avoid nasty surprises later. We will use the number of 100EUR+ donations as guide for how many components we should purchase. These purchases will begin very soon - already in the next days.

If we end up needing more of these components, we will of course try to order them later, but please bear in mind that this may mean "much later" since we also have to take things like volume pricing and minimum order quantities into account, and there is thus an increased risk that we may then no longer be able to obtain what we want.

We would therefore ask you, if you think that you will want to order a NeoN replacement board or a full Neo900 device in the future and have not donated 100EUR+ yet, to consider doing so as soon as possible, so that we can take you into account for our planning.

We have worked hard to streamline the donation process for newcomers as well. Now, as an alternative to IBAN/SEPA bank transfers, you can transfer your donation via PayPal. We're also still investigating the possibilities to offer other payment options.

Technical progress

Werner sure loves diagrams, creating one after another since he joined the team. One of them is describing the desired final architecture of the Neo900 and it is one of our most important and fundamental reference documents. It will be used for example as a reference when creating resp finishing the schematics and layout of the v2 prototype. We will also use it to plan tests and related tasks. Please note that this document is dynamic and will reflect changes to details of the design as they are made.

Click to enlarge. See also Werner's post on TMO

The prototype v2 - which is currently under development with a large part of its specification and schematics already finished - is supposed to be a properly functioning and almost complete Neo900 phone. Almost, because we're going to use an external board (like the BeagleBoard) as its "brain" with power supply chip, CPU, memory, and storage. This way we'll be able to reduce the expense for PCB and components while it already allows us to test most of peripherals, like LCD and dual-touch touchscreen, LED controllers, all sensors, Bluetooth and WiFi module, modem, N900 antennas, etc. And it's also going to already contain most of our unique solutions designed to protect the privacy of the user!

Good news:

Recently we have found a 1GB RAM solution, finally ending uncertainties about the possibility to equip Neo900 with such an amount of RAM.
We have also evaluated the N97 camera module, thanks to which the camera will ship with every Neo900 device and NeoN bare board, removing the need to scavenge the old camera from your N900 board when purchasing the NeoN replacement board.
The audio section will use high quality components which should make the device attractive even for audiophiles. With sufficient demand we might even offer a special audio configuration optimized for stereo recording and playback.

Privacy features

One of the most popular topics associated with Neo900 is the privacy. We have noticed during the past months that our ideas on modem monitoring and mitigation of potential threats from inevitable closed firmware are actually the most discussed aspects of the project - which isn't surprising after lots of recent news on the topic in a post-Snowden era.

We started with the simple idea of providing a new device for the Openmoko/OpenPhoenux and Maemo communities using the N900 case, and things like modem isolation and control over its power just being natural features in our specification - but since then, those aspects became increasingly defining for the project. Now Neo900 is not only a "N900 successor" - Neo900 is also a device with unique privacy guard features built-in on a hardware level. The phone that watches over your privacy.

Further redesign of our website will shift the focus towards privacy even more, exposing more details about our planned solutions and describing the scenarios where (and how) Neo900 protects the user. Meanwhile, see the slides from Sebastian's talk, where we already partially covered this topic.

What's next?

To read more details about our plans for the future, stay tuned for the last part of this trilogy coming soon. And don't forget to follow our microblog for real time updates!

Microblog: 2014-07-08 01:28:03

2014-07-08T01:28:03+02:00

Comprehensive Newsletter Part1/3: http://neo900.org/news/july-trilogy-part-i-the-past

July Trilogy, Part I: The Past

2014-07-07T23:51:15+02:00

This is the first part of our planned set of three news articles - "The Past", "The Present" and "The Future". It's intended to provide a comprehensive overview over the project's state and plans, for both our long time supporters as well as those who found out about the project only recently. Stay tuned for part two and three getting published during the week.

A lot of important things have happened recently around the project structure. The situation was changing constantly, rendering not only the readers, but even us ourselves confused at times. Now, that the reorganization is completed and things seem to have calmed and stabilized again, it's time to sum everything up.

Reorganization

The Neo900 project has been started by Joerg Reisenweber, former Openmoko EE, based on the idea of developing a similar upgrade for Nokia N900 as GTA04 by Golden Delicious Computers was to Openmoko Neo Freerunner. To make the idea feasible, Joerg approached Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller from GDC. The work on feasibility study and fundraiser started.

The fundraiser went unexpectedly well, resulting in 76k EUR collected at its end. We promised that every donation starting with 100 EUR will count as a rebate on the price of the device when it's ready, and based our estimations of the number of devices to build on the number of donations eligible to said rebate (with this number being 360). All funds had been collected by Golden Delicious Computers. This had its advantages - GDC already had a working shop system, experience with similar projects, and the ability to process credit cards.

Unfortunately, it had its downsides as well. The major disadvantage of GDC being behind the fundraiser was the mismatch of responsibilities. Since the very beginning of the project, GDC was supposed to take a technical role in the project - designing schematics, drawing PCB layouts, getting prototypes done and maintaining the production. However, the fundraiser in its first shape was legally shifting more responsibilities to the GDC side than anticipated, and it wasn't a true and honest representation of the real situation in the project. That's why we had to fix it - and that's where the problems started.

During that time, we have reported a few times in our progress updates that we had to work on organizational issues. The new company - Neo900 UG - has been created to take the project ownership. The internal distribution of responsibilities has been more or less agreed on, so there was only the money transfer from GDC to Neo900 UG to be done. Unfortunately, due to the way how the German VAT system works and how we did interpret the payments ("pre-orders" vs "donations"), it turned out to be impossible to simply pass project and funds to Neo900 UG.

We tried to come up with a different solution, but each of them turned out to have some flaws that were unacceptable to one of the sides. Finally, after both sides getting frustrated on spending too much time in fruitless organizational discussions instead of real work, GDC announced that it's stepping down from the project and refunding the donations, allowing the Neo900 UG to make a "clean start" and collect the donations once again, now with proper organizational structure that truly represents the reality.

Fortunately, direct transfer of refunds from GDC to Neo900 UG on behalf of the donor turned out to be possible. Neo900 UG soon established means to make "fresh" donations as well. Except of the different legal entity and status of donations, nothing changed from the donors' perspective. Neo900 UG is still honoring the promised benefits of early donations and rules about donations of 100 EUR and more haven't changed. If you haven't transferred your GDC donation to Neo900 UG yet, or you got a refund but would like to donate again (in which case we will still honor the original donation date), you can see the instructions on our "donate" page.

See a summary by Nikolaus about the whole reorganization issue.

Technical progress

Before the reorganization, we managed to build and evaluate first prototypes and thanks to a working PHS8 modem on them, started work on a fsogsmd plugin, made some first phone calls, and tested the GPS/GLONASS functionality.

Some of the crucial components almost became show-stoppers. The inconspicuous display connector turned out to be very hard to obtain. However, with the great help from the community, we managed to find and buy them in advance, resolving the nasty problem.

During the development we even managed to find some great solutions, enhancing the projected device specification with things like dual-touch gestures support.

All the work on the prototypes done so far by GDC (including EAGLE project files) has been released on CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.

What's next?

We're right now at projected 150 devices to build, which is still under our threshold of 200 devices where production becomes feasible. However, we're still waiting for GDC donors to respond and choose the fate of their donations.

After the conclusion of the reorganization, we're back on track with technical work. The specification of the next prototype, making use of the Beagleboard as its brain, but otherwise working as almost complete Neo900 handset, is mostly finished and we're about to ask GDC for a quote for making the prototype.

To read about these and more details about the current state of the project and plans for future soon, stay tuned for the next parts of this post during this week and don't forget to follow our microblog for real time updates!

Microblog: 2014-07-05 17:37:33

2014-07-05T17:37:33+02:00

Neo900 specs on our site just got a small update: http://neo900.org/specs

Microblog: 2014-07-02 20:03:26

2014-07-02T20:03:26+02:00

Our LTE modem module: http://www.globalcertificationforum.org/certified-modules/4417.html?view=certifiedmodule

Microblog: 2014-07-01 23:51:31

2014-07-01T23:51:31+02:00

Done ech eval for N97 main cam module. Should fit and save us the nasty SMIA95 socket. Also cheaper and alegedly better. Ticket

Microblog: 2014-06-30 15:58:07

2014-06-30T15:58:07+02:00

Q:GDC transferred 86.80 to UG. Am I still entitled for Neo900 device? A: Your donation still counts for original amount of 100EUR, so YES

Microblog: 2014-06-29 19:07:19

2014-06-29T19:07:19+02:00

nice news related to Neo900 as well: https://www.replicant.us/2014/06/replicant-4-2-on-the-goldelico-gta04/

Microblog: 2014-06-28 03:49:52

2014-06-28T03:49:52+02:00

First draft of protoV2 schem at neo900.org/stuff/eaglefiles/20140517-Version2-wip/. Evaluated N97maincam, looks good. No SMIA95 needed

Microblog: 2014-06-26 02:54:06

2014-06-26T02:54:06+02:00

HNS asked to get clear specs how to build protoV3, to send a proper quote. Makes sense. so--> Werner:Neo900 blkdiagram. Lots of accounting.

Microblog: 2014-06-25 14:26:15

2014-06-25T14:26:15+02:00

spotted 1GB-RAM+512MBflash PoP168 chip. KCE00E00CA-A506 - 1GB RAM Neo900 almost secured

Microblog: 2014-06-24 19:11:47

2014-06-24T19:11:47+02:00

DB-acct: 33 new transfers in, 1 direct donation, 4 PP - thanks to Nikolaus and donors! Sigma_today: roundabout 6kEUR

Microblog: 2014-06-23 18:10:46

2014-06-23T18:10:46+02:00

Roadmap explained: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1430692#post1430692

Microblog: 2014-06-23 03:30:28

2014-06-23T03:30:28+02:00

Our website just got a small face lifting - http://neo900.org/ - however, it's not the end of planned changes :)

Microblog: 2014-06-23 00:01:50

2014-06-23T00:01:50+02:00

RE-organization mission accomplished. Now for more NEW organizing :D

Microblog: 2014-06-22 23:27:36

2014-06-22T23:27:36+02:00

Donating via PayPal is now possible! See http://neo900.org/donate

Microblog: 2014-06-21 00:23:42

2014-06-21T00:23:42+02:00

PayPal account fully functional, stay tuned for PP payment for donations offered on site RSN

Microblog: 2014-06-20 17:35:01

2014-06-20T17:35:01+02:00

First donation from USA arrived on new account, via https://www.xoom.com/send/getstarted/payment. Flawless and fast :D Only USD5 fees

Microblog: 2014-06-19 21:45:00

2014-06-19T21:45:00+02:00

Current transfer status: 95 devices (+4 prototypes), 18k EUR. Transfers already requested, but not processed yet by GDC are not included.

Microblog: 2014-06-19 13:34:31

2014-06-19T13:34:31+02:00

PayPal account created. Usual hassle with getting it completed, verified, linked to bank, approved. Stay tuned!

Microblog: 2014-06-19 03:54:32

2014-06-19T03:54:32+02:00

ProtoV2 spec and design ca. 70% done. Will already demonstrate a working system of sorts.

Microblog: 2014-06-19 03:31:28

2014-06-19T03:31:28+02:00

However, it's not the end of the changes on our website. Stay tuned!

Microblog: 2014-06-19 03:21:00

2014-06-19T03:21:00+02:00

Hi everyone! Microblog is alive! :)

Spring cleaning and more news

2014-06-16T03:48:50+02:00

While the reorganization is still going on and things like the "fine print" take more time to do properly, instead of just more tunnel at the end of the light we now start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

On the donations-transfer side, Neo900 UG has so far received approximately 16 000 € from 88 transferred donations, with transfer processing still in full swing. This number is low not only because performing the transfers takes a lot of time, but also because about half of the donors have not yet told GDC what to do. Please bear in mind that the project will still need a minimum of 200 devices to build, in line with our original rationale and feasibility studies regarding mass production. So, if you haven't done so yet, please take your time and add a note to your order at GDC to indicate whether you want the refund sent back to you, or whether you're still with us and prefer to have the refund transferred to Neo900 UG (remember that this applies to credit card donations as well).

Sending a mail to donation@neo900.org when doing so is not mandatory, though it helps us to check if something got lost on its way along the bank processing. If you decide to send such a mail, please indicate clearly that you asked GDC to make the transfer. For a transfer from your account to Neo900 UG say that you have transferred money to Neo900 UG.

Reorganization status:

Neo900 UG (haftungsbeschraenkt) got established, including all IDs/numbers/papers and even a proper bank account. Transfer of funds from GDC to UG is ongoing. Please add a note to your order if you haven't done already, even if your original donation was made using credit card!
We are open to donations to the Neo900 UG account - conditions unchanged, but no fine print yet. It seems we're not legally allowed to promise anything, particularly not any rebate, but that doesn't mean your donation will not have the desired effect of getting you a device for a fair price.
Please note that we don't have a shipping service for worldwide shipping yet, and thus we can't tell if your destination allows shipping of a device to you, but be assured that we will make our best effort to facilitate shipment to your location.
Once we've passed the 200 threshold again, we proceed to build prototype board V3. For that, Neo900 UG plans to approach GDC and ask for contracted work. Our technical planning is unchanged, i.e. we want to use the same SMT fab as we always did, and we still have the same plans about the needed steps to reach "mass" production.
Let us again introduce Werner Almesberger who augmented the Neo900 team and brings in a lot of experience and a new perspective into the working process.

We realized that a lot of the things on the Neo900 website didn't make sense anymore, especially not the donation counter, so we've started cleaning up the confusing information. As a part of this clean up, we removed the increasingly misleading donation counter and replaced it with just the current status of transfer. A lot of things changed under the hood as well - the website is now based on full-blown static page generator named Pelican, instead of a set of our own handwritten bash scripts. This is a first step towards new things that we plan to introduce on the website in next days.

Speaking about new stuff, we're aware that official communication about the project's progress could be a bit more agile. To that end we decided to create a microblog for short, but more regular updates, so that you won't have to wait for a wall of text every one or two months or constantly follow channels like IRC or TMO forum. The microblog is coming really soon!

Please remember that we still need a minimum of 200 interested people who have the intention to get a device, and we hope to see this support on Neo900 UG as we did on our previous fundraiser.

Thank you!

Neo900 Progress Update - May

2014-05-22T00:42:25+02:00

Update: Transfer of funds for reorganization

Some of you may already have noticed that few days ago donations were suspended and Golden Delicious Computers announced stepping down and issuing refunds. What's going on? Is there something to worry about?

No! As strange as it may sound - the refunds seem to be the best way for the project to safely continue. And stepping down sometimes allows to take further steps forward.

In previous progress updates we reported some organizational issues being worked on with lawyers and tax advisers. Despite of our earlier reports about success, it turned out that there are still important things to resolve. The hassle came mostly from the fact, that in the light of law, our structure looked completely different than it really was. Goldelico was supposed to take care of technical and logistic side of the project on behalf of Neo900 UG, but due to some mismatch between our intentions and resulting situation from legal point of view, it found itself at the position of entrepreneur. This wasn't the desired state of things for both sides and would cause problems sooner or later, so we tried to find a way to sort it all out. The most obvious solution - asking donors for permission and transferring the money to Neo900 UG - was rejected by tax advisers, despite of them suggesting it earlier (long story short: it could be possible with complete payments, but the VAT handling with the partial ones like we had caused the idea to collapse). During past few weeks some different ideas also got discussed, but there always was some part that someone wasn't happy with. After very long mail exchanging, GDC announced what we were all trying to avoid all that time.

GDC announced that it will step back from the project and refund the collected money (minus the already spent funds). Both sounds very serious and not really optimistic, just like our mood around that time. Fortunately, the sun started to show up from behind the rainy clouds pretty soon, first with Nikolaus clarifying that he's still interested in working on Neo900 and then with Joerg's idea of donors specifying Neo900 UG account as the destination account to refund the money by GDC.

That idea turned out to be ground breaking. GDC formally canceling the project and refunding the money seemed to resolve the issues with taxes. We consulted our lawyers and tax advisers once again and it turned out that it's in fact the way to go! We're canceling the donations and asking the donors to redo them, but with Neo900 UG instead of GDC now - and we're offering an option for direct transfer from GDC to Neo900 UG to avoid unnecessary hassle on your side and to avoid fees and currency conversion losses. Changing one small detail (transfer of order vs. refund + new donation) completely changed the game. Within the next few days all our donors will receive an e-mail with detailed instructions on what to do. See details.

To sum up, looks like "canceling the project" allowed us to finally fix the organizational structure issues and move everything forward. Legal world is indeed sometimes hard to follow...

OK, so what else? While fighting with the system and our mistakes from the past had eaten quite a lot of our time and resources, slowing down or even suspending the development at some point, there are still a few things worth noting in a progress update:

Sebastian started his tests of PHS8 modem on our first prototype board, resulting in this short video showing "the family conversation" - that is, Neo900 (together with Debian PC it's connected to) and GTA04 (running SHR) calling each other and sending a text message using freesmartphone.org middleware and SHR GUI apps.
Also, the GPS/GLONASS engine has been tested with our Low-noise amplifier, layout and N900 antenna. Results: exciting and positive! For example we seen a TTFF (warm) of ~10 seconds.
Sebastian also gave an OpenPhoenux related talk at P.I.W.O. Free Software event in Poznań, Poland titled "Free Mobile - when Android is not enough". The slides in English are available here and aside from covering some Openmoko/OpenPhoenux history and community projects, there is also an interesting part about privacy issues with cell phones and how Neo900 will deal with them, probably making Neo900 the safest phone you can get. We're also working on a more detailed paper on this topic - stay tuned!
Nikolaus keeps working on 3.15 kernel for GTA04, progressing further into the device tree migration, which has interesting implication for our project: thanks to that it should be easy to create universal GTA04 images that work on every GTA04 based hardware - Neo900 included. This means that in many cases, GTA04 owners should be able to just take their SD cards and put them into Neo900, and vice versa, being able to boot exactly the same operating system as they used before!
Speaking of GTA04, Sebastian recorded a short video showcasing Replicant 4.2.2 (FLOSS Android distribution) and SHR running on GTA04, multibooting from the same SD card. Notice how smoothly Android works on this 800 MHz CPU without any 3D acceleration! Also note that this stuff should work on Neo900 just the same way.

And last, but definitely not least: say hello to our new, fourth team member, Werner Almesberger! Werner for now acts in an advisory role and helps with reviews, and may later play an active part in QA. He's an Openmoko veteran as well, recently involved in Qi Hardware projects; author of Ben-WPAN and Anelok, and all of you have used some of his contributions to Linux already.

As Friedrich Nietzsche famously said, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". We feel that the Neo900 project is gathering strength after all the twists and turns it experienced. We're looking forward for the future with more optimism than ever, taking lessons from our past mistakes. Thank you for supporting us in this long and exciting journey!

Neo900 Progress Update - April

2014-04-30T23:09:18+02:00

Take part in documenting Neo900 compatibility with local carriers!

We are very often faced with questions like "which carrier will work with the Neo900?". Unfortunately, with so many different standards and bands used in different parts on the world, or even differences between various networks inside the same country, we are unable to provide comprehensive guide to Neo900 compatibility in every possible network on the world. Therefore we would like to kindly ask for your help!

On our Maemo Talk subforum there's a Compatible carriers thread where everyone can contribute and see the effect of compatibility evaluation done by others. At the moment of writing this note there's already comprehensive information about carrier support in USA and Poland. If you happen to know which bands are being used by carriers in your country, compare it to information from modem specification and post your findings. Any help is appreciated!

In other news, the organizational structure around the project changed once again, rendering previous reports about Neo900 UG already out of date. Fortunately, the new solution we had to come up with for money accounting reasons makes things actually easier - there will be no need for transferring the donated money to a new entity as announced previously, so we won't bother our donors with asking for their permission to do so. As stated last time, the people behind the project remain unchanged - we just had to figure out the best solution to keep everything clear for everyone involved, especially tax office, which due to our non-standard way of raising funds turned out to be a bit more complicated than previously assumed.

What's next? While Joerg takes a well-deserved time off (or at least tries to - with workaholics like him you're never sure :)), Nikolaus is working on next PCB design for our prototypes, about which we'll write as soon as we get our hands on a package from factory. This new version will contain experimental circuits for charging (including first tests of promised hot battery swap), some parts of the audio system (amplifier, headset detection), more LEDs and it is planned to be able to connect it to some external device like BeagleBoard for testing the display interface (connector, signals etc). In addition there will already be the gesture recognizing touch decoder chip, accelerometer, gyroscope, compass and altimeter. We hope we get a good working solution for connecting the breakout board with the uSD reader and camera flash LEDs. Finally we have added circuits to monitor the modem - we will see how well they work - and the option to add a separate UART based GPS receiver so that we can disconnect the GPS antenna from the 3G module.

The status as of today is that the schematics are almost fixed for this version and fulfill most requirements we have set. Doing a good PCB layout simply takes time and only after building this intermediate step and testing it, we can start to finalize the first real and complete prototypes (which still will have some issues found only by heavy usage and testing).

For the software side, our sister project GTA04 has achieved good progress in a Replicant 4.2 (free Android distribution) port. It already works quite well and useable on a 800 MHz single core CPU with just 512 MB RAM and no(!) GPU acceleration support, so that we start to wonder what octacores with 2 GHz and 2 GB RAM are really required for. At least they are not required for the average user.

GTA04 is already stabilizing and completing a 3.15 kernel (currently -rc3). The most difficult changes are to get all drivers based on new device tree concept. All this experience will immediately be available for the Neo900 as well.

By the way, we're aware that the SSL certificate for shop.goldelico.com, where donating takes place, is currently expired, triggering security warnings from browsers - it should be fixed very soon (it is already ordered and paid, but did not arrive yet). We're sorry for the inconvenience.

Small teaser before the end: we're also working on new ways to keep you better informed about our progress and plans. Stay tuned!

Neo900 Progress Update - March

2014-03-14T23:12:10+01:00

The Neo900 project is still alive and steadily progressing.

Quite a lot of time has already passed since our last update. In case some of you felt unpleasant with already backed project not giving any sign of life - we're sorry that we exposed you to such feelings. Anyway, we're certainly not sorry to report that we're in fact still alive!

February was a pretty tough month for us. Most of the time, instead of doing what we love - that is designing the phone of our dreams - we had to get some organizational stuff sorted out. Lots of meetings with notaries and tax advisers were exhausting, but surely needed in order to ensure that our journey can be completed without unpleasant legal implications to anyone. This was one of the main reasons behind our limited activity, but luckily seems like we've got most of the important things sorted out.

The main result of all those efforts is the newly founded company, Neo900 UG (haftungsbeschraenkt), run by Joerg Reisenweber. The company takes the role of the head of this project and will hold its finances. Neo900 UG will continue the cooperation with Golden Delicious Computers GmbH&CO.; KG on development of the Neo900 handsets, thus the people behind the project remain unchanged.

But it's not like we did nothing but talking with lawyers. We've been reporting some smaller stuff via our thread on Maemo Talk forums. Let's sum it up!

after some downtime thanks to service provider, the Neo900.org website has been moved to a new, dedicated server
remember the problematic display connectors? They are not problematic anymore - in a pretty tangible way:
we managed to build a second mechanical evaluation prototype board to verify fixes made thanks to the first one and to find out what still has to be made.

Note that the PCBs are thicker now than they will be in final device, resulting in larger gap under the display part (and the gap itself is going to be filled by the notorious spacer frame).

Lots of things are happening in stuff partially related to our project and it would be shame to not report the neater ones.

Have you heard about the DragonBox Pyra - the OMAP5 based OpenPandora successor? Pyra, the "ultimate portable console", is expected to be released somewhere in 2015. Why are we promoting it here? Aside of sharing the same message about hardware openness, the OpenPhoenux community had already helped to make production of OpenPandora possible when its future was uncertain due to production problems; but now we're collaborating even closer. Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller, CEO of Golden Delicious Computers and one of the heads behind the Neo900 project, is also working on the new Pandora. The close collaboration between our projects can lower the prices thanks to component re-use. We're also looking forward to the knowledge gained by working on OMAP5 design, which may be helpful for possible future Neo900 successors and/or update modules. At the end of February, on embedded world 2014 in Nürnberg there has been an informal meeting of some CEOs: Nikolaus (Golden Delicious Computers GmbH&CO.; KG), Joerg (Neo900 UG (haftungsbeschraenkt)), Michael Mrozek (OpenPandora GmbH) and Lukas Märdian (working for GDC on Replicant) and opportunities of closer collaboration and synergies got discussed. So... say hello to the Pyra!

Few days ago the freesmartphone.org project has moved its defunct for some time mailing lists to OpenPhoenux servers, and together with that move Dr. Michael Lauer, one of the FSO fathers and member of the original team of Openmoko engineers, announced his return to the project after dropping out about 3 years ago when his daughter was born. Together with the announcement, he introduced his FSO revitalizing plan. The fate of FSO is crucial for some of the software projects that we hope to see working on Neo900, possibly including the Maemo Fremantle port, so we're crossing our fingers for its success!

There's also a hot news circulating the media right now about a possible backdoor in Android modem libraries on some Samsung phones, revealed by Replicant developers one month ago. Revelations like that always shed some light on how we perceive the usage of closed, proprietary software on our devices. In fact, most of modern devices don't even need such backdoor to be able to spy on users, as their modems are directly connected to the main RAM, allowing it to read and manipulate anything that runs on the main CPU. While we sadly cannot provide fully free modem due to both lack of resources and problems with legislation effectively rendering firmware-modified modem illegal to use under most jurisdictions, we're glad to tell that Neo900 is from the very beginning being designed in a way that makes possible backdoors like the one found on Samsung phones practically impossible to occur - which is important due to fact that we're going to use a third party modem module in which we don't have any control over the internals like its firmware. We won't allow the modem to access any data that's not supposed to be available to it and all of our hardware choices are always made with the ability to use free software drivers in mind. Our phones are not supposed to be the tools used by others to spy on us.

Also, there's a good progress being made on Replicant port for GTA04 and the upstream developers have recently resumed their efforts to get GTA04 officially supported by this free Android implementation. Most of this work should be pretty much reusable on Neo900 as well, and Replicant developers have already expressed their initial interest for Neo900 port. Let's hope that all those efforts, together with freesmartphone.org stack and Fremantle port getting more and more closed blobs replaced by free equivalents, will provide the solid base for the free software operating systems for mobile phones and the Neo900 itself will start the new branch of freedom and privacy respecting mobile devices - based on what was started few years ago by Openmoko and is now proudly continued by the OpenPhoenux community.

All of that was about what was done - but what's next?

We're looking forward to getting the next prototype done by the end of the month, and as this work is being done in parallel to the prototype of the DragonBox Pyra, we'll be already able to share some interesting components with that project. There are also discussions happening internally right now about the implementation details and component choosing for our modem sandboxing and monitoring solution, robust battery charging, RGB LEDs controllers, battery hotswap support, nice WLAN module etc.

So to sum everything up: if someone hoped to see our project turning into forgotten vaporware - sorry to disappoint you! We're on an exciting journey to finally get a really hacker-friendly phone and we're not gonna abort our mission that easily! :)

PS. Happy Pi Day!

Neo900 Progress Update - January

2014-01-15T18:04:00+01:00

With the biggest obstacles now overcome, we are again gaining speed to reach the next goal.

A long time has already passed since the last update. Since holidays, the greatest nightmare of the project to date - the 500246471 Molex display connector - has been finally dealt with, giving us a few possible sources for the component. We would like to say thank you to all people who helped with this difficult subject, once again proving the awesomeness of this community!

The first tests made with 40-pin variant of the connector (we need 64-pin one) assured us that our identification is correct and we may really buy it without the risk of component mismatch.

We have ordered a first quantity of those connectors based on our current "preorder" counter, experience, guessing and calculations. However, when the cost per component goes higher we won't be able to guess anymore. At that moment - so it happens before regular orders open up - the amount of orderable devices will be frozen, determined by the number of preorders we received. Thankfully this is something we managed to avoid this time.

We have also received next PCBs with most of the issues found on earlier ones already fixed, making further progress in mechanical evaluation of our board in connection to the original N900 case.

On the other side, we started to collect possible options for WiFi/BT/FM/NFC module to be used in Neo900. We are also looking for the feedback from community in order to find out which module would be the most appreciated by our users. Don't hesitate to share your thoughts on our new subforum!

While dealing with big issues, small but fancy details are not forgotten - for instance, we plan to bring RGB keyboard illumination to Neo900 using three LP5523 controllers (which by the way is a pretty hackable beast), enabling unusual expression abilities for the light under the keys. We also keep evaluating new possibilities, like decent video output (VGA/HDMI/SlimPort), DVB-T tuner and SDR receiver, pager etc. Obviously we cannot promise any of those functionalities right now, but we want to keep an eye on what's possible and feasible for the project, so if some highly desirable feature can make it into the device without adding big overhead for time of delivery and/or costs, we will be happy to integrate it into your devices, thus produce more of them for even better price while having more features. Your insight is welcome and highly appreciated in our forum thread!

Claim your device now!

Happy Holidays!

2013-12-24T15:12:00+01:00

The fundraiser reaches 25% of current goal and the hardware evaluation is in progress.

While the early device as shown in the last progress update is being carefully checked by Joerg and Nikolaus ordered new "upper" PCBs expected to come in early January, our efforts will obviously slow down a bit during the next days due to holidays - and while we're at it, we would like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The device counter on our website has reached 250, which is a quarter of the current goal. While we're above the minimal threshold of 200 (thanks for your support!), we still need as much as we can to make part sourcing easier, better components possible and the unit price lower. Maybe the Neo900 pre-order voucher may work as a great Xmas gift for someone close? :)

We're also working on making our website better. We want to bring more life into it by adding blog section to make our communication with you easier and more frequent, and to prepare the site to contain more and more additional content appearing during the development, like the article about user privacy in Neo900 which is supposed to be published soon.

We're thrilled to step into the year 2014 and happy to be able to bring this project forward, making the final production closer and closer.

See you next year!

Neo900 Progress Update - December

2013-12-14T14:40:00+01:00

Time for some news about what's going on in the project - phase V reached, dual-touch support, new test boards, discussions about user privacy and more!

Funding campaign

A few hours after publishing our last update, the counter on the website reached the magic number - 200, causing the transition from phase IV to phase V! Thank you once again! This means that the current goal is to reach at least 1 000 customers wanting to ensure that they'll get the device from first production batch. The closer we are to reaching it, the easier are some components to get (like 1 GB RAM chip, with minimum order quantity of 1 000 units) and the cheaper every single device will become. Right now we're at about 235 devices. Please spread the word about Neo900 - everyone benefits from that counter reaching a high value!

New features

In other news, we're happy to announce that Neo900 hardware is going to support dual-touch gestures like rotating and pinching, without replacing the original, resistive screen from N900! Though we originally planned to see if we can implement this principle with discrete components, the chip that has been suggested by user wentknweqt_ on IRC allowed us to greatly simplify our design. Thanks! You can read more about how it works in Joerg's TMO post.

News from our R&D; department

We've made some progress on our proto-boards. We have finalized one PHS8-P based set of boards, featuring the LEDs to test keyboard illumination. We will also use the boards to run further tests - voice calls (with analog audio for initial testing), GPS and keyboard itself. Our next step will be to do a redesign of the boards based on all experiences (e.g. moving some holes and components by 0.1 - 0.5 mm) and to add more functionality for the next round of engineering tests. We expect to have something more to test in January.

Issues and a request for help

Side by side with nice successes there also always come some inevitable problems, always willing to arrive at least expected places (Murphy's Law, §42). Our biggest headache right now is Molex 5000246471 connector (used to connect the display part) which is officially obsolete since Feb 2013. We're also looking for complete N900s in good quality (though possibly with broken mainboard) as well for as sources for spare parts. We'd like to kindly ask our community for a little bit of help there - especially for sourcing the display connector. If you know some way to help, please contact us!

Privacy and FSF approval

In the past few days we've seen many questions from users concerned about their privacy when using the Neo900, coming also from FSF-related people and even Mr. Richard Stallman himself. The Neo900 is very likely going to be the best phone you can find to take care about protecting your privacy, but we'd like to clarify that while we share the spirit behind Free Software Foundation and their consumer privacy concerns, and our design takes into consideration majority of their recommendations, there are some differences in our approach where we disagree with FSF and we believe that in fact our concept is better for user privacy and freedom than what FSF suggests.

We are going to use Neo900 too and we are as concerned about our own privacy as many of our users are about theirs. Therefore, in next few days we're going to publish a comprehensive article about our views on this topic, clarifying in detail why exactly our views differ from FSF point of view and what we are going to offer instead - information that's currently spread across various IRC logs, e-mails and forum posts. Stay tuned!

GTA04A5 campaign

Last but not least: our sister project, GTA04, started the fundraiser for producing new revision of this Openmoko Neo Freerunner replacement board - GTA04A5, enhancing some stuff and fixing a few minor issues found in earlier revisions. The campaign has already collected 1 930 EUR for 16 devices and is now heading for 5 000 EUR, which would translate into 50 units. If you're interested in upgrading your Freerunner or getting a whole device, pre-order now! You can also order used Neo Freerunner now and get a rebate on GTA04 when it's ready. The success of GTA04 campaign will also positively influence the Neo900 project, as both boards share the majority of their components.

Thank you for tremendous support and interest we've received so far and see you in next update!

Phase I results - OHSW showcase

2013-12-01T14:04:00+01:00

The Neo900 project managed to reach the first stage of development and presented the results at the OpenPhoenux Hard- and Software Workshop in Munich.

It's time for a new update about what's going on in the project and we're happy to say that we've got a lot of things to report on since the last one!

For starters, we've received first PCBs and samples (modem, SIM and SD holders etc.) for mechanical evaluation.

The results were mostly positive - PCBs fit into the N900 case - and showed few small details that need to be fixed, like camera socket and SD holder placement or some shape measurements being slightly off. This kind of issues is exactly what we were supposed to detect and fix thanks to this board.

Actually, that's all from what we initially planned for this update - but in fact, there's more! While great amount of our attention is directed at component sourcing matters, we already wanted to make something that... does something. The GTA04b7v0 boards, meant for mechanical evaluation, have been also used to electrically evaluate the board with the modem already soldered on it, testing the modem footprint as well as our soldering process which can be tricky for such a huge component.

How it turned out? See it by yourself on the recording from Neo900 talk on OHSW 2013 held by Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller!

In other news, right now we're at 188 devices in the fundraiser, which means that we're getting close to reaching phase 4! Can we go even further and reach 1000 devices (phase 5), or maybe 1000 devices per month (phase 6), significantly lowering the price of the final device? It all depends on you - it's not too late to jump in!

Our website is also being constantly updated. This time we once again augmented our FAQ with the answers to some popular questions and added more details to already existing ones.

We're happy to be able to show some working hardware just a month after the start and we're thrilled to continue our efforts to bring you the complete, finished Neo900 phones. Stay tuned for more updates!

Neo900 Progress Update - November

2013-11-19T02:34:20+01:00

After unexpectedly successful launch of our fundraiser, the project is progressing well.

Thanks to amazing support from our community we're already past the first three phases of our fundraiser, reaching our first, monetary goal. Thank you! However, now we need to ensure that we'll be able to sell at least 200 devices, as that's the amount we've been using in our price calculations and feasibility evaluation. We assume that all donors pledging 100 € or more will want to use their rebate on finished device, so we count them as our customers. At this moment we only need 50 more potential Neo900 owners to go!

Of course the fundraiser is not the only thing happening in the project. The fundraiser kept us so busy that we failed to publish a new newsletter more timely, even though there're lots of stuff to report on. We've already designed first prototype PCB and ordered it, hoping to demonstrate the modem's functions (data, voice, GPS) and mechanical integration into the N900 case on first real hardware coming from this project at Open Hard- and Software Workshop in Garching (Munich), Germany, taking place 30. Nov - 1. Dec 2013. For those of you who cannot appear there in person we're going to provide YouTube live stream from the event. Stay tuned!

Some people were wondering how the battery hotswap feature is going to look like. Joerg has prepared a short video clip showing amazingly easy battery replacement procedure. The Neo900 is going to be designed in such a way that replacing battery will be possible without turning it off, even without attaching external power from USB!

Our web page is constantly getting some layout and content improvements. One of the most frequently asked questions was about the openness and freedom of the device and how we're going to reach our goals regarding user privacy with blackbox modem module. The answers are now available at our FAQ page.

We would also like to announce that we plan to publish EAGLE project files, allowing everyone with enough time, skills and money to improve on our work and do their own hardware modifications on the mainboards. This would make Neo900 the only phone available on the market with such degree of openness!

Our community is also progressing with their tasks - the Fremantle Porting Task Force project recently managed to boot Maemo 5 with recent version of Linux kernel (3.12) and came up with reverse engineered version of MCE daemon, responsible for controlling some peripherals of N900, bringing the project few steps closer to provide working Fremantle system on platforms like Neo900.

Thanks for following this project and stay tuned for more!

We've reached our goal!

2013-11-04T14:42:20+01:00

Our fundraiser campaign turned out to be big success, collecting 25 000 € in less than a week!

Thanks to around hundred of donors, we have finally reached our last goal in the fundraiser. That means that we should be able to make the design production ready and prepare to the shipping of around 200 devices!

We were hoping to be able to reach that goal at the end of the year, but it turned out that the community is much more excited about our project than we initially thought! That's a big responsibility that lies on our shoulders and we promise to do anything possible to not disappoint any of you.

However, it doesn't mean the end of the fundraiser. Although we're not specifying any next phase to reach, the donations are still open and the rewards still apply. Why? We decided to follow the momentum and give any late-commers the chance to get the rebate. If it turns out that our goal of 200 devices is too low for the demand, we'll be able to find out how many devices should we produce and request the components in adequate amounts. In layman's terms - the more people donate and want to use their rebate for the device, the cheaper it becomes. For everyone.

Additional funds may also be used for research about providing features or stuff like modular design, upgrades of parts initially supposed to be re-used etc. If we for some reason won't be able to use collected money, it will be refunded.

Thanks to reaching our goal this fast, we should be able to showcase the project on OpenPhoenux-Hard-Software-Workshop 2013 which takes place in Munich at the end of November. Feel invited!

Last but not least, we would like to say thank you once again to everyone who supported or are still going to support our project. It wouldn't be possible without your help!

Let the phoenux fly!

Neo900 fundraiser past the phase II, 5 000 € to go

2013-11-03T21:22:20+01:00

We've already reached two out of three milestones in our fundraiser campaign!

Thanks to amazing support from people interested in the project, the progress bar has reached the level of 15 000 € in less than three days since the start of the campaign. This means we now expect that we should be able to create the schematics, identify componends and do initial mechanical PCB design (phase I) as well as build around five prototypes with basic functionality, such as CPU, display, keyboard and UMTS working (phase II).

We would like to thank all the people who decided that our project follows their interests and donated their money to keep it running. Especially we want to thank everyone who donated less than 100 €, supporting us with anything they could without expecting anything in return. Worth mentioning are also the donors who generously pledged 1 500 € or more, already giving a new home to three early prototypes.

Thank you!

However, our journey is not over yet. We still need to collect 5 000 € in order to reach our primary goal and make the design production ready. Please keep it rolling!

As a sidenote, some people reported problems with rejected credit card transactions or missing "destination country". Please remember that while every donation is appreciated, some automatic creditibility systems may incorrectly mark your donation attempt as a fraud. Please follow the instructions in case of any problems and don't try to workaround them by yourself - we'll try to assist you in the process and find individual solutions.

Once again, thank you for your support. Hopefully you'll let us make the next announcement very soon! :)

Neo900 fundraising campaign has started!

2013-10-30T21:18:09+01:00

We're thrilled to announce that our fundraising campaign with a goal of 25 000 € has just started!

The Neo900 project hasn't been forgotten. We're working very hard in order to make our dream come true, and we still keep in mind our promises about not working behind the walls. To be able to properly develop bug-free devices, we first need to build prototypes, which are quite expensive. That's why we have launched a fundraiser with a goal of 25k EUR.

The fundraiser will actually provide triple purpose, as your donated money will also serve as a discount on the final device price and it will give us a feedback about number of interested customers, so we can bring the project forward. The further development will start as soon as the minimal amount needed to proceed arrive.

The level of funding will be available to see in "real time" on our main page.

To make your decision better justified, we've been also preparing a brochure called feasibility study, containing exactly what we plan to do and what we consider easy, difficult, or desirable but probably impossible. This way we want to allow anyone interested in the project to make up their own opinion if the project is really what they want and expect.

We're excited to bring this project forward. Thank you for your support!

Neo900

Neo Life

Neo Life

Happy Neo Year!

Slow and Steady

Work begins as a new engineer comes in! Welcome metacollin!

New members

Status of development

Is it time for privacy yet?

Is it time for privacy yet?

What has been completed so far?

What held us back so far?

How are the funds holding up?

What to expect next?

Microblog: 2016-12-25 09:34:19

It's Krampus Time!

Prototype version 2 Layout

Sourcing N900 Units Continues

Hackerbus, IR, and Buttons

Are You Going To 33c3?

What's next?

Last Steps To Prototype V2

Neo900 Prototype version 2: Last Call for Review

Next Steps

Layout Phase

PCB Production

Prototype Assembly

Developer Tests

Prototype Version 3

Should I just buy a new phone or wait for Neo900?

Better Go For a NeoN Board!

Microblog: 2016-11-09 12:02:30

Buh-Bye, Spooky October!

Neo900 Power Tree Grew Up

BB-xM Connection to proto_v2

Buh-bye horrible URLs

Eeplot Debacle!

There are News and News

Neo900 Board-to-Board Connectors vs. the Tombstone Effect

How to Connect Boards and Live with it

Schematics Wrapping Up Towards V2

Schematics

Updated N900 Image

Neo900 Freenode Group and Design Overview

Neo900 Freenode Group!

Neo900 Design Overview

BeagleBoard xM and Time Travel

BB-xM Unboxing

Time Travel

September 2016 Update

Neo900 v2 Prototype

Eeshow: A Visual Schema Diff Tool for KiCad

Where Are We At?

About the ASN.1 Vulnerability

ASN.1 Vulnerability

How is Neo900 Affected?

Microblog: 2016-08-10 18:41:03

Microblog: 2016-08-09 22:21:30

Migrating away from Eagle, to KiCad

The Migration Update

Neo900.org Server Migrated

More N900 Sourcing

Whitepapers Update

From Eagle to KiCad

How does the move to KiCad influence Neo900 development?

What's the progress on converting Neo900 schematics from Eagle to KiCad?

Microblog: 2016-08-09 11:12:00

Microblog: 2016-08-09 10:53:28

Microblog: 2016-08-09 10:48:53

Microblog: 2016-08-06 17:30:19

Microblog: 2016-08-05 23:13:24

Microblog: 2016-07-28 06:03:23

Microblog: 2016-07-28 06:01:36

Microblog: 2016-07-25 08:23:24

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Microblog: 2016-04-17 02:01:29

Microblog: 2016-04-15 16:21:00

Microblog: 2016-04-15 15:17:40

PayPal resumes: Neo900 sources again

BB-xM Connection to `proto_v2`