Portable computing device designed by Always Innovating
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The Touch Book is a portable computing device that functions as a netbook, and a tablet computer. Designed by Always Innovating, a company situated in the city of Menlo Park, in California, USA,[2] it was launched at the DEMO conference in March 2009.[3] Its designers stated at launch that it is the first netbook featuring a detachable keyboard with a long battery life (more than 10 hours[4]). It is based on the ARM TI OMAP3530 processor (taking advantage of the Beagleboard and existing open source software) and features a touchscreen.
First units to customers were shipped in August 2009.[5] There were some (expected) software issues for early adopters, which are being progressively addressed. There were also some hardware issues, which resulted in community discontent.[6]
After much speculation on the community forum, a revised v.2 Touch Book and new Smart Book product were announced.[7] The Smart Book is based on the BeagleBoard-xM design.[8]
The Touch Book is a netbook and a touch tablet device. It features a detachable keyboard, a removable back cover to access the electronics of the device, and several Linux distributions shipped by default and offered via a multiboot system.
The default operating system launched is a custom LinuxOS based on Ångström, being custom themed to fit the small form factor. Since 2010, the Touch Book comes with a multi-boot graphical interface, allowing users to run also Ubuntu and Android. Users can install other OSes like Gentoo[9] and RISC OS.[10]
Touch Book's major intended uses are media viewing and web browsing, although more power-hungry applications such as OpenOffice.org are available on the device. The Touch Book ships standard graphics libraries such as OpenGL ES and SDL.
The Always Innovating team claims the device follows an open hardware philosophy, so that anyone can access the hardware design from the company's website,[11] modify it and redistribute it. Although the business model of open hardware is still maturing, it seems to be profitable to the company[12]
In addition to this open hardware approach, the Touch Book fully relies on open source software. A Git repository of the entire OS is currently available, allowing for download of the latest kernel source as well as the different root file systems.[13] A community of contributors has emerged[14] and is interacting with the Always Innovating developers.
