A new clamshell device has been announced by Planet Computers: the Cosmo Communicator, which can be already funded from its new Indiegogo page:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator#/



Compared to the Gemini PDA, this new device has a number of improvements over its predecessor, including:

- An external colour touch screen for call control and notification
- An external 24MP camera by default, with zoom and flash capabilities
- 6GB of RAM instead of 4, and a larger, 128GB internal memory storage
- The keyboard is now backlit
- NFC and a fingerprint sensor are integrated
-
As of now, they have already reached $94,782 out of the $200,000 funding goal.

Varti

"CommunicAsia, 26th June 2018: Planet Computers today announces the Gemini PDA will feature Sailfish OS mobile operating system, developed by Finnish mobile company Jolla.

The long-standing partnership between the two companies means Sailfish 3 – the third generation of the open-source mobile operating system, based on the Linux kernel – is to be made available on the Gemini PDA.

The Gemini PDA is a quad-boot mobile device, capable of booting into Android OS as well as a number of Linux distributions – including Sailfish OS.

Sailfish X, the downloadable and official version of the OS, will be available in late 2018 and will feature a suite of advanced functions including: over-the-air (OTA) updates; Jolla Store access; end-user support; and crucially for Gemini users, full support for landscape user-interface (UI), encrypted user data and communications, Android app support and a refreshed user interface, with improvements like redesigned email.

In the meantime, Sailfish for Gemini Community Edition – a community supported version based on Sailfish OS 2.0 – is free and available to download now: http://support.planetcom.co.uk/index.php/SailfishOS

Gemini PDA is being showcased at CommunicAsia 2018 – Marina Bay Sands, Level 5, Stand 5L4-10."

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini-p...--2#/updates/59

Varti

During the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Jolla has announced the release of Sailfish 3, ” the third generation of its independent mobile operating system, along with new device support for Sony’s Xperia™ XA2, the Gemini PDA, and INOI tablets.”

Press release available here: https://jolla.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/0...INAL.pdf?x54860

A press release announcing the partnership between Planet Computers and Jolla has been released, too:
https://jolla.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/0...ters.pdf?x39789

Varti

Planet Computers have published a new update about the status of the Linux support on the Gemini PDA. Among other news, they have announced the opening of two new websites:



- a Support site, which will host the various Linux distros, the partition tool plus official information regarding Gemini support, tutorials, tips and other software downloads:
http://support.planetcom.co.uk

- a Developer's forum, to simplify the coordination of new and already existing projects:
http://developer.planetcom.co.uk/

Update #49:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini-p...374#/updates/49

Varti

Hi,

as you probably noticed, the forum was offline for the past ~18 hours. This outage was due to a problem on the hosting side, and it has affected other sites on the same server too. We are still waiting for a statement from our hosting provider explaining the reason for the outage, but at least the forum is back online. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused, and thanks for your patience.

EDIT: Unfortunately it seems I spoke too soon: some pages still show an error when they are opened, and they are successfully opened only after 3-4 attempts. According to a post by one of the hosting provider's admin, the problem seems to be caused by recent Google Warnings about malware on some of the sites hosted by them, and by the software they are deploying in order to improve the security.

I can assure you that OESF is malware free: we have registered it on the Google Search Console a year ago, and it currently reports that no malware can be found here. I often check the Security status there to verify that no malware has been installed in the meanwhile.

The situation is anyway getting better, and I hope that soon we won't have any more problems. As before, thanks for your patience.

Varti

A new update has been published on the Gemini's Indiegogo page:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini-p...one#/updates/46

"As Gemini is now in production, the price of the Gemini perks on Indiegogo will be going up to USD $499 for the WiFi and USD $599 for the 4G+WiFi Gemini perk. Perk prices will be changing on 9th of February 2018. Anybody wishing to contribute to the Gemini campaign at the current perk prices should do so before 9th of February 2018."

Also, now it's the final time to make your keyboard layout selection, so anyone who have not done it yet please hurry up:

https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/544265fe9...ac42a5daca19dd3

Varti

Adam Boardman, the owner of the Gemini Keyboard Apps project, is searching for contributors. The Gemini Keyboard Apps project "is focused on improving the linux side user apps so that we can remain within the Linux side all the time." It was started from a post on Indiegogo from Henk van Tijen, who suggested the development of a dedicated Linux suite for the Gemini. Only the apps which meet some specific criteria will be included in the project: it must be possible to activate every function of the app using the keyboard, it must run full screen on the internal screen and should make use of the DPI of the screen. More information can be found here:

GKA Wiki

Two new applications, Calendar and Data, are also being developed, see some screenshots and descriptions here:

http://gka.thinkglobally.org/

A list of what type of help is requested:

- Review the apps listed on the wiki, add pages for ones that don't have pages yet along with links to apps from their favourite other open source platforms detailing the features they particularly like and why we should use that as a base of a new app or to branch and patch that for use on gemini. It will be helpful to link to upstream source code repositories where known.

- Test out the current apps, easier once we have devices but the amd64 (x86-64) builds can be tested on a Debian9 virtualbox.

- Review the translations, and translate for more languages. Both the Calendar and Data apps have translations for a few languages, but they are just google translate output so they'll need to be revised.

- Folk keen on design/UX can review the apps with those kind of thoughts in mind.

- Patches welcome for current apps (coders), bugs can be raised on github (non-coders). The interesting thing about say the calendar app is that as its mostly written in QML+Javascript you can just sudo edit the files after you've installed it to try out smaller fixes.

- Pick an app that is so far not adopted and possibly after some discussion of the best direction to take hack away at it, once you've got something where at least the core functions are working we can add it to the jenkins build system so that more folk can start testing it.

Moreover, the project is now moving to a new Github organisation and changing its name (since gka is not available), please cast your vote on this poll to choose the new project's name: GKA poll thread

To apply as a contributor, please login on the linked Wiki page, reply to the related thread on OESF or send a PM on OESF to Adam.

Varti

The entire forum will be tomorrow offline for a shorter period:

Friday 19th January, from 10:00 AM to 10:15 AM CET (9:00 - 9:15 GMT, 4:00 - 4:15 EST, 1:00 - 1:15 PST)

as we'll switch the forum to the secure Https protocol. Once the maintenance period will be over, please use the secure address of the forum:

https://www.oesf.org

and update any bookmark you might have saved.

Thanks and regards,
Varti