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Handhelds Hardware

First Thoughts On The Cybiko? 25

Posted by Cliff from the the-next-big-wireless-sensation dept.
codepawn asks: "I saw an article in the Australian newspaper this morning that was about a handheld originally out of Russia that is apparently becoming BIG with kids in the USA. The article suggests it has potential to become BIG with bigger kids, too. The device, called Cybiko, communicates on its own network using short wave radio. Once enough people in an area have it they can communicate over a larger distance because their signals will make up to 10 hops over other people's cybikos(which in the USA appears to be about 1km radius but in Europe will be up to 10km radius because regulations allow a stronger signal). I've downloaded the free SDK for Linux (there is a Windows SDK also available) which is available from their Web site as an rpm but I haven't looked at it yet. Anyway, it sounds super cool and I was surprised that I hadn't heard about it on here. So what's the story? Does anyone have one? What is it like?" Last I checked, they were selling them for about $199 at the local Wal-Mart and I have seen commercials for these on American TV. I almost broke down and bought one and it looks like I may have to since I never mind playing with new toys (and the Linux SDK may make for some fun hacking...)
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What Do You Think Of Cybiko? More

What Do You Think Of Cybiko?

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  • What the fuck!? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When I pulled up this article, the quote at the bottom of the page was this:

    Q: What do you say to a Puerto Rican in a three-piece suit? A: Will the defendant please rise?

    Now, pardon me for asking, but if somebody were to post this to an article talking about Puerto Rico or something, would they be marked as Flamebait, Troll, or wrose? What the fuck makes CmdrFucko think that we want to listen to his racist bullshit if we aren't even allowed to be racists ourselves here? Fucking free speech if you can afford it. Now the American way is the Slashdot way! Great, another fucking crumble.

  • Re:Can't get them at the moment... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Not recalled, just having a problem with market penetration. Think of it, you introduce the product at $149 and slowly drop the price to $99.

    Retailers are gonna pull you of the shelf because you ate all their profit.

    The product is good once you learn what to expect. The support is better than good. It's a fun thing to play with, but anyone that thinks it's a palm replacement is a bit "touched" (mental).

    My hope is that they continue and find a way to licence the RF technology.

  • link (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Here's a Moscow Times article [themoscowtimes.com] on it

  • They're great, I love it! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But you have to consider that they're mostly marketed to teens, especially girls that love to chat and have parents with lots of disposable income and little supervision (the parents, I mean).

    So, you do end up wirelessly chatting with lots of teenage girls in your immediate vicinity. Some consider this a detterent, I consider it a feature!

    P. Naughton
  • So these things are a cross between cell-phone antenna sites and wireless internet nodes, only with legs?

    So now we need someone to code Bipedal Transfer Protocol.

  • Wouldn't you know it, the moment I pressed 'sumbit', I managed to dig up an email that one o' the guys sent me; Here it is a snippet of it:

    Cybiko is already completing "Wireless Internet Gates" that hook to your PCB
    via USB and allow any unit within range to use this "mini-base station".
    Strategic agreements are also being negotiated to help place these CyWIGs at
    many local areas for free internet access for anyone with Cybiko or Cybiko
    enabled devices.

    For easy information, if you have a Cybiko, download our CyberLoad software.
    Choose Start>>Programs>>Cybiko>>CyWIG and presto you have a wireless
    internet gate!! (We already provide the application for you and we are
    improving it!!)
  • As everyone else here as said, they're more around the 99 dollar mark (USD of course). I've had a dialogue with of of the VPs of the Company about it and he let slip (?) that they also plan to offer an RF PC Linkage, so it can communicate wirelessly with a PC, 'surf the web', etc. And another guy at the Company hinted at a colour Cybiko using the same screen (or same type) as the GameBoy Colour -- if the units popularity warrants it.

    I was also have an interesting discussion with some friends about making a relay protocol for the Cybikos, similar to Gnutella. If the unit you wanted to contact wasn't in you driect range, it would use shared routing tables to ping-pong the message through several Cybikos and relay it until it got to the one it was looking for.
  • I just went to three stores - Best Buy, Office Max, and Office Depot. All three were out - and they were not sold out either.

    Apparently Cybiko has recalled all the products. The people in each store confirmed this.

    As to what is going on, your guess is as good as mine...
  • Went to yet another Best Buy and they were in the process of stocking them when I walked in. These were the new version 2 units - the ON/OFF switch is also the ESC key. I asked the guy stocking them if he knew what was up with this store recall thing and he said he had no clue - just that they were told to pack up all the units and send em back.

    Oh well.

    Anyway, you are right - it is aimed at kids - big time. But it is also just a pretty neat little hacking toy too. I have decided I need to get another one to play with the CyWIG. Not exactly sure how THAT will work, but I figure if I get enough of the things placed around, it will give some folks nearby some sort of email access. Could be a hoot...

  • 19.2K. I have a little bit of information on my qutiequitefantastic.org website. It is a start anyway.

    There seem to be quite a few people writing software, but not a lot playing with the hardware.

    Oh, and on my site I talk a bit about this thing being in the amateur radio 33cm band. Don't try to modify it unless you are a ham operator - and if you do modify it you are no longer able to use it to communicate with other cybikos (FCC rules, ya know).

    They are using very common parts for this thing - should be very easy to dink with from what I can tell.
  • I bet that if the Cybiko catches on, a patch will soon appear to allow the 'hop through my palm' feature be blocked. I, for one, would block it right away... why would I want other people to use my bandwith (potentially abusing it), and eat up my batteries with transmisions?
    Don't get me wrong... I *know* that the same concept allows the internet (or the GNUTella network, for that matter) be what it is today... But if I'm away from home and have the need to access an email, check the news, or write a memo,
    it'd be no good to have slow net access or run out of batteries because a couple of kids wanted to play Cybiko-Doom through my PDA.
  • Palms are VERY overpriced devices. That's the reason why Handspring is selling so many Palm clones, as their organizers are sold with a reasonable profit margin.

    Heck just compare : for 20% more than the price of a big Palm Vx (lowres gray scale screen, 8 MB),you can get a Pocket PC device with 32 MB, 65535 screen with a big resolution (240x320), CompactFlash slot, 16 bit stereo sound, etc... Palms are just plain overpriced, but people keep buying because of the brand.
  • Cheap, tiny handheld computers aimed at teens, with wireless capabilities... I think Lain had a pocket Navi like this, but with color :)

  • Low cost explained (Score:3)

    by LordEq ( 63011 ) on Wednesday February 07, 2001 @11:30AM (#450211)

    My main question is: if this thing can do all that and cost $99.95, why does a Palm (whatever, V? VII?) do the same stuff and cost 3x as much?

    Take a look at the specs. Let's compare with the Handspring Visor. ($179.00)

    • Main Processor: 32 bit, 11 MHz Hitachi H8S/2246
      The Visor uses a 16MHz Motorola Dragonball EZ.
    • Coprocessor: Atmel AT90S2313, 4 MHz
    • RAM: 512 KB
      The Visor quadruples this, with 2MB.
    • Flash disk: 512 KB, extendible up to 1 MB
      None built-in on the Visor, but 8MB and 16MB flash modules are available.
    • LCD display: 160x100 dots, 59x40 mm, 4 level grayscale
      Visor's screen is 160x160, 53.34mm square, 16-level grayscale
    • RF transceiver: RF2915 -- Supposedly able to communicate over 300 feet.
      Visor uses IR to communicate between units. In my experience, this is limited to a 4-foot line-of-sight between the units' IR lenses.
    • Expansion cartridge slot: 68-pin
      Springboard slot, lots of gizmos available.
    • PC connection socket: RS232 serial port
      Visor's USB cradle is faster.
    • Size: 5.7" x 2.8" x 0.86"
      Visor is 4.8" x 3.0" x 0.7"
    • Weight: 4.3 oz
      Visor is actually heavier, at 5.4 oz.

    The storage capacity seems to be the big factor. 512K isn't a whole lot of room to work with.

    I still want one. I can see a lot of nifty applications for this, particularly once the Cybiko Wireless Internet Gates are available (see Xunker's post below).


    --LordEq

    Tho' your promise count for nothing

  • I just bought one at wal-mart for $100 today. They had about 20 on the rack. Perhaps they haven't gotten Wal-Mart to take them off of the shelf.

    So far, it's kinda neat, but certainly targeted at a quite young demographic. It's more of a game-boy with wireless than a Palm Pilot with wireless.

    At least it will give me something to do on the bus ride home.

    All your dangifiknow [dangifiknow.com] are belong to us.

  • And if the only thing separating a toy from an organiser is a diary, address book and notepad then I'd say that Palm better watch out.

    Perhaps Palm does need to watch out. I'm not sure if the threat is from Cybiko or not, though. Although the Cybiko has the features you mentioned, I don't think it's as quick or easy to use as my palm. In my opinion, it is not appropriate to carry around as a replacement for my Palm Pilot. For about a quarter of the price, though, it may be close.

    regarding the expandability, there is a slot in the botton of the cybiko to insert upgrade cards. I think the only one available is a 1MB memory upgrade. (that helps). The slot looks a lot like PCMCIA, so perhaps soon we can start sticking all kinds of stuff in there.

    There is a linux C SDK for the Cybiko, so as you mentioned, maybe if these things get into the right hands we'll have lots of cool apps and hacks for it.

    I don't mean to talk the Cybiko down, I just don't think that it is an effective organizer, and of course there is not nearly the amount of software for it.

    All your dangifiknow [dangifiknow.com] are belong to us.

  • Mine is the version 2 type as well, so perhaps they just got stocked here faster. (at least by 2 hours or so.)

    About that CyWIG thing: It seems to me that these devices could be used as a cheap wireless LAN access device. Plug one into your machine with internet connectivity, and plug the other into your laptop. Make them route your Internet traffic for you. It will probably take some hacking on it to get it to work, but I think the possibility is there. Any idea what kind of bandwith these can get between them?

    All your dangifiknow [dangifiknow.com] are belong to us.

  • Re:online the price is $99.95, I think (Score:4)

    by po_boy ( 69692 ) on Wednesday February 07, 2001 @02:06PM (#450215)
    I've got a Palm and a cybiko. The palm has a much more advanced, intuitive, and fast system. It's easier to navigate around in and find stuff quickly. The cybiko feels cheaper and slower. Plus, I don't think it has a backlight on the LCD. What a shame.

    If you want an organizer, get a Palm Pilot. If you want a toy, get a cybiko.

    All your dangifiknow [dangifiknow.com] are belong to us.

  • I think it's just pulling from a fortune file. The file is probably too big for him to have screened all the entries, and he shouldn't have to.

    You have a problem, write him a polite email and have him knock it out of the file. Don't go bitching like he's suddenly some sort of Final Solution nutcase.

    Me, I found it funny, but then again it's probably the fact that when I stopped for gas this morning I was next to a teenage Hispanic driving a bashed-up multicolor Caprice in a three-piece that looked a size too big.

    "Fucking rain."
    "I know. Now I'm gonna have to have this suit dry-cleaned"
    "Yeah, it's hell on wool. Funeral?"
    "No, court date."
    "Oh. Sorry. Know if the coffee here is any good?"
    "I think it's an instant machine."
    "Okay, so long as it ain't a pot of tar thats been boiling since the Reagan administration."
    "Heh."
  • And I like it, dammit! I've got a Palm IIIxe as well. I like the Cybiko a lot more than the palm for a lot of subjective reasons. I like the interface a /tad/ more. I like the keyboard. I was punching out poetry and stories like a madman (bus trips to/from work are boring :) once I broke down and used the little pointer thingie instead of my finger. I've not had a chance to try out the wireless networking, yet. The SDK is downloadable and apparently they're using gcc for it. I can't remember offhand. I got mine at Wal-Mart for $99.

  • That's the price listed on their online store. Maybe the walmart version comes with more crap. :-) It does look like a cool device. My main question is: if this thing can do all that and cost $99.95, why does a Palm (whatever, V? VII?) do the same stuff and cost 3x as much? (struck by insomnia, reading slashdot, urgh...).


    --
    Fuck Censorship.
  • I have a Palm IIIxe myself and love it but at the same time I think this unit has heaps of potential.

    However I note that you actually have one of each whereas I only have a Palm at the moment.

    One of the factors that I believe helps the Palm (at least in the tech community) is the availability of the SDK compatible with GCC. I've done some writing for the Palm myself and this is definitely a factor which appeals to me.

    The Moscow page indicated above, and the article I originally read in the Australian indicated that it appeals to kids because that's the way they are marketing it. Originally they planned it for the 20+ age group competing with the raft of PDAs currently available. They decided they would have better initial success with kids.

    I think it's shortcomings are well highlighted by LordEq (User #63011) above ... good post !

    The free Linux SDK really opens up it's potential. Lets face it if memory is the only draw back (OK the screen is even smaller than a Palm's) then you can always expand it. If technically savvy programmers get hold of this who knows what will be developed for it in the future and who it will end up appealing to. It could be the next best seller on ThinkGeek. Come to think of it I wonder why they don't already stock it ?

    Now regarding what's a toy. One of my workmates bought a Palm for his son ... now I womnder what he does with his ? I can tell you games are high on the list. And if the only thing separating a toy from an organiser is a diary, address book and notepad then I'd say that Palm better watch out.

    In my view one of the things that will really limit the Cybiko (apart from no touch screen, graffiti, small memory, and less robust construction) is that the RF won't allow people to use the internet on the road until someone deploys RF access points and that will take a huge committment in both faith and money. Still who knows what some clever hacker will come up with once they get hold of the SDK.
  • The article in the Moscow Times [themoscowtimes.com] mentioned below says this:

    "One of the most trumpeted features ... is chatting with other users. Coverage is 50 meters indoors and 100 meters outside, but through a so-called "daisy chain," users can connect to each other over much longer distances."

    The article I read in the Australian suggested that the "daisy chain" would work for up to 10 hops.

    Is this the same as your relaying concept ?

  • I like the idea of a hand-held machine that automatically hooks itself into a miniature LAN. Here is an idea for it.

    The Japanese have a little hand-held device that they also marketed here, I do not know if it was successful. But using signal strength or some such, it allows people with similar interests to home in on each other in a crowd! Good idea. But the gadget had a very limited vocabulary.

    The basic idea is, it transmits a code (or codes) and other units alert their owners when similar codes come within range. This could be enhanced with a signal-strength meter. You could have a screen full: a list of codes on the left with a bar graph of signal strengths.

    With something like the Cybiko, it could just be one more minor feature. All that is necessary is a standard code. You know, SWF seeks WHWM or some such... or something very different... Science Major looking for like-minded people... the basic idea being that a standard code allows it to be automatic.

    What else can we think of? I am sure there are MANY uses for something like the Cybiko.

  • Careful -- the last guy [slashdot.org] to point this out was modded down and called a troll. Don't apologise for your mistakes, cover them up! Yeah, that's the ticket! Worked for Nixon, right?

    I think /. fsck'd up big time on this one!

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