This makes me miss being in the Bay Area

I'm not sure I've felt much of a longing to be in the Bay Area since moving to Portland, but I have to admit that I really miss hearing about things like this and the ability to just drop in and get involved.

The concept of an open source mobile phone is really attractive. I'm pretty unhappy with most of what's on the market in terms of both handsets and service agreements. I would love the opportunity to hack together the type of handset and features that _I_ want...Even if that handset starts out as or even always is mostly a bulky add on to my laptop.

I'm still looking for something to replace my Palm Vx. I'd like something similar size, that's also a phone, has a VGA-ish resolution camera, has good battery life (ie: a number of days when not actively in use) and which has a general purpose operating system and the ability to run arbitrary application of my own authorship or selection. Basically my Palm Vx with a camera and phone. But not so large as the Treo's. And not so crippled by crappy telecom company business plans. I want my phone service to be a pipe over which I can do anything I want...like an ISP. Which brings me back to "just" carrying a laptop and finding WiFi. Not as elegant of a solution and not as technically fun.