Neonode

Neonode Inc. (NASDAQ: NEON) is a Swedish manufacturer of mobile phones. The company was founded in 2001 by Magnus Goertz and Thomas Eriksson. They have approximately 50 employees and have their premises at Biblioteksgatan by Stureplan in Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden. The company's products have patented technologies known as "zForce" and "Neno". Neonode has produced three handset models: the "N1", the "N1m", and the "N2", which were available as of August 2007.

All three products feature a common optical touch screen technology that is unique to Neonode in the mobile phone industry. A launch in the USA was expected some time in 2008.

The Neonode N2 phone was sold through retailers in most parts of Europe and via direct sales from the Neonode website.

History

The childhood friends Magnus Goertz and Thomas Eriksson founded Neonode in 2001.

In March 2002 Neonode showed its mobile phone for the first time at the German IT trade show CeBIT and before December the same year they arranged a press conference at "Fryshuset" in Stockholm. They got much attention for their innovative creation, resulting in a pre-order list of approximately 20,000 persons.

In the beginning of July 2004 released their first model "N1", which the company had planned to release two years earlier. In March 2005 an upgrade came, the "N1m". The added "m" indicates that the previous VGA camera has been replaced by a megapixel camera. Other updates were vibrator, triple band and a better battery.

On the 22 January 2007, Neonode and SBE, Inc. announced that the two firms have agreed on a merger. On 13 August the merger took place and the company was publicly traded with the symbol "NEON".

In February 2007, Neonode unveiled their new product called N2 at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. This was the firm's first all-new product since the N1 and the first new release since N1m. The new product brought with it a new lighter and minimalistic design, along with new features including a 2 Megapixel camera, Quadband GSM and Bluetooth.

On the 9 December 2008, Neonode AB, the wholly owned Swedish subsidiary of Neonode responsible for manufacturing the N2 handset, filed for bankruptcy. Per Bystedt, CEO and Chairman of Neonode, Inc. stated, “For the past six months we have focused on turning the business around and solving the financial situation of Neonode AB. We continue to have great belief in our technology and believe we have a competitive product in the Neonode N2 but without sufficient funds we cannot continue operations.” Parent company, Neonode Inc, intends to continue to operate as a technology licensing company, focusing on developing and marketing the Company’s patented touch screen technology, zForce to third parties. Neonode Inc. is currently working with its major stakeholders on a plan for a complete restructuring of the Company.

zForce

Neonode removed the traditional keypad on their mobiles – instead they have an on-screen keyboard. This makes Neonode easier to use with one hand, just sweep over and tap the screen surface to access the different features displayed. Infrared light beams form an invisible grid over the screen and finger location is detected as the beams are crossed. Neither a stylus nor any pressure is needed. (Light beam touch screens date back at least to the HP 150, from 1983.)

Neno

Neno is Neonodes custom graphical user interface (GUI) controlling the Microsoft Windows CE operating system. Neonode devices runs Neno from a removable Secure Digital card. Neonode made new updates and versions available on their website.

N2

The Neonode N2 mobile phone

• Operating system: Windows CE 6.0 Pro
• Display: 176 x 220 Pixels (Width x Height), 16-bit Colour TFT
• Audio: Hifi stereo 48 kHz playback
• Memory Storage: miniSD / miniSDHC
• Connectivity: GSM Quad band: GSM850,GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900 MHz, Bluetooth, GPRS
• Size: 47x77x14,7 mm (WxHxT)
• Weight: Approx 60g
• Imaging: 2 Megapixel Fixed Focus Camera, Still pictures, Video play-back (MPEG, WMV), Video Recording (MPEG4) (not yet, but planned in further updates)
• Messaging: SMS, Support for long SMS, MMS, Predictive text input, T9 (English, Swedish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Norwegian, French and Greek), Call history (dialed, received and missed calls)
• Audio: Audio player (MP3, WAV, WMA), stereo 48 kHz playback, Custom ring tones (MP3, WAV, WMA), Alarm application
• Entertainment: Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer (HTML-browser), 2 integrated Games.
• 3rd party software.
• Software development environment.

N1m

• Operating system: Windows CE 5.0 and 4.2
• Display: 176 x 220 Pixels (Width x Height), 16-bit Colour TFT
• Audio: Hifi stereo 48 kHz playback
• Memory Storage: SD card up to 2 GB
• Connectivity: GSM Triband: GSM900, GSM1800, GSM1900 MHz), USB 1.1
• Size: 88 x 52 x 21 (H x W x D)
• Weight: 94g
• Imaging: Megapixel Camera (1024x1024), Imageviewer, Videoplayer (MPEG 1, MPEG 4, WMV)
• Messaging: Short message service, Support for long SMS, Multimedia Messaging Service, Predictive text input, T9 (English, Swedish, German, Spanish, French and Russian), Call history (dialed, received and missed calls)
• Audio: Audio player (MP3, WAV, WMA), stereo 48 kHz playback, Custom ring tones (MP3, WAV, WMA), Alarm application
• Entertainment: Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer (HTML-browser), Games, 3rd party software downloadable
• Organiser: Calendar, Tasks, Phonebook with storage capacity of 1000 contacts, Add an individual picture for each contact, Synchronize with your PC using ActiveSync (requires extra software free of charge from Microsoft)
• Miscellaneous: Large touch-screen, On-screen keyboard, Screen saver, Vibrator, Calculator, Updates available at the Neonode website, USB memory functionality, use N1 as portable storage device

External links

• http://www.neonode.com (official web site)
• http://www.redneo.com (unofficial forum for neonode users)
• http://www.neono.de (unofficial German fanpage for neonode users)
• http://forum.neono.de (unofficial German forum for neonode users)
• http://neno-art.org (site to download and upload themes, wallpapers, videos and ringtones for neonode phones)