Pogo Mobile and nVoy

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The Pogo Mobile, and later nVoy, were GSM and GPRS based networked devices similar in concept to some Smartphones such as the Apple iPhone and Nokia N-series. They were developed from 1999 to 2003, when the company was effectively closed down.

Source: The author was the inventor and founder of much of the technology in the Pogo. However, I have had no interest in the product or company since 2003, other than being asked what happened to it.

[edit] History

The Pogo concept was developed within the London office of Razorfish in 1999. An Austrian Financier approached Razorfish claiming he wanted to be "in the Internet", and a number of ideas were presented to him. He initially funded some research into the concept, but declined to take the concept further.

The research lead to the observation that, at the time, only some 25% of web-sites contained "content" - the rest of the data was structured metadata or markup that yielded easily to compression. Algorithms were developed that could deliver web-sites over a 9600 GSM CSD link with performance similar to the 33600 baud and 56Kbaud modems common at the time. The compression and associated technologies for reliable communciations over GSM data links were patented and can be viewed here as patent AU2002226550.

This initial work and the prototype hardware were funded by Razorfish Ventures ($250,000), and later by David Ishag who took the product to market (approx £4m).

Prototype hardware was developed by Razorfish in New York, and design for manufacture of the launch device by Celestica in the UK. Celestica failed to achieve a viable BoM and misunderstood a number of key design points, and the electronic design was brought in house.

The initial product was readied in Winter 2001 and was runner up in the category of "Best New Handset Device" at the GSM Association Awards in Cannes in 2002.

An initial 5000 units were shipped to Carphone Warehouse in the UK. Sales and marketing proved problematic and combined with some technical issues related to battery performance, sales failed to take off, despite a very enthusiastic userbase of around 1200 customers. The company went into voluntary liquidation in late 2002. The company and its assets were purchased by Ran Mokady, who invested a further £1m over the following year and re-developed the product into the nVoy. At the close of 2003, the company ceased trading and the staff all left.

[edit] Technology

The original Pogo was based on the Samsung S3C44A0 SoC with an ARM7 core at 33Mhz, 16MB of DRAM, 4MB of Flash ROM, 320x240 Transflective 256-colour LCD (Kyocera), Wavecom GSM module, Valence Li-Ion 1860mAh battery and Micronas DSP for audio functions. It also had an MMC slot compatible with PC formatted MMCs.

The OS (32-bit non-premeptive threaded) was written for high-performance on the ARM core with minimal memory footprint, and was around 700k when compiled from C++, including UI data files. It featured a full web-browser, including Javascript, email, some games in Flash and embedded database for addresses, links, etc., full GSM phone functionality and local "client-server" design with Macromedia Flash 4 ported to provide the UI. The UI was designed to be operated by two buttons (on the "lugs" of the device) and via a touchscreen. Although a carbon-fibre stylus was included, the UI was designed to be operated by the owner's finger.

The "local server" operated in such a way that all machine functions - making a phone call, playing a sound file from MMC, or anything else, were implemented as small C++ "servlets" that the UI would invoke via the browser - the only UI was the browser, there was no other "GUI" library exported. For example the url "http://devpogo/phone/call?number=0123456" would place a voice call to the specified number. A security mechanism existed to prevent unauthorised pages from invoking the local servlets.

As such, the user would never have to go-online, or even know if the function being displayed was being served locally or remotely. This "thin client-thin network-server" model underpinned the whole product. Between handset and the network were proprietary protocols (see patent) and a proxy that looked like a "normal" browser to the wider internet. The proxy carried out much of the grunt-work of browsing - caching, javascript parsing, session management, re-formatting and compression - and together with the handset led to what was called the "distributed browser" model, with UI on the handset driven by compressed display deltas from the proxy.

Two major revision of the OS took place, imlpementing 2-slot GPRS (19200 baud, an effective rate of 70-80kbps) and "downloadable objects" - servlets that would install themselves locally on demand to extend the functionality of the device without user intervention.

A third and final revision of the OS supported the nVoy, featuring a 16-bit colour TFT LCD, camera, Samsung S3C440B0X SoC at 75Mhz, 16MB of SDRAM, 16MB of Flash ROM and enahnced Wavecom module. The nVoy was a much sleeker design being 19mm thick and taken up almost entirely by the screen (see below). A version of the nVoy with a slide-out keyboard was developed, but the nVoy was not mass-produced. Macromedia also revised the terms of the Flash licence and Flash was removed and the UI replaced with an HTML version.