This is very cool news, I had considered ordering a GTA04 for my old openmoko but the N900 form factor is so much better.
This effective phone community design has all of the features found in a N900 and adds the add-ons for the N9 including NFC, real working no-hack USB OTG, three axis magnetometer, air pressure altimeter, FM tx/rx, etc.
I suggest that a crypto signed ID be added to the board as the Chinese already make cheap N900 refurbs from repaired boards which sell as new but with no QC and a high failure rate. It would be nice to know that the QC is community/EU standard rather than roll the dice Chinese pirate(even if it is an open to copy design).
In this age of Snowden and Arab Spring we must consider what hardware including crypto coprocessors, mesh networking, and any other long range off network comm methods can be added at this critical stage in the project where the design can still be changed.
I think there is still time now to add a UHF/VHF transmitter preferably a software defined radio since there is more room on a N900 board. This feature is already implemented on the AndroidOS Earl backcountry tablet. http://www.meetearl.com/ This is key to communicating and networking in the absence of cellular telephone service or when used in a protest movement with a hostile telephony infrastructure. The UV-3R group is working on an open firmware so there are devs there who can help with the micro size SDR components and controls required. It would also bring in substantial interest and RF expertise from the amateur radio community as there is currently not yet a smart radio/phone (and only one junk VHF/UHF/GSM phone) even if they just want to flash it to Android. It would also enable receiving incoming pages from the existing pager network, an easy app could turn on the GSM chip and make a easy callback nearly as convenient as just taking a mobile call.
http://www.liorelazary.com/index.php...uv5r&Itemid=17
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/UV-3R/message/8158
The SDR even if only tuned to FRS, PMR446, MURS is useful for walkie-talkie chat and sending environmental telemetry and GPS position between devices. If tuned to amateur radio bands the possibilities for packet radio become vast even including free access to the amateur radio satellite galaxy for those with a license.
Additionally if it can transmit on 122.5mhz AM(FM will work with mild distortion) it can communicate on the aircraft emergency band which is listened for even in the most remote areas by commercial aircraft with hundreds of km line-of-sight even if only as a beacon, when combined with a digital signal including GPS coordinates on 406mhz a global network of search and rescue satellites with parallel receivers and finely tuned DSPs are listening for distress signals and can have a rescue activated in around ten minutes, if properly formatted the SARSAT system will accept and activate rescue for unregistered EPIRB signals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPIRB
A software defined radio if given a properly formatted signal can also probably clone a SPOT communicator enabling satellite SMS type messaging with a cheap service plan http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php...t+communicator