well, allrightythen
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Jan 07, 2008 2:47 PM EDT |
An actual consortium developing a standard mobile Linux-based platform- this could be a big thing. I'm not hip to mobile devices. I don't even own a cell phone. I hate them. Overpriced phones, way overpriced inflexible service plans, and no portability = plplplplpl. If the prices come down to sane levels, and both phones and numbers become portable, and closed networks become a thing of the past, then I'll get excited about them. Dang, funny how that turned into a rant, because this LiMo deal looks pretty cool :) |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 07, 2008 3:12 PM EDT |
I predict that 2008 is going to be the year of the "battle of the open phone stacks". There are going to be four big open software stacks battling for your phone: 1) The LiMo stack 2) The Qt greenphone stack 3) The OpenMoko stack 4) Google's Android And from the looks of it, any phone that can run one, can run the other's as well. Those poor closed software houses won't stand a chance (Symbian, I'm looking at you). FOSS ain't just encroaching the market like we did with the server and are doing with the desktop. FOSS will simply blast the market wide open and leave only shards and crumbles for the competition. 2008 will be a very interesting year for mobile developers :-) Personally I am going for the OpenMoko stack, as soon as the FIC GTA02 a.k.a. FreeRunner becomes available. But that's mainly because by the looks of it, it will support GTK, GStreamer and Python, which means I can make my "personal jukebox" dream a reality! |
| tuxchick Jan 07, 2008 3:49 PM EDT |
But but but sander. what if you just want to make a phone call? |
| helios Jan 07, 2008 5:10 PM EDT |
being one who sets the standard instead of maintaining it, I have come up with an ingenious idea that will not only make me wealthy...it will serve mankind for generations to come. What if...just what if, there were a device called a "coinfone" on every street corner. Imagine...no more enslavement to service contracts. Got a dime? drop it into a slot in the top of the phone (thusly "coinphone") and make the phone call you need to make. You are not limited to street corners. How about in laundry mats and bars/eating establishments? This could work! Now I haven't worked out the details perfectly...I imagine the farther away the number is, the more the call would cost, but still...a dime to make a phone call anywhere in your area! Now THAT rings a Bell. I'm a friggin Genius h |
| tuxchick Jan 07, 2008 6:15 PM EDT |
Ken, that is indeed sheer raw genius. Just think- you're also pioneering micro-payments! |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 07, 2008 9:15 PM EDT |
Quoting:But but but sander. what if you just want to make a phone call? Use a landline :-) In all seriousness, the future does look pretty nice. Personally I am waiting for the moment than I can dump my laptop and just carry around my phone instead. Go to work, plug the phone into a docking station and voila, you have your computer. I've been looking at the possibilities in this area but the phones aren't quite there yet. The OpenMoko GTA02's video chipset supports a resolution up to 640x480 at 16 bpp. It would need to be able to do 1024x768 or preferably 1280x1024. RAM and disk space are also a tad too low to run a common desktop on. Currently it has 128 Mb or RAM and 256 Mb of flash memory. I'd need 256 Mb or RAM and about 4 Gb of flash. Enough to smoothly run a full OS with XFCE. It's probably possible to run something like DSL off the GTA02, but you'd still be limited to 640x480. Perhaps when GTA03 comes around. |
| gus3 Jan 07, 2008 10:11 PM EDT |
Maybe something akin to the Sugar interface, or even a super-lightweight window manager like Ratpoison or Fluxbox? I can't imagine those being memory hogs. |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 07, 2008 11:21 PM EDT |
It's all possible. The main reason that the GTA02 a.k.a. FreeRunner can't do it is because it's limited to 640x480, which is clearly inadequate for a desktop. I also doubt if USB 1.1 at 12 Mbit/s is fast enough to use for monitor output. |
| hkwint Jan 08, 2008 12:28 AM EDT |
Quoting:640x480, which is clearly inadequate for a desktop. Eee seems to be 800x480 says WP, so this seems _almost_ enough, or am I wrong? (Am I the only one who ever saw a desktop / 3d shooter run on a black and white 128x96 pixel screen running on a 10mHz cpu: http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/251/25178.html ?) |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 08, 2008 12:39 AM EDT |
It's not nearly enough, not for what I want to do anyway. Just like the Eee is inadequate as a primary computing device. It's great as a second computer to do some couch surfing, but you don't want to use the Eee full-time for work. And that's exactly what I'd like to do with a phone-as-laptop. I'm tired of carrying my laptop around :-) |
| jdixon Jan 08, 2008 5:50 AM EDT |
> Am I the only one who ever saw a desktop / 3d shooter run on a black and white 128x96 pixel screen running on a 10mHz cpu: [HYPERLINK@www.ticalc.org] ?) Take a look at Dungeons of Daggorath some time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_of_Daggorath). It ran on a 2 MHz macine. |
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