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Canadian Firms Get Behind OpenMoko/FreeRunner
Posted by
timothy
on Sun Aug 24, 2008 03:29 PM
from the watching-the-tail-lights dept.
from the watching-the-tail-lights dept.
mario writes "Now that the OpenMoko platform has stabilized enough to provide the OM2008 image (supporting the three major toolkits), things are starting to heat up. Linuxdevices is reporting on the start of a port of Devicescape's connect application. Koolu (another Canadian company) is also doing development for its W.E. phone (a branded FreeRunner). Which leads me to ask: Where are the American companies?"
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"Where are the American companies?" (Score:5, Interesting)
Investing their money in Washington crafting laws and developing new business models.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Where are the American companies?" (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Boring (Score:4, Funny)
This is a very good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is a very good thing (Score:4, Informative)
No camera.
Parent
Re:This is a very good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
I consider that a plus. If I want to take pictures of something, I'm gonna bring a good camera with me.
Parent
Re:This is a very good thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
... no particular desire to pay for one (be it in $, g or mL)...
you can pay for phones with blood now?
Re:This is a very good thing (Score:4, Informative)
The Neo1973's mini-USB port can be configured to act as a usb host instead of a usb device. This opens up a range of possibilities, such as USB cameras and usb input devices.
Thats for the Neo1973 but it should also be true for the FreeRunner.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Who is forcing you to use the camera? Nobody. If you don't like the camera, just don't use it. It's that simple.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There are plenty of phones to be had that can do all three. And do camera-less versions of a phone really cost less? I found one article on a camera-less Treo 680 that makes no mention of a price cut. Of course not; they're going to keep the cost difference for themselves. So you may as well have a camera handy for when something unexpected happens -- I know I've gotten some amusing shots with my phone's camera that I would have otherwise missed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I must respectfully disagree.
Creating two separate product lines is quite a bit more expensive than one; that added expense will be passed on to the customer. Other manufacturers will create a single line, and not have extra expenses and thus be more competitive.
So, after doing the competitive analysis, most manufacturers will decide to make phones with cameras, which some people may use.
Me, I never use the popcorn button on
Re:This is a very good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
The first few releases of Linux sucked too. However, just like Linux, once people start using it for their own purposes, their improvements will make their way back for others to use.
OpenMoko right now is mediocre. OpenMoko in 5 years, after several companies sell products based on it, and dozens of hackers make those devices do new and novel things, and OpenMoko will rock.
Parent
Working on other things than immature phones (Score:4, Informative)
The OpenMoko project has been around for a long time but it's been development only and unusable for the end user. US cellphone companies want to be able to sell something to end users now. They don't want an unfinished piece of junk that they don't know anything about -- they want their existing suppliers to give them USABLE phones.
Once this thing becomes polished and usable, at least as polished and usable as cell phones get, then we might see some interest.
No we won't. (Score:5, Insightful)
American carriers are not only completely uninterested in a platform that gives the end-user complete control over their phone, but actively shunning it. Their business model is to sell slick-looking, crippled devices that push as much functionality through their networks as possible such that they can charge the end-user as much as they can for things that should be free. Verizon and the V710 debacle a few years ago come directly to mind (disabling OBEX, etc.).
I'll be shocked if we ever see a viable OpenMoko device in the next ten years.
Parent
Shunning? You forget Andriod. (Score:4, Insightful)
American carriers are not only completely uninterested in a platform that gives the end-user complete control over their phone, but actively shunning it
Android answers the description you provide, and there seem to be a number of carriers embracing it.
They are driven to do so by the iPhone but that makes little difference in that things are moving that way, and carriers realize now that it will happen sooner rather than later.
Parent
They're blocking it right now. (Score:4, Interesting)
Carriers are exerting pressure on baseband manufacturers to ensure that they do not open specifications required to get open-source software to work with advanced basebands that work with EDGE, EvDO, or HS*PA. So all you get is plain GPRS and voice, on the one baseband that was available to be used with the FreeRunner.
Don't expect this to change anytime soon. It won't. If necessary, the carriers will exert pressure on Congress to pass a law banning open source operating systems on cellular devices in the name of "security."
Parent
A few Canadian thoughts... (Score:5, Insightful)
After looking at the Koolu.com website, I'd almost rather they not be referred to as Canadian... it makes us look bad...
So some Canadian firms think that an open-source handset is going to be worthwhile. Great, good for them. The likelihood is that even if they do get anywhere with it, the majority of their clients are going to be in the US anyway. The average person in Canada doesn't know or care about open-source handsets, and isn't going to care enough to learn.
It's kind of like RIM - they were the first to really get mobile, business e-mail out into the world, and now they're famous. Everyone who doesn't have an iPhone has a blackberry these days, and most of RIM's clients are in the US. Where were the American companies? What does it matter?
In this era of free trade and globalization, there's hardly any distinction between American companies and Canadian companies. I work for a Canadian company which is owned by an American company which is run by the Canadian company. We're traded on an American stock exchange, we all work in Canada, and we just bought an American company made up almost entirely of Brits and Irish. So what does that make us?
'Canadian company' these days only refers to locality - where people show up for work at every morning. Beyond that, it doesn't make a difference.
You make no sense. (Score:3)
She exerts no power over us at all, why rebel against her? Figure out what you're talking about for fuck sakes.
Love the concept but too bad about the Glamo gpu (Score:3, Interesting)
This is mainly from the viewpoint of a graphics programmer (3d, gpu drivers, ...), so my comments will focus on that part. I know there are a lot good features on this devices.
The Glamo chip can only use textures of 512 x 512 so it's impossible to use hw acceleration to decompress full screen video (unless you stretch the texture to the entire screen).
The video bus bandwidth is 7m/s which gives a theoretical maximum of 12 fps without hw acceleration. That bus is also shared with the sd card reducing the bandwidth even further if you are accessing the sd card.
SMedia refuses to give out the documentation of their gpu and only employees of OpenMoko have access to that documentation. Implementing 3D for the glamo is low priority. It's obvious it's low priority but it's a shame there's a gpu in there but you can't use it or even improve the driver.
Dialing from the command line. (Score:5, Funny)
At last, a phone from Linux fanatics! You can dial from the command line. [togaware.com] Just type:
echo 0 >
echo 1 >
cu -l
AT+CFUN=1
AT+CPIN="<pin>"
AT+COPS
ATD<number>
You are now connected. See how easy it is!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It should be noted that this has been around longer than the iPhone/SDK as well as Google Android. The OpenMoko project was announced [openmoko.org] January 20th, 2007.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
GNU Hurd was announced years before Linux, and look how far that project got.
In computing what counts is shipping / release date.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
if they could legally ban unlocked phones on their network they would do it. In fact most of their retarded phone workers think this already when I call up for a new sim to add to my plan...
ME: I need a sim to add to my contract.
THEM: SIM why? has your old one stopped?
ME: NO I'm adding a new line to my contract and I need a sim.
THEM: Then you need a phone as well, we have several to choose from....
ME: NO, I need the sim I already have a phone.
THEM: You haveto have an AT&T phone to work on our network.