Linux Powers Motorola's Smart Phone 88
An anonymous reader writes "Motorola unveiled the A760 at CeBIT and claims the handset is the first in the world to blend the open source operating system with Java software. As well as Linux, the A760 has onboard a camera, diary, e-mail program, MP3 player, speakerphone and colour touchscreen."
How long before... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How long before... (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope they are doing it for the right reasons. (Score:2, Interesting)
It seems cool I suppose, I just hope that they are using linux on the phone because it has a genuine advantage over the alternatives, not just to say they run linux on their phones, to appeal to the geek crowd or whatnot.
Re:I hope they are doing it for the right reasons. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux is the standard (Score:4, Insightful)
It's pretty obvious, really. I don't know why so many clueless people always keep asking "why Linux, why Linux?" everytime it is used on an embedded device when it's already not only a proven technology, but *the* de-facto standard.
In 4 years I promise you that there will be only few CPU-using appliances which are not using Linux. There will be a lot of non-Linux PDAs because of backwards application compatibility, but other than that finding a non-Linux system will be the exception.
Re:Linux is the standard (Score:2)
Yes, but that might be a little too much, what if the manufacturers wanted to save money on hardware and thus had less ROM in which to burn the o/s, linux is certainly going to be larger than a homegrown o/s built specifically for the purpose of being a phone o/s. Contrary to
Re:Linux is the standard (Score:2, Informative)
They would waste >6 months and lots of money on development just to find out that the hardware has become cheap enough for Linux in the meantime.
linux is certainly going to be larger than a homegrown o/s
Not true.
Linux is opensource in case you didn't notice, which means you can do anything with it. So in theory, you could optimize it so much to be as small as an in-house system - and still save development time. Of course in real life nobo
Re:Linux is the standard (Score:1)
Re:Linux is the standard (Score:4, Interesting)
If there was a CPU that could run java bytecode natively in these phones, it would be in there, running the whole show with no Linux OS in sight.
Re:I hope they are doing it for the right reasons. (Score:1)
Duh, no they chose the worst option of course - they are as stupid as you are...
I'll use any cellphone (Score:2, Funny)
filewalker TNG (Score:3, Interesting)
well this little thing looks like a really nifty tool. it does not have java plastered all over it, but it will probably run java if you want as well as the sources are open. it also does not have a color screen which has limited use in a pda imho, atleast as long as the pda does not have a camera build in. but this thing has everything else you could wish for in a pda/phone and i dont even use sms so i doubt i will use mms
Invair Filewalker Messenger (Score:1)
The only worry I have with the Filewalker is the way you write SMS messages. I'm not sure if using a jog-dial with 3 buttons to select the letters is faster than the usual way of having letters associated to buttons.
Not really good news yet (Score:5, Insightful)
inside, there is no reason to believe
that developers get any access to it
(although that would be very nice if
they did).
I've worked on the A720 and the A830
Motorola phones, and none of the underlying
system was exposed.
The Symbian Quartz platforms are even
worse. Even as owner of the phone you
can't put anything on them; everything
must be signed by either Motorola or
the mobile operator. This is because
there is no security model in the OS,
so any code on the phone has to be completely
trusted (like active-x), and they didn't
want worms to be a problem.
Hopefully the design on a linux phone
could be more nuanced...
Re:Not really good news yet (Score:1)
Martin
Re:Not really good news yet (Score:1)
Re:Not really good news yet (Score:1)
If you are a mobile operator: the customer is not always right...
Breaking news ... UPDATE!!! (Score:5, Funny)
In all the excitement of releasing this new modern wonder to the world the motorola engineers have announced that there is no "phone call making capability".
A motorola spokeperson was quoted as saying "Well we were so happy to see useless features in a phone, we forgot to add the basic features of the phone, jokingly we're going to change our slogan from 'Hello Moto' to 'HELLO?? MOTO?? CAN YOU HEAR ME AT ALL??'. Seeing as Verizon Wireless is one of our largest purchasers we feel they'll get the joke too."
When asked whether or not the phone would be able to make and receive telephone calls the spokesperson replied, "What, you have email and linux, what more do you need in a phone, this is the phone of tommorrow, today."
In similiar news: Nokia has announced that they will be making the "Microwave Phone" that will combine cellphone technology with burrito cooking power. Sure to be a hit for everyone who thinks their cellphone should do more than just be a phone.
And in not so similiar news: 1337 h4x0r5 from around the world have announced that they are happy to see that they'll be able to run their scripts from a cell phone and be able to '0wn j00' when they're out on a date. One 1337 dud3 was quoted as follows; "Like if I ever get out of the house and like see a girl and like go on a date with her and like she doesn't hit me or nothing I can like 0wn a box tellin the world how I loves her and stuff it will be like the best thing in the world for getting me like laid because like I don't think like I will ever get laid."
So Everyone seems to love this new modern 'Swiss Army Knife' of the telecommunication tool belt!
FYI: The phone does make calls, that was meant to be a joke ...
Re:Breaking news ... UPDATE!!! (Score:1, Troll)
I want a device that is my phone, my portable music player, my quick-shot camera, and my palm pilot. That doesn't sound like too much to ask of one device, especially with so much shared resources (dsp, memory, screen).
Define "involved" (Score:5, Funny)
"There is no one operating system that is perfect, you have to be involved with all of them,"
Motorola spokesman
I can see the support calls now.
Re:what's make mrproper? (Score:2, Informative)
From this tutorial [linuxplanet.com]
Re:what's make mrproper? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:what's make mrproper? (Score:2)
Re:what's make mrproper? (Score:1)
Re:Define "involved" (Score:2, Funny)
*runs out and buys one*
Oh yeah, you missed one:
Q: ??
A: modprobe voice_phone_call_sys
not in the US again... (Score:2)
i guess i'll still have to use that motorola brick for now.
Re:not in the US again... (Score:2)
Open Phone a bad idea? (Score:1)
Re:Open Phone a bad idea? (Score:1)
I must admit, I like my 'closed' phone. I know it won't crash. It doesn't have any security issues. It won't take a photo in the wrong place. It just works!
I have still yet to see anyone actually playing a game on their phone yet as well...
Re:Open Phone a bad idea? (Score:1)
Depends on your model of course, but AFAIK some current (last 2 years or so) Nokias do have some issues where a malicious SMS can seriously lock up your phone, and I've known of a Nokia that, after a year or two, started spontaneously locking up far too frequently. Not my own experience, since I don't own a mobile at all, but seen on friends' phones.
A
Re:Open Phone a bad idea? (Score:2)
Yeah right. My "SAGEM MC 820" was so horrible it made me really want an open phone. Not that an open phone would solve all the problems, but it would solve some of them. Crappy hardware is crappy no matter how good software you install on it.
The 820 would in fact crash if you typed too fast on the keypad. And the user interface design was braindead. Those two problems could be solved by an open implementation. The fact that it spontaneously
Re:Open Phone a bad idea? (Score:1)
Re:Open Phone a bad idea? (Score:2)
You could do text messaging via jabber, ftp files to/from your phone ( having a copy of winscp and putty on your cell would come in handy for
Oh...and it's a phone, too (Score:3, Insightful)
Now I'm just waiting for my PDA to come with a cup rest.
Re:Oh...and it's a phone, too (Score:2)
I also have the $12 plug-in keyboard for the phone, for when I need to add some stuff during a meeting.
it won't be long (Score:4, Interesting)
I personally can't wait.
I forgot (Score:2)
Dupe? (Score:2)
Networks (Score:3, Interesting)
Non-US customers can ignore this post and might actually enjoy all the next generation gadgets. How is life in the 24th century?
Re:Networks (Score:3, Informative)
Sweet, the GPRS coverage in The Netherlands is pretty close to 100%. Rates are available from approx 1.5 EURO per MB, which is still a tad high. Then again, for WAP, one MB goes a looooooong way.
See you on the other side
if... (Score:1)
tail your message-log, for the really paranoid.
Hoorah another smart phone... (Score:4, Insightful)
The 7650 is a big phone (and I'm not sure A760 so this might not count) so I found that instead of keeping it in my pocket I took it out as it was uncomfortable so I kept forgetting to pick it up. No such problem with the little SL45. Also its battery lasted 2 days if I was lucky. The SL45 has gone 7 days and still has 1/2 battery less.
What I've decided I want is a small phone. Colour would be nice, with a camera but something which is stable, works well and doesn't need charging every couple of days. Well hopefully the A760 will be stable, and that includes apps but I will reserve judgment until I can play with it
Rus
Re:Hoorah another smart phone... (Score:1)
(I don't work for Nokia
Re:Hoorah another smart phone... (Score:2)
I've used a 7650. It takes almost 15 seconds to turn on the phone! Press ON, wait 15 seconds, ok now you can see the OS menu.
Can I sync it (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can I sync it (Score:2, Informative)
They do with Macs...
Ok, just had to day that, I'm just glad that Apple "gets it" that synchronization is an important thing. Truth be told more phones synch with PCs, albeit after buying the breathtakingly over-priced custom plug and installing software of dubious stability.
Mebbe if we're lucky the industry will come to it's senses and adopt a standard plug, like USB, use it for charging too, and support doing imports/exports in a standard way also. Naww - nev
Why does any embedded linux device... (Score:3, Interesting)
What I really like about the idea of running linux on a phone though would be the ability to completely change the way it works - install a scripting language, and start writing all manner of hacks. Some ideas I can come up with off the top of my head:
- an sms spam filter
- general sms filter to say have a different ringtone for family members, or simply forward to a seperate inbox without notifying you when your gf annoyingly messages you during lectures (okay thats wishful thinking about the having a gf part).
- (assuming it has bluetooth / GPS) different profiles depending on where you are - say turn off the ringer automatically when in a lecture theatre/meeting room (GPS), or turning up the ring volume when leaving your room (bluetooth going out of range).
- Making your own games (nethack anyone). Sorry, just had to put that one in.
- SMS auto responder
- SMS compressor/expander - converts your text in2 sms spk tht nobdy cn undrstnd 2 fit more on a line, and more importantly, translate back what little it can understand of anyone elses sms speak. On a similar note.. proper compression (gzip?) and encryption - a bit less useful re phone compatbility.
- IM client (again on the better SMS theme) - using GPRS/bluetooth/3g/whatever connection it can get.
- A console app... no linux box/brick is complete without this one, although typing in 5557777 to get a listing would be far to much hassle.
Oh yeah.. phones have voice capability as well dont they?
- encrypted voice phones (James bond anyone)
- Voice changer - phones already have a dsp in there.. if they made it easy to access....
- Client side voice mail - a lot more configurable - different messages for different callers, call fielding like traditional answering machines (listen to their message then pick up).
- Okay, completely off the wall... access the radio transceiver and use the phone as a broadcast receiver, ham/cb handheld, gps receiver, weather station etc.. etc.. not feasable atm, but with the advent of software radios, and being able to access the internals of the phone (heres where the linux on phone bit comes in), it may not always be this way.
A lot of these would require subsantial hacks, but if someone implemented linux properly on the phone and made it easy to access properly, I doubt it would be that hard to do at least some of those ideas. The big advantage however, is that everyone can have the phone customised their own way (those who dont know how to program could say just download a spam filter/voice mail system).
That is the sort of phone I would like to see.
Misunderstandings about cell phones (Score:3, Informative)
First off, there's memory issues. Having replaceable flash memory is useful, but more often than not the cellphone stores it's programs in read-only high-speed (and thus expensive) flash that's either on the chip itself or very much part of the built-in phone. Phones are usually quite tight in terms of memory usage, especially smart phones like this; writing any permanent programs that run on the phone constantly must keep that in mind.
Another issue is single vs. multithreaded apps. Most cells are optimized to be single threaded, as it's faster, uses less CPU overhead and usually easier to program/debug. That removes a lot of the ability to do things like, say, add a global filter to the mix. It's not impossible, but you should keep it in mind.
Third, most cellphones require a fair amount of specialized hardware to reprogram the phone itself. Or reboot it in the case of problems. Not to mention images needed to reflash it if something goes wrong, the software required to interact with the hardware on whatever platform, etc. All of these things are possible, but they are hard to easily get around.
If its Open Source wheres the Source ? (Score:1)
Maybe this is some new use of the phrase open source that I am not familliar with.
Crash
Re:If its Open Source wheres the Source ? (Score:2)
Re:If its Open Source wheres the Source ? (Score:1)
This is a common misperception
They must distribute the source to the people they distribute the binary to.
If you buy a phone, you are entitled to the source. If you don't, you're not.
Of course, once someone buys the phone and obtains the source, they are then allowed to distribute it more widely, if they want.
In the meantime, they have no obligation to post source on their web site or anywhere else.
So.... Do they include a CD with the code? (Score:2)
Who cares? (Score:1, Informative)