What good news open source forces are gnawing at relief from proprietary, lockin etc in the cell phone bastion.
Off topic for sure, but noteworthy: This weekend the Globe and Mail ran a Focus piece on the ethics of Nokia phones sold in Asia to those who make < 1 $ /day. Buyers take out in effect a 50 $ mortgage, and pay maybe 3.50 $ / month for unlimited incoming calls, with outgoing an extra charge. Some successfully use the phone to leverage their livelihood, like buying a plow or bicycle to work with, but more often the phone is a serious $ drain status symbol. Enterprising callers hang up on the first ring, to notify the receiver in a prearranged signal: zero cost to either party, and a frustrated service provider with no chargeable call. So while the world may benefit with the laptop per child program, I'm not certain such a program for cell phones will be much of a panacea. From what I can tell it's far from black and white. John sgrover wrote: > The OpenMoko phone is now available. This first release is more aimed > at developers, but even then this looks like a great system. > > http://www.openmoko.com > http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/131832054/article.pl > http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/System_Developer > http://projects.openmoko.org/ > > Can't wait to see the first few reviews. As is, I want one of the > advanced models just so I can get the cool gadgets (aka development > tools) and case. But, like any cell phone purchase I need to check if > my provider has GSM coverage, and if the phone would work in Calgary > (willing to change provider if I can keep the same number...) > > I believe this type of phone is going to be the catalyst for a massive > change in the way telecommunications is done. It effectively opens up > the market to open source software, has some decent connection options > (bluetooth, USB, etc.), and even throws in some 3D accelerometers. The > integrations projects for this gadget are staggering. > > My thoughts... > > Shawn > > _______________________________________________ > clug-talk mailing list > [email protected] > http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca > Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) > **Please remove these lines when replying > _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
