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For those who are skeptical: Link

Which name will predominate?

I think we just go with KINdows, for now.

When I first heard of the Project Glass, I thought they had found a way of doing what some Japanese companies have been doing for a while...rather than displaying the image in *front* of your eye, they actually draw the image line by line directly *in* your eye on your retina with lasers. I still hold out hope that this is the long term goal of Project Glass, but who knows. A bit of reading Here

And Here

And Here

Nintendo reports first-ever operating loss in 2011
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/26/nintendo-annual-financials-2011/

Sony reports record loss in 2011
http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/10/3011264/sony-record-loss-5-7-billion-fy-2011

Apple reports record revenue, record sales of iPad and iPhone in 2011
http://www.macworld.com/article/1164973/apple_reports_record_revenue_profit_for_fiscal_first_quarter.html

But I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

Flick the window up and off the screen, and you're telling it to shut down.

You've also just described Harmatton, the linux OS behind the Nokia N9. Check out the 2nd thumbnailed video from the left, on the bottom of this page. FWIW Microsoft paid Nokia a billion dollars to bury this phone and OS so no one can choose it over Nokia's newer WP7 phones, like the Lumia 900 with very similar hardware, albeit with lighter specs. (no front-facing camera, no 64GB option, so you're stuck at 16GB with no expansion on WP7. That sort of thing. Still, you can use it as a hammer to pound nails.

Initially, only countries like Saudi Arabia and South Africa were allowed to sell it through their telcos. But I see Amazon USA has it, so no more need to import it yourself; however you'll never see a US ad campaign to tell you about it. OK, me, I'm like an ad but that's about all you'll hear otherwise. I've got one and now two friends do too, and they really like showing it off, and they aren't geeks at all. One of them is really impressing all the iPhone kids he knows, and then explaining the net-cost of the iPhone after the contract is paid for. And what SIP and companies like 12voip are all about.

Part of the problem is that traditionally most companies have been happy to work out alternate licensing agreements. Apple is the first big player to actually pay the FRAND costs instead of negotiating.

The problem is that there is no $ value assigned to patents. A cash price that Apple considers "fair" is not the same cash price that Samsung considers "fair". What exactly is a "fair" price for an essential wireless patent? Read this article part-authored by a Chicago patent attorney:

In reality FRAND is nebulous and undefined, with almost no specific rules for determining what a "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" license actually is. Nokia could be asking for $1 per iPhone -- chump change for Apple -- or it could be asking for $100 per iPhone. As of right now we have no real way of knowing -- but since all Nokia's asked the court to do is set a price, it's clearly willing to simply accept cash and move on.

I've heard of a thing called a LiveView, which is a watch-form-factor dumb terminal which speaks Bluetooth to your phone. But I've never seen anyone who had one, and the reviews reckon it doesn't really fly: http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/01/sony-ericsson-liveview-review/

Oh, and here's a more recent one by Sony: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2403098,00.asp

But you're just starting to get genuine smartwatches which run Android. Here's Motorola's: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2397538,00.asp You can also get any number of unbranded Chinese smartphone watches from Alibaba, but I have no idea what they run.

What the hell is up with this recent flood of anti-google articles and comments on Slashdot? Has Slashdot been hired by Microsoft, Apple and/or Facebook to do smear attack campaign on Google?

Just leave Google alone. They're a great company and don't deserve this bullshit with half-truth stories. They actually care about you. They give you free things. They release open source. They fight for your rights. SO LEAVE GOOGLE ALONE!

Slashdot used to be a better place. We would fight against evils like Bill Gates and Microsoft (a convicted monopolist). We would promote open source. But now.. now you are attacking the very companies that make FOSS great.

go away shill! Google is a convicted unfair competitor, convicted patent infringer, copyright infringer and even paid bloggers (yes they had paid shills working for them!) to promote their web browser!

Microsoft is evil, Apple is evil, Oracle is evil, Facebook is evil and so is Google! The only reason there is a perception that they aren't is that they have the motto 'don't be evil' and morons like you lap that up and just ignore it when Google does wrong.

They're sort of like a tick that attaches itself to a host and keep engorging itself until it pops.

It's gotten itself firmly attached to the wallets of 93 million people. Now it's sucking hard. The pop will come enough...

http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/19/verizon-quarterly-revenues-q1-2012/

They can't seem to beat Apple at its own game, though. I don't see that as a corporate failing, rather the inability to work with an unstable element. (Image, the perception of cool)

There is a largely-held perception that Apple's success is due to slick advertising. Where Apple has excelled is in product management as a function of marketing. They have powerfully identified the feature set and price points people will pay for their products. They have accurately forecast demand so that they can leverage volume purchasing of components to keep the price at those acceptable points while building in a healthy profit margin. They are firing on all cylinders, and even a few cylinders nobody thought existed.

Meanwhile, Ballmer has ignored the trends and innovations of other companies until success in the marketplace forces him to mount a too-late response (Zune, Windows Store, Windows Phone 7, et. al.). Consider this 2007 interview where Ballmer mocked the iPhone's prospects. For him to do that means that he was ignoring competitive intelligence studies that he should have been taking seriously. Even then, his marketing department should have been focus-grouping on the iPhone to determine what the demand was and projecting out where it could go. Had he read what the competitive intelligence studies would have told him, his response would have been to acknowledge the vacuum in existing smartphone technology and hint about forthcoming Microsoft innovations to come in that space.

In years to come, the wikipedia definition for the word "hubris" will contain a link to that video clip.

Seth

On the tablet note:

I've already said screw Kindle Fire.

It's rather obvious I'm a burned former Apple guy and wouldn't consider an iAnything.

So what I really want one of these.

Considering that 360 can only run signed executables, and that IE9 is actually the safest web browser around

Right on, you tell them! Those keys are impossible to get at. Totally safe!

If by "long gone" you mean "not currently available," then OK. Un-thethered exploits reportedly still exist, though:
http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/03/iphone-4-receives-untethered-ios-5-1-jailbreak/
http://www.jailbreaknation.com/pod2gs-untethered-5.1-jailbreak-to-support-all-devices-including-iphone-4s-ipad-23-atv3-a5a5x

Less, if that. Somewhere around 5% is both MS mobile platforms combined. WP7 has about 5% in Finland with Nokia's home advantage, there was something about Norway as well - or was that just a single carrier's stats?

Here's US, for example.

Even though it was an unauthorized repair, I wonder if the FAA will be reconsidering its iPad approval.

Nokia already sued Apple, dumbshit.

You overlooked the fact that it's useless for a gamer.... still.

I'm just gonna leave this right here: http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/25/steam-for-linux/

Also, you can get pretty far on WINE.
That said, I agree, the industry needs to break Windows hold as the gaming monopoly. It does NOTHING to help gaming. Games for Windows Live is HATED by everybody who has to use it, Steam and fuck, even Origin are better. GFWL is directly worse than Xbox Live, and there's no excuse for that. Windows still barely even realizes you have games installed, there's a "games" section of the control panel now, but it only picks up some of your games, gives you a really bad benchmark score, and launches those games for you. Thats IT.

I'd like to see a special mode for games which allows you to run them fullscreen-windowed automatically. Default Windows behavior for fullscreen apps is terrible. You're going to force a context switch and a cache just because I alt+tab? Ugh. And it could go so much further than that, it could integrate services for developers to patch your games into the OS, it could launch a thinner version of the OS so that you can play your game on higher settings as long as you dedicated your machine to gaming temporarily, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Sorry, but Windows being the only machine you can play PC games on is a mistake, not a feature, and won't last. We just need the ball to start rolling, and you can bet your ass if Steam is on Linux, games will be on linux.

Once this gets worked out tailoring the waste output into the IR could be quite useful.

Er... maybe when your in Google Docs you can.. uh only work with Google Docs?

"Naturally, Google's flexing its search muscles in as many ways as possible; if you scan in a newspaper clipping, a simple Search All within Drive will allow results to appear directly from said clipping. If you upload a shot of the Eiffel Tower, it'll show up whenever you search for the aforesaid icon. Moreover, Drive will allow folks to open over 30 types of documents directly from a web browser, including HD video, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop and more -- "even without the software installed on your computer." For those concerned about access, the new platform will have the same infrastructure as any other Google Apps services, giving admins a familiar set of management tools on that end."
http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/24/google-drive-official-cloud-storage-details-docs/

I wouldn't say it's a DropBox killer or anything, Google needs to do a few changes for that to be true, but saying it only works with Docs or you require an Apps account I can't seem to find any basis for. After you enabled it in your Apps admin account, did you go back to drive.google.com or just to docs.google.com?

These obvious advantages haven't amounted to a successful Windows tablet for the last 17 years, when they've been available and not sold well the whole time. What makes this new one different?

Speaking as a Niche Windows Tablet owner I can actually say with a high degree of confidence why I own a Windows Tablet and an Android Tablet.

1) Battery life. Until now Windows tablets get about 3 hours of battery life. If you are on a long flight and spend an hour or two in an airport your battery is dead mid-flight.

2) Weight. Until now Windows tablets weight a metric ton and are treated like laptops not tablets.

3) Performance. With a processor small enough to avoid #1 and #2 windows is too slow to run even basic apps. (I even had a Samsung Q1 ultra for a while but it was just too slow even for web browsing and I returned it.)

4) No touch apps. Windows is actually already pretty touch friendly. But none of its apps are. Microsoft has been pushing a Mouse and Keyboard OS and hoping people would just happen to make their applications touch/pen friendly. But it doesn't matter how usable Windows is if an application has a 10px wide button in its UI. Windows can't force interfaces to be touch friendly nor should it be. With Windows 8 though Metro is making a concerted effort to offer a venue and market for touch friendly applications for Windows. Microsoft has to show developers that they're super double dog serious about people using their windows PCs as tablets.

I think Windows 8 is coinciding with the important convergence of Affordable large capacitive touch displays, long lasting small batteries and extremely power efficient x86 processors.

I've always said that the iPhone succeeded not because of the OS but because of affordable capacitive not resistive touch displays, a drop in mobile bandwidth prices and improved batteries more than anything else. Everybody mocked Windows Phone 6 for not being finger friendly but if you tried actually using a Resistive touch screen with your finger (which was all that was available to OEMs) then you would understand immediately why fingers were not at the forefront of UI design.

Same thing is happening with Windows 8. x86 has gotten to the point now where we can already have a smoking fast Windows machine with 7.5 hours of battery life, great performance and weigh less than 3 lbs while remaining affordable. http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/09/15-inch-samsung-series-9-review-2012/

Intel has posted the specs for their slate tablets and they're 9+ hours of battery life 9mm thick and 1.5lbs in weight. That's a Asus Transformer Prime or Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.

So the answer is that for the last 17 years Windows hasn't had the hardware it needs to succeed. But people are expect less out of their apps (My old Windows XP box is 'good enough'!) and hardware is getting smaller and cheaper.

ARM will probably have the price advantage in the near term still but Intel is closing the gap fast. Windows 8 is just in the right place at the right time.

You seem to believe standards work by several companies contributing patents to a pool and then those companies are the only ones who get to build to the standard. That is *not* how they work

In fact, that *is* how some standards work. You seem to believe that it is illegal to create a patent pool unless the patents are offered to competitors on FRAND terms. Unfortunately, there is no such law. It is legal for companies to create a private patent pool. Qualcomm do not have to license their CDMA patent pool to you, so that you can create competing CDMA chipsets. The only reason that the GSM patents are considered FRAND is because that is how the GSM Alliance chose to operate (probably due to its E.U. origins as a government-mandated open standards protocol). They could just have easily have created a set of non-FRAND patents, and it would have been completely legal.

Motorola (and others) approached Apple and said that they wouldn't accept cash from them anyway as payment for the FRAND technology

Not true. In fact, Nokia explicitly asked the court to declare a cash value on the patents that they hold. This is the essence of the argument (and something that is missed every single time this appears on Slashdot) - the dispute is not about whether or not the FRAND patents should be licensed, the dispute is over how you define "fair" in the context of patents. Every company making GSM phones has to negotiate a patent license from every other company that has patents in the GSM patent pool. Lawyers negotiate and patent cross-license deals (including both FRAND and non-FRAND patents!) are done, some cash changes hands, and the deal is done. What Apple did was (apparently) refuse to license their patents, presumably because they want to use them to prevent other manufacturers from making similar smart phones. That means that the whole patent payment must be made in cash. At this point there is a difficult problem - what, exactly, is a "fair" cash value for a large essential patent pool? 1% of profits? 5% of profits? 5% of revenue? 50% of revenue? Only a court can decide.

Engadget actually got some lawyers to do a readable version of the situation back in 2009. It's a shame that so many people still argue the same points without actually reading or understanding the basic facts of these patent licensing cases. 'So it's got to be cash, and even if Apple's willing to pay a straight cash royalty for Nokia's patents, negotiating that price is anything but easy -- FRAND is basically what wireless industry licensing executives have to believe so they can sleep at night. In reality FRAND is nebulous and undefined, with almost no specific rules for determining what a "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" license actually is.' - http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/29/nokia-vs-apple-the-in-depth-analysis/

The PC serves as the base for the phone. Where are you storing 10 gigs of music legally in the 'cloud'? How do you sync that with other music? Is this a paid service? How easy is it to make sure you're not pushing that huge volume of data over your dataplan rather than wireless?

Google Music, caching, ICS built in data facilities.

Although I believe the poster you replied to is a troll.

Why did not one of the Lumia 900 reviewers have problems with data connections?

because not everyone had problems with the data connections? kinda like how not everyone had problems with the iphone 4 antenna.

No, they told us that, despite its single-core processor, the Lumia is smooth and fast. Normal use apparently doesn't include using the browser.

first review i looked at:
Web browsing on the Lumia 900 is handled well by the native Internet Explorer app, although, as highlighted by that SunSpider result up there, full desktop pages can take some time to fully render -- about 30 seconds on average.

The reviewers told us how the chassis of the Lumia 900 is wonderful to behold, despite the ugly protruding screen.

from the same review:
Instead, users are treated to a jarring experience: a border now surrounds that 4.3-inch display, causing it to protrude awkwardly from that shapely, cyan body. Suffice to say, it makes for an unflattering first impression.

So without some suggestion about who these 'reviewers' are and who you are contrasting them with and the number of reviews you're taking into account your post is nothing but baseless conjecture and a quite lame attempt to hint at some sort of conspiracy but easily disproved by a quick google search.

Why did not one of the Lumia 900 reviewers have problems with data connections?

because not everyone had problems with the data connections? kinda like how not everyone had problems with the iphone 4 antenna.

No, they told us that, despite its single-core processor, the Lumia is smooth and fast. Normal use apparently doesn't include using the browser.

first review i looked at:
Web browsing on the Lumia 900 is handled well by the native Internet Explorer app, although, as highlighted by that SunSpider result up there, full desktop pages can take some time to fully render -- about 30 seconds on average.

The reviewers told us how the chassis of the Lumia 900 is wonderful to behold, despite the ugly protruding screen.

from the same review:
Instead, users are treated to a jarring experience: a border now surrounds that 4.3-inch display, causing it to protrude awkwardly from that shapely, cyan body. Suffice to say, it makes for an unflattering first impression.

So without some suggestion about who these 'reviewers' are and who you are contrasting them with and the number of reviews you're taking into account your post is nothing but baseless conjecture and a quite lame attempt to hint at some sort of conspiracy but easily disproved by a quick google search.

It has turned me off Kickstarter, for sure. I'll be much more skeptical in the future and probably won't fund the more expensive ventures since I've already been dinged for $150. I hope that the publications that covered the glasses will be a little more wary when these guys show up with the next big thing.

If you return something at BB, insist that they credit you the inflated in-store web price.

Well its not that easy. First there really isn't any good entertainment content on YouTube unless you're 13 years old and get a laugh out of retards.Gimme some good Sci Fi like http://www.pioneerone.tv/ (Which I donated twice to) and I'll watch I started my boycott by not going to the movie's and I haven't been to one movie since before Iron Man 2. I just couldn't spend $40-50 between me an my son to watch some shitty movie which I might as well buy a big screen tv and just buy the DVD's at pawnshops.

I did buy the Louis CK show that he release and it was worth every penny http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/22/louis-ck-makes-1-million-in-12-days-proves-that-drm-free-conte/. I haven't bought commercial music for ages but I still do download old stuff and have about 400 cd still. My tastes changed a little and I get quite a bit of music from http://www.ektoplazm.com/

Ah!

http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/16/lacie-brick-hard-drive-as-lego-block/

I'm a just leave this here.

Why is it okay for Rapidshare to make money off copyrighted content but not the creators? As some one that lives off copyrighted content why do they have more rights than I do? I spend years creating the content that they casually hand off to anyone with a computer. My creditors would point out that I'm far from rich yet the owners of Rapidshare make serious money off copyright holders. Take away the profits and the creators will vanish. I couldn't care less about the distributors I'm talking about the creators. As a creator I'll tell you now if you give all the profits to groups like Rapidshare then there will be no new content. They aren't the heroes it's the content creators who have been screwed over by the distributors who paid them $0.10 on the $1 and now the file sharing services that pay zero cents on the dollar!. Support the artists and screw the corporate lackies including Rapidshare!

Seems to me your method of making money is dead. Sitting there and bitching about it will do nothing and legislating will take year and years to lock up the illegal distributions methods while new ones pop up. So wouldn't it be about time to change careers like the majority of the population or embrace the interweb as the ultimate distribution channel and work your way up to success. Mind you, you still need to produce something worth while as like with antiques all of a sudden those rare ones seem to be popping up all over the place because of people using the Internet to connect with each other, No where there were only a few, there a hundreds and technology killed that scarcity.

Here you go http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/22/louis-ck-makes-1-million-in-12-days-proves-that-drm-free-conte/

Microsoft recently got this patent:
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/09/23/microsoft_contemplates_mobiles_with_interchangeable_accessories/

Now, go to http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/26/how-would-you-change-sony-ericssons-xperia-x1/2#comments and do a find in page for the word "bottom" or "pop out" ... ok read that description .. now if you scroll up to the top of the article you can see a photo of the Xperia X1 which is being talked about .. notice that a combination of the Xperia X1 and the comment exactly fit the patent of microsoft? If you read the actual patent it becomes even clearer they stole the idea from that engadget comment.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/01/nsa-builds-own-model-of-android-phone-wants-you-to-do-the-same/

Okay, so it's only off-the-shelf parts, but if you really want a mobile device that can earn the label "secure," (software ain't a thing w/o hardware) you're probably going to want something vetted by a security organization/company like....well...the NSA.

Trust the NSA. Thats a laugh. Its like trusting AES...which I don't because I'm a paranoid fuck.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/01/nsa-builds-own-model-of-android-phone-wants-you-to-do-the-same/

Okay, so it's only off-the-shelf parts, but if you really want a mobile device that can earn the label "secure," (software ain't a thing w/o hardware) you're probably going to want something vetted by a security organization/company like....well...the NSA.

In the one corner Apple, in the other such winners as HTC, Motorolla, Nokia and Sony Ericsson. CEO's always get fired if they back the wrong horse, but he picked the one with the right odds.

Most profitable company
Record iPad sales.
Record iPhone sales.

Apple takes 52% of all smartphone profits
Apple takes 66% of all smartphone profits
Apple takes 75% of all smartphone profits

How long before they are at 100%?

LG Posts net loss
Motorola Mobility net loss
Sony Ericsson net loss

What do you think will happen to android market share when every company stops making them because they went out of business?

Most profitable company
Record iPad sales.
Record iPhone sales.

Apple takes 52% of all smartphone profits
Apple takes 66% of all smartphone profits
Apple takes 75% of all smartphone profits

How long before they are at 100%?

LG Posts net loss
Motorola Mobility net loss
Sony Ericsson net loss

What do you think will happen to android market share when every company stops making them because they went out of business?

I agree, it is usually the FEELING that matters when it comes to these sort of things. This is the same reason people still buy Prii (plural of prius http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/21/toyota-decrees-the-plural-of-prius-is-prii-your-latin-teach/).

They have a site named after the Gizmondo, of course it's inane!

That is, stop playing DVD, Blu-Rays, and drop the ability to connect to HDMI and DVI displays?

Do DVDs, Blu-Rays, HDMI and DVI require digital restrictions? Last time I checked, they could all be used without it. The fact is, Sony (and other companies) actively choose to use those digital restrictions.

If you don't like the above mentioned technologies, you can play unprotected media and connect the PS3 via SCART, VGA or component cables anyway.

The supposed point of HDCP was to prevent people from getting really good quality video without using DRM (and prevent those evil pirates from pirating!!1!)

It's not that Sony, like Google, is plotting to insert DRM into the open standard that governs the Web

Oh, so instead they inserted DRM into the "open" standard that governs television and multimedia playback. Besides, did I ever say I supported Google? Sorry, I don't.

Done. Seven years ago.

I don't see. They appear to have deleted all pages related to the rootkit scandal from their website.

2. Stop supporting CSS, AACS, HDCP and other forms of DRM

That is, stop playing DVD, Blu-Rays, and drop the ability to connect to HDMI and DVI displays?

That's the point, come up with a frickin' format that does not use DRM and distribute movies in said format (Sony is a mayor distributor and user of DRM'd formats).

If you don't like the above mentioned technologies, you can play unprotected media and connect the PS3 via SCART, VGA or component cables anyway.

We know you love your PS3, but why do the rest of us have to put up with crippled discs we want to play elsewhere?

It's not that Sony, like Google, is plotting to insert DRM into the open standard that governs the Web.

No, because they've already inserted their DRM everywhere that matters to them.

3. Apologise for installing rookits on people's computers without their knowledge

Done. Seven years ago. And by the way, did Apple and other phone manufacturers issue any apology for installing CarrierIQ...

Interesting that you'd pick the one company by name that was the least weasel-worded about what it did and didn't use CarrieIQ for.

2. Stop supporting CSS, AACS, HDCP and other forms of DRM

That is, stop playing DVD, Blu-Rays, and drop the ability to connect to HDMI and DVI displays? If you don't like the above mentioned technologies, you can play unprotected media and connect the PS3 via SCART, VGA or component cables anyway.

It's not that Sony, like Google, is plotting to insert DRM into the open standard that governs the Web.

3. Apologise for installing rookits on people's computers without their knowledge

Done. Seven years ago. And by the way, did Apple and other phone manufacturers issue any apology for installing CarrierIQ, which had privacy implications several orders of magnitude greater, on millions of phones?

4. Apologise for taking legal action against people who circumvented their digital restrictions

Do Google apologise when they do just that?

Samsung really did make their product look identical to Apple's, whether it was on purpose or not.

Actually I think Samsung's tablet design is a copy of the digital picture frame they released in 2006. Given that was released nearly 4 years before the iPad, if anything I'd say Apple copied Samsung's design. Apple is just safe in that regard because tablets and digital photo frames aren't really competitors. But there's something seriously wrong if Apple can copy Samsung's picture frame design for use on an Apple tablet, then sue Samsung for using their own design on their own tablet.

Because apple has started using microsoft/facebook tactics and pays people loads of money to badmouth google ?

The tablet with the best battery life is running Android. Try to keep up so you don't look silly next time.

Glad to see this finally announced/released and while I'd love to exchange for my iPad2, I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade. Without Steve Jobs doing the dramatics, watching the Live Blog was almost as exciting as Watching Grass Grow.

Yeah, this will be a failure just like the last product Cook tried to sell. What was it called again?

Glad to see this finally announced/released and while I'd love to exchange for my iPad2, I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade. Without Steve Jobs doing the dramatics, watching the Live Blog was almost as exciting as Watching Grass Grow.

When I saw the rumored specs, I actually went out and sold my android tablet. I loved the thing, but I also managed to get a touchpad in the firesale. I use the touchpad the most of all, but I really want that retina display. I use my tablet for RDP/VNC all the time. Can't wait to use RDP without having to scroll around to use my machine.

Glad to see this finally announced/released and while I'd love to exchange for my iPad2, I don't see a compelling reason to upgrade. Without Steve Jobs doing the dramatics, watching the Live Blog was almost as exciting as Watching Grass Grow.

I've noticed the vast majority of smartphone users simply browse facebook all day long. How smart does a phone need to be to do that?

Microsoft tried a social featurephone. It was called the Kin. RIP. It made sense when they first thought of the idea, partly because there was going to be a special data plan for it that would cost less than an unlimited data plan. When a manager at Microsoft decreed that the Kin project needed to use Windows Phone OS, the project was delayed by over a year, and by then Verizon got fed up and scrapped the special less-expensive data plan, and people were getting really excited about iPhones. So the monthly cost of the Kin would be about the same, the cost of the Kin was nearly the same as the cost of an iPhone (assuming the carrier subsidy of course) and instead of "there's an app for that" the rule was "there's no app for that".

So, does it really surprise you that the Kin failed and people chose smartphones instead?

P.S. Consider two classes of cars:

a) can only go a short distance (most electric cars)

b) can either go a short distance or a long distance (most cars)

The second class is outselling the first class, even for people who spend all week only going a short distance. Are you surprised?

steveha

... for someone to find one in a bar, send it to Engadget and have them disassemble, reverse engineer, and review the phone.

oh so they're a charity?

maybe clones won't have broadcom chip then. however, adding "cost" to it would be adding the profit margin of say 30-40% to the chip part, which wouldn't raise the cost that much honestly, bigger thing is getting the chips in the first place and broadcom not selling their yields to a phone manufacturer.

anyways, I'd count as a clone even if it has a different soc, if it is marketed towards the same market, raspberry itself being also a clone of similar products anyhow.

but what's stopping a chinese factory looking at the demand for this, seeing that they have trouble dealing with the volume, calling up rockchip for some cheap chips and putting them on a board? seems like a no brainer. they already do that but add a screen and sell them for 80 bucks, once they see that there could be demand for a screenless arm computer they will do it sooner or later (though maybe they'll just squeeze couple of bucks off from devices like this http://www.dealextreme.com/p/android-1080p-media-player-w-av-usb-sd-hdmi-rj45-ports-blue-103331 , of course there's no gpio ports exposed.. this not being even the cheapest. damn, damn damn now I'll have to order something from dx).

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/28/fuzhou-rockchip-announces-rk30-for-the-budget-tablets-of-today/