Slashdot Mirror

It exists. Motorola Droid3 -> http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/DROID-3-by-MOTOROLA-US-EN

The keyboard is amazing. The phone is awesome (even the actual phone part, as in I can hear the other person and the other person can hear me). Dual core processor, very nice screen.

One click rooted, removed motorola/verizon crap, can't be happier.

Kyocera makes a phone that can be run over by a car and still work. Casio makes a phone which can be dropped and submerged for hours and still work. Motorola makes a Android smartphone which is dustproof and water-resistant. Apple makes a phone that breaks if it falls of a table. There's no reason that Apple's products need to be so fragile.

The first generation of rugged phones was based on a rigid frame surrounded by rubber. That adds bulk. The future may be to give the printed circuit board, display, and battery some flexibility and make the case out of Kevlar, with sapphire-over-polycarbonate for the screen. Then the whole phone can flex a bit without damage.

The next step is to get rid of the holes. It's time for connectorless phones. Modern phones have Bluetooth, WiFi, and CDMA/GSM radios. Add inductive charging and you don't need any connectors. Then the whole unit can be watertight. This beats putting in water detectors that invalidate the warranty.

Umm...no.

Motorola Mobility is comprised of two industry-leading global technology businesses. The Mobile Devices business is an innovative provider of smartphone devices designed to fit every lifestyle. In 2010, the Mobile Devices business launched 23 smartphones globally, including the highly successful family of DROID by Motorola devices as well as BRAVO, DEFY, FLIPSIDE, MILESTONE and others. The Home business is one of the largest providers of digital set-top boxes and end-to-end video solutions. Motorola Mobility will leverage the capabilities of both the Mobile Devices and Home businesses to deliver innovative smartphones, tablets, set-tops and other converged devices – as well as content delivery and management, and interactive cloud-based services to consumers in the home and on the go.

Motorola Home is part of Motorola Mobility.

Until you dock it which turns it into a workstation (of sorts). I expect this is the future.

Welcome to the future. Motorolas Atrix - a smartphone that turns into a laptop.

What you seem to be suggesting is something like Motorola Solutions' AirDefense Services Platform.

OP's customer seems to be using Motorola Solutions products, or something very similar from a competitor. He says:

[...] there is no ethernet infrastructure in place. The existing APs (hidden away in proprietary encasements) seem to be connected via telephone lines and the owners have strongly indicated they would prefer that no new wiring be installed [...]

The only product I know that uses Cat-3 (standard telephone cabling) is Motorola Solutions' T3 PowerBroadband. It's quite a nice product, but only supports 802.11b/g.

But the problem the OP faces now is the infrastructure itself. He just didn't tell us what the problem is, letting us to guess...

To start, I would recommend AirDefense Mobile Site-Survey or hire some certified professional to do an assessment and determine best access point locations. This can avoid the need to replace the entire infrastructure. It would require some repositioning of APs and, maybe, the addition of some more.

After that, he could add other AirDefense products to the mix, including the ones you seem to have suggested, to manage the network, prevent intrusion and also to provide services like RTLS and VoWLAN, so the workforce gets more efficient.

If the problem is performance (not coverage), I would suggest 802.11n and Cat-6 cabling, which the OP said the hotel owners don't want. Another option would be wireless mesh (a.k.a. WDS, but somewhat different), which is not as good and costs more.

Disclaimer: I don't work for Motorola Solutions. I resell their products and provide services like consulting, site-survey and configuration here in Brazil (pretty far from the OP).

What you seem to be suggesting is something like Motorola Solutions' AirDefense Services Platform.

OP's customer seems to be using Motorola Solutions products, or something very similar from a competitor. He says:

[...] there is no ethernet infrastructure in place. The existing APs (hidden away in proprietary encasements) seem to be connected via telephone lines and the owners have strongly indicated they would prefer that no new wiring be installed [...]

The only product I know that uses Cat-3 (standard telephone cabling) is Motorola Solutions' T3 PowerBroadband. It's quite a nice product, but only supports 802.11b/g.

But the problem the OP faces now is the infrastructure itself. He just didn't tell us what the problem is, letting us to guess...

To start, I would recommend AirDefense Mobile Site-Survey or hire some certified professional to do an assessment and determine best access point locations. This can avoid the need to replace the entire infrastructure. It would require some repositioning of APs and, maybe, the addition of some more.

After that, he could add other AirDefense products to the mix, including the ones you seem to have suggested, to manage the network, prevent intrusion and also to provide services like RTLS and VoWLAN, so the workforce gets more efficient.

If the problem is performance (not coverage), I would suggest 802.11n and Cat-6 cabling, which the OP said the hotel owners don't want. Another option would be wireless mesh (a.k.a. WDS, but somewhat different), which is not as good and costs more.

Disclaimer: I don't work for Motorola Solutions. I resell their products and provide services like consulting, site-survey and configuration here in Brazil (pretty far from the OP).

What you seem to be suggesting is something like Motorola Solutions' AirDefense Services Platform.

OP's customer seems to be using Motorola Solutions products, or something very similar from a competitor. He says:

[...] there is no ethernet infrastructure in place. The existing APs (hidden away in proprietary encasements) seem to be connected via telephone lines and the owners have strongly indicated they would prefer that no new wiring be installed [...]

The only product I know that uses Cat-3 (standard telephone cabling) is Motorola Solutions' T3 PowerBroadband. It's quite a nice product, but only supports 802.11b/g.

But the problem the OP faces now is the infrastructure itself. He just didn't tell us what the problem is, letting us to guess...

To start, I would recommend AirDefense Mobile Site-Survey or hire some certified professional to do an assessment and determine best access point locations. This can avoid the need to replace the entire infrastructure. It would require some repositioning of APs and, maybe, the addition of some more.

After that, he could add other AirDefense products to the mix, including the ones you seem to have suggested, to manage the network, prevent intrusion and also to provide services like RTLS and VoWLAN, so the workforce gets more efficient.

If the problem is performance (not coverage), I would suggest 802.11n and Cat-6 cabling, which the OP said the hotel owners don't want. Another option would be wireless mesh (a.k.a. WDS, but somewhat different), which is not as good and costs more.

Disclaimer: I don't work for Motorola Solutions. I resell their products and provide services like consulting, site-survey and configuration here in Brazil (pretty far from the OP).

Motorola spun off Motorola Mobility earlier this year, an that's the company that Google bought. That's not the same company that's making Motorola branded set-top boxes or any of the other electronic products that aren't related mobile phones.

WRONG...

http://www.motorola.com/Video-Solutions/US-EN/Products-and-Services

Sorry, you are mistaken. Have a look. Since the split, Mobility is responsible for all of the consumer electronics.

Yeah...remember how Motorola split into two companies a while back? Obviously not. Well, Google bought the division of the company that's devoted to smart phones, Motorola Mobility. Has fuck all to do with their set top boxes. Try doing at least the minimal amount of research required to actually make a point before you try making one

Sounds like a good idea. How about starting by looking at the Motorola Mobility home page, and then at the all consumer products page for Motorola Mobility, and then at, say the home digital video page. Then, if you want to argue "butbutbut that's not Motorola Mobility!", try going to the Motorola US home page, and then click on the Motorola Mobility link to see that it takes you to the aforementioned home page, then go back and follow the Motorola Solutions link and see that it takes you to the page for the other one of those two companies, which has a different domain name.

Yeah...remember how Motorola split into two companies a while back? Obviously not. Well, Google bought the division of the company that's devoted to smart phones, Motorola Mobility. Has fuck all to do with their set top boxes. Try doing at least the minimal amount of research required to actually make a point before you try making one

Sounds like a good idea. How about starting by looking at the Motorola Mobility home page, and then at the all consumer products page for Motorola Mobility, and then at, say the home digital video page. Then, if you want to argue "butbutbut that's not Motorola Mobility!", try going to the Motorola US home page, and then click on the Motorola Mobility link to see that it takes you to the aforementioned home page, then go back and follow the Motorola Solutions link and see that it takes you to the page for the other one of those two companies, which has a different domain name.

Yeah...remember how Motorola split into two companies a while back? Obviously not. Well, Google bought the division of the company that's devoted to smart phones, Motorola Mobility. Has fuck all to do with their set top boxes. Try doing at least the minimal amount of research required to actually make a point before you try making one

Sounds like a good idea. How about starting by looking at the Motorola Mobility home page, and then at the all consumer products page for Motorola Mobility, and then at, say the home digital video page. Then, if you want to argue "butbutbut that's not Motorola Mobility!", try going to the Motorola US home page, and then click on the Motorola Mobility link to see that it takes you to the aforementioned home page, then go back and follow the Motorola Solutions link and see that it takes you to the page for the other one of those two companies, which has a different domain name.

Yeah...remember how Motorola split into two companies a while back? Obviously not. Well, Google bought the division of the company that's devoted to smart phones, Motorola Mobility. Has fuck all to do with their set top boxes. Try doing at least the minimal amount of research required to actually make a point before you try making one

Sounds like a good idea. How about starting by looking at the Motorola Mobility home page, and then at the all consumer products page for Motorola Mobility, and then at, say the home digital video page. Then, if you want to argue "butbutbut that's not Motorola Mobility!", try going to the Motorola US home page, and then click on the Motorola Mobility link to see that it takes you to the aforementioned home page, then go back and follow the Motorola Solutions link and see that it takes you to the page for the other one of those two companies, which has a different domain name.

https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/24402

Talk about going off on a tangent. What's this got to do with Apple? Oh, wait, if you're an Apple fanboy then it's always got something to do with Apple hasn't it?

Oh well, I hate to burst your reality distortion bubble, but it's probably worth pointing out that Motorola Mobility HAS been after Apple over patents:

http://mediacenter.motorola.com/Press-Releases/Motorola-Mobility-Sues-Apple-for-Patent-Infringement-344d.aspx

If you're going to publicly try and comfort yourself over your brand insecurity you could at least try and get your facts right, so that you don't look too paranoid about the future of your favourite brand.

Fanboys. The worst kind of idiot.

I actually made an assumption there, but you have a good point. I Googled Motorola mobility though, and got this:

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/GB-EN/Home

The page title says:

Motorola Android Mobile Smart Phones and Tablets - Bluetooth Accessories - Home Video Networks - Motorola Mobility, Inc. United Kingdom

So it looks like it does include tablets. But what I didn't assume was the other things it appears to include:

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/GB-EN/Consumer-Products-and-Services

I didn't even realise Motorola produced some of these things, but could it mean we'll see Google SatNavs, Google Car Kits, Google Cable/DSL modems, Google DVRs, and er, Google Baby Monitors?

I'll be intrigued to know if Google discontinues some of those less relevant lines, but this is kind of exciting if you're a fan of Android, because if Motorola does DVRs, SatNavs and Car Kits too then Google may well be planning to extend Android into the car and living room with a bit more seriousness than previously the case. It looks like Motorola Mobility has it's fingers in all the pies a tech company might want to be able to produce a full lifestyle ecosystem encompassing home, and travel (god, I feel like I just spat out some sales speak there, excuse me whilst I go vomit).

I've always wanted to be able to just add things to my calendar on my tablet in the kitchen, then walk into the living room and use it to display TVs listings to tell my TV what to play, or to choose some content from my fileserver to stream to the TV, then set it to play some music. Then when that's done, walk out to my car and automatically have my car continue playing whatever music I'd previously set playing on my TV, and when I reach my destination have my phone take over that playlist as I put my headphones on and plug them into it. Obviously you can kind of do all this now, but it requires some serious hackery, and is far from being a pleasant, seamless, system. You need to really know what you're doing.

Let's face it, it's the future, it's just waiting for someone to take a serious stab at it. Will Google make an attempt at that now that they've got the hardware base to go with their software division? I'm hoping so!

The only thing we'll need then is for it to be standardised so that you can buy a product from any manufacturer whether it's an iPad or a Playbook,a Xoom, or a Tab and have it integrate into such a system. Okay, well, maybe now I'm REALLY asking too much ;)

I actually made an assumption there, but you have a good point. I Googled Motorola mobility though, and got this:

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/GB-EN/Home

The page title says:

Motorola Android Mobile Smart Phones and Tablets - Bluetooth Accessories - Home Video Networks - Motorola Mobility, Inc. United Kingdom

So it looks like it does include tablets. But what I didn't assume was the other things it appears to include:

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/GB-EN/Consumer-Products-and-Services

I didn't even realise Motorola produced some of these things, but could it mean we'll see Google SatNavs, Google Car Kits, Google Cable/DSL modems, Google DVRs, and er, Google Baby Monitors?

I'll be intrigued to know if Google discontinues some of those less relevant lines, but this is kind of exciting if you're a fan of Android, because if Motorola does DVRs, SatNavs and Car Kits too then Google may well be planning to extend Android into the car and living room with a bit more seriousness than previously the case. It looks like Motorola Mobility has it's fingers in all the pies a tech company might want to be able to produce a full lifestyle ecosystem encompassing home, and travel (god, I feel like I just spat out some sales speak there, excuse me whilst I go vomit).

I've always wanted to be able to just add things to my calendar on my tablet in the kitchen, then walk into the living room and use it to display TVs listings to tell my TV what to play, or to choose some content from my fileserver to stream to the TV, then set it to play some music. Then when that's done, walk out to my car and automatically have my car continue playing whatever music I'd previously set playing on my TV, and when I reach my destination have my phone take over that playlist as I put my headphones on and plug them into it. Obviously you can kind of do all this now, but it requires some serious hackery, and is far from being a pleasant, seamless, system. You need to really know what you're doing.

Let's face it, it's the future, it's just waiting for someone to take a serious stab at it. Will Google make an attempt at that now that they've got the hardware base to go with their software division? I'm hoping so!

The only thing we'll need then is for it to be standardised so that you can buy a product from any manufacturer whether it's an iPad or a Playbook,a Xoom, or a Tab and have it integrate into such a system. Okay, well, maybe now I'm REALLY asking too much ;)

"Our Mobile Devices business segment will have approximately 14,600 granted patents and 6,700 pending patent applications, worldwide. Our patent portfolio includes numerous patents related to various industry standards, including 2G, 3G, 4G, H.264, MPEG-4, 802.11, open mobile alliance (OMA) and near field communications (NFC)." ( http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/About_Motorola/Technology/Approach )

Given that Google's number of patents was previously estimated to be around 700 something, this is a huge step up in the patent war - or a way to end it.

Motorola Mobile also invested in a lot of interesting startup companies. One of them was Danger, which MS bought and then lost its founders to Google, where they came to lead its Android project -- it is a small world. I wonder if Google will pick up those investments as well.

Another interesting twist is that this means that Google is now suddenly throw into a lawsuit with Apple. Hopefully some of these lawsuits will now be settled with cross-licensing without costing the consumer any more.

Motorola sued Apple in October 2010 over a number of patents: http://mediacenter.motorola.com/Press-Releases/Motorola-Mobility-Sues-Apple-for-Patent-Infringement-344d.aspx.

I'm not saying I'm supporting all this patent fighting but if you go after Apple, Apple will go after you.

Oh, and my phone is a Motorola Defy, which is reasonably rugged. Motorola is rolling out the Titanium now, which supposedly meets military specs.

Oh, and my phone is a Motorola Defy, which is reasonably rugged. Motorola is rolling out the Titanium now, which supposedly meets military specs.

There's a good selection of phones available which meet military ruggedness standards. Motorola's DEFY phone, which runs Android, is a full-face touch screen ruggedized phone. It has roughly the same form factor as an iPhone. It's also water-resistant. (If the inductive-charging people would get their act together and standardize, phones could be connectorless and sealed, which would be a win.)

That uses Corning "Gorilla Glass", which is reasonably rugged and scratch resistant. The next step up would be sapphire over polycarbonate. ("Will assist in reduction of vehicle weight without compromising ballistic performance")

Symbol is now part of Motorola: http://www.motorola.com/Business/US-EN/Business%20Product%20and%20Services/Bar%20Code%20Scanning/Scan-equipped%20Mobile%20Computers. Fate worse than d

But, if you want open, SquareUp mentioned elsewhere looks to be the easiest approach- just plug it into the audio jack of any phone/tablet/whatever. Using a camera for barcode recognition is ok for very low volume transactions only though.

They did modify parts that are under the GPL, and they release those parts. The individual manufacturers release the parts the modify, as well (see for example, this page).

Unfortunately, the parts under the GPL are a small set of the code; mainly the kernel and some surrounding pieces.

An Android pad with a real tablet OS comes out, is panned by the tech community and people wonder what it didn't sell as many as the iPad? Most people who want a tablet but have yet to buy a iPad are a patient bunch and will wait till the right one comes out. From all the reviews, the Zoom is not the right tablet.

Maybe your "real" tablet OS was panned because it is still incomplete and rough around the edges but we'll stick to your theory that the iPad success is all about marketing.

If you want to compare sales compare how many iPads were sold in the same time period as the release of the Zoom. Then the comparison may be valid.

Apple sold 3.27 millions iPads from April 3, 2010 to July 20, 2010 which is slightly more than a quarter. Apple didn't announce iPad sales in the 2Q 2010 as the iPad had been recently released. Motorola sold 250,000 in 2 months from Feb 24, 2011 to April 28, 2011. If we interpolate, Motorola is selling 125,000 Xooms per month while Apple sold over 800,000 iPads per month. In order to catch Apple with the same kinds of sales, Motorola will have to sell 1.5 million Xooms per month for the next 2 months to catch the original iPad.

my biggest issue with it is the price -which is largely a function of it being an Apple product...

I've been reading around a bit on these tablets, a lot of people are talking about the Motorola XOOM as being the big iPad competitor.

When I went to the Motorola website to check it out I found the XOOM costs $799.00 and while the screen is a bit larger, making it true 720p, and appears to have a built in HDMI output, it also has half the storage space of a top of the line iPad 2 which only costs $30.00 more.

Hell, if you were looking for a better deal you could get the 32GB iPad 2 for $729.00 and use the $70.00 you'll save from buying the XOOM to buy a couple of months worth of wireless services, or buy an HDMI adaptor if you need to play out to a TV, or buy a tonne of apps on an App Store that has more than a few hundred or so apps on it, or simply pocket the money and treat yourself to a fancy dinner to celebrate the fact you just saved $70.00.

It's here

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/Motorola-ATRIX-US-EN

Why outrun the bear when you just need to outrun the other lawyers?

LMGTFY

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/Motorola-DROID-X-US-EN

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/DROID2-Global-US-EN

(FYI, I get the SW ANH reference, I was just being snarky)

LMGTFY

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/Motorola-DROID-X-US-EN

http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US-EN/Consumer-Product-and-Services/Mobile-Phones/DROID2-Global-US-EN

(FYI, I get the SW ANH reference, I was just being snarky)

The Adam has been shipping for a month, and people have them in their hands.

The Xoom will be available in stores Feb 24th, i.e. tomorrow (after a week's delay). Is that close enough for you? It's a little more expensive than the iPad, but has far more features. The wifi-only version is equivalently priced but further off, yes.

A rooted Nook Color is certainly a geek's toy; I'd agree it's not a mass-market product. Luckily, we're all geeks on Slashdot, yes? It's definitely a valid option for many people here.

Motorola has been quite bad about promising updates and not delivering. See here for a list of broken promises. Especially glaring was the failure on the Cliq XT. A year of "we're testing it" followed by "we just couldn't do it". Never mind that the phone ships in Korea running 2.1, never mind that custom 2.1 firmwares work flawlessly, they just wanted to sell new phones. I know Moto is just another big corp doing what big corps do, but eff them, I (and all the non-techies that ask my advice) won't be buying Moto anything again.

Flash is a market app. Motorola and/or carriers have nothing to do with it.

Motorola has been quite bad about promising updates and not delivering. See here for a list of broken promises. Especially glaring was the failure on the Cliq XT. A year of "we're testing it" followed by "we just couldn't do it". Never mind that the phone ships in Korea running 2.1, never mind that custom 2.1 firmwares work flawlessly, they just wanted to sell new phones. I know Moto is just another big corp doing what big corps do, but eff them, I (and all the non-techies that ask my advice) won't be buying Moto anything again.

Maybe he meant it in the sense of VP8 isn't ever going to cause a mobile phone device manufacturer to develop, test and deploy an update to their firmware to support a new codec

Google is the primary maintainer of the firmware for numerous smartphones with numerous SOCs. The market share of phone's running a Google operating system has already surpassed Apple and is headed for RIM. Google also owns the (permissively licensed) copyright and patent in VP8. So Nexus phones will get VP8 first just as they get other Android updates first, and then other phones will get it as they update Android. Have I already linked you this article about hardware acceleration of VP8?

Google will not successfully get the vast majority of non-Nexus phones upgraded. Just taking a peak at Motorola for example shows that the Charm, Cliq XT, Devour, Flipout, i1 and Milestone are all finished with upgrades in the US. The rest of the world didn't look too much better.

Sony hasn't made anyone feel good with the X10, now have they? And they had some other even more orphaned phone.

You honestly expect any significant percentage of already shipped non-Nexus phones to have WebM acceleration delivered via updates to end users within the next 1-2 years? Your article, was a bit light on details by the way. Google making information available doesn't exactly equate to "upgrades forthcoming".

Samsung hasn't exactly endeared themselves to the community either, with accusations of holding back updates to make newer phones seem more attractive.

So let's see, WebOS 2 not shipping to existing Pre/Pixi devices, Apple not supporting WebM, Android updates hit or miss depending on phone and carrier, no concrete news from Microsoft and their partners. You really sure WebM is going to take over mobile video streaming? Or even make a dent?

Goodbye Nokia.

I'm still have a 5-year old symbian80 smartphone (a descendant of Nokia's very first line of smartphones).
CTL C is all I need to do to copy and paste.
Now how soon before a windows smartphone will have this functionality?

Now even non-smartphones can run Android (i886 by motorola).
While this phone is running a non-open version of android (it's still running a linux kernel) - it shows that Nokia had other options.

The worst Smartphone OS will now be bundled with the most "under-dog" of smartphone providers.

I expect the same to happen to QT.
I had great hope that the new CEO would have shed - attachment to his former employer.
Looks to me he's still in love with microsoft.

Nokia has (or perhaps-now "had") some of the most innovative engineers out there.
Because of this, the smartphone market will suffer, QT will suffer - Linux will suffer.
And shareholders will suffer, they're currently suffering over 14%.

Nokia, you had so much potential,
You came up with the first real smartphone,
You were #1 for a long time.

Now that smartphones are taking over, you hire a MS guy to run your company...

Well, good luck with that.

(On the other-hand I just became a Motorola developer because of this.)

Me, my 2cents and my 9 nokia phones (7 retired).

You claim that smartphones need to be more functional like netbooks before they're widely accepted? Like NETBOOKS?? Worldwide, 302 million smartphones were shipped in 2010. In comparison, Gartner's high estimate of Netbook sales in 2010 was only about 42 million, although I think when all was said and done the total was even lower, blunted by the iPad. Heck, total PC shipments of all types in 2010 were only about 376 million, with smartphones sure to surpass that total either this year or next. Regardless, smartphones are certainly closer to "dominating" the American phone market than netbooks are to dominating the PC market.

That's not to say that netbooks are not useful; I agree they are. But it's simply wrong to categorize smartphones as mere toys. True, they can't easily do spreadsheets, but OTOH how many netbooks serve as a primary phone, a primary camera, a primary music device, a gps device, and are carried around every single day by their owners? And factor in competiton from the tablet form factor and devices like the Motorola Atrix and HP's Pre3 with the so-called "touch-to-share" feature, it can be argued that in fact it's the netbook which needs to learn to be more useful.

You're right, in a sense, about the price though. Dumbphones dominate because they're cheaper and the battery lasts MUCH longer. That's basically it. But do smartphones need to "dominate" the phone market in the first place, and is their lack of doing so a failure? Does the Volvo S80 need to dominate the global car market, maybe become more Honda Civic-y?

even hackers can be twarted.. mabye not by Android, but where do you get a pure, unadulterated version that hasn't been skinned/themed/customized by the hardware manufacturer or carrier?

eFuse - run our OS or nothing at all
”http://www.talkandroid.com/6670-motorola-speaks-out-about-efuse-says-droid-x-will-not-brick-or-explode/

“Motorola’s primary focus is the security of our end users and protection of their data, while also meeting carrier, partner and legal requirements. The Droid X and a majority of Android consumer devices on the market today have a secured bootloader. In reference specifically to eFuse, the technology is not loaded with the purpose of preventing a consumer device from functioning, but rather ensuring for the user that the device only runs on updated and tested versions of software. If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can re-boot once approved software is re-installed.Checking for a valid software configuration is a common practice within the industry to protect the user against potential malicious software threats. Motorola has been a long time advocate of open platforms and provides a number of resources to developers to foster the ecosystem including tools and access to devices via MOTODEV at http://developer.motorola.com./

since it's "illegal" to prevent jailbreaking (or whatever the Android equivalent is).. how is eFuse permitted?
Apple removes the jailbreak API http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2374221,00.asp
and MOT builds eFuse?

and every single one of them will void your warranty on the hardware.

It will?

Where, exactly, is that spelled out in the warranty agreement?

The warranty for my Droid 1 doesn't seem to care a bit about software -- in fact, it goes on at length about exactly how little Motorola gives a shit about how poorly the software on the device behaves.

HTC's warranty is similarly worded.

Hack away.

Google did a bang up job kneecapping open source efforts in the mobile space

How so? The Android platform is great for open source, im not sure which open source efforts you're referring to that Google have affected.

Then they sit back and have the nerve to tell us that Android is "open" while users are forced to jailbreak and deal with vendors that try to cripple devices so they can leverage later versions as a selling point for the next carrier contract.

Not sure about the significance of linking to vendors' landing pages but whatever... The fact that vendors lock down the devices isn't anything to do with Android, that's an issue with the vendor. And in the end if you want something that's almost completely open then there's always the N900, that will run just about any linux app you want, but i doubt the average user would choose the N900 over Android.

Then they sit back and have the nerve to tell us that Android is "open" while users are forced to jailbreak and deal with vendors that try to cripple devices so they can leverage later versions as a selling point for the next carrier contract.

Not quite forced. Agreed that this ability to gain root access should be mandatory across the platform, but at least Google is doing the right thing in this case, and publicly defending it too.

Google did a bang up job kneecapping open source efforts in the mobile space, convincing the community to chase after an environment that discarded pretty much every existing open source tool in the name of NIH and withholds new versions from the community until their partners are done getting their releases out with it.

Then they sit back and have the nerve to tell us that Android is "open" while users are forced to jailbreak and deal with vendors that try to cripple devices so they can leverage later versions as a selling point for the next carrier contract.

I hope that MeeGo takes off with non-asshole hardware vendors, if not the we might as well right off the mobile computing space as being property of Microsoft, Apple, and Google.

They (in the US anyway) have less than a dozen customers. Without convincing the networks their phones will make people happy, there will be a harder sell. With half-generation old HTC phones, Samsung phones, and LG competing in the low-end and HTC and Samsung on the high (well they only really compete in the high-end on Verizon) they are very replaceable.

This thread https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/31532 and it's follow up, as it was causing stability issues on motorola's server due to it's size have over 1,000,000 combined views and 7,000 replies (last comment in that link is a link to the replacement).

Note this isn't too many people, but they are grabbing cheap top of the line phones (people offered MyTouch 4G, or G2 to stay with Tmobile over it).

My girlfriend was given 2 G2 phones for $50 each, one was replacing a 20 day phone (highly subsidized phone not to be turned down), the other only 7 months.

When she said "I have a cliq XT, do you know why I'm calling" to customer service the guy responded "Yes, what do you want"

Were the phone hardware not locked down, it would have been a non-issue. Really even upgrading to Android 1.6 would have been nice (free navigation), and certainly provided by the community (looks like it even is now, though I failed to find a ROM without tons of issues a month ago).

Motorola needs to be concerned about their customers, not consumers, and they don't appear to be doing that. Tmobile didn't even try to use another Motorola phone as the replacement. And maybe people don't care about versions, but they do care about Angry Birds, and Navigation.

Oh, by the way... Here's another instance that's going to be hitting AT&T stores shortly that WILL be storefront: Motorola Atrix

Ask, and Motorola will provide with others soon to follow.

I already have, but I'm still pissed that I haven't gotten the official update that was promised and delayed several times.

All Android phones released in 2010 were capped at 1Ghz with chips from either Qualcomm or Samsung. The Samsung Infuse 4G is the first phone I'm aware of that at stock is greater than 1Ghz (it is 1.2Ghz).

Almost all the Motorola Android phones, and all the high-end ones currently shipping, use TI OMAP processors.

First, Droid (Milestone) in 2009 used a TI OMAP 3430

Later, Droid X in 2010 used a TI OMAP 3630 at 1Ghz

Finally, Droid 2 Global Launched on Nov 9 2001 with a 1.2 GHz TI OMAP processor

Phones are quickly becoming our primary computing device, or at least the centerpiece of our electronic lives.

Have you seen the Motorola Atrix (I think they showed it at CES)?

This thing has a laptop dock. That's not a dock that you can connect to your laptop, it's an actual laptop, made for the phone - the phone docks in the back and is the computer. It basically is a big keyboard and screen for the phone.

I'm not saying that it's a good or bad thing, but it certainly is interesting. Who knows if the rest of the industry will follow suit.

He's cutting the wrong way. He should be eliminating all the PBX systems and giving everyone a Motorola Atrix type device instead. It take/makes calls, send/receive email, converts to desktop/laptop, and plugs into projector/TV for multimedia presentations.

For them, that was the grandest feature.

I bought my phone 'cause the case was rubber and it came with a carbuncle, so I don't see what's wrong with buying a phone based on it having some random feature built into the design that's highly useful for the person buying it? Especially when just a few years ago most phones had comparable features as far as the buyer is concerned.

While not covered well in the press, like IXI, Motorola is also demanding that Microsoft stop shipping "infringing" products, though in this case they speak of virtually the entire Microsoft product line. This can become very interesting. I think Microsoft picked on the wrong company to try and bully and run it's protection racket on this time. They seem to have inherited SCO's footgun...

It will be an interesting fight. Don't forget that RIM sued Motorola, Motorola sued back, and they settled the suits out of court confidentially but with a couple pieces of information released to the public:

The financial terms of the Agreement include an up-front payment and ongoing royalties to Motorola. Further terms and conditions of the Agreement are confidential.

So yes, it is possible that Microsoft picked the wrong company to bully. RIM certainly did. Motorola has been doing high-tech stuff for a very long time...