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Motorola Launches A760 Linux and Java Smartphone
securitas writes "Motorola launched its A760 Linux and Java smartphone in China today. The dual-mode GSM/GPRS phone uses a version of MontaVista Linux, Motorola's i250 chip for communications, Intel's 200 MHz PXA262 chip (based on the XScale PXA250) for computing with 256 MB RAM, and software that includes a personal information management application, digital camera, a video player, MP3 music player, and an instant-messaging tool. The A760 is the first of Motorola's Linux-based phones. Eventually Motorola plans to use Linux in most of its phones."
What's the screen resolution?
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I find it odd that Motorola, a maker of embedded microprocessors, would go with an Intel chip.
There ain't no rules here; we're trying to accomplish something.
crazy fuckin large ad on the right? sick eh isnt it?
Aparently it has over 100 dead satellites and availability is erratic.. are there any devices that use the GLONASS system and the NAVSTAR one at the same time to enhance location accuracy, or is GLONASS utterly useless?
1.) Bash 2.) GCC 3.) X11 4.) Emacs
What's another word for Thesaurus?
-Steve Wright
Where are the pictures?
every cell fone should have a SSH client and a IP address. Being a Sys Admin, I know how important it is to get access to SSH.
If you can create a SSH tunnel (see mindterm through your your company's firwall, you can get to any intranet server using SSH on your cellfone
Or you could even SSH tunnel into your cell, and retreive telefone number, addresses(or other data).
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Actually, EU's Galileo-project is not on hold but active particularly now that the Chinese wish to become partners in it.
The owls are not what they seem
Motorola's own page for the product does not even mention that it uses Linux. I doubt they'll officially support people trying to get a root shell prompt on it.
Why Emacs? It's already got an OS and that's Linux.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
There are some pictures here.
The transparent window to let you see the screen when the clamshell is closed is a nice touch, but it's following the latest phone trend of looking like it's eaten too many pies. When will someone produce a phone styled like the iPod with it's slick square-with-rounded-corners look?
I wonder if you can telnet in from the serial port/data link port, install a VNC server and then have all your phone controlls on your desktop? Would be a big improvement over fiddly little buttons - mind you in the photo it doesn't seem to have numeric buttons, but rather use some kind of touch screen controls as well as a D pad.
Beep beep.
Motorola struggling isn't news to anyone who watches Apple, nor is it news to anyone else with a vested interested in Motorola's semiconductor branch. But it's not like the company is beleagured. It's not like it takes Motorola's last gasping breath to release a new G4. The problem with Motorola's "struggle" is Motorola's attitude toward innovation.
Since the joint IBM/Motorola Somerset facility was turned over to Motorola, all innovation within its PowerPC division has stopped. "Don't mess with a good design," you say? Consider this: the last new cores Motorola helped to create were the the G2 contingent: the PowerPC 602, 603, 604, and 620 chips and their variants. Working with IBM on their last joint project, Motorola produced the 750, a tweak to the 603 core. Since then, every new chip has been based on something that came from that effort.
The entire G4 family is naught but a 750 core with a SIMD unit and a core ripped from the PowerPC 604. While not a bad chip, it's obvious that there was something inherently stifling about the G4's architecture. It's easy to understand if you look at the 74xx series as a 603 with major kludges thrown on top. That they even reached past 1 GHz is impressive (remember the 500 MHz fiasco?).
Motorola's new PowerQUICC III family (rumored to be the PowerPC G5 for some time) is also based on the 603 core, as were the PowerQUICC I and PowerQUICC II families. Zooming out for a broader perspective, PowerQUICC III and Motorola's automotive PowerPC 52xx line are both based on the e500 core, more or less a 603 core with tweaks to meet the BookE spec.
The above examples are not the actual problem, however, but a symptom: Motorola innovates rarely and rides the wave for as long as possible, even when it's clear that they need to get back to the drawing board. They've been extending 1994 technology for ten years, and while that may work in some cases (IBM still successfully updates its own PowerPC 750 variants), in the end it serves only to decrease the quality of its product. Not to mention that Motorola is shooting itself in its own foot.
In the end, Motorola's upper management is at fault for making the decisions not to innovate; the engineers and designers at Motorola do an excellent job of what they have to work with. Hopefully with CEO Chris Galvin's resignation the attitudes and practices of management will change and Motorola can produce some astounding new cores for the PowerPC family.
The Motorola MPx200 Windows Smartphone is available in the US now. (with a good introductory rebate/bundle promo at CompUSA for another day or two).
The telco 3 in the UK ship the a920, the precursor to this phone. It has the symbian open platform and embedded opera, but 3 have disabled internet browsing, java download, bluetooth and IRDA on it, crippling it completely. These devices have lots of potential, but seeing them crippled like this makes me dispair.
I find the proliferation of Linux-based devices interesting. It would seem to suggest a growing base of devices that will attract application developers and create more reasons for both users and platform manufacturers to adopt Linux.
But I wonder if a common kernel is sufficient from the perspective of the end-user. In particular, I wonder how compatible the various flavors of Linux are when it comes to GUI-based applications that most people want to use. Unless all these various devices can run some common GUI, most of the real applications that people want to use will will be impossible to port between all these devices or hard to use if they get ported but use different interface guidelines.
Perhaps the volume of devices running Linux is less important than the volume of devices running a standardized UI layer and set of interface guidelines on Linux.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I heard they still can't get the sound to work.
This is cool and all.. But can I make calls with it?
People misunderstand what the EU is...even people in Germany, France, England, etc etc.
Its sold as a way of a sort of "Universal Law, partnerships with our neighbors, greater good, technology partnership, improve the lot of humanity, save the whales, love the French etc etc etc"
Its nothing of the sort.
Its an economic convenience to make business conditions more favorable to compete with N. America and Asia.
So when things like "Common Defense" or "Project Galileo" are announced, you know it will never happen. The EU has no political will to speak of, but more importantly, there is no overwhelming business interest that supports Galileo.
I predicted when this was announced that it would never fly. As usual, I am correct.
Its kind of funny, but too much of the queer jokes.
Need a different angle for the 2nd verse. Maybe goat f*cking?
Are they going to ship a copy of the GPL with this phone?
And make the source available?
Hrmmm. hope so Moto!
...I pointed out that unless SCO gets $30 to license SCO IP present in all Unix (and particularly Linux), the use of this phone is illegal in the United States?
Jackass. Trolltech is 6% owned by the same fuckers that own SCO.
Sure, its only 6%, but I'll be damned if I give that Yarro fucker a DIME of my money, even if it is only 6% of a dime.
Time to boycott Trolltech and anything that uses their products (KDE).
Nah. If I support Linux companies, it will get better.
If I support Microsoft, everyone will get screwed as Microsoft gets yet another monopoly.
So assuming your post is accurate (I've not heard anything to verify the post from this AC), I still want to support the Linux companies.
Microsoft has leeway from its monopoly rents. We have to help Linux companies survive.
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
Wow! An open source cell phone. Think about all those ringtone options!
3. X11???
Why don't you use X12? I has better diagnostic analysis but still uses the core X11 ARIMA models.
-- Alchohol is a hard drug. Cannabis is a soft drug.
"two StrataFlash memory chips for 256MB of memory"
Uhm, I shared the results of my work with /. and for that I get modded Troll? Just because someone doesn't like the results? That seems wrong.
Everyone (at the time of reading) seems to be stuck on the linux-ness of this phone, with spurious speculation about gcc, bash etc. But the point is that the software development platform for these things will be: 1) Java 2) Not controlled by Microsoft or Symbian or Palm 3) See (1) etc... It may well indicate a new platform for open source software development, but it is not going to look much like any current paradigm, I suspect. Also, the 2 parts (phone and "computer", for want of a better word) will be highly separated to avoid people writing software to "adjust" their phone bills.
Links to some results? Of course not.
Here's a summary of MY results:
My Linux powered toilet flushes 1000% faster and can handle much larger (sometimes by an order of magnitude) offerings than my Windows based one. It also uses %50 less water. Can you believe that?
I'm sticking with Linux for all my bathroom needs. I can't wait to install Apache on it either. That's gonna rock.
I don't know what my issue is but every single time I see a new device that sports Linux I consider getting one and turning it into a webserver. One of these days that's what's happening to my PS2.
I did this work for my employer, of course I can't post the results.
I won't make the mistake of posting real results again, apparently slashdot is incapable of accomodating anything other than drooling Linux zealots.
I try to be a professional, not a priest.
Motorola must think the SCO threat is low.
This, to me is good news not only for people
wanting to have a Linux based MotoPhone but
also for Linux itself.
BTW, I hear that Metroworks has really gone
down the tubes lately so it doesn't suprise
me that they chose MontaVista
-- TT
TT
It's been patently obvious for several years that the Motorola management simply have no confidence in their own products.
8 .html
They eat as little their own dogfood as they can in the products they sell and they don't eat it in their internal I.T. infrastructure at all. It falls into place when you see that they are getting rid of their microprocessor division entirely[1].
It also begs the question, why would anyone else want to eat their dogfood? Apple have answered that one by going to IBM for the G5.
[1] http://www.arstechnica.com/archive/news/106550218
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Ouch!
May be when it comes to $300 or so, I will consider.
I'm looking for a new phone and have been waiting until the all everyhting phone comes around, this sounds like the one.
MMORPG Fan? Prove your worth!
well what the hell did you except?
the only os you mentioned was windows ce, no mention of any phones or other os'es used(what other smartphone uses linux than this new moto? what is your definition for a smartphone? which vendors you tested, which programs?).
as such those numbers meant NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, NADA ZIP FUCKING ZERO.
now, if you had told that it's better than some version x of symbian or linux on some phone y, you
might have something in it. or had provided some reasons and circumstances why the windows ce way is better.. but you didn't. you just bluntly stated that you're a professional and that theres pretty numbers.
you could have added some substance to it, like that you can crash a nokia 6600 with a j2me app(anyone know a place for a buglist for it? it really can and will crash on some midlets so that it will need the battery removed)..
it doesn't matter if your argument is real if you don't have anything to back it up with, my car might be green but would you take my anonymous word for it that it goes 150mph?
this post with 1000% more flexibility than the next leading brand.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm sure typing "dialphone 555-123-4567" from the command line will work, but if you want a GUI you're going to have to download the correct video drivers, recompile your X server and pray that everything works properly.
/etc/gsm.conf and /etc/gprs.conf properly, the man pages aren't quite finished yet. ;)
Oh, and good luck editing
My English teacher once told me that two positives don't make a negative. Two words for her: Yeah, right.
Haha. I think a few weeks ago when I asked for one of these someone told me they would never exist. I'm going to need a new cell phone here in a month or 2 so lets get this thing to the US!
I do security
I tried to point to this Register-story earlyer:/ 31962.html
i temid=52 0
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/68
Motorola have had the A760 cooking for a long time. Any release in US or Europe is yet undecided. And only two weeks after they recently sold their share in Symbian, a Microsoft phone - MPx200 - was announced.
Motorola state in a press release that a row of MS based phones are planned, and that the two companies are cooperating closely within development and strategic marketing. The english version of the release seems to have vanished, but one in swedish is available, dated today:
http://sverige.motorola.com/newsview.asp?
I think it's safe to consider the A760 an "asian experiment". There are currently no indication further plans for those devices. There are, however, very explicit plans for further development of MS-based devices.
broken URL - trying again: Link to press release in Swedish
The XScale has an order of magnitude better performance per watt than PPC - we're talking fractions of a watt flat out at 400MHz (see the spec sheet). Also note that this is an Intel/DEC improved ARM core, and isn't x86 based in the slightest.
This particular XScale also has a large wedge of on-chip flash and a bunch of handy peripherals for mobile devices - which is unsurprising seeing as that's what it seems to have been made for.
It is funny that Motorola favour other manufacturer's chips for embedded low power devices, but the reason is simple: none of their stuff fits the bill. Even their own mobile phones seem to use ARM these days.
Me? A zealot!? Ha! And you're a bunghole. (Ruins my priestly visage I guess.)
There was a fair amount of sarcasm in my post. It had less to do with Windows vs. Linux and more to do with someone blowing statistics out their ass.
We have no evidence. No sources. Nothing but some dork on Slashdot's word. Even IF your statistics were the real deal, like anyone here could go on what you said.
Jesus Tapdancing Christ!!! WTF does a phone need 1/4 GB of RAM for?
Could we pleeease update the Handhelds Icon?
;-)
I mean we are talking about a 200Mhz phone with 256MB ram. The Palm does not really suit this topic fine anymore. I know it's just eyecandy but it happend to the Apple-icon when it got outdated.
And while you're at it, update the Gnome icon as well. That would be neat.
And yeah, I am still using a Palm III here. As a universal remote control.
good A760 info
The phone runs on Linux, but did Motorola release SDKs as well, so we can add some software like on the Zaurus? Have a real Linux underneath that will allow me to be somewhat productive with it?
So far, it looks to me like some other lock-in scheme akin to WinCE or Windows for (Dumb) phones.
And more to notice - all the interesting Linux toys like the new Zaurus, this Motorola phone - are only delivered in Asia. Why this?
Keep in mind that Linux is only the back end for this unit. What you see on the front end will be basically java apps.
Also Dont assume that just because the back end is open source that you will be able to have total control of your phone. There is a lot of money in after market programs for "smart phones" and there is no way that motorola is going to give that up. There will still be subsidy locks that will not allow you to install what you want.
On a platform like that, you could get done typing entire documents on VI while Emacs is still loading. :P
That's all overkill. I use X10 to remotely operate my phone.
Replace java with Qt/Embedded (a la the Zaurus and most other Linux handhelds), and you're right.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I think it's tragic that we buy devices that are inherently programmable, and yet the programmability is sealed off from us. When the device runs Linux, it's ironic as well.
Remember Richard Stallman and the printer with proprietary interface codes? Some future Richard Stallman will be in the exact same position, and the printer will be running Linux.
I thought that J2ME meant the same code could run on different mobile devices. A developer working on that stuff told me otherwise. The code he's writing is full of device-specific hooks. "So why Java?" "It's a marketing gimmick."
Opening up the mobile platforms would have two sets of benefits. First, it would benefit the techies who could automate certain repetitive work. Maybe you'd program your phone to use its GPS or signal strength indicators to know when you're driving. If so, it would answer some originating numbers with a recording.
Second, it would allow the best software, rather than the incumbent software, to win with consumers. Imagine how stagnant the PC world would be if IBM had locked down the PC platform to only run IBM's code. And yet that is what many mobile platform owners are doing - even requiring code signing!
I have to agree! I get my "please don't leave us when your contract is up" cash in Jan. Please, please, please let this come to verizon, or at least them come out with a version compatable with US networks.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
It's a phone dammit. Spell it fucking properly.
Linux is just there to run Java. Apps are written for Java, which should provide binary portability across phones supporting J2ME (CLDC).
For those thinking about ssh/gcc/bash on this phone, you can forget about it! This is MotoJUIX (Motorola/Java/Linux), that's Motorola/Java, two propriatery system on top of open source kernel called Linux! This is not the GNU/Linux system you are thinking about.
After all, Stallman is right! Linux is just a KERNEL!!!
I doubt we'll be seeing this in a Verizon store anytime soon (unfortunately), as Verizon is predominantly CDMA, and this phone (like most other really cool phones out there) is GSM.
I'm still hoping for something really cool and useful phone-wise to show up at Verizon myself, as that might be the incentive I need to change from their pre-pay service to a real phone plan.
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!" -Rush
If this trend continues, Motorola may very well have the PDA killer in its hands.
As now, A760 already has a long list of features: digital camera, IR/Bluetooth/USB connection, PDA capability, Internet access, multimedia player, music/video player, Java platform, etc.
Now, imagine if it comes with bigger screen, an integrated keyboard, upgradeable storage (SD/MMC/etc), while still fits in the pocket - I think, Motorola will be able to boast that they've caused the extinction of PDA. And also will cause many to let go of their laptop.
Do you agree? Then head over to PetitionOnline.com, and sign the petition to convince Motorola that this is the way forward.