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First Linux Phone Arrives in US
Mik3D writes "Looks like a Linux based phone has finally arrived in the US. It's called Identity and it features an interesting skin technology that allows users to purchase a faceplate with embedded ring tones, gui, etc... The phone is being offered by Dobson Cellular, an also-ran cell phone company that services those of us up here in the frozen north."
and wheres the review?
really, what's the speed for and do you get any access to the "linux" underneath so that it running linux matters at all?
kinda funky looking though, looks a bit too much of 'deliberately different' for my tastes.
(and other phonemakers have had changeable covers for years and years.. and the cover having some identification/content hardly matters)
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"We chose Linux for a number of reasons", explains Wildseed VP of Engineering Peter Zatloukal. "We are building a user interface that is leagues beyond what exists on current wireless phones, and Linux provides us with a rich environment with which to render our ideas."
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so unless you're an embedded developer and might re-use the code for your own product you're hardly having advantage of it running linux(as a customer)? doesn't really look like you could load your own native programs on it..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
No doubt every
(It's funny, not a troll you crackpot moderator you)
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so unless you're an embedded developer and might re-use the code for your own product you're hardly having advantage of it running linux(as a customer)? doesn't really look like you could load your own native programs on it.
... its also a pretty darned good operating environment for embedded systems developers to use to make extraordinarily interesting devices for people who want to use those devices for specific tasks, not spend all day working out the switches for their USES= var ...
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look, would you rather it were a closed-source operating system with no support, destined for the graveyard in some bankrupcy court, or 'sold off like a cheap truck of pigs' to some other mega-corp who squish it after exercising their own propietary OS into the same marketspace?
the fact its running linux means that the device itself is based on open standards. regardless of whether you can './configure;make;make install' from the touchpad, the fact its using linux just means that its got a good head-start environment for creative developers - like the guys selling these phones - to do interesting things.
its a phone, not a rootkit. linux is not just a vast landscape of tarballs
good troll though, down on the linux tip. i won't bother mentioning that the existence of devices like this mean that the desktop wars are over, and new battlegrounds are upon us, though
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Considering its a fashion phone its a real shame it looks like its got Peyronie's Disease.
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Why could they not have made it a more "conventional" shape? It doesnt matter what OS is on the thing if it looks bad it aint going to sell.
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
It looks like the phone is curved so that the earpiece and microphone fit for a right handed caller, but I guess lefties just have to hold it convex side facing front... unless there are actually speakers and microphones on both sides.