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Cell Phone On A Chip
sebFlyte writes "Texas Instruments have developed a new chip for mobiles that, according to some, should make is possible to make a cell phone for less than $25, bringing it into the realm of possibilities for low-level corporate giveaways, or a reasonable loss leader for getting people started on pay-as-you go mobile offerings."
I don't want to take pictures with my phone.
I don't want to play MP3s with my phone.
I don't want to check my e-mail with my phone.
I don't want to browse the web with my phone.
I don't want to play games with my phone.
I just want to make phone calls with my phone. Want to lower the average price of a cell-phone? Start with taking all of that crap out of it.
Socialism: A feeling of discontent and resentment caused by a desire for the possessions or qualities of another.
The problem isn't the cost of the phone. It's the cost of the service that keeps me out of the market.
Putting a "cellphone" on a chip for $10 is not just good news for cheap "cellphones". It's great news for putting everything on the Internet, along with the simple human interface that is the 12-key pad and voice. Back through the early 20th Century, motors were big, complex, inefficient and expensive enough that motors were a separate industry. Factories used to have a single motor, like a mill or animal-driven cogwheel, its power distributed through the enterprise over pulleys, ropes and chains. Once motors became cheap commodities, simple to integrate, motors became commonplace enough to become invisible, and the motor industry was subsumed into the larger electronics and transportation industries they enable. Now that cellphones are becoming similarly mundane components, we can start to forget about them, and the era when immediate communication among people and devices required a second thought.
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make install -not war