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Resurrected Full-Screen VoIP Phones

Posted by timothy on from the device-of-the-future-of-the-past dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Looking for a suitable VoIP phone, I came across these Full-Screen Thin-Client Phones. Not only do they do voice, but they also have a 480x640 screen running at 65K colors and run a number of apps remotely via VNC. They seem to allow a lot more functionality than normal phones, and look really cool too. The site says they have 70 phones running in their office. This seems the way forward for telephony-computer convergence in the 21st century. A document at the end of the page explains their approach and has some cool pictures as well."

23 of 92 comments (clear)

  1. The question is.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    To pre-empt the question of whether it runs Linux...

    The Broadband Phone (BBPhone) is basically a Strong-ARM 1100, with 8MB of flash, 32MB of RAM, touchscreen, 10Mbps Ethernet and a sound card running a derivative of the Linux 2.2 kernel.

    w00t!

  2. 5 Years Late by bigtallmofo · · Score: 4, Funny

    With this affordable video phone, now all I need is a practical hover car and society's promises of things I would have by the year 2000 will be complete.

    Better late than never, I guess!

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
    1. Re:5 Years Late by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 3, Informative

      A screen phone is not a video phone.

  3. Finally by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    With one of these, why would I need a "tablet PC"? Just give me VNC windows to remote servers, with cut/paste between my windows. All I want near me is a multimedia client, anyway - all the unique data and compute horsepower should be on networked servers I can hit from anywhere I login. Are we there yet?

    --

    --
    make install -not war

  4. Prototypes? by Dan+East · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The article only contains a few sentences, so it's hard to tell either way, but I get the impression these are prototypes left over from AT&T Research. In that case this is hardly a product you can buy off the shelf, which is the impression the Slashdot story gives.

    Dan East

    --
    Better known as 318230.
    1. Re:Prototypes? by stab · · Score: 5, Informative

      You're right, they are left over equipment from AT&T Labs Cambridge, which were redeployed in the Laboratory for Communication Engineering at the University of Cambridge.

      But they're more than prototypes, the phones work really well even six years after being built (mainly due to their thin-client architecture, as only the servers need to be upgraded to run more complex services, not the edge phone hardware).

      It's a bit of a shock to see this randomly show up on Slashdot, but for those interested readers, here's a WIP paper about what we're doing with them these days (using the Active Bat location system to migrate mobile phone calls via Bluetooth to the nearest environmental phone among other things).
      As I said, the paper is very much WIP, and is being hacked up after being freshly rejected from a conference so the link is liable to disappear :-) Feel free to get in touch with the main man behind the phones, Rip Soham, if you are interested in more details (contact details in the link).

      As far as I know, no commercially available VoIP phone uses VNC these days, which is a real pity as its a really neat way to offer easily upgradable services to the end user (forget running mobile code on the edge device, compute power is cheap these days).

    2. Re:Prototypes? by DietCoke · · Score: 3, Interesting

      That's most of the problem. I'd love to throw a system like this together as a project at work, but if the hardware's going to be difficult to replace it takes away a ton of value from my argument *for* implementing it.

      I'd assume that someone will latch onto this idea on a more common platform a lot sooner than later. The inclusion of VNC expands what you can do, too.

      Imagine this: Those "phones" could be outfitted with higher-quality sound. As you walk by one (ie. RFID or something of that sort), it latches onto an audio stream that you're serving from the central server. The audio stream follows you from one room to the next.

      Of course, encryption would have to be required. It'd have to be a tight system with a strong firewall included. And based on what I've seen of the wireless hardware vendors, they tend to leave things pretty insecure. If you think getting your website hacked was bad, imagine the potential of a thin-client intrusion:

      Goatse in every room, and Musak following you everywhere.

      The point is that while this would be a great idea, this is the time when open-source should be standing up to help make a secure framework for this sort of thing. Closed-source vendors haven't been able to provide evidence of a secure product really... this is a market that is RIPE for an open-source solution.

    3. Re:Prototypes? by stab · · Score: 2, Informative

      Sigh, wish you could edit Slashdot posts.

      The correct link to the department is:
      Laboratory for Communication Engineering, and the correct name is Rip Sohan (sorry!)

  5. Run apps on your telephone? by ShatteredDream · · Score: 2, Informative

    640x480 resolution and what could be an akward user interface. Not only that, but you have to use VNC in order to really do anything at all. Yeah, it's a cool device, but it never had any real world potential. Can you honestly see this taking over in corporate America with the non-geeks? I can't.

    The new Vonage WiFi phone is the closest thing to something like this that will actually have potential. Around here, there are a lot of WiFi points that are free. I can go to almost any of the locally owned coffee shops and get free WiFi access. Now that has some potential, emphasis on some.

    --
    Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
    1. Re:Run apps on your telephone? by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Speaking as a corporate America drone, this thing looks better than the phone I currently have on my desk. My phone has no screen at all, which makes it difficult to use any of the advanced features. One use that immediately comes to mind for a phone with a good screen is looking up people in my phonebook, although maybe it would be better to just do this on a desktop computer and have some way for the computer to dial the phone for you. Oh wait, did you say non-geek? Never mind.

      WiFi seems orthogonal to this project -- WiFi is about not needing wires and this phone is about a different (better) user interface.

  6. I Want My AT&T by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This stuff at AT&T Cambridge was all running in 2001, before AT&T shut down the lab. It all seems like an extremely easy to use system, made of standard protocols and formats that could plug into all our other systems. Why did it die? Why do companies like AT&T collapse after investing time, money and brains into this kind of innovation, and bringing forth only more complicated phonebills?

    --

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    make install -not war

    1. Re:I Want My AT&T by jburroug · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Why do companies like AT&T collapse after investing time, money and brains into this kind of innovation

      In this case because the US government decided to kill it. Read the history of it here That's why you don't have your innovative AT&T anymore, the feds killed it pretty much out of spite. Then they killed it some more by allowing the Baby Bells to raise the rates they charged AT&T for connecting calls into what is essentially the network AT&T built in the first place! Which is why AT&T had to pull out of the residential market a few months ago and is now about to become a part of SBC. Which is very unfortunate, given my past experiences with SBC.

      --
      "Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!" - Kurt Vonnegut
  7. VOIPix ?? by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I have bookoo Pentium 133's laying around.
    I think it would be most excellent if someone were to make up a knoppix distro that only exists to be a VOIP client, such as Damn Small Linux doing VOIP..

    If someone were to come up with something to turn old POS pc's into dedicated voip boxes that would be pretty interesting..

    Just my .02 cents..

  8. Re:Interesting... by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Because computers lock up.
    They can get bogged down running an app.
    Do you want a phone that is as reliable as your computer? Think about it. It is not good to put all your eggs in one basket.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  9. Similar cheap platforms to experiment with: by Aphrika · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The Microsoft Smart Display (SD) technology that appeared a couple of years ago.

    When I first heard about it, the idea of what was essentially a touchscreen terminal attached wirelessly to your desktop seemed to open a huge number of possibilities, VoIP telephony being one of them. Ultimately, Smart Displays failed - one of the main reasons being the price and the simultaneous release of the Tablet PC which was similar, yet gave much more VFM. The SD tended to be based around CE.NET running on an ARM chip with around 32MB of RAM if I remember correctly.

    So, although these 70-odd phones at the Cambridge labs are unique (you can't buy them commercially), there exists out there a large number of devices with ARM chips, touchscreens and WiFi that are capable of doing this kind of thing. You can probably pick them up cheap now so modifying a secondhand SD device may be a neat way to get started...

  10. Perhaps.... by zakezuke · · Score: 3, Interesting

    With a phone like this telemarketing drones could actually see the timezone they are calling rather than the current system of "how am i suppose to know it's 5am where you at".

    --
    There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    1. Re:Perhaps.... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually, that's pretty much how most telemarketers I've spoken with (however briefly) talk.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  11. Re:Microsoft will never like thin clients by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 2, Informative
    Nonsense.

    1. WebTV/msntv
    2. Thin clients fall directly into the MS mindset. Everything runs off the server, and you subscribe to a 'service', perpetually. No 'piracy' allowed, and they have ultimate control over your desktop, and your wallet. Stop paying, your PC doesn't work anymore.

    Microsoft (and Oracle and Sun and all the others) will 'like' whatever model brings the most profit. If they can make thin clients work in the mond of the user, they will.

  12. They promised us more than that ... by FreeUser · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... those lying rat bastards!

    With this affordable video phone, now all I need is a practical hover car and society's promises of things I would have by the year 2000 will be complete.

    What about common supersonic civilian transport, robots to do our house cleaning and upkeep, and a standard 20 hour work week.

    We were promised all of these things, had one taken away (the Concord, which never really fulfilled the promise but was more of a teaser), and certainly don't seem to be getting our 20 hour workweek anytime soon.

    Don't let them sidetrack you from the other promises by giving you a flying car! You'll still need to get your pilot's license to fly it, and you'll still be working a 60 hour week! ;-)

    --
    The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
  13. Re:Nice, but... by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 2, Informative

    If you have the right gateway, a SIP phone can call any regular phone. I don't see what an iSight has to do with it; these are screen phones, not video phones.

  14. Where they intended to be voip or just web phones? by thogard · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've got 200 or so analog web phones sitting in a warehouse (make me an offer suckers?) that had a voice modem and handset and a web browser and touch screen. The software developers went broke before it ever got all the bugs out (like ssl -- what ssl?) and so the phones sit in their boxes.

    The voice modem option of the ones I have should be fast enough to do voip (if they had an ethernet interface but that never happened either) or run linux but I never got around to hacking them in any useful way.

    There was lots of technology from a few years back that was hunting for a market that they never found.

  15. Re:reminds me... by zmanea · · Score: 2, Interesting

    What a 7970? A 7970 looks like it should be a video phone but it isn't. About the only thing usefull you can do with that color LCD is browse the internet, but who is going to do that when they are sitting in front of a computer. If you want to do a video conference you will need to purchase the VT software and a webcam.

  16. Bandwith Usage by mallfouf · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Does anyone know how much bandwith does a net phone consumes during a call? I wasn't able to find that info anywhere. thanks.