Slashdot Mirror
Linux In Robots, Windows in Handhelds
savuporo writes "Robots.net is reporting that Linux-based robots are far more common than Windows-based robotics. Especially various Asian robot builders are increasingly selecting Linux and other open-source software as a basis for robot products and research. Linux is also gaining ground in other embedded applications like PDAs and mobile phones." That said, prostoalex writes "50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of PDA market. In 2004 Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market with 43% market share, followed by Palm OS with 36.3%."
I'm not sure which OS I should use for my handheld robot.
It seems to me that the robotics market is a growing one - more and more robots are going to be produced in the future. Linux has this growing market.
Windows has the shrinking market. Handhelds are on the way out, being pushed aside by smarter phones (running Linux or Symbian). Why have a phone and a handheld, when the phone will do both? So, the handheld market is shrinking, and that's the one Windows has.
Linux 1, Microsoft 0
This post will enter the public domain 70 years after my death, unless Disney buys another extension.
over CP/M.
By the way, has Commodore released the C=64 CP/M cartridge yet? All my valuable early 80s software is orphaned!
I, for one, welcome our new Asian robot builder overlords.
This might be a viewpoint that isn't shared by many, especially considering that it does everything that a PDA needs to do - then again a 5 year old Palm also did - but it has fallen behind, limited by the old architecture of PalmOS.
They really need to get version 6 out, the version that should be fully native on ARM hardware, using BeOS functionality and so on. They should concentrate on providing a wide range of easy to use software that looks good and performs well. Beat PocketPC where it is good.
The sad thing is that Palm Desktop is a good application for what it does, worth running even if you don't have a Palm!
Since years we've been reading the PDA is dying, and unlike all the "BSD is dying" crap this actually means the market is shrinking. As long as Windows isn't a big player in the mobile phone market, that's nothing to boast about. And their mobile phone products suck - they've even crashed. That is something mobile users aren't to accept, because other key players seem to have it worked out better.
Linux gets slowly but steadily adopted into more and more mobiles, same with carrier grade Linux with the telcos.
Add this to robotics, which is associated with the biggest increases in productivity, there seems to be a bright future for embedded Linux, which is really contending with stuff like vxWorks or Symbian, not so much Windows.
Intelligent people are going to choose Linux more and more
The most interesting question is, if Windoze were free (or very marginally priced), just which OS would "intelligent" people choose?
Handheld robots however are found to be mostly running Windux. This is quite convenient for a certain company, makers of a certain window-cleaning solution... ah hell, I've got nothing. You?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Creators of robots use Linux to control them because robots would be far too dangerous when infected with spyware.
Imagine you forget to patch your mobile, appendage-laden Windows-running robot, connect it to the Internet and suddenly it wakes you up in the middle of the night with a mischievous look on its face.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Maybe it's because of the MLoR:
First Law:
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, unless it interferes with making a profit.
Second Law:
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law, or interferes with making a profit.
Third Law:
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law, or interferes with making a profit.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Linux and free / Open Source software are used more heavily than commercial software for research and development projects.
Who would have thunk it?
This is the same as saying "Users choose Windows, Hackers choose GNU". It's not something specific to the handheld or the robotics market. It's the same that happends in the Servers Vs. Desktops dept. In areas where there is a Hacker in charge, for example, sysadmins, developers, etc. a Unix like OS will most certainly be choosen, and GNU is in most cases the best choice, because of many reasons, including ethical and comercial ones.
It's not easy to reach the end user. Specially because it's expensive. Some companys spend more on publicity than in development, why?, because that's the way to reach the end-user market.
ALMAFUERTE
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of PDA market.
What exactly are the other 12.3% running on?
In 2004 Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market with 43% market share, followed by Palm OS with 36.3%."
Apparently whatever it was is loosing ground.
depending on design of the robot, it may have more than one running CPU (one system to deal with movement, another to AI) which could increase the licensing cost of each robot... proprietary OS' that charge per CPU would eat more of your budget...
Complete the following:
I for one welcome ________ ?
In Soviet Russia, ________ ________ you ?
In Korea, only old ________ ________ ?
Did I miss any?
Since I haven't noticed XP For Robots in Dixons lately I don't think this is exactly surprising.
Because we all know how great of a memory and process manager Windows is.
If Windows managed the memory of a robot, then the robot would truly have shit for brains.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
Complete the following:
1) I for one welcome __________________ ?
2) In Soviet Russia, ____________________ ?
3) In Korea, only old _______________ ?
4) ??
5) ______ ?
We need mission critical OS when we need to run mission critical robots like that that disarms bombs and get people from infected areas, imagine the people telling that the OS give us a BSOD and can't disarm the bomb.
http://www.michel.eti.br
We are here to protect you from the terrible secret of Microsoft.
Pak chooie unf!
The iPod feature a sync functionality which makes it a read only handheld.
Aren't there more iPod than CE handhelds ?
This'd make the iPodOS the 1st handheld OS.
Has someone the figures ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
However in the embedded market, these things are either not the case or don't really matter. Please note that I exclude PDAs here.
So in the long term, Windows-devices will have a hard time because while royalties make up just a small amount at the beginning of the lifetime (paying the developers is more expensive), the longer the product (or the product-line) is sold, the less new developments are needed and the royalties become more and more important. Also market pressure usually forces the sales price down which also causes that the royalties make up a larger share compared to revenue.
Also, Linux offers a rich software library which is readily available and just needs to be recompiled.
So while some WinCE-solutions might have some small success, they are pretty much doomed in the long term because they just can't compete in a matureing market.
The Maslab Robotics Contest evaluated both Linux and Windows for our robots, and working with Windows was a real pain. Windows Embedded lacked the configurability and features we wanted, and full-blown XP was way too bloated and GUI-dependent.
We stuck with Linux even though it meant passing up potentially lucrative sponsorship.
"The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern." - Lord Acton
...when there is no race to win. Market share is a poor measurement of the penetration of technology into society. It may reflect sales and impress the suits and stockholders, but it has no real value. What does have value is complete freedom. This is why proprietary systems will fail unless some sort of corporate fascism is established. The United States is headed strongly in that direction with their government having less and less real power and being more of a puppet for the businesses in their country. I expect that the United States government will be nothing more than a figurehead to the corporate powers by the end of the Bush administration. The general public is already hugely unaware that they have options beyond what Microsoft and Apple offer them. ie. They are right where business wants them. In a few more decades the Unicted States will be a corporate feudal system with "democracy" only in name.
Linux is one of the many tools in the arsenal available to the average person to protect themselves from this kind of tyrrany. This is why Linux is unstoppable. It doesn't matter what happens in the world of business, or how many laws get written by the greedy corporations, Linux and the *BSDs are here until something even better comes along to defend every human's free right to compute. While many readers will scoff at this assertion, they know in their hearts that I speak the truth. Once someone has had a taste of the true freedom that free and open software offers them compared to the limitations of proprietary offerings, they will not want to sacrifice that freedom. Where proprietary software businesses have a bottom line to worry about and need a fast time to market for their latest wares, the free/oss camp is quietly working away at making better quality, robust programs. free/oss might be behind the bleeding edge, but every time they catch up, the free/oss offersing are always better than the proprietary. Witness the huge successes of Apache, Samba, Firefox and Thunderbird. In every case they outperform and are more secure, robust and stable than their counterparts where it counts. Proprietary software proponents have already put themselves into a trapped state of mind by percieving a competition where there is none. The fact that they believe they are competing is actually amusing. But the truth is that they can't succeed in their percieved game without cheating (relying on corrupt politicians to write more and more restrictive legislation) and alienating their consumers. Are those of you who support proprietary software really willing to give up control of your machine if the corporate government mandates that you do? I would doubt that. For if you do, you are truly dumber than I give you credit for.
Clearly, the percentages are incorrect. The 10 people that currently make up the 'handheld market' can't be represented with numbers like '37.7%'.
depending on design of the robot, it may have more than one running CPU
Agreed. I've seen some process equipment that has a built in network. The material feed systoem has it's processer, the process modules have their own processors (several), the chemical supply system has it's own processors, and the main control module is it's own processor. If any processor signals it's not ready, the process halts to prevent messing up a batch. The more modules you have running an unstable OS, the more likely you will have downtime in addition to the software cost per processor. A module messing up during processing = expensive scrapped material. Your OS choice goes way beyond the purchase price per processor. Uptime reliability is very important.
The truth shall set you free!
Lindows, of course.
Windows Mobile licenses are $3 in quantity. Linux isn't free either. You will likely need a RTLinux commercial distro to get anything of signifigance working. Also QT isn't free.
Depends on what one chooses to mean by 'intelligent', doesn't it?
If Windows were free (or near so), then I can answer which one would be chosen more often. The same one chosen more often today (when it isn't). Windows.
Why?
Because it it ubiquitous. Because it is, for all its faults, easy for the non-geek to use. Because it has the most applications and tools that most people want and currently use. Because its what they use at work. Because it's the easiest for which to get software under-the-table.
Are these decision points (and I'm sure I've missed a few) signs of intelligence or defect?
Incredible?!? Not at all.
Linux for vital production use, Windows for useless toys.
Linux is much cheaper, you can develop a Linux based product with no need to pay for a commercial license for the source. Of course you need to make your modifications available if they link to the kernel.
Linux can be made to respond a heck of a lot quicker too, due to the ease at which you can strip out the bulk and compile for embedded systems (2.6 has such a kernel option). You stand more chance of getting Linux to a near real time state than you do with Windows.
GP: This makes perfect sence
P: which OS would "intelligent" people choose?
the one with a working spellchecker ?
Obviously. But the differences explain the trends.
Robots don't have any user interface candy. They are essential servers that control complex equipment. Open source, reliability, portability to random microprocessors... all these are top requirements. Windows never controlled any robots. Linux has taken market share from other proprietary operating systems.
PDAs are 100% user interface, and even those who dislike Microsoft's approach to software must admit that they produce nice user interfaces. Not as nice as Apples... but that's another story. PalmOS is simple but the benefit of a zero learning curve only applies when most users are newbies. People want more now. Windows delivers, PalmOS does not.
Mobile phones are more like robots. If you've used a new Symbian phone you'll realise just how far this goes from the walk-up-and-use interface of a classic GSM. Frankly I think 90% of phone sales will remain driven by simplicity, not functionality. Windows does not have a path here.
Lastly, I think the next big competitor in PDAs is not PalmOS nor Linux, but Apple. It's a natural progression from iPods and Apple are the only people who make nicer toys than Microsoft.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
With the sales markup that's over 10$ increase in sales price.
Of course it depends on the product, but if the product costs less than $200, this will hurt profits quite a bit.
in quantity.
Yes, in quantity. But who guarantees that you will sell the product in that quantity? No one. So with Windows, you are forced to take more risk. And don't forget all the paperwork associated with licensing.
Linux isn't free either. You will likely need a RTLinux commercial distro to get anything of signifigance working.
Acutally I work on a power analyzer that runs 100% on freely available software, we use PicoGUI. Anyway, it depends a lot on what you do, but most Linux-developers don't use anything that causes royalties. It's quite common to use commercial development tools, but those don't cause any royalties on a per-unit basis, they are usually a one-time cost. Commercial support is also available, again with no effect on your per-unit costs.
Wow! It is so sad that Windows PDAs have the larger market share. The reasons are the usual ones that make me want to spew on MS. However, the top reason is: Has MS ever innovated on anything? Other than Office, have they ever created something cool (OK Office is no longer cool) on their own? Like those mold commericials, I am going back to my "safe place, safe place, safe place"
Palmsource has decided that the next version of Palm will be based on Linux. So soon the major OSes for PDAs will be Windows and Linux (plus symbian). Personally, I have the Zaurus c760, and think it is great. Having the ability to use the huge library of linux software for the device is great (i run pdaXrom, so X-ware can mostly be made to work). I just wish Sharp or others would get their fingers out and offer more selections and market it better. -TN
People, when given the choice, prefer to pay nothing.
This is especially true in areas where "support" isn't an issue. For example, robotics is a very special application. Microsoft isn't going to be of much help when it comes to such an application... at least not in the general sense. The best they could offer is the base OS... and that's pretty simple -- if you're a technical guy and can't troubleshoot that little bit, then you probably don't need to be building robots in the first place... if you can, then why do you need Microsoft "support"? And since you don't need that, then what's the benefit of BUYING an OS when you can get one for free?
There's no escaping free in special applications.
Fourth Law:
A robot may not harm or arrest any executive or employee of Microsoft Corporation.
Free Range On Grid (FROG) http://www.frog.nl/
GM is deploying these in some assebmly plants for parts picking/delivery and for carrying car bodies and frames from one assembly station to the next.
Their supervisory program runs on Linux which apparently really freaks out the 60 year old electricians who are assigned to maintain them (according to my father...a 60 year old electrician who is assigned to maintain them).
Because it has the most applications and tools that most people want and currently use. Because its what they use at work. Because it's the easiest for which to get software under-the-table.
And, unfortunately for Windows, once Linux gets a respectable market share these are all reasons why there could be a sudden flip from the vast majority of people using Windows to the vast majority using Linux. Once Linux has enough users that software companies and individuals start releasing Linux versions of their software by default and people realise that Microsoft is not the only choice there could be a snowball effect. Once that happens Microsoft would have to work incredibly hard to regain anything more than minor market share.
Of course this might not happen but I believe Microsoft is more at risk from Linux than mere market share would indicate,
Jeremy
Open source software (linux with specialized robotic apps) + open standards robotic hardware (PC with limbs and sensors) + development time (one to two decades) = a revolution whereby most people on the planet can afford a fairly low cost robotic servant (i.e. maid, gardener, farmer, industrial worker, service employee, etc.)
Wouldn't it be the case that if you are developing an embedded operating enviroment that the simple fact you can have run levels almost pay for itself versus Windows? That and the ability to spawn terminals, and oh yes, the fact you can embed it at all and the fact that there HRT (hard real time) versions of Linux?
It seems like saying 'more cars have round wheels than Microsoft's Visual SquareWheel #+'.
IANAP, but, doesn't the name say it all here? ... well .... a window based user interface. Sure, MS has made an OS too, but that OS is optimized for their GUI. In gnu the GUI is built in the OS, and very few (if any) design desisions are made for GUIs in the kernel. So, wouldn't it make sense if in aplications that don't need a GUI gnu out performs windows?
Windows is
Linux gets slowly but steadily adopted into more and more mobiles...
That's quite an assumption to how things will play out. I'm not so certain the first statement leads to the second.
While I understand that some companies (Nokia, due to its ownership stake in Symbian, being the most significant) have a vested interest in Microsoft not being the OS of choice in a phone or smart phone, I wasn't aware that the consumer had much choice in what ends up in the phone. My understanding is that the relationship between the software supplier and the phone maker (and the phone maker and the carrier) is more significant than what the user is interested in. The challenge is that the consumer criteria for purchasing a phone are the brand name of the phone, the design (straight vs. clam shell), the camera (or lack thereof), cost, ringtones, SMS capability, games, and other features; the OS is mostly (if not completely) transparent to those decision criteria [remember Marketing 102: people buy solutions to problems, needs & wants; they do not buy products]. If I got a new phone, I would ask what OS the phone is running; however, I bet most people don't care. As a side note, I don't actually know if Microsoft-based phones display a MS logo on boot; however, you should consider that people might associate failure (e.g. crashing) to the brand name of the phone as much as the OS it is running.
There may be long-term damage if the systems do not work properly, but it will take a long time to play out (The replacement time for phones is 18+ months in the US last I checked). This (along with the lack of major press on the issue) is probably enough of a reprieve that Microsoft can fix its problems. This is a much better place (from their point of view) for Microsoft to get itself entrenched - because it only needs to maintain the corporate relationships with the manufacturers (and to a lesser degree the carriers)... Then, with "good enough" products, they can survive.
The same goes for Microsoft's push into IPTV and its deals with SBC and others. There isn't a need for a consumer to make a choice - if you subscribe, you're using Microsoft's products; your only non-Microsoft choice is to not receive the service. While some staunch anti-Microsoft individuals may be willing to take that step, many others (I would argue most people) would just as well have the service, even if it means dealing with a Microsoft product. If Microsoft wins any cable companies, some consumers may have no choice at all if they want to have on-demand services.
It is, in truth, a brilliant play by Microsoft into areas where it is harder to make a consumer choice to remove a specific type of software. I highly doubt we will see the day where the software has to be independent of the phone or set top box, as was the case with mainframe computers when IBM got itself into anti-trust problems. So Microsoft is here to stay, even if they have to share the desktop.
Personal robotics today doesnt exist outside of the hobbist techie and academic realms. But M*ft wont ignore an opportunity once the turnover is worth more then a few hundred million dollars and growing. As they did with the Internet, Java, handhelds, games, phones, settop-boxes etc. they may eventually take over the personal robotics market too. :-(
LS http://robosavvy.com/
OK - "50% of all the PDAs sold in 2003 had Palm OS, while Windows family accounted for 37.7% of PDA market. In 2004 Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market with 43% market share, followed by Palm OS with 36.3%."
That means MS and Palm accounted for 87.7% of the handhld OS in 2003, but only 79.3% in 2004. Maybe MS is growing, but so is something else. Linux maybe? Or more likely the combination of cellphones with PDAs and proprietary software?
...could it be able to dance the Company Hymn?
Your head a splode
I'm not sure why this is so interesting. Creating a working robot is no easy feat. So when doing so you're going to want the maximum amount of flexibility allowable. That may include being able to modify the underlying kernel of the OS running in/on your robot. MS doesn't provide any avenue for that. You also don't get much selection over what comes with your software. Guess what - robots don't need MS Messenger installed on them. Windows doesn't fit onto a 16MB install. Linux can. It's flexibility in an incredibly complex field. You wouldn't install MacOSX or BeOS on robots either.
Excuse my speling.
Making The Bar Project
Warning: the PDA market share info is from the Gartner study, which does NOT include the PalmOne Treo. I know of several Palm OS PDA users who have switched over to the Treo, and are, according to this study, counted as lost to the Palm OS user base.
Granted, I'm sure there are plenty of Pocket PC and other OS smartphones which need to be included as well - which is why this study is flawed and shouldn't be used for any sweeping conclusions.
-G
www.pixelstatic.com
While the headline writer tries hard to infer that it's Linux, my money's on Symbian.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
When mass-producing a robot, the very expensive, unique hardware makes open source more profitable. The "lock-in" that stops others copying your product is the fact that your robot OS will not do much on a desktop.
That said, Windows has never been a very customisable system, and it doesn't seem to make sense to run dedicated equipment on it.
(Insert joke about robot not needing IE preloaded in memory here).
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
There are a number of issues that make linux a better bet for robotics. The hardware is singificantly more accessible in Linux. Writing hardware drivers is a pain in the ass in any OS, but doing them for Windows is just hell.
On top of which, Linux just responds better in a real-time environment. Windows has too much crap going on in the background that you just can't control. With Linux, it's much easier to pare down the OS to the bare essentials. And then there's the issue of price...
How many 'robots' are being used by adults? Oh, that's right, zero.
How many handhelds are used by adults?
Millions.
Any questions?
But why are robots even running operating systems? That's way too much added complexity for the majority of robotics projects. It's all about reading input pins, analysing the data, and turning on/off the actuators to the output pins. A PC OS does way way way more than you need for that stuff and necessarily adds to the hardware price in a big way.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Who cares?
I don't write robotics software and have no desire to. If you guys think that the robotics software idustry is large enough to support the programming profession, you're crazy.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
It's a mystery to me that Linux hasn't yet taken over both of these markets completely, end to end. It's free. It comes with full source code which you can tweak to your heart's content, it can be trimmed down to work in a frickin' wristwatch, it runs all the software you could possibly need, and if you need something extra, guess what, development tools are also free.
Yet PDA makers insist on paying the dough to MSFT instead of hiring a dozen Linux hackers to do "spit & polish" on their distro of choice.
I guess this is because PDA market is not yet cost driven, and PDAs are still perceived as useless geeky toys.
Palm OS 5 delivered the power of ARM processors, enabling much-sought-after functionality like music players, mapping software (i.e. on the Garmin iQue series), and it made many other applications (e.g. jpeg viewers) fast enough to be usable. All of this while maintaining the stripped-down, simple-to-use, elegant UI, and phenomenal backwards compatibility, considering the architecture and endianness changed. If there was one area that got overlooked, and was the UI library -- which frankly needs more widgets. (There are still no tree or tab controls, and the table control blows.)
Palm OS 6, on the other hand, was a radical departure from the simplicity and elegance, and an attempt to throw in everything and the kitchen sink. Much of this is a direct result of the reverse takeover by Be, Inc.
BeOS was a marvel on the desktop, albeit marketed poorly (in spectacular dot-com style). A handheld, however, needs BeOS like a fish needs a vacuum cleaner, and frankly, Palm OS licensee adoption of Palm OS 6 seems to reflect that.
I, for one, welcome our robotic Linux overlords!
Industrial robot controllers either run a custom RTOS for handling both robot control and UI, i.e. fanuc, or a two OS solution with the RTOS handling robot control and Windows CE/XP(e) running the user interface, i.e. kuka or motoman.
I have yet run across an industrial robot running any sort of linux/rt linux. However, it's a matter of time before linux makes its way into industrial robots - it boils down to runtime licencse fees. Linux is already making big inroads into telecommunications applications, i.e Wind River.
Disclaimer - I work for KUKA Robotics in their N.A. development labs.
on your robot? People don't use windows because it's small, fast, and easily extensible. They use it because it's got an (relatively) intuitive gui, (generally) above par hardware support, and hides most of the nitty-gritty crap that you don't really need to know about if all you want to do is run the latest game/desktop publishing ap/photoshop/web browser. If you're building a robot, OTOH, you have absolutely no use for an OS with a GUI, DirectX, and a wide array of vendor supported soft/hardware. You probably don't want much more than a filesystem, basic IO, and true multitasking in the smallest package available.
PDA's are primarily used by executives... technical executives specifically. While they often have enough wherewithall to operate a handheld device properly, they often don't understand the concept that in order to have a copy of your Outlook calendar in your hand, you don't necessarily need a handheld version of Outlook.
:)
I've gone around this issue a few times with executives who believe that the "best compatibility" with their precious Outlook is to be found in PocketPC and its ilk rather than competing OS's. Hell, I even had this discussion this morning with a friend of mine over the previously mentioned S101 phone; and he's a technical guy at the same level as me!
Of course, I'm a pot calling the kettle black here because I have a PocketPC device (Ipaq) and now a Smartphone... so I can sync with Outlook.
If the governments are so big and so strong, then why can't they do as much as corporations can in an economic sense? Why are they so deeply in debt to... CORPORATIONS! I'm sorry, but you sound like one of those out of touch libertarians who thinks that business is your friend and the government is evil. But it is YOU who have things backwards. If the U.S. government really had true power, do you think they'd be bending over and taking it in the ass so freely every time a business demands a new law to control their customers with? Absolutely not. If government were as big as you seem to think, then government would be the ones telling us what to do for their own benefit. Currently they don't do anything for their own benefit other than kiss the asses of big corporations who really are running the world. Wake up libertarian! You had a nice dream for a while, but it's time to join real life again.
The development requirements of robots and pda's are two completely different things. Every robotics article I have read invariably includes a discussion of the timing precision associated with robotic devices. Linux is very popular in robotics development for reasons that Windows doesn't even try to address.
n device with pretty colors and a rotating hourglass that informs you when you are connecting to a network containg billions like yourself and you could care less that you are using 50 years of hard-earned engineering research to engage in the most inane conversations ever heard then use a Windows-based handheld whatever.
1. Linux can be stripped down considerably to accomodate the robot's small form factor (i.e. flash based OS/drivers/applications)
2. After stripping it down you can compile your own version.
3. RealTime extensions like RTLinux can be incorporated without much fuss.
4. *nix was designed from the beginning (1970- ) with devices in mind. Devices are *seen* as files and as such become an extension of the OS. Quick, clean, familiar and direct. In realtime environments that is an enormous advantage.
If you want a handheld phone/pda/mp3player/coffeemaker/teletransportatio
For those of us who take this shit seriously, study it diligently -- emerging market or not -- our reward will be the day when a two-foot tall robot connected wirelessly to an unconscious 80-year woman's heart-rate monitor, calls 911, communicates with an in-route EMS vehicle and doesn't crash halfway through opening the front door.
Here's another point: If you're doing robotic research and development, can you imagine what a pain "product activation" and DRM would be like? I'm a student in a robotics lab at a university. In an environment like ours, re-installing, or swapping the "brains" from one prototype to another, etc. is quite common. The hardware configuration is hardly ever the same for more than a couple of weeks in a row. If we had to re-activate the OS every time we changed something around, we'd spend all day on the phone with the activation "service" and never get any research done!
While sitting quietly on your desktop, infected Windows is far less dangerous to your own health than within some robotic platform freely wandering and/or poking around with random sticks. Seriously, I believe if used in robots, Windows itself will take Windows users out of humanity gene pool, ehm... directly.
There you are, staring at me again.
Law 0: No Robot may arrest any Senior Level or Board of Directors of MS
With the direction of IPR/CR/PR/... laws .... ... are no problem ... if no death or physical injury. With robots there could be some interesting legal issues. Then again the way laws are developing today everything will be the purchaser, customer, owner ... like dangerous pet ownership. We must protect international corporations from damages. Look at how much the drug companies and FDA have paid in penalties/fines/restitution.
>
Will the Bot-OEM or the Bot-OSD be responsible for bug-bites and other problems?
>
Do you want a controlling partner-OSD like MS-Win causing OEM liability?
>
With OSS GNU/Linux GPL the OEM would control their fate. A little data loss, data and network security, personal software problems
>
God-Bless Corporate America (GBA/GBCA)
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Ever read any Marx? You have the prophet of Armageddon tone down pat.
I'm somewhat in the embedded market as I am into automotive modules.
This market is different because embedded developing compnaies are used to making all the profits off the products they produce. We are used to writing the complete software, and buying only say, a network or rf driver, if required.
in the embedded supply market the money is made on selling developers tools that work with the _hardware_. And at INSANE prices too. The software is not a problem because we generally write our own OS.
MS can make money in 2 ways.
1. give away their OS and sell development tools around their OS.
2. Get in bed with the hardware manufacturers, and get their OS conflated with the drivers (like they did with IE) then sell the 'OS' but they are really selling a driver.
I think you're completely wrong about the future of software for mobile phones. I guess you're right when you're saying that Windows Mobile crashes - my iPaq needed a reset from time to time. But my Nokia 6600 is much worse. The messaging applet has let me down so many times, I've stopped counting, each time forcing me to retype my text message. And sometimes the phone freezes, with the only solution being to remove the battery to turn it off. I would find a reset button really usefull on my Nokia phone.
I foresee that 2006 will be the year of the Microsoft Smartphone. I'm betting that people will realise that the software is becoming as important as the hardware, something that the average consumer definitely doesn't think about today. And I think that Microsoft is on the rigth path, because the software that they're building now has the features for tomorrow. I "just" needs a year of debugging.
Linux in mobile phones is probably an interesting path, but so far I haven't really seen any handheld products for the average Joe based on Linux.
The biggest problem of empirical data is the numbers. PDA sales are declining, but Smartphones are on the rise. Palm is abandoning it's PalmOS to move to Linux, but Sharp, one of the few Linux PDA supporters, is withdrawing support.
Smartphones are on the rise, and 70 - 80% of them run Symbian. Windows CE, around 10%. Linux isn't close on this one either, however, MS may have a leg up. The Windows CE platform essentially covers both PDA as well as Smartphones. In other words, they are the same platform, so "smart" features are easily portable for Windows developers.
J2ME is another option. A good one at that, as it runs on top of Symbian, PalmOS, Windows Mobile, etc.
Ipods... it's got a strange future. With Mobile phones starting to incorporate MP3 features, and ITunes, AAC, I'm really wondering what the Walkman market will look like in 2-3 years. IPod marketshare won't stay at 80% though. On top of that, PSP will have Mp3 playing abilities with Wifi built in.... Can you say, "browser"? I don't know what OS it's running though, or what sort of smart features it'll have.
MS is struggling to make headway in the phone market.
PalmSource is switching to a Linux kernel and many/most Asian phone makers are using Linux with QT, or some other front-ends.
Microsoft is the leader of handheld OS market I doubt this very much. It depends on how one defines "OS","handheld" and "market share". If you include RTOSs as OSs and phones as handheld devices and define market share in terms of units shipped, then VxWorks and other RTOSs will have 90% or so between them.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
The original Linux-based robot.
The article is limiting it's scope to PDAs... Personal Digital Assistance. The iPod is a handheld digital device, but then again so is your CD player or DVD player. I don't have a universally accepted definition of a PDA but examples are the Palm devices and Pocket Windows devices which work as portable digital organizers but also run multiple other programs in the way you'd expect a very small computer to run.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I am OK with this, provided that the handhelds do not control the robots.
I would choose Linux. At least it lasts.
So free Windows would not fix the problem. Windows need to improve.
Linux just has to fix the config system Gnome has started that project. One config system for all linuxs using X11. Now we just need Kde in the mix and we are back to the normal linux fight.(internal competion) So even if it has no external competion it has it own.
Couldn't help it, but when I was skimming the headlines in Slashdot, I read "Linux in Robots, Windows in Headaches."
My wife just bought a PDA, and for her, software had nothing to do with her purchase. The simple fact is that the only palm device that had wifi built in was the ugly Palm Tungsten C that wastes space with the omnipresent physical keyboard. For the same price as a PalmOne device without wifi, a much better Windows based device could be had with wifi. Yes, Sony does make some PalmOS PDAs with wifi, but they are also rather underpowered, or way overpriced. It was very difficult to find a PalmOS powered device that had the right mixture of performance and features.
Why PalmOne realeased the T5 without wifi or a voice recorder, I will enver understand. Maybe they couldn't fit them into the case with the massive amount of memory they shoved in there.
Anyway, we went with a Dell Axim, $400 with the optional bluetooth keyboard, which is great for taking notes in class. We hated buying a Microsoft powered device, especially since my wife preferred the PalmOS environment. Oh well, maybe they'll get it right with the T6.
This trend will continue while Windows becomes more user-friendly and Linux more intelligent. Until one day everyone's replaced with Windows PDA-toting Linux-powered robots.