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Google Demos Modular Phone That (Almost) Actually Works
An anonymous reader writes Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) group demonstrated Tango, a tablet with 3D cameras similar to Microsoft's Kinect and a version of the Ara phone that could almost boot to the Android home screen (it froze during the demo) at Google I/O today. Project Ara will give $100,000 to anyone who can create an Ara module that does something current smartphones can't. From the article: "Ara moved from concept render to physical mockup in about six months, and onstage today Google demonstrated a version of the phone that could just about boot to the Android home screen. In the demo above, the phone displayed a partial boot screen before freezing. The full boot time (had the demo worked as intended) would be about a minute, which would be a long time for a shipping phone but is reasonably impressive for such an early prototype. Software is the other thing that Ara's developers need to figure out. Current Android builds ship with support for the hardware the phone runs, but they don't include a whole bunch of extraneous drivers for other modems or Wi-Fi modules or cameras or SoCs. Current phone hardware doesn't change, so Android doesn't typically need to worry about this kind of thing."
Well I've never seen any phone with a built in grappling hook before...
Something I can put one sausage in and a motor drives it thru a heated ring.
I mean that makes as much sense as a modular phone.
about sex toys, and then I will see child posts with links that made me wish I never did.
and Tango.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
... directly from the module and include some form of eprom or flash to store updates it might receive OTA
Slashdot was _FILLED_ with comments about how these people were SO stupid, and how modular phones _couldn't_ be built. How there wasn't possibly a way...
Now, from the people who brought you PCMCIA cards... Remember when you could slot an Ethernet interface or a modem into a PCMCIA slot? Same idea.
Phones should be going in the other direction. No connectors at all. A phone today has about four or five radios in it; do any data transfer over WiFi or Bluetooth or the cellular link. Charging should be inductive, which will happen when one of the three competing wireless charging systems wins. Phones should be waterproof, shockproof, dust-resistant, and close to indestructable.
... automatically when out of reach of a base station.
There's prob. an app for that -- I need to look.
Okay, how 'bout this for project Ara: a module that
will learn to parrot me, that can fake me going about town
and carry the phone, leave a fake triangulation trace, fake
usage, mail, web, settings twiddling -- the works, everything
indistinguishable from the real live thing.
There should be a market for this.
"In the demo above, the phone displayed a partial boot screen before freezing."
"Google Demos Modular Phone That (Almost) Actually Works"
Maybe it's just me, but if a phone can't even get to the dialer to make a phone call, that's a little further from "actually working" than "almost."
I mean that seriously. My problem isn't with the phone itself. My problem is with the overly generous summary.
Call me a troll, but if any company other than Google unveiled this phone, and it didn't even boot during the demo, I don't think the reaction would be as positive.
Yeah it's modular and a few years from now they'll upgrade the bus or tweak the dimensions or bump the battery requirements and now that modular phone is as obsolete as all the rest. Or worse, future modules are gimped to conform to the old standard and include circuitry to step down in some way. Either way users get a device which costs more and doesn't deliver something tangibly better.
What do you mean I have a conflict on an IRQ????
I plugs in this video card and it works. I plugs in this video card and it doesn't.
I think the concept is cool and as the pathways between modules gets faster, it will be great. But I'll wait for a few more releases before I try it. Unless someone gives me one for super cheap.
It's called Autoconfig. Essentially, Autoconfig does IRQ and address assignment (And is so good at it that Intel copied it for their "Plug'n'Play" system), but Autoconfig does more than that. It also initializes the firmware and loads it in. And the firmware for each device then contains the necessary libraries to (at the very least) get the hardware running. So, for example, hard-drive controllers get their drivers loaded and the hard-drive becomes available as a boot device, network cards are initialized enough that PXE booting works, graphics cards are started up and displays initialized, sound cards are initialized, etc.
So, essentially, every piece of hardware would take care of it's own drivers and NVRam config. WiFi module has WiFi drivers on it. And so on. The configuration software was not included on-device, but there's next-to-no reason why that couldn't be on-device too, as the price of flash is extremely cheap these days.
How about something that can read an IR sensor such that:
1. approach woman at bar, place phone on bar next to drink
2. phone takes baseline body temps of said woman
3. chat with woman for 5 minutes
4. phone takes update body temps to see where the blood is flowing
5. pick up phone and get 1 to 10 scale on how "excited" the woman was with me
could work on men too just have to look for different "hot spots"
All hell would break loose and people would be complaining about a #demofail
Grow up idiots
they should make sure the bus spec on the modules just includes a little storage so each module has its own driver on a tiny slab of flash.
One for the business, or for each business, one for the kids, one for the wife, and one for the mistress.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Make an electric heater module and you've got a portable hand warmer. Where's my $10,000? Now that I've disclosed this, you can't patent it :P (well, I didn't give implementation details...)
Maybe it's just me, but if a phone can't even get to the dialer to make a phone call, that's a little further from "actually working" than "almost."
A phone that can get to the dialler to make a phone call would be "working". So you're not willing to acknowledge something as "almost working" until it's actually fully functional?
Can only dial numbers or can see contacts and dial?
Can disconnect or not?
Does an incoming call disconnect existing call?
Can add contacts or not?
Each feature there can be 10s of such test cases which all together say if the phone works or not.
Just saying that if u can get to dialer and make a phone call as 'working' is knave.
It is not almost working if it is not even booting. It is a half baked product.
It seems Google just got the inside scoop on Apple's plans about 6 months ago.
Maybe it's just me, but if a phone can't even get to the dialer to make a phone call, that's a little further from "actually working" than "almost."
A phone that can get to the dialler to make a phone call would be "working". So you're not willing to acknowledge something as "almost working" until it's actually fully functional?
Alright, Captain Pedantic, it almost works as a phone.
Can I interest you in a lightbulb I have here that almost lights up or this wheel that is almost round?
...makes coffee.
Read and Write to MicroSD cards residing in a cozy spot inside the phone. BAM!
Remember here, they said "current" phones.
Where would it store the cable behind the hook?
I've replaced hard drives, RAM, WiFi, keyboards, power supplies, video cards, batteries and more in many normal laptops.
True, laptops allow RAM and hard drive upgrades and replacing dead keyboards and batteries. But a lot of laptops have video or WLAN circuitry soldered to the motherboard. A lot of others use only a video card or WLAN card whitelisted by the laptop's manufacturer so that the laptop keeps its FCC and HDCP certification.
Of course, the market for "tiny laptops with long battery lives" is so niche
So niche that even Walmart is selling Chromebooks, and Microsoft has had manufacturers bring back the 10" Windows laptop for its Scroogled campaign. So the discontinuation of netbooks lasted only from the beginning to the end of 2013.
Even a netbook can be expanded with a USB ethernet or modem or camera or more hard drive space or 1000s of other things you can throw in your bag and take with you.
I know. I carry a 10" laptop because there are plenty of things I do while riding the bus that I can't do on a smartphone or iPad. But one big advantage that a 10" laptop has over a smartphone is it's not quite as battery-constrained. In order to hook all these USB peripherals up to a tablet, someone might have to invent a battery-powered hub.
I know this type of phone is not for you, that is fine. I can get almost the phone I want and I'm happy to pay to get one closer.
But once a modular cell phone does come out, how long will it remain available until there aren't enough people buying it to keep it in production? For a while, manufacturers gave up on 10" laptops throughout 2013 until Microsoft wanted something to fight the Chromebook with in its Scroogled campaign.
I imagine a device could save the GPS coordinates when it associates to an AP. Later, it'd trilaterate from cell towers or GPS to determine when it's close to that location before listening for beacons again.
and self destruct (after releasing some magic smoke & without harming other modules) in five seconds.
that prints odors, especially the one that triggers your anger management therapist's post-hypnotic suggestion to go to your happy place and postpone the anger response that would spike your blood pressure and trigger another cardiac episode.