Google Demos Modular Phone That (Almost) Actually Works 126
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."
Grappling hook module! (Score:5, Funny)
Well I've never seen any phone with a built in grappling hook before...
The cable (Score:2)
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Re:The cable (Score:5, Funny)
Re:hot dog grilling attachment (Score:5, Funny)
Great. I'll probably have nightmares tonight about it malfunctioning in my pocket.
I'm going to make some comment (Score:4, Funny)
about sex toys, and then I will see child posts with links that made me wish I never did.
maybe not sex toys (Score:3, Interesting)
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"
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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"
Easy, when started just print "1".
Re: maybe not sex toys (Score:3)
Better get non-geeks to test it. Otherwise they'll turn grey trying to figure out why it's always zero.
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Better get non-geeks to test it. Otherwise they'll turn grey trying to figure out why it's always zero.
Nah, what would happen is after the geeks are finished developing it, testing it, and calibrating it by themselves, then release it to the general market they will be confused by angry customers posting reviews "WTF DO I ALWAYS GET IntegerOverflowException ON THE ATTRACTION RATINGS?!"
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You might get some erroneous readings from frustration and anger.
I'd expect a simple course on body language to be more effective for most users.
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Horseshoes, hand grenades, (Score:2)
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If you don't trust the USB stick why are you plugging it into your Windows machine?
It is fine if it comes straight from the factory vacuum sealed (although still open to certain risk). If there is common module swapping between phones you get the risk of the device silently transmitting viruses from phone to phone if it simply loads its own driver on plug.
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maybe ok for baseline drivers.
But what if I plug in a three year old module to my new phone.
It wants to load old drivers incompatible with current OS revision.
Better to load a device ID of some sort and let the phone go get the proper drivers from a signed website
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Skip the drivers altogether and make the modules run their own code. Have the OS offer an API similar to directX that can be expanded when the user installs an app from one of the stores.
Allow a direct com port access mode also for when this is not desired. The app can do what is neccesary.
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But it's still (almost) true. Of course such phones *can* be built, it's just a matter of money and time tossed on it. Problem is somewhere else - how do you plan to make such phones competitive at all. How do you want to provide high performance? Battery time? Low latencies? Low price? Size that will still fit in the pocket?
Mobile devices are evolving to be more integrated, not less. Modularity requires you to give up any integration - which makes things like high performance or long battery time hard to a
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Exactly. That's why a modular PCs were never created. There's no way you can get high performance when the user can pick their own RAM, CPU, motherboard, video card, hard drives, etc.
Oh, wait.
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Exactly! And we consistently see that in the tiny laptops with long battery lives.
Oh, wait.
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Exactly. Replacement can be even done in current mobile phones, that's not a big issue.
Scroogled: Chromebooks (Score:2)
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 [scroogled.com]. So the discontinuation of netbooks [slashdot.org] lasted on
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Re:Anyone else remember... (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. That's why a modular PCs were never created. There's no way you can get high performance when the user can pick their own RAM, CPU, motherboard, video card, hard drives, etc.
Oh, wait.
Size matters. Desktop PCs are easy to make modular (unless you want an iMac). Laptops are harder, and besides removable batteries, only a few had any modular components (like a DVD drive swappable for an extra battery). Phones are much more space-constrained. Every millimeter counts, and modularity takes up quite a bit of space at that scale, because each part needs to be enclosed, securely attach to the others, etc.
In short, a modular phone is possible, but the trade-offs will be severe, and you'll be able to pick one or two things (e.g. speed, battery life, extra features, small size, etc.) but not all at the same time. And the prices won't be good, because manufacturer(s) will lose economies of scale: it'll be hard to compete with Apple and Samsung making millions and tens of millions of identical units.
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Yeah. And not only that, who decides where to cut the boundaries?
The OP talks abouta PC having RAM, CPU, Motherboard, Video Card. If we take Motherboard as a combination of chipset and backplane, then I can list at least several chips that have either just the CPU, or CPU and chipset, or CPU, chipset and video, or CPU, chipset, video and RAM. So where are the lines drawn? Least common denominator is clearly also least efficient. Guess what the smallest PCs use?
For phones this whole idea is stupidly naive, a
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Here's an idea for Google: why not write an OS so that you can easily swap out your entire phone when you need different functionality?
In theory, you can put a new Google account on your old phone and Google Play Store will make your old applications available so that you can download it and restore your online backups. But in practice, there are a lot of things not under control of online backup because fitting online backup with everything else you use on a 1 GB per month data plan isn't very fun.
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I think you're on to something with the camera though. The camera tends to run the full thickness of the case, and tends to be approximated by a rectangular box. That does make it a candidate for interchangeability.
On the other hand, it tends to become outdated as fast as the rest of the phone, so nobody will want to keep their old camera. At best modularity might let you adjust the price of the device by $50 if you want a better unit. It would be a bit like RAM or flash - something that is trivial to e
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increase Flash: just get a phone with MicroSD support...
Google: funds and markets a "modular and upgradeable" phone for sustainability points; has blanket ban on storage expansion on Nexus devices.
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Come back to me when a PC has to fit in a pocket and run off a small battery for a day.
Oh, wait.
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I've actually done 2 of the 3 of those on laptops, to replace broken parts. They're fairly modular under the hood. For proof look at the 2 in 1 tablets- basically a snap on keyboard to a tablet. Laptops could easily have been done that way. They just never made them easier to remove because the manufacturers thought they could make more money by not allowing resuse and 3rd party parts. And of course all the internals have always been modular, that's why you can customize them at dell and hp's websites
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With enough skill you can replace broken parts in "non-modular" mobile phones as well. That's not the problem.
Try to upgrade CPU on your laptop, let's say from Sandy Bridge to Haswell. Then we can talk.
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It's totally possible to build them. They're just going to be twice as thick and 50% heavier than an all-in-one device, so a few weirdos who post on Slashdot will buy them so they can feel smug about how modular their phones are, while everyone else will keep on buying the thinnest, lightest (or cheapest) phones they can find.
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Actually 30% bigger, not 100%.
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It's totally possible to build them. They're just going to be twice as thick and 50% heavier than an all-in-one device, so a few weirdos who post on Slashdot will buy them so they can feel smug about how modular their phones are, while everyone else will keep on buying the thinnest, lightest (or cheapest) phones they can find.
Here's the Raspberry pi cellphone. It works.
http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/... [techcrunch.com]
It works, but the concept of these modular devices, which only replace something that is already much better implemented is silly, other than the guy making it having fun doing just that. Maybe make a steampunk brass case for it. But not for 99.9999999 percent of the market.
My guess is that the market for modular cellphones will be somewhat less than for the Pi's or Beaglebones. Gramma probably doesn't want one. That is not
Been there, done that. (Score:2)
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 clos [youtube.com]
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Inductive charging wastes power. Don't you care about the earth?
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Its also slow and potentially doesnt charge the phone when its in use. Generally Qi charging hits ~700mAh, which is a discharge rate that you can hit on the road with bluetooth / GPS / data.
Re:Been there, done that. (Score:5, Informative)
Its also slow and potentially doesnt charge the phone when its in use.
Not only is it slow, and potentially does not charge the phone while it is in use, it also potentially does not charge the phone when it's on the charger.
More than once, incidentally including last night, I have placed the phone on the charger before bed and awoke to a phone that did not charge because I had placed it slightly off alignment.
I bought this Google charger for my Nexus 5 to make charging more convenient (no fumbling with micro USB with my glasses off, etc).
That makes my experience ironic.
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To be fair, the Nexus wireless charging pads suck. Samsung's are better, as they tend to be phone-sized, which makes for much easier alignment. http://www.samsung.com/us/mobi... [samsung.com]
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I hate to say this but you must be doing it wrong. The Google charger is magnetic and mine never fails to start charging my phone. The magnets always align it properly. I also have a Panasonic mat that detects where you put the device down and moves the charging coil under it automatically. My LG car-mount has a Qi charger too, and is designed such that it always aligns.
Yeah, the cheap ones suck, but the good ones are not exactly expensive.
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Meh. The magnets don't always align it properly, so you can't just drop it on and expect it to work. You have to either wait to confirm charging started or slowly move the phone around until it starts (rotating it to be perfectly aligned, or up/down + side to side)
If I wanted to spend a lot of time dealing with charging I would just plug it in.
I still use it, but it's not really a time saver when I have to wait a second or two to witness the charging started confirmation (sound or animation). Simply placing
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You have to either wait to confirm charging started or slowly move the phone around until it starts (rotating it to be perfectly aligned, or up/down + side to side)
I don't have to do this. I just drop it in and the magnets pull it into alignment immediately. The area where it will charge is quite large, it doesn't have to be millimetre accurate.
It sounds like maybe your charger or your phone is broken. Google are pretty good with returns, I'd contact them and ask about it.
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AFAIK there are chargers that can align the phone with magnets-- wont fix the poor charge rate though.
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Thanks, but the Google charger does indeed have powerful magnets. The problem is that they don't always pull the phone into the correct alignment for charging.
They are strong enough to grab and hold it to the charger firmly while it is still out of alignment. If you don't witness the charging indication starting within a few seconds, you must move the phone to see if it is properly aligned.
The difference between charging alignment and incorrect alignment is less than 1 cm.
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How about USB charging? A standard USB host can have a limit of 500mA (most can deliver more current) and using a powered USB 2 hub that limit is often enforced.
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For charging the protocol has been extended to 2100 mA @ 4.8V (approx 10 watt). That's what a standard USB wall wart delivers nowadays.
A standard USB host is not suitable to charge a tablet from. That would only slow the power usage down (when the tablet is in full use)
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The 500mA limit is a thing of the past, and has been for many years. That limit is for devices that have not negotiated higher amperage; its not unusual to see 1.5A charge rates with an android. Not sure what the iPhones hit, but I wouldnt be surprised if they dont get ~1.5-2A as well.
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It's possible to get >90% efficiency with wireless power, I don't know if I'd call that wasting...
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God no, the trend to wireless only is the worst.
I want a high-speed wired interface on my phone. Like, if you can fit a 10g ethernet port in there, I want that. I also want a mini-display port connector.
Radios are for differential transfer and continuity. If I need to move data on and off the device, I want that done as fast as possible.
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Ports mean entry points for water and dust, crappy covers or expensive ports.
Phones need to be waterproof IMHO. They get wet during an unexpected rain while commuting by bike, so they better be able to handle water.
Data transfer via IEEE 802.11ac (theoretical 500 Mbit/s) is plenty fast for most cases. It's a phone, not a fileserver.
For DisplayPort: there are a couple of companies quite busy with wireless HDMI. It would require another antenna and an additional chip, but that's where it's going.
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You can design a metal contact based port which is dust and water proof. We just currently don't but it's hardly an insurmountable challenge.
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I also want a mini-display port connector.
They already have that. You can plug your phone into a monitor with a SlimPort [wikipedia.org] adapter.
Battery-powered hub (Score:2)
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, manufa [slashdot.org]
Turn off WiFi (Score:1)
... 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.
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I'm sure the gNarly Super Apps company will be making that module for you in no time...
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Use cell or GPS location to turn on Wi-Fi (Score:2)
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... the problem is not "listening for beacons", you can do that without broadcasting your position to the whole world (NSA included...).
For some reasons, modern smartphones constantly yell in all directions, "Hear me! Hear me! My globally unique ID is 02:12:f6:12:8a:33! That said, any nice APs around that I might know?".
This despite the fact that standard APs broadcast beacons every 102.4 ms, obviating the need for the phone to send anything until it wants to actually associate.
Not sending beacons all
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For privacy reasons, phones should of course also randomize their MAC address before every association request. There are 46 bits available for randomization
I thought network interface makers were supposed to use only MACs from their own respective registered prefixes.
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For privacy reasons, phones should of course also randomize their MAC address before every association request. There are 46 bits available for randomization
I thought network interface makers were supposed to use only MACs from their own respective registered prefixes.
That goes for the statically assigned MAC addresses, yes. But if the first octet ends with the bits 01, it is a "locally administered unicast address" [wikipedia.org], for which there are no assignment rules - you can pick whatever value you want. (Hence 46 bits, not 48 bits.)
In theory, the local system administrator is supposed to assign the MAC addresses. In practice, randomization is the optimal assignment strategy. These random addresses will never collide with a statically assigned address (which do not have a first o
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"Almost" works? (Score:4, Insightful)
"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.
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Considering that it even displayed a boot screen. It means their pll(s), power distribution management(s), board support package(s), hardware design managed to get all the components and interconnects to a functional state.
That actually is very impressive given the timeline. Once you're at this point, figuring out the configurations changes needed to get things running smoothly is comparatively trivial.
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No kidding - the GP has never done any driver development.
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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?
Re:"Almost" works? (Score:5, Funny)
A phone that can get to the dialer to make a phone call would be "working"
And this is why QA hates devs.
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Re:"Almost" works? (Score:2)
Let's just say that the phone is an engineering marvel and a really fine example for the state of the art in current technology for end consumers.
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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.
What about Microsoft [youtube.com]?
A waste of time (Score:2)
For some reason this reminds me of old Windows (Score:2)
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.
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"Well, you bastard, they you shouldn't have assigned that IRQ to two devices. Don't you keep a list?"
Yeah that time was "fun".
Hey, AmigaOS has a gift for you... (Score:2)
It's called Autoconfig [wikipedia.org]. 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
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It's called Autoconfig [wikipedia.org]
Or, alternately, 'Plug and P[l|r]ay'.
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Okay, so here's a scenario for you. I've just built a nice new Ara phone. It has a computing module, a camera module, an LTE/GSM+SIM module, a 802.11a/b/g/n/ac module, 128GBs of storage, a touchscreen and a fingerprint reader.
It's the first time I've put this device together, with brand new parts out of the box. How am I meant to download the drivers? I can't use the WiFi, or the cellular modem, I don't have drivers for them yet. And I can't display any kind of configuration, because the display isn't set u
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You'll still need a way to update the drivers, and if you can update them, you can also use the same mechanism to download them in the first place. No need for extra flash chips in every peripheral.
You need flash if you want to update the early driver. Some Amiga cards' roms didn't work properly with later versions of the OS, and you couldn't use them at all, or you couldn't use them at boot. You had to wait for the OS to load, and load the driver.
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That only works if you have a stable driver ABI. We can't even get that within a single OS over very long periods of time, let alone across competing OSes.
Interchangable crypto modules (Score:4, Interesting)
One for the business, or for each business, one for the kids, one for the wife, and one for the mistress.
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Deliver a Mission Impossible message (Score:2)
An oPhone module (Score:2)