Submitted by “Google’s first mobile phone reportedly will run a Linux operating system on a Texas Instruments “Edge” chipset, and will likely ship to T-Mobile and Orange customers in the Spring of 2008. “GPhone” call minutes and text messages will apparently be funded by mobile advertising, according to reports.” The report found at the popular embedded systems Linux news site LinuxDevices.
Linux to Power Google GPhone
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Eugenia Loli
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“minutes and text messages will apparently be funded by mobile advertising”
but will that mean the usage of teh network is free for teh subscrber?
because lets face it. prduction of the phone is expensive. and assuming they dont in over the 700mhz range they will have to use other companties like T mobile or Orange towers and satelites etc…. the point is i would never have thought that online advertising alone could possibly make a profit for a product like this.
but it is google we are talking about and it seems that they are marketing genuises. i wonder hwo this will all turn out…
> but will that mean the usage of teh network is free for teh subscrber?
But I mean, if it is not, so what… how much traffic does text avertising generate…
The thing, anyways, is that I do not need no frigging funding by anyone, I will pay it myself. Just give me push e-mail for all carriers and all terminals, please, like Japan has been having for ages.
Today sending an SMS in Spain costs you about 15 cents of euro. The traffic that sending an average text e-mail (let’s say, with 4-5 times the number of characters) generates, costs you… what? 1 or 2 cents?
It is just about time that we kill SMS and the stupid abbreviations that go with it (NOBODY in Japan uses SMS, simply regular e-mails for years!). Of course, for operators it has been the goose that lays golden eggs, so they are not going to do that… (which in my opinion is a short-sighted dead-end loop, but anyway…)
>but will that mean the usage of the network is free for the subscriber? (typos fixed ;-))
That would be great, a small monthly fee to cover the cost of the handset over a fixed term and all the free calls/web you like, let the ad spamming commence 🙂
Edited 2007-08-04 02:01
who knows, it may not be able to generate as much profit as what the current mobile operators generate, but it may just provide a little bit, or perhaps just provide for no losses.
remember, the prices we see today for mobile shit is 100 times more than it should be, simply because the mobile operators want a ridicoulesly high profit margin. and why shouldnt they? we happily pay, and ill bet most people dont even know they are being totally owned. They would however know if their 1 liter milk suddenly cost 10 USD..
anybody who has been paying attention for the last two years knows that the ‘gphone’ is an ti omap730 based linux 2.6 system. it’ll be a stretch, but they just might make it work with the 850.
As for the business model, all you’re seeing in the press is guesses that google will simply move it’s intarweb business model to the telephony space.
i wouldn’t count on it.
I hope this was a typo…otherwise this looks like vaporware/old news
“Scheduled for production in Q1 of 2006, the Google phone will hit retail shelves next spring”
EDIT: Just realized it above says 2008…I’ve been drinking
Edited 2007-08-04 03:00
If it is the least bit graphical (surely it would be to render ads and browse the web!) it will come with its very own pron sooner or later, and people will nickname it the “G-Spot” as that seems inevitable!
and the problem is ???????
Of course it should have porn. All advances made by the computing industry have been pushed by the porn industry, graphics compression, streaming video, secure log ons etc etc etc
Are you that stupid?
Why don’t we refer to it as the Google GPhone Phone. That way we can really be redundant.
good, I hope linux has better success on Google’s phone then it is having on the desktop.
Hey, look: an off-topic post meant to start a flamewar! We should try voting down as much as possible to see how low the new system goes… 🙂
Edited 2007-08-04 22:27
“good, I hope linux has better success on Google’s phone then it is having on the desktop.”
Linux has *precious* little to do with the Desktop anymore. It is however *very* successful in the very Marketplace that this article refers to and is already running on many mobile phones, and this trend is set to continue.
Its unsurprising that Google have chosen a *successful* embedded OS for their phone, its even less surprising considering they are a Linux company…and I mean the kernel.
The bottom line is if you cannot see that a Phone OS is radically different from a Desktop OS then you should simply *never* post.
I really hoped that it would be powered by a new OS developed by Google but it is another linux.Not that linux is bad but i want OS technology moves forward and develops new concepts and new architectures and not reuse and reuse another old ones
What exactly new were you expecting, it isn’t linux doesn’t work very well.
Google uses Linux on their servers, so it makes sense they’ll use Linux on an embedded device.
If there is Linux in the phone, the likelihood of good development kits is high.
I have yet to encounter a phone that played very nicely with Linux when it came to using it as a cellular modem, much less, getting all of the PDA features to sync nicely.
Why?? It would do them no good to create a new kernel. Most people wouldn’t notice/care. Its the GUI/Applications that really decide whether or not the device will be revolutionary. Look at Mac OSX its kernel is a very close relatives to the BSD’s, and this only helped them innovate.
Assuming what the article says is true, they Google is creating desirable product (features and ease of use) so that they have a new platform for selling advertising. This is, after all, what they did with Gmail. The “price” of using Google products is an invaision of privacy. They scan the contents of your searches (and then save them for who knows how long) and emails so that they can give you a very specific advertising set. With this phone, they could be reading you text messages to do something similar. Or, they could listen to your conversations for key words. GPS technology would allow them to know where you are at, and then send advertising from nearby shops and restaurants to your phone. Or, they could have a completely different business model for the upcoming phone (though history seems to disagree). Maybe I am just being paranoid.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re NOT out to get you…
They scan the contents of your searches … and emails so that they can give you a very specific advertising set. With this phone, they could be reading you text messages to do something similar. Or, they could listen to your conversations for key words. GPS technology would allow them to know where you are at, and then send advertising from nearby shops and restaurants to your phone. … Maybe I am just being paranoid.
You have hit the nail on the head. I think that millions of suckers like myself will fall for it. I like the convenience of Gmail and its associated tools. The targeted advertising doesn’t worry me (indeed sometimes it is good for a laugh).
What does worry me is if someone more sinister than the current “do no evil” Google, like the US gov, gets hold of all that data and uses it in a repressive way.
As for your data falling into the wrong hands, Google has shown that it will do what it takes to stay ahead. In China, that means caving into the government’s version of reality. In the US, that means saying the big bad government can’t have our (if you are American) search data. As an American, I guess that means I am safe (at least until public sentiment no longer favors privacy – which may never happen). “Do no evil” may be their motto, but that is certainly open to interpretation. Google makes me nervous.
As long as it’s not intrusive, then it doesn’t bother me. The risk of Google data falling into the wrong hands might eventually prove worrisome…on the other hand, if that was to happen, you’d have a great case to sue Google for *millions*…
You have a good point there. There is not a chance in hell that I would use Google phone, hell I refuse to use even Gmail. I just have to laugh at all the idiots in the world who are now jumping on the Google bandwagon thinking they are the anti-Microsoft. They are no different, if not worse in their behavior. The only difference is they use Linux, to which they make changes which they refused to release, and they get all the Linux geeks jumping on their bandwagon. Almost 95% of everyone on my local Linux user group uses Gmail, pathetic. No, I would not assume that Microsoft’s services are any different or better. I just think it very ignorant and naive how people see Google.
I see them for what they are, a large mega corporation that has no respect for my privacy. If they come out with their own Linux distro, it will be a cold day in hell before I would load that garbage.
They tend to remove questionmarks from the original title and make rumors look like facts.
“remember, the prices we see today for mobile shit is 100 times more than it should be, simply because the mobile operators want a ridicoulesly high profit margin. and why shouldnt they? we happily pay, and ill bet most people dont even know they are being totally owned. They would however know if their 1 liter milk suddenly cost 10 USD..”
Don’t get me started about high cel phone charges. I use a cel phone in Northern Canada. I’m quite certain we have perhaps the highest mobile charges. Yep, I know I’m being rogered on a regular basis. It royally sucks.
If that’s not a pun on Rogers cable/wirelss, it should be
On a more serious note, I recently read an article that echoes the same sentiments:
“Uncompetitive Canadian Pricing Threatens Mobile Internet”
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2117/135/
Hope they don’t make a “DUH” mistake & have it always run as root like apple did the Iphone.
Everyone getting paranoid about a privacy invading Google Phone should keep their pants on. It’ll be a Linux based platform and thus very likely to be (made) modular as far as stripping everything out that’s remotely related to Google, while still preserving non-invading regular phone activity.
“Everyone getting paranoid about a privacy invading Google Phone should keep their pants on. It’ll be a Linux based platform and thus very likely to be (made) modular as far as stripping everything out that’s remotely related to Google, while still preserving non-invading regular phone activity.”
You clearly fell asleep during Linus’s last rant against the FSF, but essentially there was this little topic called Tivoization that the FSF tried to prevent, but Linus was for.
Remember this is not about GNU but about Linux It will probably contain no GPL3 licensed code.
Edited 2007-08-06 15:11
Tivo: Hacked.
iPhone: Hacked.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to support a license that allows you to do what you want it to do, rather than rely on anonymous programmers elsewhere.
I would actually suggest purchasing a device that supports this kind of interaction.
Like I say you should read the Linus stuff…about things he doesn’t care about hardware companies do with *his* kernel.
He suggests adding gunk to the top of chips as reasonable to stop people using their four freedoms.
Edited 2007-08-06 20:20