(http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9531007&fsrc=RSS)
===== Tech.view Hello world Jul 20th 2007
From Economist.com
Avoiding punitive roaming charges abroad WITH a six-month foreign assignment looming, your columnist has had to start thinking seriously about finding a mobile phone that will work—well—around the world. Huge changes in wireless communications have occurred since he was last an itinerant hack. [...] Several months before Steve Jobs, Apple's media-savvy boss, gave the world its first tantalising glimpse of the iPhone, something remarkably similar in appearance (but wholly different within) was shown to the Linux software community and other open-source evangelists. OpenMoko, an initiative aimed at developing all the technology for a mobile smart phone based on non-proprietary Linux software, is everything the iPhone could have been but is not. What makes OpenMoko special is that handsets based on its specification will be supplied "unlocked" and free for users to customise to their heart's content. Owners will be able to download all sorts of applications, and they won't have a service provider in the middle demanding extra monthly charges for all the additional features. [...] Owners will still have to subscribe to a local GSM provider for phone and data services. But they'll only have to pay for the bandwidth they use—in much the same way they do when adding a cellular modem card to a laptop. But best of all, they won't have to pay all those scandalous roaming charges when travelling abroad. The open-source revolution rolls on. ===== -- Soh Kam Yung my Google Reader Shared links: (http://www.google.com/reader/shared/16851815156817689753) my delicious links: (http://del.icio.us/SohKamYung) my simpy links: (http://www.simpy.com/user/kysoh/links) _______________________________________________ Slugnet mailing list [email protected] http://www.lugs.org.sg/mailman/listinfo/slugnet
