My wife and I do not fit in the corporate consumer models for telecommunications technologies.
By this I mean We rarely make phone calls and thus years ago I decided to leave the large corporate models for phone service and went to VOIP over the internet before VONAGE ™ was available. Later I signed up with vonage’s VOIP and been with them till this day.
Looking to get a low cost smart-phone or tablet-phone for mobile use appears to be a challenge for such a low usage that I can’t justify the $50 or more monthly fees.
The device may cost from $50 – $700 to be in use for 3 years but 12 month service fees adding up to $600 or more would add up to over $1800.00 for that same period. That is an unjustifiable cost in my mind when you consider the intrusion of being spied upon and profiled by institutions with no regard to your personal liberties and privacy. On top of that You have been regulated to a paying audience for advertisers that constantly and unyieldingly peddle all unwanted and unrequested merchandise and services. Ouch, I don’t like being a walking billboard and a captured receiver to unwelcomed messages and propaganda!
Yes I strongly object to supporting those policies and institutions that allow or implement policies that disrespect individual sovereignty and privacy.
Personally I have no objection to carrying my notebook pc and use the WIFI capabilities when signals are available, but my wife will not. She would not carry a notebook computer everywhere to shop and travel nor should she have to.
A tablet or phone size device with camera and phone calling features would meet her requirements nicely.
I am not as mobile nor as techno-gadgeteering as I once was. The new computing gadgets and standard protocols lingo has passed me by. And now I volunteer to dive back into the techno creativity hobbyist style of creative vision…
The Freedom software movement has caught my attention
I found this report in Yahoo news while doing some research:
“… the wifi-minded carrier isn’t for everyone. It employs a calculator called the Cellular Usage Index (CUI) to determine where you fall on the spectrum of mobile users. If you’re a light or moderate user (one who won’t put too much pressure on their networks), you’re the ideal customer. But users who use up a disproportionate share of mobile bandwidth are subject to getting the boot (after a series of warnings) if they don’t rein in their heavy voice and data usage.
The good news? The vast majority of mobile customers aren’t data hogs. Even if you spend all day returning calls or refreshing your inbox from the palm of your hand, odds are that you fall somewhere on the middle of the spectrum. According to the carrier, “you could consume 550 minutes, send 150 texts, and download 300 megabytes of data without crossing the community’s fair use threshold,” and that’s not even taking wifi — which has no associated cost — into account.”
Read more at:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/wifi-minded-carrier-offers-unbelievable-19-unlimited-phone-204810215.html
The news was over a year old, thus I found the organization’s website and browsed and discovered the beta tests are ongoing but closed (possibly with future openings); I signed up for newsletters and future testing…
If you are interested then visit http://republicwireless.com/
As I continued to search I discovered several creative devices by people who are looking to create a new paradigm. Here are two:
1. Raspberry Pi GPU is Twice as Powerful as the iPhone 4S GPU
“Remember Raspberry Pi, the tiny $25 computer that’s launching very soon, and promises to revolutionize the world? It seems its GPU comprehensively beats the Tegra 2 GPU and is even twice as powerful as the iPhone 4S GPU. At the heart of the device it’s a Broadcom BCM2835 chip that comes with a 700 Mhz CPU, and this ultra-powerful GPU. A Broadcom employee had this to say about it:
“I was on the team that designed the graphics core, so I’m a little biased here, but I genuinely believe we have the best mobile GPU team in the world at Broadcom in Cambridge”.
He was also not very impressed with the Tegra 2 GPU:
“What’s really striking is how badly Tegra 2 performs relative even to simple APs using licensed Imagination Technologies (TI and Apple) or ARM Mali (Samsung) graphics. To summarise, BCM2835 has a tile mode architecture – so it kills immediate-mode devices like Tegra on fill-rate – and we’ve chosen to configure it with a very large amount of shader performance, so it does very well on compute-intensive benchmarks, and should double iPhone 4S performance across a range of content.”
The Raspberry Pi foundation hopes that the price and flexibility of this tiny computer will give rise to a whole lot of homebrew inventions in the future. Because the Raspberry Pi computer can easily decode 1080p blu-ray movies, it will be a great fit for XBMC devices and set top boxes, and this is what they are most likely to focus on in the beginning.”
Tiny, Powerful, Inexpensive and non-proprietary (free) architecture are all excellent reasons to explore and develop this further!
2. Via Outs $49 Android PC
by Ed Caggiani
“How about an Android PC for only $49? Via, a company known more for its circuit boards, has put together an interesting piece of hardware. This small PC on a board doesn’t have the best specs, but you didn’t expect that for $49, right? Here’s what it comes with:
- Arm 11 800MHz processor
- 2GB NAND flash storage
- microSD slot
- 4 full-size USB ports
- 512 MB RAM
- VGA port
- HDMI port
- Ethernet port
- Android 2.3 Gingerbread (awww)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Gfo6V9zxE&feature=player_embedded
To imagine all the common computing features becoming part of the android (smart phone and tablet devices) Operating System is a promising development!
Perhaps as I enter the market for a “Smart Phone”
I will actually get a video-phone-Ebook-wordprocessor-WebSearch-Browser all-in-one device? Who knows but certainly more than an expensive phone and camera dumb-phone masquerading as a “Smart Phone”.
Let us write and call in with encouragement and ideas to help these new and creative ideas become reality.
Oh, and let us not forget about freedom!
The “free” software movement is not about PRICE it is about getting corporatism out of the business of enslaving mankind to a misery of profit driven, debt-bondage, ecological suicide, biological experimentation with frankenstein GMOs and corporate-governments to enforce obedience to the corporate board’s demands.
“Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a nonprofit with a worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom and to defend the rights of all free software users.
As our society grows more dependent on computers, the software we run is of critical importance to securing the future of a free society. Free software is about having control over the technology we use in our homes, schools and businesses, where computers work for our individual and communal benefit, not for proprietary software companies or governments who might seek to restrict and monitor us.
The Free Software Foundation is working to secure freedom for computer users by promoting the development and use of free (as in freedom) software and documentation — particularly the GNU operating system — and by campaigning against threats to computer user freedom like Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and software patents.
The free software movement is one of the most successful social movements to emerge in the past 25 years, driven by a worldwide community of ethical programmers dedicated to the cause of freedom and sharing. But the ultimate success of the free software movement depends upon teaching our friends, neighbors and work colleagues about the danger of not having software freedom, about the danger of a society losing control over its computing.
Our Core Work
The FSF maintains historic articles covering free software philosophy and maintains the Free Software Definition — to show clearly what must be true about a particular software program for it to be considered free software.
The FSF sponsors the GNU project — the ongoing effort to provide a complete operating system licensed as free software. We also fund and promote important free software development and provide development systems for GNU software maintainers, including full email and shell services and mailing lists. We are committed to furthering the development of the GNU Operating System and enabling volunteers to easily contribute to that work, including sponsoring Savannah the source code repository and center for free software development.
The FSF holds copyright on a large proportion of the GNU operating system, and other free software. We hold these assets to defend free software from efforts to turn free software proprietary. Every year we collect thousands of copyright assignments from individual software developers and corporations working on free software. We register these copyrights with the US copyright office and enforce the license under which we distribute free software — typically the GNU General Public License. We do this to ensure that free software distributors respect their obligations to pass on the freedom to all users, to share, study and modify the code. We do this work through our Free Software Licensing and Compliance Lab.
The FSF publishes the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL), the world’s most popular free software license, and the only license written with the express purpose of promoting and preserving software freedom. Other important licenses we publish include the GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL), the GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL) and the GNU Free Document License (GNU FDL). Read more about our free software licensing and related issues.
The FSF campaigns for free software adoption and against proprietary software. Threats to free software include Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), Software Patents and Treacherous Computing. Find out more about our campaigns, and ways to volunteer.
The FSF also provides important resources to the community including the FSF/UNESCO free software directory.
Support Our Mission
The most important support you can give to free software is to use free software on your own computer and advocate within your business or community for others to adopt it. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter the Free Software Supporter to hear about ways you can get involved.
You can directly support our mission by donating or becoming a card carrying associate member of the Free Software Foundation”
see more at http://www.fsf.org/
Want Worldwide PEACE and Prosperity. We are the solution we have been searching for... Free People on Earth will solve our crisis and create an era of Creativity. Be Aware; Be Creative; Be Active; Be Free; and then Share it. LOVE & Wholeness AMOR y Paz
Ronmamita's Blog 
I am learning some new techno-geek lingo such as “rooting”
As I learn about smart phones and tablets that use the linux kernal found in Android OS.
I have never used smart phones or Tablets so this is all new as I grapple with the decision to buy a new gadget.
WHY ROOT YOUR ANDROID SMART PHONE?
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Groove IP sounds interesting, must try this:
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Use the android smartphone as WIFI only, here is a setup video for GrooVe IP:
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http://www.appbrain.com/app/groove-ip/com.gvoip
Here is what was reported by the AppBrain Android market website:
“GrooVe IP is an android app that connects to Google Voice using Voice over IP (VoIP). What this means for you is you can make free unlimited calls to any phone in the US or Canada without using your voice minutes. GrooVe IP works on any android device, phone or tablet, and allows you to make calls using the device’s data (WiFi or mobile data) connection. If you have a smartphone with Wi-Fi connectivity but no mobile plan, you can use this app to convert it to a free, full-featured working phone.
This app has a separate dialer that can be used to make calls. Alternatively, the native dialer, call-log, contacts, and favorite functionality can be shared between the phone and app on a call-by-call basis.
** NOTE ** Please ensure that your Google Voice account is associated with either a gmail or google apps account.
** NOTE ** To receive incoming calls you MUST go into your Google Voice account and forward calls to Google Chat.
** NOTE ** GrooVe IP uses 1.2 MB per minute during a call
For requirements, setup details, answers to frequently asked questions, known issues, or more information, please visit http://snrblabs.com/snrb/grooveIp.aspx
If you have any questions, feature requests, or run into any problems please contact us! We cannot help you if you only leave a comment. We have a 24 hour refund period! If you would like a refund please send us your order receipt and a description of why you want a refund. If you are having trouble with the app and contact us within 24 hours we will extend the refund period while we help troubleshoot!
*** FINE PRINT ***
Google Voice℠ services are provided by Google, Inc. SNRB LABS, LLC is NOT affiliated with Google, Inc.
Google Voice℠ is a call enhancement service which will not route emergency (911) calls.
International rate information can be found http://www.google.com/chat/voice/compare.html
Credits:
For full license and credits information visit http://snrblabs.com/snrb/Apps/GrooveIP/Credits.aspx
This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/). This product includes cryptographic software written by Eric Young (eay@cryptsoft.com). This product includes software written by Tim Hudson (tjh@cryptsoft.com).
This product uses the Iksemel XML parser and Jabber protocol library. The use of the Iksemel library is governed by the GNU Lesser General Public License. The details of licensing terms and condtions for GNU Lesser GPL are available here (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html).
Speex is used for certain voice processing functionality. Speex is available under the Revised BSD License; the details of this license are available here (http://www.xiph.org/licenses/bsd/speex/).
Recent changes:
– New settings to include/exclude contacts in the Native Dialer Options
– In ICS the AM/PM setting wasn’t working properly for the Start/Stop time preferences
– Start/Stop time preferences were not saving properly if ok was hit immediately after opening
– The Speaker/Mic preferences were saving even if you hit cancel
– New defaults for the Sanyo Zio
– Bluetooth specific speaker/mic volume settings
– Return to the home screen when an incoming call is finished instead of to the GrooVe IP dialer.”
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Here is a young mac user explaining how to get your mobile phone working freely:
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Feedom: Free software Operating System
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