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Synapse-Phones Will Allow You to Build your Own Custom Android Phone

This idea is not as crazy as it may seem…  What if you could build your own custom Android based smartphone from a list of different features and options. This is the idea that a German handset developer hopes to make a reality in the near future.

Their plan is to let the consumer develop their own Synapse phones from a list of possible options.

They will then build a custom, rooted Android handset exactly how the end user wants it.

The Synapse One will have a 10.16cm chassis and a 4-inch super AMOLED multitouch screen along with 480×800 WVGA resolution.

Also standard is a 1GHz processor which is either a Qualcom and T1 chip having 720p HD chipset. This is also customizable option and users can have the chipset of their very own choice. You can also choose 4 different radio options capable of both 3G and 4G and compatible with US carrier networks. Wif b/g/n is also optional and choice of camera is also there with the maximum of 12 Megapixel.

Built-in storage and Ram is also customizable and in both the cases you can choose from three options. Color, battery size, front facing or rear camera and the size of the microSD card are also customizable and thus the handset differs from person to person.

After all the choices made by the costumers, it comes loaded with Android 2.2 along with a warranty of 3 years. Base model will cost $400, middle model will cost $600 and the price for the high end of the model will be of $900. You can pre-order now but its shipping will start till February 2011, said Synapse.

Reference:  http://www.alltechnologynews.com/build-your-own-custom-android-phone-with-synapse-phones.html

Presently, their website: ( Synapse-Phones ) will allow you to select the options for the Android phone in anticipation of eventual production.

I’ve been toying with the idea of developing an Android based device which would provide pregnant patient’s with a limited set of functions geared toward pregnancy related concerns.  Perhaps a glucose monitor interface (for diabetic patients), social networking capabilities (for community based sharing) and the ability to use various apps to track pregnancy-related data.

At $900 a pop, the Synapse-Phone is perhaps not the most cost effective option.  But who knows.  This could potentially be a realizable goal if it were picked up by a pharmaceutical company willing to underwrite the initial expense.

The Joy of Being a Nerd…

One of the best parts of being a nerd is enjoying a chuckle at something that makes other people shake their heads in confusion.

This comic is presented in that vein for your chuckling pleasure.

 

Obtained from:  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/infrastructures.png

My Android Apps 10/20/10

chukwumaonyeije’s Apps on the phone

Phone: HTC Droid Incredible
55 total, 49 free (89%), 6 paid (10%), 73MB total size, $16.84 total price

View this Android app list on AppBrain

Google Nexus One Video Review

Facebook photos could be hazardous to your health benefits

Facebook photos could be hazardous to your health benefits

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Available on Android …

This is just a quick post to share something that impressed me this morning.

One of the criticisms of Android at present are that it does not have as many apps as the iPhone.  Indeed one of the most critical appraisals has come from none other than Robert Scoble who has stated multiple times that Android phones do not have as many apps as the iPhone).

That may be true.  At the present time.

But if you take a longer view – the platform that will succeed is NOT the one that has the most apps or the bigger head start;  but the one that captures the imagination of developers and the public.

This is why I have been pleasantly surprised to see icons like this one:

Next to icons like this one:

On sites like Remember the Milk.

Ultimately, I think that there will be a handful of mobile platforms that will vie for supremacy in this space.  The issue will be which platform will innovate fastest to provide the most disruption and value for the consumer.

In this regard, I don’t think you should bet against a Linux based mobile device.

 

Linux powers the fastest computers on the planet – Computerworld Blogs

More information regarding the speed and “awesome-ness” of Linux.

Once upon a time, supercomputers used special vector model processors to achieve their remarkable speeds. Then, at the dawn of the 21st century, people began working out how to achieve record-breaking computer speed by linking hundreds or thousands of commercial microprocessors running Linux and connected with high-speed networking in MPP (massively parallel processor) arrays. The supercomputing world has never been the same. Today, Linux rules supercomputing.

The latest “Top 500 supercomputer” list of the fastest computers on the planet makes that abundantly clear. Broken down by operating system, this latest ranking has 469 of the top 500 running one kind of Linux or another.

To be exact, 391 are running their own house brand of Linux. Sixty-two are running some version of Novell’s SUSE Linux, including such variants as UNICOS/lc and CNL (Compute Node Linux). Red Hat and its relatives, including CentOS, come in second with 16 supercomputers.

As for the non-Linux members of the fastest computer club, IBM’s AIX Unix, with 22 computers, is the only serious competitor. Microsoft and Sun, with Windows HPC 2008 and OpenSolaris, are barely in the running, with fives supercomputers for Windows and a mere pair for OpenSolaris.

Linux isn’t just setting the standards; it’s breaking the record books. The fastest of the fast is now the Cray XT5 supercomputer, known as Jaguar. Jaguar, which runs CNL, didn’t just take first place; it blew away the competition with a top speed of 1.75 petaflops per second, leaving the previous record of 1.04 petaflops per second in the dust. (A petaflop is 1,000 trillion, a quadrillion, floating point calculations per second.)

What’s even more amazing is that the IBM Roadrunner, another Linux system, which has held the top record, had only broken the petaflop barrier in the summer of 2008. Or perhaps it isn’t so amazing when you consider that, with Linux leading the way, the slowest member of this new list can do 20 teraflop (trillion floating point calculations per second). In other words, this list’s slowest system would have ranked No. 336 in the last Top 500 list from six months ago.

Linux and improvements in Linux-based MPP programming techniques can’t take all the credit. Jaguar, which is located at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, was upgraded from quad-core to six-core AMD Opteron processors. After this upgrade, Jaguar is running almost a quarter of a million CPU cores. In theory, Jaguar can reach a peak speed of 2.3 petaflop per second.

Between the continued improvements in multi-core processor speeds, network fabric throughput, and Linux performance, we can expect to see supercomputers gaining speed at this remarkable rate for quite some time to come. At this rate, we may see a Linux-powered exaflop (one quintillion calculations per second) computer by the early 2010s. That’s not just a theory: IBM is already working on the design for such a supercomputer monster for the Square Kilometre Array telescope project. The proposed operating system? Linux, of course.

Linux powers the fastest computers on the planet – Computerworld Blogs

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It recently became clear to me that the idea of Net Neutrality is an important concept in the attempt to enhance personal freedom and unleash creativity via technology.

This video gives a good summary:

 

Adapted from Free Press presents, Save the Internet. ( http://www.savetheinternet.com/faq )

WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY?

  • Net Neutrality is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.

  • Net Neutrality simply means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

  • The Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation and free speech online in large part due to the fact that it has always featured the idea of Net Neutrality.

  • Net Neutrality protects the consumer’s right to use any equipment, content, application or service without interference from the network provider.

  • Under Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not to choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

  • You can learn more about Net Neutrality: HERE:

SOUNDS GOOD. SO, WHO WOULD BE AGAINST NET NEUTRALITY?

  • The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner Cable are AGAINST Net Neutrality. They want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won’t load at all.

  • These large companies want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. And they want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking services offered by their competitors.

  • Instead of a level playing field, these companies want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those of big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

  • The big phone and cable companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to gut Net Neutrality, putting the future of the Internet at risk.

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT TO ME?

As a part time blogger, I have enjoyed the ability to provide content that some people find useful. Anyone who has read my blog for any length of time knows that I have strong opinions and that occasionally these opinions will change and evolve as time goes by. Many times my posts are read by only myself. At other times I can get hundreds of hits and dozens of comments in a single day. I appreciate the fact that my information is only hindered by the creativity of my ideas. I do not want my content to be given second class status at the whim of a telecomunications company. I would like to have equal access to readers around the world without hinderances beyond my control.

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

  1. Sign the SavetheInternet.com petition and tell Congress to pass Net Neutrality legislation now.

  2. Show your support for Internet freedom on your Web site or blog.

  3. Tell your friends about this crucial issue before it’s too late.

Making Ubuntu 9.10 Faster?

Actually, I’ve been very happy with the speed and efficiency of the new Ubuntu upgrade.  However, Robbie Williamson at http://undacuvabrutha.wordpress.com have the following tips to enable ubuntu-boot PPA:

… It’s really easy, and if your system has a hard disk (not solid state drive or SSD), then you will see tremendous improvements.The updates include a new kernel and replaces sreadahead with our own homegrown, superfast ureadahead.  To install these updates, follow these simple steps:

  1. Open the “Software Sources” under System->Administration.
  2. Select the “Other Software” tab.
  3. Click the “Add…” button in the lower left-hand
  4. Type “ppa:ubuntu-boot” and hit the “Add Source”
  5. Allow the system to refresh the sources
  6. Run “Update Manager” under System->Administration

That’s it!  It will install the new kernel and replace sreadahead with ureadahead.  You’ll need to reboot twice to see the benefits.  The first reboot allows ureadahead to profile your boot so it can do its magic.  If you have any issues or questions join the Launchpad Ubuntu-boot team and post to the mailing list.

Robbie’s full post can be found here: http://undacuvabrutha.wordpress.com/2009/11/09/still-not-happy-with-the-speed-of-your-boot-in-9-10/

How are you doing with the new Ubuntu?

I will attempt the fixes listed above and report back.

“Android Adoption Is About To Explode”

It appears that Google’s mobile strategy is starting to pay off.  In a third quarter conference call, Eric Schmidt, CEO stated that “Android adoption is about to explode.”

There are now 12 Android phones across 32 carriers in 26 countries.

According to an a recent article on TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld the whole Android strategy is to offer an low-cost, fully-featured, open-source OS and hand that to the cell phone manufacturers so that they can concentrate more on designing desirable hardware.  This strategy will allow Google to get an increasing amount of it’s revenue from mobile searches.    This trend is anticipated to be one of Google’s  biggest sources of growth in the coming years.

The full article by Erick Schonfeld may be found here:  http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/10/15/schmidt-android-adoption-is-about-to-explode/

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