Google, Android 2.0 sticks fork in GPS devices?

Interesting that ZDNet Larry Dignan is suggesting that Android phones will mark the end of traditional GPS devices. Android is a mobile operating system, and I don't see why traditional GPS hardware can't eventually become Android devices without the phone.

I guess I see value in separating the hardware feature of a wide variety of devices we may want from a more open operating system that could run on this hardware.

I was thinking of purchasing a Neo FreeRunner phone running Openmoko instead of a GPS device, and depending on when I decide to purchase I may end up with an phone (with GPS, media playing capabilities, etc) running Android as a different option.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cancelling my Fair Vote Canada membership/donation

Since some time close to the founding in 2000 I have been a member of Fair Vote Canada, including having a $10/month automatic donation. Today I have contacted FVC to cancel the donation and let my membership lapse. When I first joined the group was in favour of electoral modernization, was non-partisan and appeared agnostic to any specific voting system alternative to the very broken First Past the Post system. It appears over the years it has moved from being non-partisan to being multi-partisan, and is now focused on voting systems that favour political parties. When they speak of being proportional they mean party proportional, fixated not on the potential of a representative having the most voter support but only on votes which are targeted at parties rather than representatives. While I heard ramblings over the years about what I consider a change, the policy direction became obvious in the language of a motion for FVC members to have a referendum on limited support of Alter
Read more

Byron Sonne is Still in Prison

I sent the following as a letter to my federal member of parliament, David McGuinty. I suspect it would be useful for others to send similar letters to their MP if this issue disturbs them as well. Mr McGuinty, MP for my riding of Ottawa South, I wanted to make sure you are aware of a citizen from the security/hacker community I am part of that is still in prison from before the G20 summit. There is an audio story about the issue: http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/searchengine/index.cfm?page_id=613&action=blog&subaction=viewPost&post_id=13995&blog_id=485 "The strange, suppressed story of Byron Sonne, the G-20 security hacker who has been held, unconvicted, for 6 months and counting. An interview with technology journalist Jesse Hirsh." I find this very disturbing. There is a media ban on talking about the issue, with this being a case of a security person investigating the security measures being set up for the G20. In our community, security research
Read more

Traditional definitions in the copyright debate.

On social issues I consider myself a pretty liberal parson, and am OK with people being whoever they want to be. My limits come when those activities harm others: your right to swing your cane ends at my nose, and all that. After being told I represented the "copyleft" so often by folks associated with Access Copyright, I decided to do some thinking (and writing) on that. Far from being a redefinition of an existing term, it is a new term that turns out to be useful for understanding some of the conflicts between creators in the copyright debate. One thing I get frustrated with, however, is when people abuse language by redefining terms to fit their temporary purposes. There are terms that are very heavily loaded that should be used in their dictionary meaning, or not at all. One of those terms that is all too loosely abused is calling people anti-Semitic, often levelled at people who think the country of Israel should be treated as and critiqued like any other, and who
Read more