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Handhelds Software Communications Hardware Linux

DoCoMo to Use Linux on Phones 106

Posted by CowboyNeal from the coming-to-fruition dept.
highwaytohell writes "News.com.au has an announcement that NTT DoCoMo in collaboration with NEC and Panasonic have developed a Linux based software platform for third generation cell phones. 'The main advantage of the new platform will be easy integration of advanced multi-media applications and efficient use of software,' NEC spokeswoman Akiko Shikimori said." This was first reported about a year ago, but the platform looks to be mostly done by now, and a new press release timed to remind us of its impending release.
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DoCoMo to Use Linux on Phones More

DoCoMo to Use Linux on Phones

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  • Multimedia (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 18, 2004 @07:50PM (#10860169)
    The main advantage of the new platform will be easy integration of advanced multi-media applications

    I also want this on my Linux desktop.

    • Multi-media apps? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PMJ2kx ( 828679 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @07:57PM (#10860228) Journal
      I use my phone for making phone calls, not watching movies. How many people do YOU know who need "multi-media applications" on a phone? Not trying to be a troll hree, but seriously, is it a practical application of technology, or a mere technology/fashon fad? Someone please convince me (Joe Schmoe) why I need it.

      • Why not? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by F'Nok ( 226987 )
        The phone is becoming the portable 'thing' you have with you. I know I like to watch some TV on train, take a photo or video snap and send it to a mate (especially helpful when giving directions), and lets face it... Without a dose of neopets while in the doctors waiting room, I'd get much more irritated than I do. :)

        Are they useful?
        For some, probably not the majority.

        But it's still a good thing. :)

        The worst that can happen is you don't use the features, or buy a vanilla phone. No harm.
      • I agree. I need a phone so I can answer the phone and call out on the phone. I don't need crappy games, crappy web browsing, and crappy music. I need my toaster to do some of these things, though.


        Want a Job With Google? [vle.org]

      • Re:Multi-media apps? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @09:04PM (#10860694) Journal
        I use my phone for making phone calls, not watching movies. How many people do YOU know who need "multi-media applications" on a phone?

        Humm, I was watching real-tv news on my phone at lunch while I waited for my meal, also watched the news in a waiting room this week.

        During my boss's meeting I was browsing CNN news and local news.

        I did it, because I could. I also have SMS pages, and email pictures I take on the phone.

        Connect via Bluetooth for my wireless headset.

        Depends on your job, but the phone also has video conferencing so I can see servers and cable wiring remotely, comes in handy when we have smart hands (techs working on misc hardware).

        I use it, most people at my work use it. OF course I work for a telco, and we have lots of cool phones. ;)
      • Not trolling either here, but I know of at least one person who got some use out of a multimedia phone. This girl I went out with once had an pointlessly expensive phone that was video-capable. She had video of herself blowing some dude on her phone. This was more of a turn-off to me than anything else (I didn't go out with her again), but documenting sexual escapades would certainly qualify as a use for multimedia apps.
        • She had video of herself blowing some dude on her phone.

          She must have some big psychological problems. I mean, how sick must you be before doing such a thing. And she showed it to you too! Shocking.

      • Re:Multi-media apps? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by maggard ( 5579 )
        I'm not gonna try and convince you, I'm not entirely convinced myself.

        On the other hand I'm addicted to using my PocketPC to read books, especially in bed or en route. I've got a half dozen on it at any time (right now I'm halfway through Ben Bova's so-so "Moonbase 1" potboiler.)

        And to listen to audio books (Jon Stewart's "America", up to Ch. 11.)

        And podcasts (none today.)

        And yes, I've usually got a movie or TV show stored on it to watch - decent quality and great for filling wait time (from last ni

      • Well, in 2-3 years time you'll probably be able to get a 1ghz phone with 512mb ram and 10gb solid state storage.

        Then you'll be complaining that your tv [mythtv.org] doesn't have usb or bluetooth or wifi to transfer recordings onto your phone.
      • I use the Internet on my mobile phone all the time, for general surfing etc, and it would be handy to be able to view movie trailers on it as well when deciding which movie to rent (or get on-demand from satellite TV). Multimedia is not something I do a lot of on PCs either, but occasionally it's fun or simply convenient.
      • think japanese.

        As a western person you want a phone to phone people. A phone here in japan is:
        - video
        - digital camera
        - portable game device
        - web browser
        - etc etc

        The mobile phone here is like a PDA already. And DoCoMo wants to get something to compete gainst eg the Sony PSP ...
      • Well given the choice between a phone that can do just voice calls and a a phone that can do a lot more, customers buy the latter. From the point of view of phone manufacturers it's quite clear where the money is.

        But you are right, most phones are just expensive toys used mostly for sending text messages and calling other people. I have a very old, unfashionable one which does just that and is light and reliable too.
      • Hey now, what's wrong with fads? Especially if you're filthy rich and can buy it just because? :)
      • You've got to understand that in Japan, the keitai (the web-enabled cellphone) is not just a product, but rather a phenomenon that has given rise to its own user-culture of " thumb tribes [weblogs.com]" -- eighty percent of the people 1,500 people who walk across Shibuya Crossing at every light change carry a mobile phone. Japan's primary cellular network service was reengineered in the mid-90's to a digital model that freed up so much bandwidth [wired.com] that it left the company with the challenge of coming up with new services t
    • So am I .

  • 3g? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Folmer ( 827037 ) *
    Well.. For now i just stick with my 2g telephone, and uses my laptop and wifi for grapping pr0n :)
    Also 3g is way outdated.. Docomo is enrolling 4g in 2006, and they are already experimenting with 5g coorporating with my university.
    The best use i can see for this is when you connect the phone to a computer, so you can get broadband wherever you are.. (but thats what WiMax was developed for)
    • Great. Another fabulous Japanese phone that I can't use anywhere else in the world. When will the Japanese make their phones compatable with the rest of the world?

      People on Slashdot complain about the U.S. being isolationist when it comes to cell phone technology. It's worse in Japan.

      (BTW: If someone can point me in the direction of a GSM phone that will work in the US, Czech Republic, and Japan, I will be grateful.)
      • There is a sort of strange duality when it comes to Japanese isolationism. One one hand, they use a whole lot of standards that match the ones North America uses (Though I'm surprised NTSC works as well as it does on 50Hz power - I've seen TVs run on single cylinder personal generators and the screen wobbles like crazy as the freqency wavers).

        However, there's the whole cellphone thing, and not to mention the artificially high prices for traveling - even within the country, it's expensive as hell to ride th

      • Re:3g? (Score:1)

        by Nexx ( 75873 )
        Yes, W-CDMA (DoCoMo and Vodafone's 3G standard) is an isolationist protocol.

      • Are you on crack? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by kryonD ( 163018 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @11:06PM (#10861443) Homepage Journal
        "When will the Japanese make their phones compatable with the rest of the world?

        People on Slashdot complain about the U.S. being isolationist when it comes to cell phone technology. It's worse in Japan."

        No it's not!! What universe have you been living in? DoCoMo has been trying to get into the American market for years. It's our own fault for pressuring our government to impose high import tarrifs so we can hold our heads high buying 2nd gen crap "made in the USA". Why in God's green Earth would the Japanese want to downgrade their phones to be compatible with "the rest of the world". As it stands, DoCoMo's i-Mode technology is spreading quite well in parts of Europe, China, and Korea.

        Also, I know for a fact that AU (I think Vodafone bought them last year) has a phone that is capable of roaming pretty much anywhere in the northern hemisphere. I'm also fairly certain that DoCoMo offered a phone with those capabilities, but I had no desire to pay the extra mony and just stuck with my D505i which STILL blows away most of the phones here in the US, even though it's 2nd Gen 2G tech in Japan. I plan on returning to Japan in 2 years and I guarantee my first act after finding a place to live will be to re-acquire a real phone.

        Calling Japan isolationist when it comes to cell phones is like calling Italy isolationist when it comes to Lasagna. If you already produce the best in the world, what exactly do you need to import?
        • Vodafone bought J-Phone which was essentially a second-rate cellphone service over there. With the partnership, though, VOD is pushing some pretty serious upgrades and is adapting the European market to be more like the Japanese keitai market.

          In Europe, you define your phone by the device maker. Nokia, Seimens, etc. They define what the phones will be and how they will function. The operators are along for the ride. Whereas in Japan, the phone is defined by the operator. DoCoMo, Au (KDDI), Vodafone,
      • Japan's phones are mostly using the same tech as the USA (i.e. W-CDMA or CDMA2000, at least in those areas which have upgraded)... just on different frequencies. This is because many of the frequencies used by US phones were already allocated for other uses in Japan. Its the same reason why the US's GSM network is 1.9GHz and the rest of the world's GSM is 1.8GHz (I think... might have that backwards).

        But no worry... you can now buy a number of phones that work on 3G in Japan, and both GSM variants for the
        • As I heard it, NTT deliberately chose frequency bands for their own PDC cellular system (used by DoCoMo and TuKa) that would clash with both GSM and IS-95 (CDMA) in order to protect domestic manufacturers and their own control of telephony. The Japanese government, being the largest shareholder of NTT and somewhat inclined to protectionism, went along with this. Japan did get IS-95 (CDMA) networks (J-Phone/Vodafone and AU) but they use a different frequency from the rest of the world. This protectionism mad

  • So just like current phones. But with Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @07:53PM (#10860189)
    I see nothing here that my current Nokia cant do. Is Linux realy that much better a choice then Symbian? Windows and PlamOS I'll grant you due to the whole stylus problem.

    • rather Linux + phone (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @08:15PM (#10860365) Homepage Journal
      1> No licensing fees to Symbian
      2> More existing apps, most of them networked, run on Linux
      3> Giant developer community, free dev tools, lots of them
      4> Buzzword compliance

      This is good for Linux (the OS, not just the community), especially. They'll add stylus features that we can use on our desktops (and supercomputers, too, if that's your bent). Though we need not use them, just as we can use Linux with CLI or GUI. Personally, I'd prefer to repalce my mouse (trackball, really) with a stylus (my finger, really), using my keyboard only for fast data entry and email, or just when I feel like it. Linux is the OS that can be that flexible. I'd love to plug the phone into my x86 Linux box USB and use it with the bigger form factor of the bigger box and its peripherals.
      • .. and
        5> much better developement tools
        6> easier API's and libraries
        7> better documentation

        Symbian is really pain in the ass for developers.

        Build system documentation tells how to compile hello world but there is no documentation that helps to understand it if you want to do more things than just compile C/C++ files during your build process.

        And the build tools are bunch of windows .cmd scripts and perl scripts wrapped together, and a few symbian's own exe files doing some binary conversion thin
    • I hear the DoCoMos will give you a command line that can be activated by voice. So when you call your friend you can really mess with their heads by saying "arr emmm arrr efff star"

  • 'The Main Advantage' (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think the main advantage will be that when NTT stops supporting these phones, the community can.

    Assuming they're down with the GPL.
    • Not really.

      They don't have to supply source if they don't modify the kernel (I'd dearly love to get inside the but the linux kernel inside it is heavily protected and you can't get anywhere near it.. [netgem.com]

      Unless you know the hardware specs of the phone already you aren't going to be able to get a kernel on there... be prepared to brick a few dozen trying.
      • Should have looked more recently (the box has been on a shelf for 6 months).

        Last time I asked they said they'd ban me from the forums if I asked again... it seems like someone has pointed their lawyer to the GPL and they've released source recently.

    • I don't think so. Surely they will release
      the source code of the modified kernel. But they
      probably won't release the entire source code;
      they won't publisize how to update the
      firmware either.

      It's phone. You can't expect you can modify
      the communication system arbitrary becasuse its
      compliance to the standard must be officially certificated.

      So what you can do? You can't fix bugs yourself.
      That must be done by the manufacturer. Once
      they abondon the device there is nothing you can do.

  • Yes but... (Score:3, Funny)

    by dfn5 ( 524972 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @07:54PM (#10860195) Journal
    Does it support Ogg Vorbis?

  • Pine? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @07:54PM (#10860201) Homepage Journal
    How about a project that emulates PalmOS on Linux? A Linux phone that runs PalmOS apps could eat the lunch of both Palm AND Windows smartphones. Not only would the phone add that many more apps to its offerings to consumers (interesting more of them), but lots of those apps are a lot more friendly to users than Linux apps, as they were developed for small mobile devices. Rather than let PalmOS get crushed by the Windows phone onslaught, let's sacrifice it to the greater glory. Everyone wins but Microsoft. If we're already running Wine, and GBA, how hard could a PalmOS API port be?

    • Re:Pine? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @08:09PM (#10860317) Homepage Journal
      You mean like this? [netmeister.org]

      That thing's been around forever. That's the nice thing about Linux -- you think "Gee wouldn't it be nice if FOO" and when you look, FOO has been around forever.

      • That POSE seems cool, though I can't tell if it will emulate PalmOS5, to say nothing of (upcoming) PalmOS6, or even PalmOS4. Also,

        "in order for you to use POSE to actually emulate a Palm device, you need a ROM image"

        You can get the images from your Palm device, or from joining ($) the Palm developer program.

        BTW, one of the nice things about Slashdot -- you post "gee wouldn't it be nice if FOO", and when you look, someone has posted "FOO [slashdot.org]. And 100 other random monkeys have posted BAR [slashdot.org].

      • Re:Pine? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Eric Giguere ( 42863 )

        I suspect that he means make a version of the Emulator (or the newer Simulator) that is more tightly integrated with the system I don't think you'd necessarily want a Palm device to suddenly appear on your screen, I think you'd want Palm applications to work seamlessly with the other applications on the system. Interesting thought, for sure, and definitely a challenge. The main obstacle would be a legal one, not a technical one -- getting the ROM images to install in the emulator/simulator. Doubt PalmSource

      • POSE requires a Palm ROM to run and doesn't support PalmOS 5 or greater. It's also very slow and buggy (on Linux, at least).
    • Someone's going to think I'm a troll, but PalmOS is really far behind. They developed originally for the low-end hardware systems with slow CPU, no MMU, and very little RAM (e.g., 128kbytes) for OS, applications and user data. This worked well for shoehorning usable applications (datebook, calendar, mail, et cetera) into tiny devices. However, PalmOS is now being asked to do things for which it was never designed.

      Modern devices have fast CPU's (600MHz XScale) lots of RAM (128MB), external storage (e.g.
        • It's too little too late, and everyone knows it. There aren't even any Cobalt (PalmOS 6.1) devices announced. Aparrantly there have been licensees of PalmOS 6 since December 2003, but no devices have been shipped. That's an indication to many including me that the OS is not ready for use in an actual product. It could be the integration/emulation layer for old PalmOS programs. It could be the new desktop synchronization software. It could be the stability of the OS itself. It could be a lot of things
      • 21% of new PDAs sold last year were to new Palm users, and the numbers are bigger on smartphones. The year before, the numbers were twice as big. Clearly these millions of users care about using the apps they already understand, and keeping new ones similarly simple. Palm market share might have taken a hit this year, with next year's growth unpredicted, but it's far, far from "dead". Even if the OS vendor were to disappear, that's even more benefit to a PalmOS execution environment on Linux.

        The original P
        • Try this.

          http://www.palmos.com/dev/tools/emulator/ [palmos.com]

          It's open source too. You'll need a device ROM, which you can either download from your device using a program that you load onto it or you can download a developer ROM from the PalmOS developer site.

          This emulator is what PalmOS developers use to test and debug their applications before loading them onto actual devices.

          As an aside, I do own two PalmOS devices: An old Palm III and a relatively new Sony Clie TJ25 with Japanese PalmOS. Japanese Decuma

  • So much for Ballmer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RealAlaskan ( 576404 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @07:55PM (#10860203) Homepage Journal
    So much for Ballmer's threats [theregister.co.uk]. Maybe Microsoft will be the next litigious bastards [sco.com]?

    Q: How can you tell the Titanic is sinking?
    A: They keep rearranging the deck chairs, and reassuring us that the ship is too big to sink.

    • I'm pretty sure Ballmer was bluffing. Talk is cheap, so I think Microsoft will just quietly fold rather than risk another monopoly fine in China or Japan. If they were serious about it, they'd go after IBM.

      Gaah, been watching too much poker on Bravo lately...

      • I'm pretty sure Ballmer was bluffing. Talk is cheap, so I think Microsoft will just quietly fold rather than risk another monopoly fine in China or Japan. If they were serious about it, they'd go after IBM.

        Get flattened by IBM you mean. It's a practical certainty that IBM has enough patents in its war chest to put Microsoft right out of business, should Microsoft be stupid enough to fire the first shot.

  • Apple Cell Phone? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I want an "iPhone", goddamnit. All the other gadgets in my life are made exclusively by Apple, except my cell phone! Come on Apple: I WANT AN APPLE CELL PHONE!
  • The article suggests that one of the main targets here is to accommodate third-party developers in creating multimedia applications for the handset device. (I'll leave the "should we?" argument on that one for another day.) Decent quality multimedia on a handheld, however, is generally best obtained by utilizing the on-handset chips (e.g., MPEG-4 decoders) rather than "advanced software."

    Unless handset manufacturers start standardizing on the chipsets (which I'm sure they'd all be happy to do... provide

  • Scriptable phones (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RedFireGuy ( 96612 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @08:16PM (#10860371)
    Emacs jokes aside, what would be really nice is to have some scripting language backing these phones so I could have the phone be a little smarter about fr'instance when to interrupt me.

    (def ring-loud-p (caller)
    "Checks whether the phone should ring LOUD"
    (if (and (eq 'girlfriend caller)
    (> 10 (getAmbientNoiseLevel))
    t
    nil)) )
    --

    • Re:Scriptable phones (Score:2, Interesting)

      by razasis ( 666381 )
      This is a little off topic, but related to your post. Does anyone know if there are any phones that change the order of words you get using predictive text input based on how often you use them? For example, "home" and "good" are both 4663 - if I use "home" a lot more than "good", I want it to come up with "home" first.

      Does such a thing exist?

      Would anyone like to implement it, patent it and give me free phones for life?

    • Python for S60 (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ultrabot ( 200914 )
      Emacs jokes aside, what would be really nice is to have some scripting language backing these phones so I could have the phone be a little smarter about fr'instance when to interrupt me.

      Future S60 phones might ship with Python out-of-the-box; Now it's still in beta phase [mobileburn.com].

      See, the Symbian world isn't as closed as some people think. It's also not as open as some people (managers) think, but that's a different story...
    • I'd write one under the condition that I never, ever, ever, have to see that scripting language again ;)

  • Yay (Score:2)

    by CdBee ( 742846 )
    At last I can get my Mozilla Thunderbird email onto a mobile device, albeit by porting Thunderbird to it...

  • Linux - secure telephony? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mwilliamson ( 672411 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @08:55PM (#10860647) Homepage Journal
    Ok, this is the PERFECT opportunity to introduce and deploy SSL to the telephony world. OpenSSL could first be used to secure (and authenticate) mobile to mobile traffic, then mobile to wireline and even wireline to wireline via inexpensive linux-based SSL "adapters" that could go between your POTS jack and telephone(s). The telephony world could use a good dose of end-user-empowering crypto.

  • Neat! (Score:1)

    by rares ( 754660 )
    This "impending release"... would that be at the end of this or next decade in the US?

  • DoCoMo Money! Mo Money! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blueZhift ( 652272 ) on Thursday November 18, 2004 @08:57PM (#10860660) Homepage Journal
    That's a sweet lookin phone, but I think DoCoMo's primary motivation is to keep the cost of the phone down. Using Linux goes a long way towards lowering the cost, which means mo money for DoCoMo! It also means they have a very flexible platform on which to base future phones. If you make your money selling OS licenses for low end devices like cell phones, cameras, and PDAs, Linux is going to make your life a living hell!

  • Yes, the N900i (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Too bad that it got almost universal bad reviews for it's slow response time, lack of features, and general bugginess.

    OTOH, the form factor was awesome and really put it at the head of the pack for the 900i series. Word on the street is that Linux won't be back for Panasonic after this, though. Too much trouble for not enough benefit. Add to that that the Access mobile suite is fitted more for other operating systems like T-Engine and OSE rather than Linux, this seemed look like a good idea at the time,
  • As companies are forced to squeeze more and more to make good profits they will trim whatever fat there is. Linu and Tron are both viable alternatives to WinCE or other proprietary embedded systems. And Tron is the biggest success in that field. The guy that invented it, if he had charged 1 cent per copy used he would be a billionaire a few times over by now. I doubt that any house lacks one device that may be powered by Tron.
  • But I was under NDA so I couldn't talk about it.

    Seems like a good Idea, but only if it's done right.

  • DoCoMo has over 7.3 million FOMA (3G) subscribers. 5.3 million 900i phones are already sold this calendar year. Plus, Panasonic and NEC are among the most popular brands in Japan. This is very good news for the Linux community.
    More at: http://wireless.3yen.com/ [3yen.com]
  • I don't imagine they'll have much luck selling a completely open-source cell phone in the US because it's difficult to incorporate secret law enforcement features into them.

    I want one now. And a vocoder module with strong encryption.

  • Yeah... (Score:2, Funny)

    by midnightblaze ( 788520 )
    ...but do they run Linux?
  • "They have developed a Linux-based software platform for third-generation (3G) mobile phones. The platform is an achievement of their joint development efforts since their alliance was formed in August 2001. The two companies have been collaborating in developing software platform and application software for 3G mobile phone handsets.", And I thought it was linux et all

  • ...good that somebody big is shifting to linux (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    GPLed or non- GPLed - its good that docomo is making the move. if we see 5 years from now - that - symbian is dead - we will be left with MS/windows. which is not such a bright idea. there are predictions in the industry that symbian will fade away. besides - linux users get to take thier pick with phones that can connect " easily " to thier choice of OS
  • There are already mobile phones equipped with Linux [tuxmobil.org] available. You may also consider to enhance your Linux PDA [tuxmobil.org] with a GSM/GPRS CF-Card. For an example see this report about Linux and the AnyCom GS-320 TriBand GSM/GPRS CF-Card [tuxmobil.org].
  • When the HELL is Docomo going to do something about their sound quality?

    For YEARS it's been painful to try and talk to someone using an NTT Docomo phone. Sometimes you just want to tell them to go to a landline phone.

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