Fri, 18 Nov 2005

Homebrew Mobile Phones

This project is really picking up a lot of steam. About one week ago, Surj Patel started asking a few peculiar questions about the GM862-PCS....the kind of questions one asks with intent to build their own homebrew cell phone from commodity parts..

The plans were similar -- gumstix, cheap surplus LCD, and GM862. These three components are the key ingredients to the "brains" inside such a device. If you have read any of my previous articles, the GM862 provides voice/data capabilities and is controlled via serial port.

Word of such a crazy project has started to hit the mainstream already. CNet wrote an article earlier this week titled Build it yourself cell phones. With this article came more interested people out of hiding, and more help means this project is going to take off like crazy.

A few things have changed since i first purchased the product. Telit announced availability of a Phython version of this product. This can make intial prototyping quite easy, along with providing the "glue" to either avoid the gumstix in the first place (less interesting; yet has applications) as well as provide a better abstraction layer for easier control of the GM862's interworkings.

Such an "API" or abstraction layer would also be useful when supporting more than just the GM862 (yes, there are more modules out there than this...and they'll be even more soon). This might be a smart idea to avoid redundant efforts.

Why build a cell phone? Good question. I have a hard time answering this question, myself. I think the biggest reason why I am so interested is that all cellular hardware platforms are very closed. Since the inception of the camera phone on the 1xRTT networks, I immedately invisioned how nice it would be to be able to write native code for my handset. Lets see...100Kbps symetrical throughput, camera on front of flip, along with 80x60 screen, full audio capabilities. Gee.. i could do video conferencing with this handset...oh wait..no i cant...platform is closed, and java cant talk to the camera or the outside screen.

Well, then, I have a button on the side of this Sprint phone....i could deploy push to talk and just use a low bitrate vocoder (like the onboard QCELP encoder/decoder). But no, i cant. I'd have to write native code to run such a SIP app in the background. I had to wait 2 more years for Sprint to finally release such a beast.

Since Java VM's are limited and slow, most phones cannot even run these apps in the background, it serverely limits a mobile developer. If we only had a hackable platform with direct access to the hardware, our mobile dreams would become our reality, and we would stop lusting over those Japanese and Korean handsets once and for all.

Or maybe the fundimental answer is, I do it because I can.

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Lavender soda anyone?

Kumquat, lavender, lemongrass, or rhubarb soda, anyone? I picked up all four flavors from my local Metropolitan Market. They are unsweetened, hence the name Dry Soda.

I think the most unusual is lavender, but at least it taste like it smells.

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