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If you care about hackability, you can buy a completely open hardware development board for under $100 delivered. That's roughly $45 in 1985 US dollars. Androi

by rdancer 11y ago

If you care about hackability, you can buy a completely open hardware development board for under $100 delivered. That's roughly $45 in 1985 US dollars. Android device makers from China maybe haven't been told about their own inability to pump out clones. Somebody should let them know. A VM instance from Digital Ocean costs $5/month. Go buy a dozen, and install Xenix on all of them. All your platforms up to about 1995 have emulators that run on your phone, completely opensource, and gratis. The devices are locked down, because the cost of unreliability can easily exceed the cost of the device, many times over, and the single biggest point of failure are trojan horses & operator errors.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> Android device makers from China maybe haven't been told about their own inability to pump out clones. Somebody should let them know. Oh they know about it. They just don't give a fuck. What is the US going to do, sue them? (Actually, the Chinese government started cracking down on that industry, because it pisses off the West too much and thus "hurts economy".) As for the rest of your comment, this is the golden age we're having, but we're seeing more and more signs that the big companies - both technology and media ones - are trying to put an end to it. One reason is that "cost of unreliability can easily exceed the cost of the device, many times over, and the single biggest point of failure are trojan horses & operator errors." The other is that it's easier to make money off people if you lock them down behind dumbed down devices and your own propertiary ecosystem. Yet another is that people like media but don't like to pay MAFIAA for it. Surveillance is also a an issue. This all adds up in a way that threatens the future hackability of stuff.
mindcrime 11y ago
Sure, I'm not saying that there aren't any ways to hack still. And that's especially so in regards to legacy platforms, like the PC. But for newer devices, and for future devices (like, say, VR appliances), it looks like we're taking, or at risk of taking, a big step backwards. I also acknowledge that if you're willing and able to (find|build|buy) hardware that skates around patent law and the like, then you have more options. And as long as that's a possibility, that's a Good Thing. But I still argue that it's a Bad Thing when major computing platforms become "lock down by default". OTOH, I don't mean to be all "gloom and doom". Clearly there have been some positive developments over the past few years. The resurgence of the burgeoning DIY/hacker/maker movement, the advent of cheap single-board-computers like Arduino, rPi, BeagleBone, etc., are all good signs. But as they say "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty".

by rdancer 11y ago

TeMPOraL 11y ago

> Android device makers from China maybe haven't been told about their own inability to pump out clones. Somebody should let them know. Oh they know about it. They just don't give a fuck. What is the US going to do, sue them? (Actually, the Chinese government started cracking down on that industry, because it pisses off the West too much and thus "hurts economy".) As for the rest of your comment, this is the golden age we're having, but we're seeing more and more signs that the big companies - both technology and media ones - are trying to put an end to it. One reason is that "cost of unreliability can easily exceed the cost of the device, many times over, and the single biggest point of failure are trojan horses & operator errors." The other is that it's easier to make money off people if you lock them down behind dumbed down devices and your own propertiary ecosystem. Yet another is that people like media but don't like to pay MAFIAA for it. Surveillance is also a an issue. This all adds up in a way that threatens the future hackability of stuff.

mindcrime 11y ago

Sure, I'm not saying that there aren't any ways to hack still. And that's especially so in regards to legacy platforms, like the PC. But for newer devices, and for future devices (like, say, VR appliances), it looks like we're taking, or at risk of taking, a big step backwards. I also acknowledge that if you're willing and able to (find|build|buy) hardware that skates around patent law and the like, then you have more options. And as long as that's a possibility, that's a Good Thing. But I still argue that it's a Bad Thing when major computing platforms become "lock down by default". OTOH, I don't mean to be all "gloom and doom". Clearly there have been some positive developments over the past few years. The resurgence of the burgeoning DIY/hacker/maker movement, the advent of cheap single-board-computers like Arduino, rPi, BeagleBone, etc., are all good signs. But as they say "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty".