Last week I bought a new car stereo - cost me the equivalent of $450 euros.
It has one of those colour changing graphical displays which you can download your own movies to. It's nice but nothing spectacular...
Anyway it got me thinking, my friend has an EMPEG (it's pc which runs linux and fits in a standard dim slot), and the display is quite basic monocolour... (it's wicked having a powered by linux sticker on ya car 😊 )
and then I thought ..... imagine a symbian powered car stereo! You could have a decent sized hdd or flash memory and/or cd-slot, built in handsfree car kit (imagine just bt pairing with your car to allow this)... you would be able to play games ... anything that you can do on your mobile you suddenly have on a head unit. The standard uiq screen size, or even better one of the newer touch displays... it'd be awesome.
But why stop there.... what else should be powered by symbian? your fridge? toaster??
The most obvious answer is that Linux is filling this gap, because Linux is more popular (has more developers), is free, and is basically more powerful and leaves a smaller footprint. Symbian would probably have to be re-tooled to do this, but it wouldn't be impossible.
I agree with praefectus.Linux has distributions specially designed for embedded system.The creator of Linux,Linus Torwalds works for Transmeta,a company that is specialized in designing chipsets/processors for Embedded systems,what do you think they hired him for? 😉
I would love to see an Symbian+UIQ powered touchscreen toaster or a microwave,you know,play GoBoy while the pizza is defrosting 😃
Linus Torvalds left Transmeta something like a year ago and joined Open Source Development Lab.
Thats a well cool idea!
Nokia have already kinda started doing things like that, but nothing with symbian. They made that digital photo frame etc.
U ought to come up with some ideas and copyright em before Nokia does 😛
Originally posted by N/A
Linus Torvalds left Transmeta something like a year ago and joined Open Source Development Lab.
LOL! I didn't know that.Its been a long time since a visited any other Open Source/Linux website then freshmeat.Thanks for the info but my point still stands.
Originally posted by GhostDog
I agree with praefectus.Linux has distributions specially designed for embedded system.
I would love to see an Symbian+UIQ powered touchscreen toaster or a microwave,you know,play GoBoy while the pizza is defrosting 😃
Ahem, correct me if I'm totally wrong here, but isn't Symbian a Linux variant (in a similar way that QNX etc are)??
It's the linux variant embedded in mobile devices isn't it?
I don't think so ... Symbian has been around for quite a while (so has Unix -> Linux) ... they might be some similarities in their kernels (or older ones), but the O/Ss were designed from the ground up to do different things ... I'm sure Symbian could be embedded without problem into other devices .... but, my main point still is:
1. Why use Symbian when you can use (free) Linux?
2. Linux has way more developers
Lots of "whys" can always be asked ... basically, it comes down to cost (Linux is free, Symbian isn't) and over all support for the evolution of the language, which Linux is well ahead in....
Linux is already being used in a lot of new American made automobiles (most car computers use Linux)...
Surely if Symbian created a Car stereo right now and signed up with a big distributor like Volvo or Mercedes or BMW where the stereo incorporated the symbian operating system and built in mobile software which is run through the speakers of the car to comply with Current UK driving/phone legalities they could woop anyone like Linux.
I mean imagine basically the software and shell of the 6600 hardware built sideways but add stereo sound and a radio. Simply add the Sim slot and MMC slot in the front and you have a built in stereo with a mobile phone with built in handsfree, and an MP3 player.
Wack the screen in a pop out bit in the dashboard and voila you got a movie centre too.
Now that I think of it if I was more confident with taking apart the 6600 and extending some of the electrics then I dont see a problem with doing this now and for the cost you wouldnt be able to get one of those DVD's system to do the same.
I think Smart cars would probably be the first seeing as they have already teamed up with Orange to make the first bluetooth URL=http://www.orange.co.uk/about/smart/smart_coupe.html]smart car[/URL]
evobit,Symbian and Linux are totally different Operating Systems.They don't have nothing in common.
pasa,all of that could be done with Linux,and it would cost way cheaper and easier to develop.
Thats cool - so I am guessing it will be available soon