Hello there When I was surfing internet I accidently found something worth to consider:
A phone only lasts a couple of years before it breaks or becomes obsolete. Although it's often just one part which killed it we throw everything away since it's almost impossible to repair or upgrade. visit www.phonebloks.com to show your support and raise your voice.
What you guys think? Do corporations like Apple, Samsung, Sony will accept this new trend?
I personally would love phones created from blocks like this. Any damaged or outdated element can be easily switched for whatever you want.
It is an interesting concept, but it is not technologically feasible right now. Right now a phone is hugely optimized to maximize the space they are working with. Not only in part location, but also in bandwidth for each particular component (the speaker doesnt need the same bandwidth as the cpu, or the camera, or the memory, or the screen, etc). It takes more than just an electrical current for each piece to communicate with each piece.
If you remove the optimizations in phones, you lose all of the efficiency and use more power to do less computations putting you back years in terms of capability.
This thing was thought of by a design student with no technological background.
This reminds me of Lego. What happens if you build out a beautiful piece of machinery, then, you drop it... All your pieces will go everywhere and some one is bound to step on a piece.
On September 13 2013 22:45 ShoCkeyy wrote: This reminds me of Lego. What happens if you build out a beautiful piece of machinery, then, you drop it... All your pieces will go everywhere and some one is bound to step on a piece.
if you actually paid attention, the blocks lock in via 2 screws at the bottom, to prevent exactly that. Do you really think they would create an idea with such a simple flaw?
Interesting idea, not sure if it has any real viability tho.
It's an interesting idea. Doesn't seem plausible though. I'd require a ton of companies to actually design something new and work together instead of working on making themselves more money.
It's completely possible with enough research, raw material and time. Witch means that we would need humans with enough engineering knowledge, the right materials to test and dispose during the research stage and reasonable time. If it's feasible within the next year? VERY unlikely. But, to accomplish something like that, we need to start it somewhere. If there is interest from the companies with enough resources? I don't think it's totally impossible, like some of you here suggested. I can see a lot of ways of profit from this: Patenting the technological advancements found during the research stage and charging some fee to be able to create a compatible device is one of the ways that I see a possible huge return of investment, for example.
Edit: For the Resource Based Economy advocates, it must looks extremely awesome.
For this to work you need the big corporations to accept certain industry standards like mATX for example in computers. Thus it needs backing of the big corporations in order to succeed.
Thats how phones are made today, they choose componets print a circuit board to hook em up and make either a samsung or lg or iphone case around it.
Making phones with changeable components... And then suddenly you need extra circuits/connections in "base". Or the new gen of memory needs other bus. Fact od the matter, companies want you to throw away your phone after 2 years. It has to become obsolete so they can keep producing phones. Also they want you to throw away the complete phone if one component is faulty, to sell a new one. Thats how it is. If you want to change itm make a company yourself and get it to work, dont complain about the other´s success with throwaway electronics.
I like the idea, not just for phones. It's fucking stupid so much shit gets thrown away, just because one part doesn't work anymore. It has frustrated me many times before. Sometimes it's something you can fix yourself, but I've also had times where I had to ask the company for a spare part, and they wouldn't / couldn't give it to me. I can get why, but I still hate it.
The only real solution I see to this problem is simply learning how to fix shit yourselves, even though there could be so many better alternatives.
On September 13 2013 22:55 Jonrock wrote: I don't see this happening either. Making technology more flexible always comes with downsides, be it efficiency, cost or reliability.
Right like making a palm pilot into a phone, that really reduced its efficiency and reliability while making cost go up! I mean we don't ever see smart phones anymore, -.-'
On September 13 2013 23:18 HaRuHi wrote: upgrade the part that makes it faster xD
upgrade to hd display without switching the graphic chip... xD
upgrade storage without upgrading bus XD
I had a good laugh
......... Right except for 1 simple thing....if you already have a graphics card that can handle HD...there is no harm in transitioning to a bigger HD screen.....
Just like I can upgrade my CPU without upgrading my motherboard since there are a RANGE of CPUs available for each socket.....
same thing with storage.....if I have sata 2.0, it doesn't matter what capacity I stick into the sata 2.0 connector as long as it is sata 2.0....
I'm having a good laugh at you.
In theory it can work as long as they can agree on a universal standard for the parts. From my understanding of the video, the part itself is the one doing the thinking while just being transferred across the base which acts like a motherboard....if you think about it, its basically a computer thats a phone.....and to the guy saying computers are going all-in-one form factor, only if you buy pre-built pieces of shit. I'll stick with my current method thanks so much.
On September 13 2013 23:36 gneGne wrote: For this to work you need the big corporations to accept certain industry standards like mATX for example in computers. Thus it needs backing of the big corporations in order to succeed.
Having standards would allow you to swap pieces, but you still have issue of needing more than an electric current to communicate with other devices. Then, using their technical terms, what if you swap your "speed thingy" to a new "speed thingy" but there is not enough bandwidth with the "memory thingy" or other thingies creating a bottleneck making your "speed thingy" upgrade useless?
On September 13 2013 23:36 gneGne wrote: For this to work you need the big corporations to accept certain industry standards like mATX for example in computers. Thus it needs backing of the big corporations in order to succeed.
Having standards would allow you to swap pieces, but you still have issue of needing more than an electric current to communicate with other devices. Then, using their technical terms, what if you swap your "speed thingy" to a new "speed thingy" but there is not enough bandwidth with the "memory thingy" or other thingies creating a bottleneck making your "speed thingy" upgrade useless?
If what you say is a barrier, where are you typing this message? If it's in a computer, it's very likely that you have a motherboard. A MOBO handles exactly this kind of problems that you are suggesting.