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Campaign Asia reports that gadget maker Lenovo will stop marketing smartphones with its own brand name and adopt the Moto label from here on out.
The company acquired Motorola from Google for $2.91 billion in 2014. It previously announced plans to phase out the 'Motorola' name for handsets at the beginning of this year; the new change comes along with a shake-up of the company's leadership.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out for the Moto brand. As Android Police noted, there's a risk of diluting the sensible nomenclature that Moto currently uses to differentiate its high-end, mid-range and budget phones; Lenovo makes a wide variety of handsets, including the first one to feature Google's Project Tango AR tech.
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Lenovo is Ditching its Own Brand Name to Make Way for 'Moto'
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I'm mentally OVERDRAWN! What's that SIGNPOST up ahead? Where's ROD
STERLING when you really need him?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Sunday November 13 2016, @01:19AM
They ditch android updates after only a few months of the Moto-E 4G, so a pox on their house. I jumped to a nexus. Of course, now I need to jump to a pixel.
I'd get a fruity handset but I'm a penguinista and tools such as Kdeconnect are simply too useful!
How hard can it be to recompile new code?
Perhaps we need a proper law stating that hardware must be maintained indefintely, when the source code is not published.
For those that think this might be financially unviable, it may create a market for maintenance. If the manufacturer wants to keep their code secret, they can engage a 3rd party (under contract) to compete for the business of maintaining phones.
I find it hard to believe that 10 year old phones have such precious source code in their drivers....
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday November 13 2016, @02:07AM
That's a great idea, actually. Also, yes, KDEConnect is awesome.
(Score: 3, Informative) by r1348 on Sunday November 13 2016, @02:11AM
My 2014 Moto G went from KitKat to Marshmellow, not bad for a mid-range. Oh and also CyanogenMod nightlies are already on Nougat 7.1.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday November 13 2016, @02:23AM
They ditch android updates after only a few months of the Moto-E 4G, so a pox on their house.
And the new name reflects that, moto = motion, in this case bowel motion. So if you go elsewhere, you can get a less shitty brand.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RamiK on Sunday November 13 2016, @02:37AM
How hard can it be to recompile new code?
Compile takes 2 hours max on average i5\7 hardware. Incremental takes 10mins. The real problem is fixing stuff when something doesn't work. Old proprietary blobs -> new blobs can have API changes. Sensor calibration files sometimes change format. Hardware specific menus in Settings are commits that need cherry picking and adjusting for newer APIs... And if something goes wrong and you can't boot, debugging and fixing issues is not something you can estimate a deadline for.
I find it hard to believe that 10 year old phones have such precious source code in their drivers
IP is the issue. Partner's or even unlicensed, you'd need programmers going through drivers with a fine comb unless you've wrote it in advance with FOSS in mind. Graphics, signal processing (audio, wifi, cell...) and really anything remotely similar to DSPs is likely patented by dozens of different holders. We're talking about the most trivial things imaginable. Here's an nVidia patent for radix sort: https://www.google.com/patents/US7624107 [google.com] Here's a National Instruments's for graphics programming: https://www.google.com/patents/US9235395 [google.com]
They're getting away with anything. If you're writing a for() loop traversing through an array, you're likely violating a patent. In fact, I'm fairly sure it's possible to prove there's no efficient way to traverse a 2 dimensional array on a DSP without using one patent or the next... Madness.
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Sunday November 13 2016, @04:53AM
Perhaps we need a proper law stating that hardware must be maintained indefintely, when the source code is not published.
The problem is the radios. The FCC is not about to turn a programmable over to joe random programmer.
So the route to your law is that the radio chipset must be totally self contained, and not rely on an external binary blob.
Then, you could build the ASOP android version at will, and there would be no need for a locked phone or bootloader.
Personally, I'd settle for an ability to remove any software from the phone not necessary for its operation without requiring a jailbreak or voiding a warranty.
Outlaw non-removable bloatware, and let people remove it and everyone wins.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.