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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the praise-me-for-fixing-what-i-broke dept.

news.bitcoin.com reports on a Samsung Initiative to repurpose older Samsung Galaxy devices rather than trash recycle them. From the article:

Samsung's new 'upcycling' initiative has seen the company repurpose outdated technology for novel and creative utilities, including the construction of a bitcoin mining rig from out of old smartphones. The 'Upcycling' Program Has Seen the Company Turn 40 Used Galaxy S5s Into a Bitcoin Mining Rig

[...] Samsung has reportedly claimed that eight Samsung Galaxy S5s can mine with superior energy efficiency compared to a standard desktop computer.

Of course in this age, GPU rigs are not even effective bitcoin miners, so beating a 'standard desktop' is complete nonsense. However, the later article has some actually interesting information:

Kyle Wiens, chief executive officer of iFixit – a company that is involved in repairing Galaxy S3s for Samsung's initiative – has given generous praise to the upcycling program. Wiens stated "what [Samsung] built is a layer between the hardware and you being able to install anything you want on it. It's a step lower than jailbreaking, it's removing Android entirely." Wiens describes the initiative... "the challenge with keeping old electronics running a long time is software," adding that "with phones in particular, the old software is insecure and doesn't run the new apps. So the question is, if you have this perfectly functional piece of hardware that doesn't have good software anymore and you want to keep it running for ten years, how do you do that?"

It is almost like this initiative would not even been needed if the hardware was not cryptographically locked down from running the owner's software of choice in the first place. At least there is this bit of relief:

The company has pledged to make plans for the showcased projects freely available online, in addition to the software that allowed Samsung's Creative Lab to unlock and repurpose old phones.

Anyone ready to place bets on whether the 'unlocking software' will be freely available or require onerous EULA acceptance?

Link to the Initiative: https://galaxyupcycling.github.io/


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:00AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:00AM (#590437)

    Needed for Samsung to make more money?
    Nope, most people don't give a shit.

    Needed for people to not feel bad?
    Nope, they could just use outdated phones and take any difference in experience as a chance to feel self-sacrificing while raising awareness and not actually giving up having a mobile.

    Needed due to rare earth shortages?
    Needed for PR?
    Needed for fucking what?

    It's not a bad idea to reuse old computers, but god damn it isn't needed.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:45AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:45AM (#590448)

    Before hearing about this, I was planing on reusing a Samsung phone anyway. They are loaded with sensors, and have a decent CPU+memory. To top it all off, the power requirements are modest.

    One thing that confuses me is that Samsung has traditionally been a more proprietary phone maker. They do things like sell smart watches that only work with Samsung phones.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @11:54AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @11:54AM (#590503)

    All hardware should allow the owner to install and run the software of their choice. Presumably purchasing a piece of hardware from a retailer constitutes ownership, but that may not be true anymore.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:54PM (#590761)

      That's a damn good reason.