Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Liberty Phone

puri.sm

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 112 posts

Re: The Liberty Phone

#71

Post by Arnavion »

goolz wrote: post #19
johnea wrote: post #2

> Introducing the Liberty Phone with more RAM and more drive space, starting at $2199. > The Liberty Phone integrates 4GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. $2200? Is this a joke? A typo?

Happy to pay that price if I can have some gaurentees slaves and children did not assemble them. A new, maxed out, unlocked iPhone approaches $1500 pretty quickly. And I would be willing to guess some indentured “workers” put them together.

That iPhone will also run circles around this phone in every performance metric.

Re: The Liberty Phone

#72

Post by pedalpete »

0xfai wrote: post #59
pedalpete wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assembly in the US is expensive, and what is the benefit to the end user? We're looking at manufacturing hardware, and considering Mexico for assembly (if anyone has experience with this, please let me know). Our initial thinking is 1) lower cost than the US 2) geographically closer 2a) lower environmental footprint in shipping 2b) quicker time from assembly to customer 2c) easier to visit the factories, solve proble…

In our current climate more so than just the supply chain oversight that some customers will want and the other customers that will pay a premium to support an alternative to Google/Apple, also unless you are a massive corporation, you are at the back of the line for procurement of components and assembly. The big folks are feeling it too. Localized supply chain is critical to making sure we can have nice things goin…

We're building an EEG headband that improves the efficiency of deep sleep (https://soundmind.co)

Pedal handle is like bike, not guitar, though I recently started playing guitar. I've never heard somebody suggest a guitar, I usually have people ask "why are you nicknamed after a flower" (PetalPete) :)

Re: The Liberty Phone

#73

Post by 0xfai »

pedalpete wrote: post #72
0xfai wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In our current climate more so than just the supply chain oversight that some customers will want and the other customers that will pay a premium to support an alternative to Google/Apple, also unless you are a massive corporation, you are at the back of the line for procurement of components and assembly. The big folks are feeling it too. Localized supply chain is critical to making sure we can have nice things goin…

We're building an EEG headband that improves the efficiency of deep sleep ( https://soundmind.co ) Pedal handle is like bike, not guitar, though I recently started playing guitar. I've never heard somebody suggest a guitar, I usually have people ask "why are you nicknamed after a flower" (PetalPete) :)

That is absolutely fascinating. I've spent over a decade doing R&D for computer interface. I've played with EEG off and on. I've done a lot with myoelectrics. I spend a lot of time trying to find color, light, sound, and rhythm that sum up stressful light up rectangles into a more human mode.

I'm super curious about your manufacturing journey and your product. No pressure on response turnover or really any larger goal, but would you mind if I email you some time? I think we might have some overlaps that make for enriching conversation.

Re: The Liberty Phone

#74

Post by supertrope »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #48
gbba wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's meant to run GNU Linux instead of Android, so maybe the 4GB RAM might be ok? Definitely not enough if this was running Android. RAM usage on my Android right now: - 2.1 GB Android OS - 1.0 GB Google - 0.5 GB Android System - 0.5 GB Firefox - 0.4 GB Android System Intelligence - 0.4 GB System UI - 0.4 GB Google Play services ... and a bunch more < 0.1 GB services that seem necessary

Android really shat on, set fire to and salted one of my favourite things about Linux in this regard. I.e, how few resources I can give it and still be productive. Hell, I'm gonna assert right now that if Android didn't waste such gobs of memory, I could still be doing the... oh, about 4 or 5 things a phone is actually useful for, on hardware equivalent to the SGS1. I know, because I did all those things on the SGS1…

That's the difference between GNU/Linux and Android.

Android uses Java because there's an existing market of Java developers. Java does not have much inherent overhead but like any tool with a lower barrier to entry a lot of lower quality software hits the market. Optimizing for time to market by each company's app team is where the wheels come off the bus. People expect software to be free or $0.99. Companies are pushing the technical limits on how much data can be mined bloating their apps. Android is fragmented across diverse hardware, operating system versions, and cellular carrier permutations making testing and QA a much harder problem.

Re: The Liberty Phone

#75

Post by redroyal »

microtherion wrote: post #60
parl_match wrote: post #8

If you're wondering why it's so expensive, it's a confluence of factors: - Making things in the us is expensive. This isn't the root cause but leads to the next point... - Phones are low margin devices. Most consumers are intensely price sensitive. Even if a US-made phone cost only $40 more, it'd still be at a serious disadvantage. - Therefore, there's no point in competing on price. The batch size of this is limited…

Even if you were to buy into the proposition that "made in the USA" delivers any extra security, the foreign made SOC is such an enormous part of the overall system IMHO that everything else is nearly meaningless. And their table has several rows about PCBs, but do they build their own cameras? If not, where do they source them from? What about microphones and speakers? [Disclaimer: My employer manufactures phones; I…

Right unless they wrote the RTL and fabbed themselves, verified the netlist and compared to the golden master and shipped it securely, all the rest of the efforts likely don’t provide much more than a false sense of security. In fact you’re much likely better off using a reflashed Pixel 5a.

I don’t like this kind of product. I think it’s exploiting the paranoid and creating the belief that privacy is obtainable in 2023 which it absolutely is not.

Re: The Liberty Phone

#76

Post by walrus01 »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #67
ldoughty wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video on their website is even more damaging... Edit: Note, this is NOT a claim about this company, their security, or practices -- just a look at the "Made in USA" label they press heavily "The integrated circuits can come from outside the united states" A bit of research seems to indicate that this is a fuzzy system.. > The product’s final assembly or processing must take place in the U.S. The Commission then c…

Who doesn’t make their operating system in the United States? I can’t think of any technology I own that has an operating system not made here

Linux doesn't have one specific national origin if you were to add up all the developers of the kernel and the base packages in a CLI only Debian install.

Re: The Liberty Phone

#77

Post by pedalpete »

0xfai wrote: post #73
pedalpete wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're building an EEG headband that improves the efficiency of deep sleep ( https://soundmind.co ) Pedal handle is like bike, not guitar, though I recently started playing guitar. I've never heard somebody suggest a guitar, I usually have people ask "why are you nicknamed after a flower" (PetalPete) :)

That is absolutely fascinating. I've spent over a decade doing R&D for computer interface. I've played with EEG off and on. I've done a lot with myoelectrics. I spend a lot of time trying to find color, light, sound, and rhythm that sum up stressful light up rectangles into a more human mode. I'm super curious about your manufacturing journey and your product. No pressure on response turnover or really any larger goa…

Yeah for sure. pete @ you know the rest.

I'm not sure about what you mean about "sum[ming] up stressful light up rectangles into a more human mode".

Love to hear of people doing interesting things in the BCI space.

Re: The Liberty Phone

#78

Post by moate »

redroyal wrote: post #75
microtherion wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you were to buy into the proposition that "made in the USA" delivers any extra security, the foreign made SOC is such an enormous part of the overall system IMHO that everything else is nearly meaningless. And their table has several rows about PCBs, but do they build their own cameras? If not, where do they source them from? What about microphones and speakers? [Disclaimer: My employer manufactures phones; I…

Right unless they wrote the RTL and fabbed themselves, verified the netlist and compared to the golden master and shipped it securely, all the rest of the efforts likely don’t provide much more than a false sense of security. In fact you’re much likely better off using a reflashed Pixel 5a. I don’t like this kind of product. I think it’s exploiting the paranoid and creating the belief that privacy is obtainable in 20…

Privacy is gone if you need to exist digitally in any way, so I agree that your goal should be just not drawing attention to yourself.

Re: The Liberty Phone

#79

Post by 0xfai »

pedalpete wrote: post #77
0xfai wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is absolutely fascinating. I've spent over a decade doing R&D for computer interface. I've played with EEG off and on. I've done a lot with myoelectrics. I spend a lot of time trying to find color, light, sound, and rhythm that sum up stressful light up rectangles into a more human mode. I'm super curious about your manufacturing journey and your product. No pressure on response turnover or really any larger goa…

Yeah for sure. pete @ you know the rest. I'm not sure about what you mean about "sum[ming] up stressful light up rectangles into a more human mode". Love to hear of people doing interesting things in the BCI space.

conservation of energy and enjoying a public forum with poetry and prose. I'll hit you up and show you what I mean. And also it'll be weird because alternative interface it's hard to point at something and say, "It's like that" right? All we know is glowing rectangle. Just know that nearly religiously, I'm not trying to big time you or being cryptic or contrarian. I've got a goal. I do love talking to folks who got it enough to tell me "I have no idea what your talking about" or "this sounds stupid".

I dunno. I turn 40 next month. I'm kind of sorting out what that means. What you see is what you get with me. Test it. But yeah man. I will hit you up.

On a related but adjacent note, I've got massive respect for independent hardware manufacturers. I know a lot about what that dream looks like. I have not been able to get where you're at with anything that made the right sense.

Re: The Liberty Phone

#80

Post by goolz »

Arnavion wrote: post #71
goolz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to pay that price if I can have some gaurentees slaves and children did not assemble them. A new, maxed out, unlocked iPhone approaches $1500 pretty quickly. And I would be willing to guess some indentured “workers” put them together.

That iPhone will also run circles around this phone in every performance metric.

Sure but are you really pushing the performance of your phone? More power to you if so. I do game programming and rarely need to utilize super new features (unless AR related, but even then I could get by with a few gens back). For me personally peace of mind and not supporting slavery in worth the downgrade.
Post reply on HN