On my way home form a merely thought-inspiring movie, I passed by a few girls sharing a cigarette on your typical San Francisco cafe’s terrace. One of them was showing her (?) phone to the other, who told her friend “…but the camera rocks”.
It made me, continuing the movie’s aftermath realize how we’ve given up openness and privacy on our mobile devices, the modern equivalents of our dearest friends (who else do you check at night, early in the morning and take with you to the restroom?), for gimmicks such as cameras and polyphonic ringtones (ok, not anymore, but you get the idea).
Earlier I checked the website of Openmoko, whose goal was to “Free the phone”. Now it seems they have abolished these projects in favor of making a mobile wikipedia device, but I wish they or a similar body would take up the movement again.
We live in an ecosystem that has many “services” and closed systems; and we happily accept it. It’s ok to give up the freedom of tinkering with a mobile phone you just paid 500$ for, because it has cool apps the other platform doesn’t have, oh and of course, because “the camera rocks”.
I hope we start swaying towards openness again, and take back the right on our digital devices and lives, the same as we have with other, everyday, things. You buy a car, you’re allowed to open the hood and change pretty much everything about it, as long as it doesn’t affect it’s safety or the environment. You spend money on clothes but want to rip off the sleeves, nobody stops you. Let’s keep that in mind, and hold on to that. A device that his so dear to us should be transparent;. And I’m sure its camera would not be so bad either.
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