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TLADT24919 Posts
On September 14 2013 14:54 TheRabidDeer wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 14:33 VeryAverage wrote:On September 14 2013 14:12 TheRabidDeer wrote:
People don't like engineers? When did that happen?
Designers can come up with the ideas, they can then talk to engineers and try to figure out a compromise of some sort. Or the designer can at least educate himself on what he is planning to design to come up with a reasonable idea on if itll work with the current realm. If not, come up with some possible solutions for the roadblocks.
I am not an engineer, or a designer. Yet I still know enough about technology to know that his idea can't work exactly as he has it planned out. The reason I dont like this designer is because he is pushing it out without a second thought onto every single tech company out there by releasing this dreamlike CGI design. He is blaming them for a problem without coming up with any real solutions. He has ONE idea, when it takes dozens if not hundreds of ideas to put that ONE idea together.
To give another possibly more related example of what hes done: He comes up with a concept car. It looks awesome, and he says itll go 0-60 in 2 seconds and can hit 300mph because it has 4,000HP and itll cost less than $100k to buy. It SOUNDS awesome, but is it realistic? Not really... you have to deal with how to fit that much HP into an engine that fits into the car, materials to handle the torque, aerodynamics to keep the car on the ground and drivable yet still able to somehow let all of the air pass by etc etc. The 2015 Nismo GTR said to clock in at 0-60 in 2.0 seconds.. Heck, the 2013 GTR can hit in in 2.7 seconds. Some cars hit in the 250-260 MPH range. Price tag? That 2013 GTR is just a touch over 100k (although only gets to about 190MPH). Technology is advancing rapidly. Like I said, it's not possible right now, but it's a very interesting design and could very easily be possible within a decade or so. Rather than saying "This won't work," people should say "Why can't this work and how can we make it work?" I gave a list for a reason. It has to do ALL of those things. Aside from that, 0-60 in 2 seconds is unconfirmed. Considering 2014's does it in 2.7 (and the 1700+whp does it in 1.7) thatd be a pretty significant jump. Also, 250-260 is an entirely different league than 300. Also, I agree that people should say how can we make this work. However, the designer didnt. He made a video and said "if we shout loud enough something will happen" I can't comment much but for your last part, isn't a designer supposed to well, design? Come up with a concept and present it to the engineer and then the engineer plays a role in talking about feasibility then they make a decision? So while you are right in your statement, I dunno if this designer would've been able to mention how will it all work.
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Well care to explain what the point of your post was? your remark about cars and the point of it is unclear to me, i dont mind to admit that
The point of my post was just a comment to illustrate that cares are not realy improving annymore and are at their technological ceiling when it comes to their engines (at least for now till a truly revolutionary engine will be developped) Something that will happen to phones as well relativly soon imo though they cant be compared to cars at all. I would never have made a comment on cars in this thread if someone didnt mention them but since they where, i thought i might as well give a comment on it.
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Its a great idea but getting it to market would take a shitload of work. Most companies wouldn't go for it because it would cut into profits to not have people replacing their whole phone every year or 2. The only way I could see it coming to be, assuming engineers could even make it work, is it would have to be a labor of love type of thing. Maybe eventually you'll build up a massive market share but for a while you're going to be scraping by selling some $50 components here and there. I'd be all about it if they ever saw the light of day though.
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On September 14 2013 15:12 BigFan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 14:54 TheRabidDeer wrote:On September 14 2013 14:33 VeryAverage wrote:On September 14 2013 14:12 TheRabidDeer wrote:
People don't like engineers? When did that happen?
Designers can come up with the ideas, they can then talk to engineers and try to figure out a compromise of some sort. Or the designer can at least educate himself on what he is planning to design to come up with a reasonable idea on if itll work with the current realm. If not, come up with some possible solutions for the roadblocks.
I am not an engineer, or a designer. Yet I still know enough about technology to know that his idea can't work exactly as he has it planned out. The reason I dont like this designer is because he is pushing it out without a second thought onto every single tech company out there by releasing this dreamlike CGI design. He is blaming them for a problem without coming up with any real solutions. He has ONE idea, when it takes dozens if not hundreds of ideas to put that ONE idea together.
To give another possibly more related example of what hes done: He comes up with a concept car. It looks awesome, and he says itll go 0-60 in 2 seconds and can hit 300mph because it has 4,000HP and itll cost less than $100k to buy. It SOUNDS awesome, but is it realistic? Not really... you have to deal with how to fit that much HP into an engine that fits into the car, materials to handle the torque, aerodynamics to keep the car on the ground and drivable yet still able to somehow let all of the air pass by etc etc. The 2015 Nismo GTR said to clock in at 0-60 in 2.0 seconds.. Heck, the 2013 GTR can hit in in 2.7 seconds. Some cars hit in the 250-260 MPH range. Price tag? That 2013 GTR is just a touch over 100k (although only gets to about 190MPH). Technology is advancing rapidly. Like I said, it's not possible right now, but it's a very interesting design and could very easily be possible within a decade or so. Rather than saying "This won't work," people should say "Why can't this work and how can we make it work?" I gave a list for a reason. It has to do ALL of those things. Aside from that, 0-60 in 2 seconds is unconfirmed. Considering 2014's does it in 2.7 (and the 1700+whp does it in 1.7) thatd be a pretty significant jump. Also, 250-260 is an entirely different league than 300. Also, I agree that people should say how can we make this work. However, the designer didnt. He made a video and said "if we shout loud enough something will happen" I can't comment much but for your last part, isn't a designer supposed to well, design? Come up with a concept and present it to the engineer and then the engineer plays a role in talking about feasibility then they make a decision? So while you are right in your statement, I dunno if this designer would've been able to mention how will it all work. I dont know exactly how the design field works, but I imagine you have a specialty field of design. So a designer much focus in clothes, or maybe automobiles, or maybe electronics. This is so they can come up with ideas based on reality. A quick google search showed this: http://www.design-skills.org/design_process.html "This implies a lot of research, observation and analysis in order to understand a business, its customers and trigger inspiration. This process goes through 4 stages: understanding, observation, visualisation and appraisal. Although each stage involves specific procedures, they are dependant on one another."
It seems like this particular designer skipped the understanding and observation process and went straight to visualization. He had his concept in mind from the beginning. There is probably also interaction between designers and engineers so that the designer can be informed of any possible issues that would immediately come to mind.
On September 14 2013 15:13 Rassy wrote:Well care to explain what the point of your post was? your remark about cars and the point of it is unclear to me, i dont mind to admit that The point of my post was just a comment to illustrate that cares are not realy improving annymore and are at their technological ceiling when it comes to their engines (at least for now till a truly revolutionary engine will be developped) Something that will happen to phones as well relativly soon imo though they cant be compared to cars at all. I would never have made a comment on cars in this thread if someone didnt mention them but since they where, i thought i might as well give a comment on it. The point behind the cars part is that it is a designer with no background or idea on how the field works makes a pretty looking concept that sounds great but isnt based in reality. He makes promises with nothing to back it up. I am saying that this imaginary car designer did the same thing that this designer did with the phone.
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Yes i see it now after reading your first post where you did mention this and i have to agree with it, at least when it comes to cars.I am not sure this would aply to this particular phone idea but it could, have not realy thought about that. (my problem with this phone idea is more economically, not technical in nature.) Sry for misunderstanding you.
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cute idea, never going to happen
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
On September 14 2013 14:53 theBALLS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 00:42 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 13 2013 22:56 theBALLS wrote: This is so silly. It's a wonderful idea, but engineers would scoff it off. Quite the opposite. Engineers love to tinker with stuff, and don't usually mind when there are a few compatibility issues, they are happy to try and hack a way around it, heck it's half the fun of unpolished technology. In general, by the same principle, most engineers are happy with Linux. The problem is both the business and consumer side of things would scoff at it. Lets face it, the average consumer is 'tech savvy' in that they are good with technology in its designed operating parameters, but when it comes to repairs, modifications or understanding the fundamental operations of their device, they suddenly turn into a population of morons. It's the only reason I can think of that Apple is still able to sell desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, the fact of the matter is, in theory, being able to replace parts and tinkering with your device is great, in practice, not only does the average consumer not want to do it, they will pay a significant premium to not have to. The business side of things is going to resist it just as hard, with this idea shutting down planned obsolescence (consider how frequent people change phones, and how staggeringly expensive these phones are), and new form factors to give marketing something to... well... market (Cos face it, a data sheet on how performance has improved doesn't excite the average consumer like it would us engineers). Our big consumer electronic companies with their 'decision by accounting' philosophy to the engineering market are simply not going to like the business model when the existing model is so profitable. These pressures coupled with the fact that this architecture would render it impossible to optimise to the extent the modern phones are, and the fact that changing form factors (which modern phones still undergo with size/thickness changes) would mean in all likelyhood, you'd have to replace the vast majority of components on the Phoneblok periodically makes it a very tough sell. No, my friend. Engineers would scoff it off. At least for now.
Well I'm an engineer, I don't scoff at it at all. I don't see why other engineers would. I mean lets be clear here, this is not something that is technically beyond us atm. It is something we could easily design, yeah, without further development and optimisation it would be a vastly inferior product to existing smartphones, but it's not nearly infeasible enough that we couldn't do it.
Noting its current technical drawbacks, questioning it's overall marketability and profitability is completely different from scoffing it off. Marketability and profitability is also not generally an engineer's professional opinion, since that's not really our job.
I'm sure if the commercial and economic factors were taken out of the equation, most engineers would love to be involved in building/designing the device. We are, after all, mostly just tech geeks who like to mess around with technology.
Modularity is great, and at least personally, whether or not it is particularly marketable as an end product, I find it at the very least an interesting engineering challenge. The problem is the people who pay us, are going to ask for a feasibility assessment, and we aren't going to flat out lie to them.
Making near future technology into current technology is a part of what engineers do. So just because something is slightly out of the technical reach of big industry at the moment doesn't mean engineers will automatically dismiss it. On the other hand someone has to pay for the development process and often those people aren't actually engineers and their decision is not based on what's technically interesting but what is commercially viable, we just given them a (mostly) objective assessment on how reasonable it will be. the people dismissing it are almost always people who look after the money and not the technology. The engineers I know are happy to work on anything they think is possible so long as someone wants to pay for it, and often for free as a hobby if it isn't too costly.
But yes, please tell me why my profession would scoff at it. You haven't really provided any reasons other than the unbased insistence that we would. I may be biased in that I have a foot in the field of embedded systems, so this is technically intriguing to me, but it would greatly surprise me if the entire engineering industry would as a whole, or even mostly 'scoff it off'. Given that most engineering professionals don't personally care about the commercial/marketing side of development, and are happy to develop away at something that will never sell so long as someone is paying the bills.
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On September 14 2013 15:36 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 14:53 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 00:42 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 13 2013 22:56 theBALLS wrote: This is so silly. It's a wonderful idea, but engineers would scoff it off. Quite the opposite. Engineers love to tinker with stuff, and don't usually mind when there are a few compatibility issues, they are happy to try and hack a way around it, heck it's half the fun of unpolished technology. In general, by the same principle, most engineers are happy with Linux. The problem is both the business and consumer side of things would scoff at it. Lets face it, the average consumer is 'tech savvy' in that they are good with technology in its designed operating parameters, but when it comes to repairs, modifications or understanding the fundamental operations of their device, they suddenly turn into a population of morons. It's the only reason I can think of that Apple is still able to sell desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, the fact of the matter is, in theory, being able to replace parts and tinkering with your device is great, in practice, not only does the average consumer not want to do it, they will pay a significant premium to not have to. The business side of things is going to resist it just as hard, with this idea shutting down planned obsolescence (consider how frequent people change phones, and how staggeringly expensive these phones are), and new form factors to give marketing something to... well... market (Cos face it, a data sheet on how performance has improved doesn't excite the average consumer like it would us engineers). Our big consumer electronic companies with their 'decision by accounting' philosophy to the engineering market are simply not going to like the business model when the existing model is so profitable. These pressures coupled with the fact that this architecture would render it impossible to optimise to the extent the modern phones are, and the fact that changing form factors (which modern phones still undergo with size/thickness changes) would mean in all likelyhood, you'd have to replace the vast majority of components on the Phoneblok periodically makes it a very tough sell. No, my friend. Engineers would scoff it off. At least for now. Well I'm an engineer, I don't scoff at it at all. I don't see why other engineers would. I mean lets be clear here, this is not something that is technically beyond us atm. It is something we could easily design, yeah, without further development and optimisation it would be a vastly inferior product to existing smartphones, but it's not nearly infeasible enough that we couldn't do it. Noting its current technical drawbacks, questioning it's overall marketability and profitability is completely different from scoffing it off. Marketability and profitability is also not generally an engineer's professional opinion, since that's not really our job. I'm sure if the commercial and economic factors were taken out of the equation, most engineers would love to be involved in building/designing the device. We are, after all, mostly just tech geeks who like to mess around with technology. Modularity is great, and at least personally, whether or not it is particularly marketable as an end product, I find it at the very least an interesting engineering challenge. The problem is the people who pay us, are going to ask for a feasibility assessment, and we aren't going to flat out lie to them. Making near future technology into current technology is a part of what engineers do. So just because something is slightly out of the technical reach of big industry at the moment doesn't mean engineers will automatically dismiss it. On the other hand someone has to pay for the development process and often those people aren't actually engineers and their decision is not based on what's technically interesting but what is commercially viable, we just given them a (mostly) objective assessment on how reasonable it will be. the people dismissing it are almost always people who look after the money and not the technology. The engineers I know are happy to work on anything they think is possible so long as someone wants to pay for it, and often for free as a hobby if it isn't too costly. But yes, please tell me why my profession would scoff at it. You haven't really provided any reasons other than the unbased insistence that we would. I may be biased in that I have a foot in the field of embedded systems, so this is technically intriguing to me, but it would greatly surprise me if the entire engineering industry would as a whole, or even mostly 'scoff it off'. Given that most engineering professionals don't personally care about the commercial/marketing side of development, and are happy to develop away at something that will never sell so long as someone is paying the bills.
Well, sir, I too am an engineer, and I scoff at it the most!
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On September 14 2013 15:36 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 14:53 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 00:42 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 13 2013 22:56 theBALLS wrote: This is so silly. It's a wonderful idea, but engineers would scoff it off. Quite the opposite. Engineers love to tinker with stuff, and don't usually mind when there are a few compatibility issues, they are happy to try and hack a way around it, heck it's half the fun of unpolished technology. In general, by the same principle, most engineers are happy with Linux. The problem is both the business and consumer side of things would scoff at it. Lets face it, the average consumer is 'tech savvy' in that they are good with technology in its designed operating parameters, but when it comes to repairs, modifications or understanding the fundamental operations of their device, they suddenly turn into a population of morons. It's the only reason I can think of that Apple is still able to sell desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, the fact of the matter is, in theory, being able to replace parts and tinkering with your device is great, in practice, not only does the average consumer not want to do it, they will pay a significant premium to not have to. The business side of things is going to resist it just as hard, with this idea shutting down planned obsolescence (consider how frequent people change phones, and how staggeringly expensive these phones are), and new form factors to give marketing something to... well... market (Cos face it, a data sheet on how performance has improved doesn't excite the average consumer like it would us engineers). Our big consumer electronic companies with their 'decision by accounting' philosophy to the engineering market are simply not going to like the business model when the existing model is so profitable. These pressures coupled with the fact that this architecture would render it impossible to optimise to the extent the modern phones are, and the fact that changing form factors (which modern phones still undergo with size/thickness changes) would mean in all likelyhood, you'd have to replace the vast majority of components on the Phoneblok periodically makes it a very tough sell. No, my friend. Engineers would scoff it off. At least for now. Well I'm an engineer, I don't scoff at it at all. I don't see why other engineers would. I mean lets be clear here, this is not something that is technically beyond us atm. It is something we could easily design, yeah, without further development and optimisation it would be a vastly inferior product to existing smartphones, but it's not nearly infeasible enough that we couldn't do it. Noting its current technical drawbacks, questioning it's overall marketability and profitability is completely different from scoffing it off. Marketability and profitability is also not generally an engineer's professional opinion, since that's not really our job. I'm sure if the commercial and economic factors were taken out of the equation, most engineers would love to be involved in building/designing the device. We are, after all, mostly just tech geeks who like to mess around with technology. Modularity is great, and at least personally, whether or not it is particularly marketable as an end product, I find it at the very least an interesting engineering challenge. The problem is the people who pay us, are going to ask for a feasibility assessment, and we aren't going to flat out lie to them. Making near future technology into current technology is a part of what engineers do. So just because something is slightly out of the technical reach of big industry at the moment doesn't mean engineers will automatically dismiss it. On the other hand someone has to pay for the development process and often those people aren't actually engineers and their decision is not based on what's technically interesting but what is commercially viable, we just given them a (mostly) objective assessment on how reasonable it will be. the people dismissing it are almost always people who look after the money and not the technology. The engineers I know are happy to work on anything they think is possible so long as someone wants to pay for it, and often for free as a hobby if it isn't too costly. But yes, please tell me why my profession would scoff at it. You haven't really provided any reasons other than the unbased insistence that we would. I may be biased in that I have a foot in the field of embedded systems, so this is technically intriguing to me, but it would greatly surprise me if the entire engineering industry would as a whole, or even mostly 'scoff it off'. Given that most engineering professionals don't personally care about the commercial/marketing side of development, and are happy to develop away at something that will never sell so long as someone is paying the bills. I respect your opinion, and I value it; you're an engineer and I'm not.
However, allow me to share from a layman's point of view. Say for computers; how I see it is: Base block = motherboard. A regular motherboard would be able to accept a few iterations of upgrades, so long they pin number is compatible (along with the other parts like the bridges, RAM, etc). However, sooner or later, in order to accommodate an upgrade, even the motherboard will have to be changed entirely. So yes, perhaps this could work; but for how many generations of upgrades before the "base block" itself has to be upgraded (it's practically getting a new phone)? I guess this would still lead to some cost-savings, but I think you get my point.
Also, different components have different inputs. In my computer, my graphics card goes into my PCI-Express slot. My RAM goes into my RAM slots. Etc. I believe that it would be extremely difficult to be able to remove a large battery and use the same pin input to accommodate a different part like say, a wifi chip. Perhaps its possible, but to make it look as elegant as it does in the video such that it still fits in our palms? I'm not so sure.
Manufacturers spend insane resources on coming up with an elegant form factor for their mobile phones. To me, this modular interface proposed is quite an insult to these manufacturers who put so much effort into cramming powerful parts into a small form factor, while maintaining an elegant and pragmatic design.
Don't get my wrong; I would love for this to work out. However, it's mostly a pipe dream at the moment.
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On September 14 2013 16:18 theBALLS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 15:36 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 14 2013 14:53 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 00:42 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 13 2013 22:56 theBALLS wrote: This is so silly. It's a wonderful idea, but engineers would scoff it off. Quite the opposite. Engineers love to tinker with stuff, and don't usually mind when there are a few compatibility issues, they are happy to try and hack a way around it, heck it's half the fun of unpolished technology. In general, by the same principle, most engineers are happy with Linux. The problem is both the business and consumer side of things would scoff at it. Lets face it, the average consumer is 'tech savvy' in that they are good with technology in its designed operating parameters, but when it comes to repairs, modifications or understanding the fundamental operations of their device, they suddenly turn into a population of morons. It's the only reason I can think of that Apple is still able to sell desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, the fact of the matter is, in theory, being able to replace parts and tinkering with your device is great, in practice, not only does the average consumer not want to do it, they will pay a significant premium to not have to. The business side of things is going to resist it just as hard, with this idea shutting down planned obsolescence (consider how frequent people change phones, and how staggeringly expensive these phones are), and new form factors to give marketing something to... well... market (Cos face it, a data sheet on how performance has improved doesn't excite the average consumer like it would us engineers). Our big consumer electronic companies with their 'decision by accounting' philosophy to the engineering market are simply not going to like the business model when the existing model is so profitable. These pressures coupled with the fact that this architecture would render it impossible to optimise to the extent the modern phones are, and the fact that changing form factors (which modern phones still undergo with size/thickness changes) would mean in all likelyhood, you'd have to replace the vast majority of components on the Phoneblok periodically makes it a very tough sell. No, my friend. Engineers would scoff it off. At least for now. Well I'm an engineer, I don't scoff at it at all. I don't see why other engineers would. I mean lets be clear here, this is not something that is technically beyond us atm. It is something we could easily design, yeah, without further development and optimisation it would be a vastly inferior product to existing smartphones, but it's not nearly infeasible enough that we couldn't do it. Noting its current technical drawbacks, questioning it's overall marketability and profitability is completely different from scoffing it off. Marketability and profitability is also not generally an engineer's professional opinion, since that's not really our job. I'm sure if the commercial and economic factors were taken out of the equation, most engineers would love to be involved in building/designing the device. We are, after all, mostly just tech geeks who like to mess around with technology. Modularity is great, and at least personally, whether or not it is particularly marketable as an end product, I find it at the very least an interesting engineering challenge. The problem is the people who pay us, are going to ask for a feasibility assessment, and we aren't going to flat out lie to them. Making near future technology into current technology is a part of what engineers do. So just because something is slightly out of the technical reach of big industry at the moment doesn't mean engineers will automatically dismiss it. On the other hand someone has to pay for the development process and often those people aren't actually engineers and their decision is not based on what's technically interesting but what is commercially viable, we just given them a (mostly) objective assessment on how reasonable it will be. the people dismissing it are almost always people who look after the money and not the technology. The engineers I know are happy to work on anything they think is possible so long as someone wants to pay for it, and often for free as a hobby if it isn't too costly. But yes, please tell me why my profession would scoff at it. You haven't really provided any reasons other than the unbased insistence that we would. I may be biased in that I have a foot in the field of embedded systems, so this is technically intriguing to me, but it would greatly surprise me if the entire engineering industry would as a whole, or even mostly 'scoff it off'. Given that most engineering professionals don't personally care about the commercial/marketing side of development, and are happy to develop away at something that will never sell so long as someone is paying the bills. I respect your opinion, and I value it; you're an engineer and I'm not. However, allow me to share from a layman's point of view. Say for computers; how I see it is: Base block = motherboard. A regular motherboard would be able to accept a few iterations of upgrades, so long they pin number is compatible (along with the other parts like the bridges, RAM, etc). However, sooner or later, in order to accommodate an upgrade, even the motherboard will have to be changed entirely. So yes, perhaps this could work; but for how many generations of upgrades before the "base block" itself has to be upgraded (it's practically getting a new phone)? I guess this would still lead to some cost-savings, but I think you get my point. Also, different components have different inputs. In my computer, my graphics card goes into my PCI-Express slot. My RAM goes into my RAM slots. Etc. I believe that it would be extremely difficult to be able to remove a large battery and use the same pin input to accommodate a different part like say, a wifi chip. Perhaps its possible, but to make it look as elegant as it does in the video such that it still fits in our palms? I'm not so sure. Manufacturers spend insane resources on coming up with an elegant form factor for their mobile phones. To me, this modular interface proposed is quite an insult to these manufacturers who put so much effort into cramming powerful parts into a small form factor, while maintaining an elegant and pragmatic design. Don't get my wrong; I would love for this to work out. However, it's mostly a pipe dream at the moment. You are wrong comparing the base with a motherboard. It does not have any devices on it unlike a motherboard. This base as presented in the video just connects the blocks electrically. Basically, the base is just wires. The blocks communicate with each other by themselves.
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Make it happen, I'll buy it.
"Phoneblock Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread " on TL, please.
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On September 14 2013 16:38 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 16:18 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 15:36 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 14 2013 14:53 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 00:42 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 13 2013 22:56 theBALLS wrote: This is so silly. It's a wonderful idea, but engineers would scoff it off. Quite the opposite. Engineers love to tinker with stuff, and don't usually mind when there are a few compatibility issues, they are happy to try and hack a way around it, heck it's half the fun of unpolished technology. In general, by the same principle, most engineers are happy with Linux. The problem is both the business and consumer side of things would scoff at it. Lets face it, the average consumer is 'tech savvy' in that they are good with technology in its designed operating parameters, but when it comes to repairs, modifications or understanding the fundamental operations of their device, they suddenly turn into a population of morons. It's the only reason I can think of that Apple is still able to sell desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, the fact of the matter is, in theory, being able to replace parts and tinkering with your device is great, in practice, not only does the average consumer not want to do it, they will pay a significant premium to not have to. The business side of things is going to resist it just as hard, with this idea shutting down planned obsolescence (consider how frequent people change phones, and how staggeringly expensive these phones are), and new form factors to give marketing something to... well... market (Cos face it, a data sheet on how performance has improved doesn't excite the average consumer like it would us engineers). Our big consumer electronic companies with their 'decision by accounting' philosophy to the engineering market are simply not going to like the business model when the existing model is so profitable. These pressures coupled with the fact that this architecture would render it impossible to optimise to the extent the modern phones are, and the fact that changing form factors (which modern phones still undergo with size/thickness changes) would mean in all likelyhood, you'd have to replace the vast majority of components on the Phoneblok periodically makes it a very tough sell. No, my friend. Engineers would scoff it off. At least for now. Well I'm an engineer, I don't scoff at it at all. I don't see why other engineers would. I mean lets be clear here, this is not something that is technically beyond us atm. It is something we could easily design, yeah, without further development and optimisation it would be a vastly inferior product to existing smartphones, but it's not nearly infeasible enough that we couldn't do it. Noting its current technical drawbacks, questioning it's overall marketability and profitability is completely different from scoffing it off. Marketability and profitability is also not generally an engineer's professional opinion, since that's not really our job. I'm sure if the commercial and economic factors were taken out of the equation, most engineers would love to be involved in building/designing the device. We are, after all, mostly just tech geeks who like to mess around with technology. Modularity is great, and at least personally, whether or not it is particularly marketable as an end product, I find it at the very least an interesting engineering challenge. The problem is the people who pay us, are going to ask for a feasibility assessment, and we aren't going to flat out lie to them. Making near future technology into current technology is a part of what engineers do. So just because something is slightly out of the technical reach of big industry at the moment doesn't mean engineers will automatically dismiss it. On the other hand someone has to pay for the development process and often those people aren't actually engineers and their decision is not based on what's technically interesting but what is commercially viable, we just given them a (mostly) objective assessment on how reasonable it will be. the people dismissing it are almost always people who look after the money and not the technology. The engineers I know are happy to work on anything they think is possible so long as someone wants to pay for it, and often for free as a hobby if it isn't too costly. But yes, please tell me why my profession would scoff at it. You haven't really provided any reasons other than the unbased insistence that we would. I may be biased in that I have a foot in the field of embedded systems, so this is technically intriguing to me, but it would greatly surprise me if the entire engineering industry would as a whole, or even mostly 'scoff it off'. Given that most engineering professionals don't personally care about the commercial/marketing side of development, and are happy to develop away at something that will never sell so long as someone is paying the bills. I respect your opinion, and I value it; you're an engineer and I'm not. However, allow me to share from a layman's point of view. Say for computers; how I see it is: Base block = motherboard. A regular motherboard would be able to accept a few iterations of upgrades, so long they pin number is compatible (along with the other parts like the bridges, RAM, etc). However, sooner or later, in order to accommodate an upgrade, even the motherboard will have to be changed entirely. So yes, perhaps this could work; but for how many generations of upgrades before the "base block" itself has to be upgraded (it's practically getting a new phone)? I guess this would still lead to some cost-savings, but I think you get my point. Also, different components have different inputs. In my computer, my graphics card goes into my PCI-Express slot. My RAM goes into my RAM slots. Etc. I believe that it would be extremely difficult to be able to remove a large battery and use the same pin input to accommodate a different part like say, a wifi chip. Perhaps its possible, but to make it look as elegant as it does in the video such that it still fits in our palms? I'm not so sure. Manufacturers spend insane resources on coming up with an elegant form factor for their mobile phones. To me, this modular interface proposed is quite an insult to these manufacturers who put so much effort into cramming powerful parts into a small form factor, while maintaining an elegant and pragmatic design. Don't get my wrong; I would love for this to work out. However, it's mostly a pipe dream at the moment. You are wrong comparing the base with a motherboard. It does not have any devices on it unlike a motherboard. This base as presented in the video just connects the blocks electrically. Basically, the base is just wires. The blocks communicate with each other by themselves.
If that's the case you might as well have the base just be the power distribution grid and run a localized ultra low latency(sub-ns) wireless network and have the parts communicate that way(not currently possible to the best of my knowledge). Would be easier than trying to create all the traces to make something work.
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On September 14 2013 16:49 Amui wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 16:38 Ropid wrote:On September 14 2013 16:18 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 15:36 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 14 2013 14:53 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 00:42 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 13 2013 22:56 theBALLS wrote: This is so silly. It's a wonderful idea, but engineers would scoff it off. Quite the opposite. Engineers love to tinker with stuff, and don't usually mind when there are a few compatibility issues, they are happy to try and hack a way around it, heck it's half the fun of unpolished technology. In general, by the same principle, most engineers are happy with Linux. The problem is both the business and consumer side of things would scoff at it. Lets face it, the average consumer is 'tech savvy' in that they are good with technology in its designed operating parameters, but when it comes to repairs, modifications or understanding the fundamental operations of their device, they suddenly turn into a population of morons. It's the only reason I can think of that Apple is still able to sell desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, the fact of the matter is, in theory, being able to replace parts and tinkering with your device is great, in practice, not only does the average consumer not want to do it, they will pay a significant premium to not have to. The business side of things is going to resist it just as hard, with this idea shutting down planned obsolescence (consider how frequent people change phones, and how staggeringly expensive these phones are), and new form factors to give marketing something to... well... market (Cos face it, a data sheet on how performance has improved doesn't excite the average consumer like it would us engineers). Our big consumer electronic companies with their 'decision by accounting' philosophy to the engineering market are simply not going to like the business model when the existing model is so profitable. These pressures coupled with the fact that this architecture would render it impossible to optimise to the extent the modern phones are, and the fact that changing form factors (which modern phones still undergo with size/thickness changes) would mean in all likelyhood, you'd have to replace the vast majority of components on the Phoneblok periodically makes it a very tough sell. No, my friend. Engineers would scoff it off. At least for now. Well I'm an engineer, I don't scoff at it at all. I don't see why other engineers would. I mean lets be clear here, this is not something that is technically beyond us atm. It is something we could easily design, yeah, without further development and optimisation it would be a vastly inferior product to existing smartphones, but it's not nearly infeasible enough that we couldn't do it. Noting its current technical drawbacks, questioning it's overall marketability and profitability is completely different from scoffing it off. Marketability and profitability is also not generally an engineer's professional opinion, since that's not really our job. I'm sure if the commercial and economic factors were taken out of the equation, most engineers would love to be involved in building/designing the device. We are, after all, mostly just tech geeks who like to mess around with technology. Modularity is great, and at least personally, whether or not it is particularly marketable as an end product, I find it at the very least an interesting engineering challenge. The problem is the people who pay us, are going to ask for a feasibility assessment, and we aren't going to flat out lie to them. Making near future technology into current technology is a part of what engineers do. So just because something is slightly out of the technical reach of big industry at the moment doesn't mean engineers will automatically dismiss it. On the other hand someone has to pay for the development process and often those people aren't actually engineers and their decision is not based on what's technically interesting but what is commercially viable, we just given them a (mostly) objective assessment on how reasonable it will be. the people dismissing it are almost always people who look after the money and not the technology. The engineers I know are happy to work on anything they think is possible so long as someone wants to pay for it, and often for free as a hobby if it isn't too costly. But yes, please tell me why my profession would scoff at it. You haven't really provided any reasons other than the unbased insistence that we would. I may be biased in that I have a foot in the field of embedded systems, so this is technically intriguing to me, but it would greatly surprise me if the entire engineering industry would as a whole, or even mostly 'scoff it off'. Given that most engineering professionals don't personally care about the commercial/marketing side of development, and are happy to develop away at something that will never sell so long as someone is paying the bills. I respect your opinion, and I value it; you're an engineer and I'm not. However, allow me to share from a layman's point of view. Say for computers; how I see it is: Base block = motherboard. A regular motherboard would be able to accept a few iterations of upgrades, so long they pin number is compatible (along with the other parts like the bridges, RAM, etc). However, sooner or later, in order to accommodate an upgrade, even the motherboard will have to be changed entirely. So yes, perhaps this could work; but for how many generations of upgrades before the "base block" itself has to be upgraded (it's practically getting a new phone)? I guess this would still lead to some cost-savings, but I think you get my point. Also, different components have different inputs. In my computer, my graphics card goes into my PCI-Express slot. My RAM goes into my RAM slots. Etc. I believe that it would be extremely difficult to be able to remove a large battery and use the same pin input to accommodate a different part like say, a wifi chip. Perhaps its possible, but to make it look as elegant as it does in the video such that it still fits in our palms? I'm not so sure. Manufacturers spend insane resources on coming up with an elegant form factor for their mobile phones. To me, this modular interface proposed is quite an insult to these manufacturers who put so much effort into cramming powerful parts into a small form factor, while maintaining an elegant and pragmatic design. Don't get my wrong; I would love for this to work out. However, it's mostly a pipe dream at the moment. You are wrong comparing the base with a motherboard. It does not have any devices on it unlike a motherboard. This base as presented in the video just connects the blocks electrically. Basically, the base is just wires. The blocks communicate with each other by themselves. If that's the case you might as well have the base just be the power distribution grid and run a localized ultra low latency(sub-ns) wireless network and have the parts communicate that way(not currently possible to the best of my knowledge). Would be easier than trying to create all the traces to make something work. You need traces for power anyways, and communication does not have to be a lot of traces. Do you remember token ring? It was just one coax cable going from PC to PC and you could have a room full of PCs on a crappy network.
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Even if it is not feasible, which I think, as an engineer, it is. This is still one of the most viral campaigns I have ever seen. It's all over the web now, after only 2 days.
Im my opinion, the people discussing the feasibility of the product exactly as presented on the video are missing the point. Just like a concept car is not meant to be produced, this phone is not meant to as well.
This is a concept phone. The designer's plan is to show the big companies (primarily samsumg and apple) how the public's dream phone looks like. And hopefully give them the idea on the way the innovation should go. Since recent news shows that it's going the exact opposite way, at least when we are talking about th iphone.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Australia1187 Posts
On September 14 2013 16:18 theBALLS wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 15:36 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 14 2013 14:53 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 00:42 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 13 2013 22:56 theBALLS wrote: This is so silly. It's a wonderful idea, but engineers would scoff it off. Quite the opposite. Engineers love to tinker with stuff, and don't usually mind when there are a few compatibility issues, they are happy to try and hack a way around it, heck it's half the fun of unpolished technology. In general, by the same principle, most engineers are happy with Linux. The problem is both the business and consumer side of things would scoff at it. Lets face it, the average consumer is 'tech savvy' in that they are good with technology in its designed operating parameters, but when it comes to repairs, modifications or understanding the fundamental operations of their device, they suddenly turn into a population of morons. It's the only reason I can think of that Apple is still able to sell desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, the fact of the matter is, in theory, being able to replace parts and tinkering with your device is great, in practice, not only does the average consumer not want to do it, they will pay a significant premium to not have to. The business side of things is going to resist it just as hard, with this idea shutting down planned obsolescence (consider how frequent people change phones, and how staggeringly expensive these phones are), and new form factors to give marketing something to... well... market (Cos face it, a data sheet on how performance has improved doesn't excite the average consumer like it would us engineers). Our big consumer electronic companies with their 'decision by accounting' philosophy to the engineering market are simply not going to like the business model when the existing model is so profitable. These pressures coupled with the fact that this architecture would render it impossible to optimise to the extent the modern phones are, and the fact that changing form factors (which modern phones still undergo with size/thickness changes) would mean in all likelyhood, you'd have to replace the vast majority of components on the Phoneblok periodically makes it a very tough sell. No, my friend. Engineers would scoff it off. At least for now. Well I'm an engineer, I don't scoff at it at all. I don't see why other engineers would. I mean lets be clear here, this is not something that is technically beyond us atm. It is something we could easily design, yeah, without further development and optimisation it would be a vastly inferior product to existing smartphones, but it's not nearly infeasible enough that we couldn't do it. Noting its current technical drawbacks, questioning it's overall marketability and profitability is completely different from scoffing it off. Marketability and profitability is also not generally an engineer's professional opinion, since that's not really our job. I'm sure if the commercial and economic factors were taken out of the equation, most engineers would love to be involved in building/designing the device. We are, after all, mostly just tech geeks who like to mess around with technology. Modularity is great, and at least personally, whether or not it is particularly marketable as an end product, I find it at the very least an interesting engineering challenge. The problem is the people who pay us, are going to ask for a feasibility assessment, and we aren't going to flat out lie to them. Making near future technology into current technology is a part of what engineers do. So just because something is slightly out of the technical reach of big industry at the moment doesn't mean engineers will automatically dismiss it. On the other hand someone has to pay for the development process and often those people aren't actually engineers and their decision is not based on what's technically interesting but what is commercially viable, we just given them a (mostly) objective assessment on how reasonable it will be. the people dismissing it are almost always people who look after the money and not the technology. The engineers I know are happy to work on anything they think is possible so long as someone wants to pay for it, and often for free as a hobby if it isn't too costly. But yes, please tell me why my profession would scoff at it. You haven't really provided any reasons other than the unbased insistence that we would. I may be biased in that I have a foot in the field of embedded systems, so this is technically intriguing to me, but it would greatly surprise me if the entire engineering industry would as a whole, or even mostly 'scoff it off'. Given that most engineering professionals don't personally care about the commercial/marketing side of development, and are happy to develop away at something that will never sell so long as someone is paying the bills. I respect your opinion, and I value it; you're an engineer and I'm not. However, allow me to share from a layman's point of view. Say for computers; how I see it is: Base block = motherboard. A regular motherboard would be able to accept a few iterations of upgrades, so long they pin number is compatible (along with the other parts like the bridges, RAM, etc). However, sooner or later, in order to accommodate an upgrade, even the motherboard will have to be changed entirely. So yes, perhaps this could work; but for how many generations of upgrades before the "base block" itself has to be upgraded (it's practically getting a new phone)? I guess this would still lead to some cost-savings, but I think you get my point. Also, different components have different inputs. In my computer, my graphics card goes into my PCI-Express slot. My RAM goes into my RAM slots. Etc. I believe that it would be extremely difficult to be able to remove a large battery and use the same pin input to accommodate a different part like say, a wifi chip. Perhaps its possible, but to make it look as elegant as it does in the video such that it still fits in our palms? I'm not so sure. Manufacturers spend insane resources on coming up with an elegant form factor for their mobile phones. To me, this modular interface proposed is quite an insult to these manufacturers who put so much effort into cramming powerful parts into a small form factor, while maintaining an elegant and pragmatic design. Don't get my wrong; I would love for this to work out. However, it's mostly a pipe dream at the moment.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'd be for this idea either, nor can I speak on behalf of all engineers. I'm only saying that there is no particular reason for engineers to dislike the idea more than the general public, eg there is no particular engineering reason why professionally, engineers would be disproportionately adverse to the concept.
If anything, I'd have thought that engineers would be more open to the idea, because many of the drawbacks might be less relevant to an engineer than the layman, and some of the potential might only be relevant to someone with more in depth technical needs.
I mean being fidgety and requiring assembly, is not something that's going to bother most engineers, it can and does bother the average consumer, whereas being able to customise your phone, especially when there might be exotic options isn't really going to benefit the layman too much but might make the device far more versatile for someone who is in a position to make use of unusual functionality.
Just personally, I still keep a clamshell 'dumb' phone for making phone calls, because I think it is a vastly superior form factor as a phone, and since I don't spend more than a couple of hours at a time out of spitting distance from a PC the rest of a smartphone's functionality is pretty much wasted on me. So I don't personally mind if a phone is going to be bulky, or fiddly, since I'm not that enamoured with the form factor of a smartphone anyway, as efficiently optimised as I'm sure it is, the possibility of having unconventional functionality (say a multimeter, or oscilloscope) is going to be far more attractive of a prospect to me than just having a sleeker more computationally powerful phone.
I mean lets be forthright here, the whole concept is full of problems. As ropid pointed out, the base just looks like it's just an electrical connector, more like a breadboard than a motherboard. So it's modularity, looks at least in theory, to be feasible, assuming you are willing to suffer the performance penalties over a similarly advanced non-modular phone. You would effectively need to replace the whole thing eventually, we need to do that with PCs too, the 'phone worth keeping' part is just bullshit. But overall from a technical standpoint, while achievable, it would be technically challenging. But that's what engineers are for, it's not something that should professionally bother us, because, frankly, that's what we are paid to do.
However the non-technical problems seem to be somewhat overwhelming. For one thing, getting all those large corporations to agree to standard connections is a pipe dream, Apple for instance, sure as fuck aren't going to co-operate, this whole concept is diametrically opposite of their design principle. The best you could hope for was each manufacturer producing compatible blocks for their own brand, maybe a few brands being compatible with each other.
For another, all those little inconveniences that might not bother engineers so much, dear god the average consumer will give them hell. Most people do not put together their own PC, despite it being cheaper, and usually yields better performance that what you could buy off the market. Furthermore most people don't use Linux, despite it's superior customizability because of all the software incompatibilities and overall fidgitiness. How much of the home computer market share do you suppose puts together their own PC and then runs Linux? I bet it's not much, perhaps a negligible share of the market. Well fiddly, customizable, may have compatibility issues is exactly what the 2 things have in common. These are the exact problems that would spell commercial death for Phonebloks. If anything the average consumer is less likely to like the idea than engineers.
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This is just amazing. I would buy this without any hesitation !
Shame that it's not going to happen anytime soon.. Because I just don't see big companies working together on one excellent phone, when they can just burst out shitloads of medicore ones and make much more profit out of it..
Sad, sad world we are living in..
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On September 14 2013 17:20 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 16:18 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 15:36 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 14 2013 14:53 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 00:42 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 13 2013 22:56 theBALLS wrote: This is so silly. It's a wonderful idea, but engineers would scoff it off. Quite the opposite. Engineers love to tinker with stuff, and don't usually mind when there are a few compatibility issues, they are happy to try and hack a way around it, heck it's half the fun of unpolished technology. In general, by the same principle, most engineers are happy with Linux. The problem is both the business and consumer side of things would scoff at it. Lets face it, the average consumer is 'tech savvy' in that they are good with technology in its designed operating parameters, but when it comes to repairs, modifications or understanding the fundamental operations of their device, they suddenly turn into a population of morons. It's the only reason I can think of that Apple is still able to sell desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, the fact of the matter is, in theory, being able to replace parts and tinkering with your device is great, in practice, not only does the average consumer not want to do it, they will pay a significant premium to not have to. The business side of things is going to resist it just as hard, with this idea shutting down planned obsolescence (consider how frequent people change phones, and how staggeringly expensive these phones are), and new form factors to give marketing something to... well... market (Cos face it, a data sheet on how performance has improved doesn't excite the average consumer like it would us engineers). Our big consumer electronic companies with their 'decision by accounting' philosophy to the engineering market are simply not going to like the business model when the existing model is so profitable. These pressures coupled with the fact that this architecture would render it impossible to optimise to the extent the modern phones are, and the fact that changing form factors (which modern phones still undergo with size/thickness changes) would mean in all likelyhood, you'd have to replace the vast majority of components on the Phoneblok periodically makes it a very tough sell. No, my friend. Engineers would scoff it off. At least for now. Well I'm an engineer, I don't scoff at it at all. I don't see why other engineers would. I mean lets be clear here, this is not something that is technically beyond us atm. It is something we could easily design, yeah, without further development and optimisation it would be a vastly inferior product to existing smartphones, but it's not nearly infeasible enough that we couldn't do it. Noting its current technical drawbacks, questioning it's overall marketability and profitability is completely different from scoffing it off. Marketability and profitability is also not generally an engineer's professional opinion, since that's not really our job. I'm sure if the commercial and economic factors were taken out of the equation, most engineers would love to be involved in building/designing the device. We are, after all, mostly just tech geeks who like to mess around with technology. Modularity is great, and at least personally, whether or not it is particularly marketable as an end product, I find it at the very least an interesting engineering challenge. The problem is the people who pay us, are going to ask for a feasibility assessment, and we aren't going to flat out lie to them. Making near future technology into current technology is a part of what engineers do. So just because something is slightly out of the technical reach of big industry at the moment doesn't mean engineers will automatically dismiss it. On the other hand someone has to pay for the development process and often those people aren't actually engineers and their decision is not based on what's technically interesting but what is commercially viable, we just given them a (mostly) objective assessment on how reasonable it will be. the people dismissing it are almost always people who look after the money and not the technology. The engineers I know are happy to work on anything they think is possible so long as someone wants to pay for it, and often for free as a hobby if it isn't too costly. But yes, please tell me why my profession would scoff at it. You haven't really provided any reasons other than the unbased insistence that we would. I may be biased in that I have a foot in the field of embedded systems, so this is technically intriguing to me, but it would greatly surprise me if the entire engineering industry would as a whole, or even mostly 'scoff it off'. Given that most engineering professionals don't personally care about the commercial/marketing side of development, and are happy to develop away at something that will never sell so long as someone is paying the bills. I respect your opinion, and I value it; you're an engineer and I'm not. However, allow me to share from a layman's point of view. Say for computers; how I see it is: Base block = motherboard. A regular motherboard would be able to accept a few iterations of upgrades, so long they pin number is compatible (along with the other parts like the bridges, RAM, etc). However, sooner or later, in order to accommodate an upgrade, even the motherboard will have to be changed entirely. So yes, perhaps this could work; but for how many generations of upgrades before the "base block" itself has to be upgraded (it's practically getting a new phone)? I guess this would still lead to some cost-savings, but I think you get my point. Also, different components have different inputs. In my computer, my graphics card goes into my PCI-Express slot. My RAM goes into my RAM slots. Etc. I believe that it would be extremely difficult to be able to remove a large battery and use the same pin input to accommodate a different part like say, a wifi chip. Perhaps its possible, but to make it look as elegant as it does in the video such that it still fits in our palms? I'm not so sure. Manufacturers spend insane resources on coming up with an elegant form factor for their mobile phones. To me, this modular interface proposed is quite an insult to these manufacturers who put so much effort into cramming powerful parts into a small form factor, while maintaining an elegant and pragmatic design. Don't get my wrong; I would love for this to work out. However, it's mostly a pipe dream at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'd be for this idea either, nor can I speak on behalf of all engineers. I'm only saying that there is no particular reason for engineers to dislike the idea more than the general public, eg there is no particular engineering reason why professionally, engineers would be disproportionately adverse to the concept. ....
Yes there is. the general public doesn't understand the engineering feasibility of this concept idea.
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United States22883 Posts
On September 14 2013 15:12 BigFan wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 14:54 TheRabidDeer wrote:On September 14 2013 14:33 VeryAverage wrote:On September 14 2013 14:12 TheRabidDeer wrote:
People don't like engineers? When did that happen?
Designers can come up with the ideas, they can then talk to engineers and try to figure out a compromise of some sort. Or the designer can at least educate himself on what he is planning to design to come up with a reasonable idea on if itll work with the current realm. If not, come up with some possible solutions for the roadblocks.
I am not an engineer, or a designer. Yet I still know enough about technology to know that his idea can't work exactly as he has it planned out. The reason I dont like this designer is because he is pushing it out without a second thought onto every single tech company out there by releasing this dreamlike CGI design. He is blaming them for a problem without coming up with any real solutions. He has ONE idea, when it takes dozens if not hundreds of ideas to put that ONE idea together.
To give another possibly more related example of what hes done: He comes up with a concept car. It looks awesome, and he says itll go 0-60 in 2 seconds and can hit 300mph because it has 4,000HP and itll cost less than $100k to buy. It SOUNDS awesome, but is it realistic? Not really... you have to deal with how to fit that much HP into an engine that fits into the car, materials to handle the torque, aerodynamics to keep the car on the ground and drivable yet still able to somehow let all of the air pass by etc etc. The 2015 Nismo GTR said to clock in at 0-60 in 2.0 seconds.. Heck, the 2013 GTR can hit in in 2.7 seconds. Some cars hit in the 250-260 MPH range. Price tag? That 2013 GTR is just a touch over 100k (although only gets to about 190MPH). Technology is advancing rapidly. Like I said, it's not possible right now, but it's a very interesting design and could very easily be possible within a decade or so. Rather than saying "This won't work," people should say "Why can't this work and how can we make it work?" I gave a list for a reason. It has to do ALL of those things. Aside from that, 0-60 in 2 seconds is unconfirmed. Considering 2014's does it in 2.7 (and the 1700+whp does it in 1.7) thatd be a pretty significant jump. Also, 250-260 is an entirely different league than 300. Also, I agree that people should say how can we make this work. However, the designer didnt. He made a video and said "if we shout loud enough something will happen" I can't comment much but for your last part, isn't a designer supposed to well, design? Come up with a concept and present it to the engineer and then the engineer plays a role in talking about feasibility then they make a decision? So while you are right in your statement, I dunno if this designer would've been able to mention how will it all work. The engineer is part of the design team, along with marketing and (ideally) everyone else involved in producing/handling/supporting the product. Occasionally you'll have a particular technology pushed by a patent owner (like a VP) but that's not the case here since there isn't a patent, plus those types of pet projects often turn out horribly. The problem is getting too locked into feasibility arguments and current technologies is a good way to get your ass kicked. Even in some R&D groups, which should be the least susceptible to it, they get locked into paradigms regarding technology and implementation and fail to see the big picture or emerging alternatives.
The smart phone market, given its youth and speed, might not be that mature yet, but ideally Samsung would be looking further than the Galaxy S5 and 6.
The bigger question is what customer needs does it address and are they worth addressing. I mean, the implementation will vary but it's absolutely possible for the spirit of moddability to eventually emerge, the exact same way it exists with any computer. But you don't just make products because you have a neat idea. You need to understand what customer needs it actually benefits.
Is expandability that big of a need anymore? The vocal minority clamor for SD card slots, but most users stream content from Pandora/Google/Spotify and upcoming iTunes Radio, and automatically store pictures online. If you had Phonebloks, how often do you think you'd actually make additions to it? Are the environmental benefits legitimate and actually meaningful to people? How strong is the pride and other emotions caused by custom-choosing/tinkering with your own device?
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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 Yeah that's a cool idea in theory, except is completly naive
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On September 14 2013 16:38 Ropid wrote:Show nested quote +On September 14 2013 16:18 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 15:36 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 14 2013 14:53 theBALLS wrote:On September 14 2013 00:42 doubleupgradeobbies! wrote:On September 13 2013 22:56 theBALLS wrote: This is so silly. It's a wonderful idea, but engineers would scoff it off. Quite the opposite. Engineers love to tinker with stuff, and don't usually mind when there are a few compatibility issues, they are happy to try and hack a way around it, heck it's half the fun of unpolished technology. In general, by the same principle, most engineers are happy with Linux. The problem is both the business and consumer side of things would scoff at it. Lets face it, the average consumer is 'tech savvy' in that they are good with technology in its designed operating parameters, but when it comes to repairs, modifications or understanding the fundamental operations of their device, they suddenly turn into a population of morons. It's the only reason I can think of that Apple is still able to sell desktop computers and laptops/notebooks, the fact of the matter is, in theory, being able to replace parts and tinkering with your device is great, in practice, not only does the average consumer not want to do it, they will pay a significant premium to not have to. The business side of things is going to resist it just as hard, with this idea shutting down planned obsolescence (consider how frequent people change phones, and how staggeringly expensive these phones are), and new form factors to give marketing something to... well... market (Cos face it, a data sheet on how performance has improved doesn't excite the average consumer like it would us engineers). Our big consumer electronic companies with their 'decision by accounting' philosophy to the engineering market are simply not going to like the business model when the existing model is so profitable. These pressures coupled with the fact that this architecture would render it impossible to optimise to the extent the modern phones are, and the fact that changing form factors (which modern phones still undergo with size/thickness changes) would mean in all likelyhood, you'd have to replace the vast majority of components on the Phoneblok periodically makes it a very tough sell. No, my friend. Engineers would scoff it off. At least for now. Well I'm an engineer, I don't scoff at it at all. I don't see why other engineers would. I mean lets be clear here, this is not something that is technically beyond us atm. It is something we could easily design, yeah, without further development and optimisation it would be a vastly inferior product to existing smartphones, but it's not nearly infeasible enough that we couldn't do it. Noting its current technical drawbacks, questioning it's overall marketability and profitability is completely different from scoffing it off. Marketability and profitability is also not generally an engineer's professional opinion, since that's not really our job. I'm sure if the commercial and economic factors were taken out of the equation, most engineers would love to be involved in building/designing the device. We are, after all, mostly just tech geeks who like to mess around with technology. Modularity is great, and at least personally, whether or not it is particularly marketable as an end product, I find it at the very least an interesting engineering challenge. The problem is the people who pay us, are going to ask for a feasibility assessment, and we aren't going to flat out lie to them. Making near future technology into current technology is a part of what engineers do. So just because something is slightly out of the technical reach of big industry at the moment doesn't mean engineers will automatically dismiss it. On the other hand someone has to pay for the development process and often those people aren't actually engineers and their decision is not based on what's technically interesting but what is commercially viable, we just given them a (mostly) objective assessment on how reasonable it will be. the people dismissing it are almost always people who look after the money and not the technology. The engineers I know are happy to work on anything they think is possible so long as someone wants to pay for it, and often for free as a hobby if it isn't too costly. But yes, please tell me why my profession would scoff at it. You haven't really provided any reasons other than the unbased insistence that we would. I may be biased in that I have a foot in the field of embedded systems, so this is technically intriguing to me, but it would greatly surprise me if the entire engineering industry would as a whole, or even mostly 'scoff it off'. Given that most engineering professionals don't personally care about the commercial/marketing side of development, and are happy to develop away at something that will never sell so long as someone is paying the bills. I respect your opinion, and I value it; you're an engineer and I'm not. However, allow me to share from a layman's point of view. Say for computers; how I see it is: Base block = motherboard. A regular motherboard would be able to accept a few iterations of upgrades, so long they pin number is compatible (along with the other parts like the bridges, RAM, etc). However, sooner or later, in order to accommodate an upgrade, even the motherboard will have to be changed entirely. So yes, perhaps this could work; but for how many generations of upgrades before the "base block" itself has to be upgraded (it's practically getting a new phone)? I guess this would still lead to some cost-savings, but I think you get my point. Also, different components have different inputs. In my computer, my graphics card goes into my PCI-Express slot. My RAM goes into my RAM slots. Etc. I believe that it would be extremely difficult to be able to remove a large battery and use the same pin input to accommodate a different part like say, a wifi chip. Perhaps its possible, but to make it look as elegant as it does in the video such that it still fits in our palms? I'm not so sure. Manufacturers spend insane resources on coming up with an elegant form factor for their mobile phones. To me, this modular interface proposed is quite an insult to these manufacturers who put so much effort into cramming powerful parts into a small form factor, while maintaining an elegant and pragmatic design. Don't get my wrong; I would love for this to work out. However, it's mostly a pipe dream at the moment. You are wrong comparing the base with a motherboard. It does not have any devices on it unlike a motherboard. This base as presented in the video just connects the blocks electrically. Basically, the base is just wires. The blocks communicate with each other by themselves. Then that makes it even less feasible :/
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