A project to build the $50 phone has been launched on Crowd Supply, promising to deliver “an open-source, Linux-powered” handset with “no carrier locks, bloated apps, or data mining” and that “doesn’t depend on big companies”.
Android smartphones have hit the headlines recently, first for Google tracking users who had switched location tracking off, and second for sending data to Google’s servers 50 times more often than an iPhone.
The ZeroPhone will be based around the tiny Raspberry Pi Zero, an Arduino microcontroller, and the ESP8266 Wi-Fi module.
To get the most of the phone, users will need to be technically proficient. While the splash page for the project says the likes of IR receivers and the Pi’s 5 and eight-megapixel cameras can be wired up the phone’s electronic interfaces, this will require users to hook up the electronics themselves.
Read more at ZDNet
