Phone Bloks

Phone bloks, good or bad news?

I discovered, like many people, last month The Phone Bloks when i was reading my RSS Stream. The article, Phonebloks, le téléphone à concevoir soi-même from "journal du geek" by Pierre, talked about a new concept for a phone by introducing a new way to use and to update it.  A photo is worth a thousand words.

As you can see in this picture, it looks like any other previous device. It's based on a small rectangle full of holes into which you can plug shields, each of which has a specific job.
we can see in this photo:

• Wifi module
• Sound 
• Battery
• CPU
• Clock
• Camera

When you connect a module to the board, you upgrade your device.

That's wonderful! I will no longer throw away my old phone for an upgraded version. If I break my screen, I can replace it easily as well as my battery. But you can imagine that some features need modules with the same compatibility.(need work)

So, here is the problem: Manufacturers have no obligation to help the customer to save money. In fact they want to increase their profits as much as possible.

But why couldn't a  manufacturer boost his sales by making their consumers buy blocks that are compatible with other blocks of the same brand?

That's because there's not enough regulation.

The only way to deal with this is probably to inforce certain rules (like an RFC).

If we resolve this problem, there is still another one:
In technology, certain modules depend on other modules to work. So, if you use this device, you will have to, sooner or later, upgrade it by buying lots of different shields. Manufacturers will probably go as far as to create unnecessary material updates in order to increase their sales.

If manufacturers innovated for the advancement of science instead of the making of money, it would a better world.
I think that's a great innovation for programmed obsolescence.

And you, what's your opinion about that?

for more information please visit phonebloks.com.

Canada

In my street in Caen, all neighbour are friends. Every weekend we make pre-dinner drink where we talk about everything. We have same hobbits and same friends.

When my neighbour Maxime finished his school he went for two years in Canada. With 3 families of neighbours we decided to visit him. Firstly it been 1 years that we didn't see him and secondly we all wanted to see this country.

I was 14 years old when i made the travel. The first step of this trip was to move to Paris to take the plaine. When we arrived the first things that i remember was the huge buildings of Montreal. There was a lot of enormous glasses towers and squirrel everywhere. Squirrel in Canada are not the same as in France, they are grey and strangely like pigeons of our country.

Remember you that i was young, so, my memories are blur and space representation probably false.

After a night in Montreal, and a good lunch at BurgerKing we took the car to move along the St-Laurent river. We didn't have goal, we just wanted to see landscapes. After that we decided to go to Quebec because it's a French symbol and because my parents wanted to see its castle. That was the only time i spoke french during vacation.

My neighbour lived during his "exile" in Toronto. So we must took the right road.

The next step of the trip was Ottawa. I remember that we arrived from a bridge and behind there was an amusement park.

When we arrived to Toronto Maxime made a big party with his friends and his family. The next day we visited some museum that i don't remember what they talk about. During the next week we travel with him to the niagara falls, take some pictures and play hockey.