In a few years we will look back at this period in AI with niche hardware startups and companies pouring millions into chatbot UIs and think how early it all was.

The future lives in a thick fog and someone has to venture through. Bless the first to try and find it, but they’re all missing

It’s incredible to me that people think they can replace phones.

It’s more likely that phones will evolve into whatever takes off next.

Wait, if this is AOSP powered, don’t they have to publish the kernel sources under GPL?

Lots of things are just Android devices. This allows their manufacturers to easily hire people who is comfortable developing on a known platform, and also repurpose very cheap obsolete hardware that couldn't run a modern phone but would still be usable for a stripped down OS that runs only one app. And of course by being hard+soft solutions they can charge a lot more compared to a simple "normal" app. All good from a business POV, but most of those devices are tight closed with locked bootloaders and other protections against repurposing, which turns them into e-waste once their services are terminated. Pollution issues aside, an old board that runs only Android 4.x is pretty much unusable for everything interesting, while being able to unlock the same board and install Armbian, DietPI or similar OS, turns it into a completely different device.

HN discussion [0] (70 points, 5 hours ago, 44 comments)

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40217453

[dupe]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40217453

people have been hard on rabbit r1, but ultimately it is a step toward future I feel. And they bury further down in the article that it requires permissions that the android won't grant.