I guess this is a fair indication then of how much Meta receives per person from advertisers...

A sign that the smartphone has reached maturity, I guess. People don't feel the imperative to upgrade any more. That's good for the planet!

... so not much has changed in a hundred years then.

The Sipeed Lichee Pi 4A coming with Debian pre-installed, is arguably the first consumer RISC-V device.

Qualcomm has good reason to focus on RISC-V. I'm expecting them to bring out SoCs as soon as they can. And with the Nuvia team, they have the design prowess to produce some very performant silicon.

The hardware isn't the issue...

The problem comes when Apple decides not to upgrade the OS any more. Then, some time after that, the apps you like to use won't work.

Planned obsolescence : environmentally iniquitous.

Perhaps at that point the consumer will opt for the repairable options.

Pure speculation : the idea of open source sells. It's more appealing than the alternative.

What are your predictions on consumer hardware for the next decade in relation to RISC-V?

I had 2023 marked as the Year of the RISC-V SBC. But I think it's more than that : with the Lichee Pi coming with Debian pre-installed, and looking stable, RISC-V is on the verge of consumer-grade hardware. There are other devices from Sipeed, Pine64 and others too, of course, including laptops and tablets.

I think the real watershed will come in 2025/26 though. It's widely predicted that more powerful RISC-V processors will be ready by then.

We know that some Chinese tech organisations are working tirelessly on RISC-V, and I think we can expect to see them really pushing the technology. But Qualcomm, Broadcom, NXP etc. are going for it too. Qualcomm (feat. Nuvia) have real design prowess, and also have every reason to go RISC-V.

Is this technology open source?

Buying a used phone does save resources and stops potential e-waste though.

Plus with an older phone there's more likelihood that an alternative OS is available.

Perversely; I'm always less inclined to buy a product that I've seen advertised... "Why do they need to advertise it? It can't be up to much." And "Part of the ticket price has gone into advertising, so it's not so valuable a thing.", usually being my first thoughts.

• BRICS nations are going RISC-V - for varied reasons - as quickly as they can (and the EU may well follow suit).

• China is a huge producer - if not THE biggest manufacturer - of electronics.

Those two points alone suggest a RISC-V revolution, in BRICS and 3rd-World economies, who like cheaper goods. RISC-V cores have been used in microcontroller roles for a while now, and we're now seeing RISC-V chips being used as primary processors.

https://www.howtogeek.com/348699/how-to-see-what-data-windows-10-is-sending-to-microsoft/

I really like the Lichee Pi 4A, and I hope to get one when I next need to buy a computer. My computing needs are relatively light, and I think the Lichee Pi would be perfectly sufficient.

I check the Alpine repository from time to time - https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages - just to see what apps are available for RISC-V : and actually, it's impressive to see the amount of work that has gone into rebasing apps. Godot doesn't appear to be there for RISC-V though, sorry.

So my advice would be to realise what apps you really need, and check if they're available yet. And if they aren't it's always worth contacting the app maintainer.

No open sourced RISC-V processor? Not interested.

And courting Micro$oft...??

He's lost the plot

It would put me off using it.

Responding as a faithless person :

... and yet the grit in the oyster persists : in humanity's frame of reference, something has never been created out of nothing.

Does the research presume the use of a qwerty keyboard?

How about, (counterclockwise)

Small Hairy Orangutan Eyed Me?

Gary Anthony James Webb, aka Gary Numan, born 8 March 1958 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Numan

Gary Leonard Oldman. born 21 March 1958 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Oldman

Is there a fork of MuseScore too (the same devs, I think)?

Some while ago, there was a "Masto Blue" generated from Mastodon users fa ourite colours - #40665C

"WhatsApp and Signal have both threatened to quit the UK market over this demand."

I'm curious - how would that be done in practice?

And wouldn't it just mean that people would adopt another protocol, like Tox or Matrix, in stead?

How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

RISC-V is open specification for processor design, and some Cpus, like T-Head's C910 are published designs. The Roma laptop uses a SoC based on that, though I don't suppose it's readily available. There's also an SBC - the Lichee Pi 4A, and a tablet from Sipeed... But all these devices are cutting edge, and probably not for the general consumer quite yet.

To quote a Linux tech writer:

"You literally cannot boot a raspberry pi zero, one, two, three or four without running ThreadX which is a Microsoft product.

"So whether the OS pings a repo or not is moot. The whole damn computer is run by a proprietary sealed Microsoft binary."

If it's 32-bit, your options dwindle somewhat.

Armbian is lightweight, and has an x86 version.

My favourite calendar is the UBPorts offering, but I don't think it's available as a standalone app.

The GNOME calendar is okay though : https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Calendar

I used to collect and make up stupid names :

• Ada Goodwin
• Aiden Abbott
• Albert Hall
• Amanda Boat
• Amelia Cooke
• Andy Bannister
• Arthur & Holly Day, Dawn Day & Annie Day - Day's Travel Emporium
• Barney Daley
• Ben & Eileen Dover
• Ben Nevis
• Bert Rand
• Blanche and Hugh Allbright-White
• Bob Waite
• Carrie Oakley
• Carol Singer
• Charlie (Chuck) Ball - "How very singular"
• Chit Price
• Chris Cross - Conflict Resolution
• Christopher, Lord Sandwich II (Chip Butty - a chip off the old block)
• Cliff Edge
• Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides)
• Didier Dolittle - schoolboy
• Donald Key
• Doreen Knox
• Dorothy Morse (Dot) - Former cryptologist at Bletchley. She's dotty about her dachshund, Dash
• Douglas Wells
• Drew Leith
• Dustin Ledger
• Ed Clutterbuck - Librarian and wannabe author with writer's block
• Elsa Goodfellow
• Felicity Weston - Flic
• Fleur Meadows
• Gloria Devine
• Dr. Godwin Hale & Dr. Mia Harty
• Gus 'the' Bus - bus driver
• Heather Moore (real)
• Holly & Hugh Wood, Hazel, Elizabeth (Betty) & Evan (grandma Olive)
• Honor Crookes
• Hugh Grant (real / stage name)
• Hugh Green (stage name)
• Iona Carr
• Isabella Bell
• Izzy Humble
• Jack & Constance Dawes - keen ornithologists
• Jack Hughes
• Jenny Darling
• Jo Lein - Joe King's gf
• Juan Mann
• Justin Case
• Keir Royale
• Kiefer Roux
• Lance Ennis-Hand
• Liam Perrin
• Lilly & Grant Watts, Max the dog
• Logan Berry
• Lou Tennant
• Fr. Martin Dupre
• Mary Christmas
• Megan Bacon (real)
• Michelle Wordsworth (Shelly)
• Millie Boinet
• Mike West
• Minnie & Harry Driver
• Monica Marx
• Neal Standswick
• Noah & Ellie Wan
• Norman Castle
• Oliver Bath
• Orla Broad - marries Miles Long
• Dr. Ozzy Foster
• Paddy & Anne Field, and son Pete
• Paula Piano
• Pixie Locke
• Randy Vicars
• Ray Leader (lay reader)
• Prof Rebekah Elizabeth Newell
• Ray Bans
• Red Herring
• Robyn Banks
• Robin Holmes
• Rodney Marsh
• Roger Moore (real)
• Rose Hedge
• Russell Russell
• Sally & Carrie Mee
• Sam Hain - b. October 31st
• Seymore Cleverley - Optician
• Stuart Prince
• Tom Bell
• Walter Lilley
• Wendy Merryweather
• Willy Lord

I remain really excited about RISC-V, and am delighted to see more performant SBCs becoming available. The Sipeed board in particular, since it comes with Debian already flashed, means that RISC-V is on the cusp of the consumer market.

I was delighted that Debian has started work on making RISC-V an official ISA.

And I'm following Marius' work with great interest - Lomiri on Debian makes a lot of sense to me.

So... The prospect of Lomiri on Debian on RISC-V - a real goal.

You know what they say : Trombonists do it in 7 positions.

FWIW I'm still very much an advocate of the Mark Shuttleworth Convergence vision. It's the Holy Grail that makes sense to me.

That's genuinely shocking.

It would mean the diminishing of market share of proprietary US software and hardware.

Linux and *BSD run on RISC-V. RISC-V devices will be shipped with an open source OS and apps. Android users won't even notice / care about what chip is inside their tech.

And it puts app lock-in to the test.

I guess it depends on what operating system you decide to use...

(There's also Shift who make a similar product : https://www.shiftphones.com/en/)

I wouldn't know : I never support them.

:) That's an idea from the film The Interpreter. I like nice sounding words too.

But couldn't that be got around with a vpn or Tor?

Religion, phylosophy and science have all been seeking the answer to this question for so many centuries. It won't surprise anyone when I admit that I don't have the answer!

Another failed author turned librarian? :/

There's Armbian for x86... https://www.armbian.com/uefi-x86/