Cells: Lightweight Virtual Smartphones | Hacker News Reader

Cells: Lightweight Virtual Smartphones

systems.cs.columbia.edu

75 pointsjcr6 comments

This appears to be from 2011. Must not have panned out. I noticed that they were concentrating on running apps and didn't get into phone capabilities such as dialing, receiving calls, etc. Likely would need dual sims...

Actually, the various papers on the page range from 2002 to 2012, but the source code repository is active as of January 2014 from what I looked at.

Source release is from late last year and the licensed startup is still around. Solution for telephony is addressed in the SOSP paper.

I realize it's not the most credible source, but there was a purported leaker a few months ago on 4chan that claimed Google is getting ready to turn Android into something like this. He even claimed to have a prototype device. I'm taking it with quite a bit of salt, but the supposed leaker seemed at least somewhat believable in conversation.

I was thinking that would be an issue but I wouldn't mind using the other operating system as a non-cellular. It would probably be possible to pass data between them or even have both operating systems pulling down just data and only 1 that would be cellular.

GPS for both might also be an issue.

I could also see this being used in other fields (such as military) where there would be advantages to isolating important applications in their own OS environment and being able to have another that would act as normal android (web browsing, communications, smaller apps).

I ran into a company at a conference recently that was doing something similar to this, but higher up in the software stack. It was basically a limited environment for containing all of your business related apps, which could be administered by the IT department.

This sounds pretty cool to me because the company I work for recently changed their Google Apps account to us Google Apps Device Policy, which gives the company privileges that allow them to examine and remotely wipe the entire phone. I've chosen to go without Google Apps access on my phone rather than approve those permissions.

I'd much prefer accessing business-sensitive data within some kind of container or sandbox my employer controls.

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