28-Mar-2024 16:00 GMT.
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
[Rant] ...another interesting articleANN.lu
Posted on 30-Nov-2003 18:32 GMT by bbrv56 comments
View flat
View list
Here is a New York Times Magazine article about Apple, the iPod, marketing, product development and management. We contend that this Community can produce a Super TiVo-like device that integrates the network into the use of the content itself. The Pegasos is building block #1 to any competent computing environment and the necessary tool required by the developer support enlisted to customize the platform for consumer use. A Pegasos computer is a desktop machine. A Pegasos computer enclosed in a fan-less VCR-like size case becomes a consumer product: a black box. The Pegasos black box operates equally well with a television screen or a computer monitor. The Pegasos black box could come with its own file sharing and downloading programs -- music, movies, video games – a preference is selected, a source found, the entertainment begins. The technology would be invisible to the entertainment experience. The consumer manages the experience through an easily understood user interface with a remote control or through a web browser and a keyboard for more sophisticated users. As the hub of the Home Entertainment Center high fidelity sound/audio can now be introduced through the 24/7 broadband Internet connection to bring existing home stereo equipment back into use. Here the Pegasos black box can be positioned to be a consumer product that would do to a TV set what MP3 did to music – any show any time.
List of all comments to this article
Sorted by date, most recent at bottom
Comment 1David S Lund30-Nov-2003 17:42 GMT
Comment 2Christian KempRegistered user30-Nov-2003 17:53 GMT
Comment 3shut the f&^%& up30-Nov-2003 18:08 GMT
Comment 4Martin Blom30-Nov-2003 18:08 GMT
Comment 5Kermit Woodall30-Nov-2003 18:11 GMT
Comment 6Johan Rönnblom30-Nov-2003 18:22 GMT
Comment 7bbrvRegistered user30-Nov-2003 18:29 GMT
Comment 8Coder30-Nov-2003 18:33 GMT
Comment 9Trizt30-Nov-2003 19:06 GMT
Comment 10Coder30-Nov-2003 19:09 GMT
Comment 11Anonymous30-Nov-2003 19:10 GMT
Comment 12bbrvRegistered user30-Nov-2003 19:14 GMT
Comment 13bbrvRegistered user30-Nov-2003 19:19 GMT
Comment 14Trizt30-Nov-2003 19:32 GMT
Comment 15Mr. Anonymous30-Nov-2003 19:52 GMT
Comment 16Trizt30-Nov-2003 20:01 GMT
Comment 17Christian KempRegistered user30-Nov-2003 20:06 GMT
Comment 18JoannaK30-Nov-2003 20:21 GMT
Comment 19Trizt30-Nov-2003 20:23 GMT
Comment 20Christian KempRegistered user30-Nov-2003 20:29 GMT
Comment 21Amon_ReRegistered user30-Nov-2003 20:43 GMT
Comment 22bbrvRegistered user30-Nov-2003 20:48 GMT
Comment 23minator30-Nov-2003 21:06 GMT
Comment 24Johan Rönnblom30-Nov-2003 21:54 GMT
Comment 25Kolbjørn Barmen30-Nov-2003 22:00 GMT
Comment 26Johan Rönnblom30-Nov-2003 22:03 GMT
Comment 27bbrvRegistered user30-Nov-2003 22:20 GMT
Comment 28Amon_ReRegistered user30-Nov-2003 22:23 GMT
Comment 29Amon_ReRegistered user30-Nov-2003 22:26 GMT
Comment 30Amon_ReRegistered user30-Nov-2003 22:26 GMT
Comment 31Darth_X30-Nov-2003 22:48 GMT
Comment 32Kolbjørn Barmen30-Nov-2003 22:49 GMT
Comment 33Kolbjørn Barmen30-Nov-2003 22:51 GMT
Comment 34Anonymous30-Nov-2003 22:52 GMT
Comment 35Amon_ReRegistered user30-Nov-2003 23:05 GMT
Comment 36Daniel Miller30-Nov-2003 23:09 GMT
Comment 37Oppressor01-Dec-2003 00:50 GMT
Comment 38Darth_X01-Dec-2003 01:07 GMT
Comment 39Darth_X01-Dec-2003 01:11 GMT
Comment 40bbrvRegistered user01-Dec-2003 01:51 GMT
Comment 41smp26601-Dec-2003 09:02 GMT
Comment 42Trizt01-Dec-2003 09:30 GMT
Comment 43Trizt01-Dec-2003 09:33 GMT
Comment 44Daniel Miller01-Dec-2003 09:50 GMT
Comment 45Daniel Miller01-Dec-2003 10:31 GMT
Comment 46Oppressor01-Dec-2003 11:26 GMT
...another interesting article : Comment 47 of 56ANN.lu
Posted by Trizt on 01-Dec-2003 12:03 GMT
In reply to Comment 45 (Daniel Miller):
First of all, I won't comment the last part, as I know that some readers have other opinions and it's a bit off topic IMHO.

Yes, a mouse is a better tool than a remote to move a cursor, but there is another solution that has been around for a quite long time and I think I have seen it on one remote, trackball, it allows you to be in your bed without any hard surface to move around the cursor as you wish. Of course it will take a couple of days to get used to it, but you will master it quite fast. The major problem today is that things are made for right-handed people, at least 10% of the population is left-handed, so the device should be operateble for both left and right handed persons.

WebTV is one of those early tools, kind like my digital-decoder I have for cable-channels, it can do some basic stuff, but really isn't that good at those other things. Here is the flaw that when they was first thougth, there was a limited things you could do, even on a computer, and gui-design/userfriendlyness is something that has come on later years and many tech people haven't studied any form of design, which tends to have lead to products that haven't always been easy to use.

To make a MMBox based on Pegasos/MorphOS will requier a lot of software, today IMHO MorphOS lacks quite much software and the software that can be run, is many time quite outdated (from the 90s or late 80s). There is a great need to get new software and I think if Genesi can afford that, that when people exchanges their Pegasos to a PegasosII, that the Pegasos would be donated to a software project if they agree on make a MorphOS port of it.
I think there is the same problem with the AmigaOne/AmigaOS4, they too will need a hughe amount new updated software.
At the moment it seems that linux would be the OS of choise if using a PPC based platform, as it has more of the needed software.
Some of thise "problems" can be overcome with getting proper drivers for hardware, which in some cases can be a bit difficult, just look at nVidia, they aren't open enough. But "we" will need a TV-capturing card that supports at least MPEG/MPEG2, if possible even DivX in some format, the graphics card have to be able to handle those things too without the help of the CPU. For getting the phone functionality, you need either a modem card of some kind that supports voice or that you have program for phone-over-tcp/ip and national companies providing a such service (I don't think people in general is perpared to get a subscription on a phone service over internet in a country farfar away and which most likely won't provide you with a portal system where people without an internet connection can call you). I think that a MMBox needs to work as a digital-decoder too, I guess this will be a more difficult taks to solve as hardware (haven't seen any such PCI cards) and I guess the digital-tv-channels will be doubtfull against a software solution, as it's easier to hack to see channels for free. Say we have the PCI card, I think it's important that we don't need to have two cables in for see TV/digital-TV, but just one TV-in.

As I pointed out before, I don't think it's good to create a new protocol to get your movies from your computer, here I think it's really important to use what already is there, samba is a quite good option, but I have a samba free environment and would like to see NFS support, nothing prevents to have both.

Neat extra feature culd be dual display, not everyone has space for two devices to display on, so I guess this could be an option, but could be nice to allow people to do more than one thign at the time, say the kids are playing the new Quake4 while dad and mom watches the new Titanic3 movie. This would requier the possibility to split the sound in a good way (maybe use a 7.1 soundsystem, where 2 of the speakers are dedicated to teh secondary monitor).
Jump...
TopPrevious commentNext commentbottom
List of all comments to this article (continued)
Comment 48Anonymous01-Dec-2003 14:12 GMT
Comment 49minator01-Dec-2003 14:14 GMT
Comment 50Trizt01-Dec-2003 14:35 GMT
Comment 51kalmar01-Dec-2003 14:37 GMT
Comment 52TarghanRegistered user01-Dec-2003 15:36 GMT
Comment 53minator01-Dec-2003 15:49 GMT
Comment 54Trizt01-Dec-2003 16:46 GMT
Comment 55minator02-Dec-2003 09:15 GMT
Comment 56Martin Blom03-Dec-2003 08:31 GMT
Back to Top