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Intel Releases Red Hat Based Netpliance
waldoj writes: "Intel has announced their "Dot.Station," a Red Hat-powered Internet appliance. With a price around $500, I think I'll just buy an eMachine..." I wonder how much the marketroids were paid to come up with the name... the article is fairly skeptical, and I don't see enough non-vapor to know for sure.
These appliances are supposed to be cheap or free with long term service contracts. For the most part, these fees are similar to standard dialup access (in some cases, like that of Virgin, much less). What isn't considered in this pricing model is that appliances are intended to become a normal part of the home. You may have a set-top box in your living room, an I-opener-like device in your kitchen, a PDA in your pocket, and a webpad in your bedroom. If we're really expected to pay for service and not the devices themselves, it becomes almost impossible to fulfill the purpose that internet appliances were meant for in the first place: ubiquitous access. I'd much rather keep spending $20 a month for access from my ISP and drop a few hundred bucks on whatever appliances that I want then spend $200 a month covering all of the service fees that keep the "free" machines working.
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
Put the thing in the bathroom is what I say! There could be a weblog for just such an appliance. Crapdot, perhaps! Honestly. Give me a bathroom without the same old magazine I've been leafing through for a month! Anyway, i'm off to register FREEJOHN.COM.
Ham on rye, hold the mayo please.
thelocust[dot]org
So, Intel ship it to ISPs, who ship it to users. The ISPs will, therefore, be shipping a *lot* of GPL software, which is great. I'm sure they'll all make the source available (by FTP or whatever). But wouldn't it be nice if they made a point of informing the users (who will probably not know about free software) that they get a whole load of important rights with these systems.
If this sort of Linux-powered device becomes popular (and I think they will - even if not in this incarnation), I think it would be sad if the users didn't know how the software is developed and the freedoms it gives them. Most probably won't care, but it could make a difference to a significant number of people.
Perhaps the GPL should have a clause requiring distributors to specify clearly that software is under GPL.
The downside of shipping lots of Linux boxes to relatively non-technical users is the potential for extra load on the IRC channels and mailing lists where Linux support usually happens. A bit like the September that never ended. I know that RedHat, LinuxCare etc would be delighted to offer support, but you can't use free software for long without realising that excellent support is avavilable for free.
Share and Enjoy.
Intel has a press release here that describes the Dot.Station, and has pictures! The unit seems to be the first aimed at service providers rather than the consumer. The Intel System Management Suite "will [allow the service provider to] be able to use the software management tools to manage customer accounts, update software, and perform remote diagnostics. This features helps service providers contain costs while providing a high level of customer service".
Looks like a good product for its intended market.
- Crusadio
While I am sure that the Dotstation will be a cool appliance that I will be drooling all over. I am not sure that it will be my favored alternative. Many of intel's products are a little bit steep on the price margin if you know what I'm saying. As the internet appliance market is really aimed more towards people who don't want to buy/use computers, I think that this will be a bit out of the price range of what they really want. However, I think that it will do well simply since Intel is marketting it, and when they really care about a product, they sell the hell out of it.
Eh...
- Will it be RPM based?
- Will it use GNOME?
- Will it be standard Red Hat Linux?
I think that Intel is just using the Red Hat name for marketing purposes and has no real plans for the product.-o Disclaimer: My employer doesn't even agree with me about C indentation style. o-
What sets this apart from the other net appliances out there? It uses Linux (which is cool), but other thna that (and a few others also fit that statement), it is yet another "almost computer". Why is Intel getting into this crowded market one has to wonder?
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.
The most redeeming part of this particular article was Intel's for-once genius move. They plan not on targeting the device toward individual consumers, but to businesses that provide internet services to their customers. I for one have been kicked out of many a cyber-coffeeshop for messing with the system. Intel seems almost to be paving the way toward the future portrayed in sci-fi, that of an internet connection as ready as a payphone. Not many other companies share that as a vision for a product. With that strategy, it would be nothing to get Telco support in this.
"I'm not even supposed to BE here today!"
1) The modem is a cheap piece of junk that will a) never connect at over ~30k and b) die within 2 months
2) the USB ports on these puppies are wickedly FU-- which is to say very inconsistant. They'll support a USB ZIP drive, but not a USB modem, for no appearent reason. eMachine's tech support just scratches their heads on this one.
Much Love,
"S"HM
*****
(I refuse to spellcheck out of contempt for your belief system)
You got it. I recently ripped into a guy who wrote an editorial about how Microsoft didn't have to worry about Linux (one of his points involved comparing revenue, how clueless is that!?). One of my main points was to look beyond the traditional desktop PC, toward "appliance" devices and others. Linux is a much better fit for these types of things than Windows.
Linux activists don't really want to talk about these types of machines because they don't really interest them. These machines are supposed to be easy, dumbed-down, even a bit boring. They're Linux-Lite. Intel or other companies probably won't open source anything they write for them and even if they do it'll be software of little interest to most Linux-using Slashdot readers.
That being said, I think this type of news is really good news. Imagine kids for whom the appliance is the first computer. When they want to move up to a "real" PC, they'll be more likely to choose the OS with which they are already familiar. The Linux brand will be embedded in their little brains like cigarettes and cars with breasts (er, nevermind). It's another step toward World Domination.
Probably RedHat, with a copy of X11 and Netscape. I assume that it will cut most of the administrative and office utilities, and keep only the media ones that are used as internet plug ins. If they are smart, they will keep the IRC software in there, and the FTP software, which they probably will leave both the console and gui versions of. RPM will obviously be the package manager, and probably there will be systems to make web upgrading more "userfriendly" as it were. Gone will be gimp and such utilities, it will be stripped to GUI and internet junk, all of which can fit on a fairly small drive, and with identical images, fairly simply administered. The one interesting factor will be the security model that they implement. I am sure that they want to enable the user to install upgrades, but will they circumvent this to increase security?
Eh...
Correct me if I'm wrong... but isn't this one of the first (if not THE first) full computer that Intel has put out? That would be rather interesting, because they wouldn't have gotten their hands dirty with Windows!
Will they require the users to change their passwords?
Will they set the machines up to automatically update their software?
It would be relatively dangerous of them to dump a few million of these out there all with the same root password. I hope that they include instructions on changing the password/so forth. They really should include such things to enable proper administration.
As for autoupdating, that's probably a given, or at least some bastardization, er, uh, simplification of web update scripts.
Eh...
So much breath is wasted in the Linux activist community on the comparison of Linux with Windows on the desktop. But surely that's a dead market not long from now. With huge bandwidth and mass-market consumer applications, we can start again to think about what computers can do.
.doc - let MS have that if they want. It's about multimedia, ubiquitous, embedded, mobile processing and 'experience' of the computer's manifestations all around us, transparently.
It's not just
So Linux, running on ARM, MIPS, 68000, etc, etc can be the compact, reliable, efficient, open, free kernel that forms a foundation to start building upwards again for the new wave of technologies and applications, leaving that Redmond dinosaur in the dust....
AOL's taking up Linux, and now Intel. If you forget the MS battle, things are really hotting up. You can get Linux on many PDAs, now set-top boxes, a games machine (Indrema), etc. Judge Linux by its penetration into the new wave of set-top, mobile, embedded machines and applications. Mass consumer apps, not office apps. This is bigger than even the Borg could have dreamt of.
Push multi-platform Linux, small-machine Linux, 3D games Linux. Forget the old 2D desktop Linux.
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Dere's a storm a-comin'...
Has anyone looked at the picture of this thing? It's huge for a web appliance.
It looks like over a foot deep. One of the things that makes the Netpliance
I-Opener so attractive is it's incredibly slim form factor.
This thing reminds me of the first handheld cellular phones.
Remember how Radio Shack used to photograph them almost
head on to hide the fact that they were 6 inches deep?
Wow, there seems to be quite a divergence of opinion here:
Overrated was probably accurate after four people moderated this up as Funny, but on the other hand it is the funniest post I've seen all day. Right after the first paragraph you should have said "Do not adjust your browser.". Even as it was I almost fell out of my chair.
As a tribute to the gedankenexperiment that I'm replying to, I'm also willing to burn karma by posting at +2. Remember: offtopic, not overrated.
And now for something completely different...
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I guess the name "Dot.Station" is said as "dot-dot-station." That's just as bizarre as the press (Wired does this -- it drives me nuts) writing "dot.com" all the time. "dot-dot-com"? I could see ".com" or "dot-com," but "dot.com" makes no more sense than "Dot.Station."
-Waldo
This article at Yahoo! has some more information, and says the device has a phone and a "household organizer". It also "looks stylish" and has a "silver keyboard."
It also recommends putting it in the kitchen.
wish
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