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Sony plans to release new toy: Airboard
valmont: "The folks at cnet have this article about Sony's latest toy: The Airboard. It seems to merge all kinds of wild stuff in a pad hooked to a base station with TV Antenna and wireless modem: simultaneous TV and Internet/web browsing, remote-controlling of home appliances. Looks pretty nifty ..." And considering that Sony is hep to Transmeta, I wonder what chip and OS will power this thing.
Me like banna good eat eat mush banna face yummy.
Sony make plans to new toy banna food yummy.
Enlgish me speak hep to transmetta banna...
oh yea, and get some depends man-diapers and i'd be set.
Hell, no. Going to the "smallest room" for a crap would be a pleasure if you could take your internet connection with you!
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
The article says the device locks into the base station... Does that mean that you can only view TV when it is in the base station? When you take it out of the base station, it is a wireless Web pad without TV?
The article says a wireless modem. You can read that as a $30/month subscription to a crappy 9.6Kbs connection.
It seems that all these companies can think of is a way to lock consumers into a ridiculous pay-me-for-a-year contract. I want a base station with all the connectivity options of a standard PC. I want 802.11 wireless networking in the pad and X windows or a functional replacement that would allow anyone to log in and get their personal desktop. NT doesn't cut it since it downloads and stores a bunch of crap on the client. I don't want to waste money on a HD, powerful processor, >4 Megs of memory. I just want to pay for the bare minimum of a remote "display", not a remote "PC".
Another story put the projected price of this thing at $1100(US). I can get last years laptop much cheaper than that, and have much more functionality. The point of cutting out the functionality is to get a lower price, so the Airboard doesn't cut it in this case.
Someone here is bound to have better insight than me. How much would it cost to design a display that has a 9 inch screen, 802.11 modem, minimal memory processor and ROM, and that boots off the network? The price for the first unit would have to include a wireless NIC for the base station PC. Could this design be open-sourced and built cheaply? Could a small office, around 2 to 10 people, benefit from a system with one central server and several portable, remote displays?
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
But this is not an Airboard! An airboard can be seen in Back to the Future part 2
Actually, an Australian comapny is marketing a personal hovercraft called the AirBoard. The inventor says he was originally inspired by BttF2. They are a bit pricey though, around $7,000 (I think that is Aussie dollars, but the web site its pretty vague.)
They can go 25 kph, but aren't marketed as street legal, so you're supposed to use them in your yard, or at the beach. However, since they don't have wheels, I don't think they can be classified as vehicles, and unless a cop has authority to arrest for illegally operating an aircraft, I bet you could take it on most public streets where it is safe to drive that slowly.
The website seems to marketing them as an alternative to go-karts for amusement rides.
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Just kidding, although sometimes Sony is innovative, mostly they are just corporate. And this comes from a frequent supporter of Sony products...
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Sony's been making some cool (albeit very spendy) wireless products lately, including a base station that seems to attach to a 10 base T network hub for a 300 foot radius of wireless access, and wireless ethernet cards to go along with it. I'm sure their other products are striving for interoperability as well, with the exception of the Memory Stick which should DIE DIE DIE YOU PROPRIETARY BASTARDS.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
Have you guys ever heard of a grammer check? Seriously, it took me like 30 seconds just to make sense out of the title to this post, then timothy's links were absolutely horrible in grammer. Drink more Mountain Dew, timmy.
What short memories you have. Look I realize I'm probably going to troll myself out of existence. But remember what that VP "Steve Heckler, senior vice president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. According to him, Napster WILL lose, because "The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what." . . . "We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC."
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/08/23/0212232_F.sI'm NOT going to buy anything at Sony. All that technology that is mentioned (all vapor IMHO) will make sure that this guys fantasy will be a reality. Look, don't buy Columbia records. Don't watch Sony movies. Don't buy their computers and certainly don't buy their consumer electronics. Multinationals corporations that control content, distribution and the devices that play them are evil.
Really. Who could you trust more than Sony intertainment corp? I mean, who better to supply and monitor your internet usage than the people who threatened to "build personal firewalls around everyone's computers, if that was what it takes to stop intellectual theft"?
After all, there's no more respected voice in freedom of ideas, freedom of speech, and all those other nifty ideals that large parts of the net are founded upon. Just ask Connectix, Offspring, or anyone connected with DeCSS!
[/sarcasm]
Out of curiousity, does this support the standard wireless protocols? Would it work with an Airport base station?
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
The AirBoard seems interesting enough, but has two major faults:
/. Geek crowd) are a little smarter than that, have you never heard of GNU/Linux or OpenSource? Try and replicate the ideals displayed there, you'll thank us for it.
1) Memory Stick - the BetaMax of Flash Memory - doomed to failure, and destined to take all its 'supporters' devices to the scrap yard, and money with them.
2) Sony's Home Network AV/IT Gateway yadda yadda yadda - have these people never heard of TCP/IP & Ethernet? USB/IEE1394/Bluetooth etc? Like I need a home full of proprietary Networked devices. I wouldn't even consider buying any Sony product that requires another SONY device to 'communicate'. What the hell are they thinking?
Attention Sony: Stop trying to take over the world w/ your proprietary BS! First adopters (the
Tell your neighbours/friends/relatives to:
I wonder what chip and OS will power this thing.
;-)
Betcha it won't be an Itanic^H^H^nium.
Won't be a P4, neither, unless we want all the gold medals in weightlifting in the 2004 games.
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Chief Frog Inspector
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If this is true, we are going to have not couch potatoes but couch pumpkins. As it is, a large population is already overweight with eating chocholate and sitting with their TV remotes. And now this, they'll never get out of their seats and grow huger by the day. Maybe they should start manufacturing seats with some agitator or exerciser so that their bodis can work while they are vitually bound to their seats.
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
If they're going to make a device that dials up their provider, I don't even want to know. However, if they're going to build something that has a base station component, so I can attach it to my local LAN, and have wireless internet anywhere in my house without the cost of a laptop, cool.
Applications like
I had a couple of other ideas, but they went away. Think: anything you could do with a slim, A4 size PDA screen?
... and today's pet project has
there's also a link at the register that's pretty interesting.
it talks about how the airbord is supposed to bridge the digital divide for those who don't have computer access. ironic being that it costs more than one.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Vaporware all the way. Why's that you ask? Well for starters there's no specs. Anywhere. Next: can you possibly imagine how much it costs to build such a thing? The touchscreen itself will cost you an arm and a leg. If it's lucky enough to get through the design stage; this thing will die on the market. There's no way Joe User will buy this thing: "5000 BUCKS FOR A FREAKIN' COMPUTER!? SCREW THIS I'M BUYING AN EMACHINE!" This thing is supposed to appeal to the people caught on the wrong end of the "Digital Divide", just like the Web TV. Guess how well the Web TV is selling. In fact the only demographic that would ever buy this thing are the geeks. Last time I checked there's not exactly a nerd on every block.
A shame though... it would have made such a good toy.
Who is going to firewall Napster on our very PC's? Sony.
Who is a member of both the MPAA and RIAA? Sony.
Sorry if I care very little for Sony and anything related.
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I'd install FreeBSD before I'd install Linux.
Kewl, now we will be able to hack Slashdot while watching TV in the tub.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Just a reminder:
*PART* of Sony is hep to Transmeta. Another part is hep to the RIAA.
This is a big company. This thing could come with Carnivore Lite. =)
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end communication
I bet i end up sitting in front of my computer holding this amazing remote device. I won't have to EVER get up. Only if they could have a mountain dew drip, i'd never have to leave my desk.
oh yea, and get some depends man-diapers and i'd be set.
Now, I know this is proper News for Nerds, and some Nerds don't care squat about the Napster thing, but anyone remember:
Aug 23, 2000: Sony VP on Stopping Napster
"The [music] industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams. It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what... Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this... We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC."
Whether you give squat about Napster, you do need to remember that this is a corporation who apparently wants to sell you on products which will be the gatekeepers to your access to the internet. Not for your convenience, but to protect their REVENUE STREAMS. (Read: not artists, not property, not people, but HOW MUCH MONEY THEY CAN GET FROM YOU )
Granted, that's what most companies are after, but many seem to do it more tactfully than this. I've canceled my future purchases of Sony hardware and products (although I admit the PS2 is tempting) because of this stance. Not advocating an organized boycott, but I figured I might be yet another one of those people who won't let this down.
I mean they're counting on you to be a goldfish:
"Not in MY PC, not in MY CABLE MODEM!
Not in MY-- ooh... shiny, purple.. buttons... VaaaaIIIIIooo.."
9:45am - wake up and roll over.
9:50am - devour tube of scrambled eggs w/ french toast.
10:00am - Reach over and switch on "Airboard".
10:05am - Begin day of telecommuting, teleconferencing and all kinds of telecrap!
6:45pm - you feel sleepy, use "Airboard" to switch on TV across the room.
7:20pm - Nothing on TV, you switch everything off and roll your lard ass over and go back to sleep. You've had a busy day you little buckaroo! Get some rest, you deserve it.
No thanks, I like actually doing physical work and exercising.
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Vote Homer Simpson for President!
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