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First Internet Appliance With BeIA - From Sony?
A reader writes: "SONY has announced at CES2001, their "Network Entertainment Center", eVilla, which is basically an Internet appliance powered by BeIA. For an enlarged screenshot, zing has got some. For more information, visit eVilla's homepage www.evilla.com. An Internet appliance with a journaled filesystem, not bad."
My grandmother has asked about getting internet access a number of times. We've resisted because she lives a hundred miles away from her nearest computer-using relative. We're all afraid of having to support her over the phone.
Realistically, I don't think my mom has used her home PC for anything but web browsing and e-mail in over a year.
And if/when .NET takes off, your front end system will be substantially reduced to the point where it's feasible that an appliance like this could host remotely distributed .NET applications. With the included ethernet connection, a system like this could very well be all one needs to run a suite of .NET applications. If this is a coming trend, Sony is wise to get capable hardware out there early.
I am pretty sure that you can already get a screen like sony's, except that you can rotate it when the wide ratio makes sense. For example, movies look better on a wide screen. You can lose the top and bottom black bars that always make you feel like you are "missing" something. Also, a wide screen can be split into two slightly narrow screens letting you see more at once. As for code, I know a lot of people that only print code landscape so they can see long lines. Sometimes wrapping (automatic or manual) makes the code harder to read. Just my 2 bits...
-- soldack
The reason is the same as for cinemascope: it's more similar to your field of view. Why look at something with an aspect ratio of 2:3 when your field of view has as a ratio of 5:3 or something similar (I don't know the exact number)?
I would much rather see a landscape display with a browser that would automatically display the document in two columns (make the window half the width of the screen, and what doesn't fit into the first window is displayed in the second one right of it - scrolling would be coupled of course, and you could actually scroll *sideways* through the pages. That would make much more sense, since then you would have a 2D layout instead of 1D.).
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
Well, for one thing, the form factor is definitely going to be attractive to a certain type of people, for the same reason the iMac was appealing and the VAIO sub-notebooks have been so successful. Ain't nuthin' but a style thang, baby. The portrait view in particular seems like a great idea for web surfing.
Another strength, too, is that Sony was hopefully able to keep the cost down somewhat by going with BeOS instead of the WinTaxME or WinCe. And I also hope that Be derives a sizable profit from licensing. They've been busting their butts to put together a truly innovative OS for quite a while, and it's high time they started to receive some return on their investment. What with all the open source hooplah, Be has generally been overlooked for the slender, high-quality operating system that it is.
Anyway, I think Sony Corporation has some of the same types of problems that IBM has to deal with; the fact is, they are a huge, widely distributed "company" that has long since passed the point where you could actually look at it as one singular entity. Face it; we're not talking about some huge multinational conglomerate here; no sir, we're actually talking about one of the numerous multiple smaller companies that comprise Sony Corporation.
Sure, their view on copyright law is royally fucked. Absolutely, Memory Sticks should be banned. And, yeah, they have screwed some people over and screwed some things up, but that doesn't mean that they're not going to come up something new and cool every once in a while.
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In answer to "who will buy this" the answer is my wife and milliosn of people like her.
PCs, particualrly Windows machiens, are inherently unstable and too hard to use and keep running. Anyone with a non-technicl person in their family knwos this and there are many many many tioems more of thso ethen us techno geeks.
Unfrotunately, Sony missed a key service-- word processing. If this thing had word processing or if a really good web-based word-processor existed they would probably have a huge hit on their hands. As is my wife can't use it.
I'm a loyal Be user, and I'm happy Be has got a deal with Sony and Intel (intel is also releasing a BeIA web pad) However, I must say that Internet Appliances are going to flop. Why? Simply because they are based on the wrong model. Their mantra is that the internet should be fun and easy. Their underlying assumption is that it is not fun and easy and will not be fun and easy based on the cuurrent PC model. I believe this is fundamentally flawed. Their solution to this 'problem' is to create a myriad of devices- separate and limited appliances that do one or two things and do it well. And while marketing executives at companies like Sony, Intel, Microsoft and Compaq develop new applications, software, and hardware peripherals that enable the PC to do more and more, they are simultaneously developing products that do less and less, but do it supposedly faster, easier, and more simply. The point is simply that in the future, the PC will be the appliance. We are already seeing signs of it. Apple, INtel, Compaq and Sony all have computer models with DV options to edit and store digital video. Say goodbye to the VCR. It is also in the works to have af ully networked home piping mp3 music through to every room in the house, say goodbye to individual stereos. PC's can already do email, http, ftp, and instant messaging quite well (and no, it's NOT that difficult to get online, it was somewhat difficult 5 years ago, but with Earthlink, AOL, and other huge providers and their software, anyone can do it). Simply put, as PCs get more power to do more diverse things, they will become the total appliance and make these email and web machines obsolete. And as the software improves, it will be easier to get on the internet than it already is. The whole INternet Appliance craze seems to me to just be bogus.
Your post makes no sense on multiple fronts.
1. Be is focusing on BeIA for one simple reason: Money. If they don't focus on BeIA, they die. And BeOS along with it. If they focus on BeIA and make money, perhaps BeOS will thrive again.
2. BeIA has a 4.0 Opera browser that supports Java, flash, RealMedia, and any other media format supported by Be.
3. You honestly think Be had a better shot in the desktop OS market, going against an established Microsoft, Linux, and Apple market? Or in the IA market, where there is no established monopoly OS provider, and Be's OS fits the bill perfectly (witness the recent announcements).
4. You said "vendors will eventually opt for linux because of the lack of licencing costs." If that were true, and using Linux was so much cheaper to use, why didn't Sony choose them? Or Intel (which owns a stake in some Linux companies)? Or FIC? Or Qubit? Or Compaq?
Try again... Next please!
"And like that
I like the portrait display orientation. This really makes more sense than landscape.
I've never understood why monitors have continued to have a wide aspect. When reading text, it's easy to lose one's line when advancing a line after scanning too far left and right.
More vertical space means less desk space. It offers a representation more closely resembling a conventional page of text. It means more lines of code (check out the amount of wasted screen space next time you're programming). The advantages are many, yet I haven't seen a new monitor with the portrait orientation in a LONG time. :/
Internet appliances are a classic example of a misguided inventor trying to use technology to fill a need that doesn't exist. Few people are going to buy a Internet appliance just because it's shiny and new, and there's no real void the systems fill. You can already get Internet access through your PC, a device at least a third of all Americans now own.
Everything an Internet console does can be duplicated by more feature-rich systems. Believe it or not, most people are actually capable of turning on computer and clicking on their web page. It's just "all-in-one" home entertainment systems like the ill-fated 3D0 or PS2 -- companies expected them to be a big hit because they're simple, but no one needed one. People are smarter than you think.
The most successful products are the ones that fulfill an actual desire. Granted, sometimes consumers don't really know they'd benefit from the introduction of a given product until it's actually introduced, but the long history of failures that "Internet appliances" have met indicates that there's not much interest in these kind of products.
Neat to see BeIA getting some use, though...
Yu Suzuki
Yu Suzuki
Deamcast. It's thinking.