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Nokia's $400 Linux Terminal For The Masses
acoopersmith writes: "In the San Jose Mercury News coverage of the recent Consumer Electronics Show was this article about the new Nokia "Media Terminal" - a device that's designed as a cross between a TiVo and a WebTV, but which is really a Linux PC, including USB& FireWire ports for attaching additional storage, scanners, and printers, and other expansion capabilities. Has the hacker-friendly "appliance" finally arrived?"
Well, Nokia is finish but the terminal is Swedish! It is developed mainly in Linköping, Sweden by Nokia Home Communications. The Linux is in the bottom Red Hat. The box is Open Source with restrictions to the lowest parts of the plattform and the Nokia branded Navibars(TM) navigation system. There will be a developer site up and running hopefully whitin the month. The idea with the site is to let anyone get hold of the info to get started with developing for the box. Macromedia is not a file format or a communication format but a company responible for a couple of web techniques called Flash and Shockwave.
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-Be a man. Insult me without using an AC.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
I guess the challange now is to try and hack windoze onto it. How dare those corporate fat cats tell me what os to run on my machine :)
I wonder which is the bigger challange... installing linux on a tv box designed to run windoze, or to install windoze on a tv box designed to run linux?
There are basically three hard things the TiVo (and I hope Nokia's box) does:
If you did this as a home project you can ditch the drool-proof interface. You can ditch the "very little RAM", and you can apply a lot more CPU, or maybe you can find a MPEG codec chip with actual docs. It is still a lot of work. Oh, and for a homebrew version you will need a source of TV Guide info.
It is a lot of work. Doable, but still a lot of work.
As far as hardware in the TiVo, it has a tiny bit of RAM (16M? 8M?), a MPEG codec, and a fairly slow PowerPC, like 50Mhz (the MPEG codec does most of the lifting), and fast, but not "AV" IDE drives. They sell for $399 new. If they had an ethernet it would be a no-brainer to get one of them and hack it (you can get to the Bash prompt easy, all you need is a cable, you don't even need to open the case!). A 30G disk is probably a good size.
You won't save money doing it yourself. You may end up with a better toy (at least better for your needs). Hell you may end up with a viable product. You may have fun. You will not save time. Or you could end up with another pile of hardware you arn't using, and another project abandonded before completion. I bought the TiVo, but I have a few other things I'm working on just now...
Ask yourself a question. What is the dominant mode at the beginning of the 21'st century? I would say it is entertainment. Entertainment is the lynchpin of all forms of Human interaction and media these days, from business meetings using projectors and whizz bang graphics to our schools, where children are taught in an entertaining fashion as teachers realise their young minds are used to the compleity and speed of television. Entertainment is what our century will be all about, whether it be in business, education, or government. People in earlier centuries may have strove to be free, or to be educated, or to be saved, but in ours we merely want to be entertained. They were scared of being damned or killed. We are scared of being bored.
Now, the point about this with regard to these new Hacker friendly appliances is that we can see this trend in action. Everything must be entertaining. It is no longer good enough to have a PDP10, with wires sticking out everywhere designed specially for the real hacker. The 21st century hacker must also be entertained.
This is part of a wider trend. It is no longer good enough for a computer OS and GUI to be easy to use - that is 90's and passe. It must be intrinsically entertaining, like Enlightenment is, a little. These new appliances are the first wave of the new paradigm of 21st century computing. We had better get used to it.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
It fits my prediction that boxes with Linux pre-installed will get non-geeks past the 'linux is hard to use' FUD. Things like set-top boxes may actually turn out to be the Linux "killer app" that people have been looking for. Between the Nokia box and hoot kits, we've got it made for introducing users to the power and freedom of Linux.
`ø,,ø!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
>> Has the hacker-friendly "appliance" finally arrived?
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> If it's a robot girlfriend, then the answer is an unqualified "YES".
Robot girlfriend? Sure. Give us a minute to embed the mods.
But how about a web-enabled heavy petting waldo while you're waiting? You got it:
Cybersex Replaces Real Thing with Online Robots
--Blair
"Ohhh, Shania..."
Did I forget to mention I'm running Linux 2.4, which because of it's even minor # is by definition "production quality"? Also, did I remember to say that I've not had USB, or any other part of Linux, crash on me since the 2.0 series? Oh well, it's on the table now.
If you do not call the USB code in the current stable version of the kernel "production quality", then a.) you have not downloaded the latest kernel, and b.) your expectations are so ridiculously high that you really don't have any business running a computer anyways. Lack of drivers is one thing. Flaws in the actual basic USB code itself are an entire other issue, and here Windows has no edge over Linux as far as I can tell. I would advise you to revert back to the venerable IBM typewriter, circa 1981. Mine is still running and definitely hasn't crashed, ever, so I think after 20 years I can conclude it's bug free. For the rest of us, living with bugs in software is a necessary evil. Linux isn't bug free, but as far as USB support goes, it hasn't ever failed me yet. I'd even go so far as to say that it's "production quality".
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Look at Nokia phones. They put games on those too. They have graphics that are inferior to the original GameBoy and sound is pretty much non-existant. But they are one of the most commonly mentioned features in the cellular stores I visit "Which is the one with the games?". Which should Nokia have given people? 400 phonebook entries or 250 phonebook entries and four cheapo games? I dare say Nokia made the right decision.
Look at the newere custom features like downloadable ringtones and graphics. Again, purely fluff. But again, all the teen girls love hearing their phone play "Eninem - Stan" when their boyfriend calls along with a flashing picture of Calvin & Hobbes. Again, features that please consumers.
I really have a lot of respect for Nokia when it comes to taking interesting steps. Motorola opened the door to designer cell phones with their StarTAC series but Nokia perfected it with the 8890. The newer 99xx series that opens like a glasses case to reveal a screen and keyboard is also amazing.
Now, I have been wishing and praying for a company to make a cheap TV->PC bridge for years. ReplayTV almost did it, but disabled their firewire ports due to pressue from TV studios. Nokia I dare say has virtually no connection to any media company at all (at least not until they have 3G phones that can stream video?) so all they care about is selling units...which is precisely what a hardware manufacturer should be concerned with.
If I can buy a box that I can program to record shows and the deliver them to any computer station on my home network, I will buy them, and I will buy many of them. I could care less if it's Radio Shack, Papa John's or Nokia. A ethernet port would be the ultimate but it's not a far stretch from USB and the FireWire storage options would be greatly welcomed.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
There is a problem: how to give cheap net access to the masses so that it becomes as common and easy to use as the telephone.
Sun have been raving about this for years, and is behind both their push on Java and distributed processing: they figure if they provide the infrastructure, then that is where they can make their money.
In Europe at least, Nokia is the premier mobile phone brand (though I use a Motorola v50), and the average consumer:
a) Has heard of Nokia,
b) Has trust in the company, and
c) expects a Nokia device to be easy to use
So bully for Nokia! If they can get these devices into the marketplace then they can probably persuade Joe consumer to buy one.
Has the hacker-friendly "appliance" finally arrived?
If it's a robot girlfriend, then the answer is an unqualified "YES".
Thank you, Nokia.
Linux isn't unpopular because it's supposedly hard to learn! It is not cool. (Cool is a marketing term that means "my hip friends haven't found a use for it yet.")
What makes Linux cool (popularly usable) to the masses? A Web appliance whose software is mostly open source and free, whose programmers are somewhat accessible/responsible to user feedback, and the ability to upgrade and update without repeatedly paying fees and buying licenses.
The appliance's low price may be the key to introducing people to the advantages of Linux.
Goat sex free since 2001
This might sound silly or even a little perverse to experienced computer users, but a new industry fad is to build what could be a decent PC and then cripple it to make sure it doesn't act like one. These hobbled machines often can't download or install software, or read e-mail attachments. Instead of Windows, they run operating systems from Linux, Be or some other company. These crippled machines are called Internet appliances, and they are billed as easy for beginners to use.
Not exactly a glowing representation of Linux.... while the machine itself sounds wonderful, the article is a real piece of junk, treating it like a piece of trash "because it doesn't run windows". Funny that they mention TiVO as one of its "more superior" competitors and don't mention that it too runs Linux.
Ah, well... somebody once said that "bad coverage was better than none at all" so I guess it is a small plus but it would be nice to see a better informed article on the machine.
Specs from the PDF
Software
Hardware
Memory
Network Interfaces
Audio/Video Ouput Interfaces
External Interfaces
Content Protection
Digital Video Recording (DVR)
Power Supply
Dimensions
Environmental Conditions
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
1. More support for Linux USB devices across the board if this grill, er applicance gets popular.
2. People will start to trust Linux. I think that is one of the main things holding Linux back.
3. More people in Linux users groups.
4. They may use this to push HDTV,
5. Finally we will be able to trade our favorite sitcom episodes.
6. Create jobs for Linux Gurus.
http://linux1394.sourceforge.net/
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Games are a secondary idea for this box... Why would you possibly buy this if your primary focus was gamming when you could get an X-Box/ Dreamcast/PS2 for less money? This is something designed for much different pusposes (home entertainment - adding web access, digital recording/playback, and mp3 capabilities to your tv).
It's very possible that hackers will be buying the system to play with it... its also likely that moam and pop kind of deals will buy it to help wrap up a couple of devices into one. Nobody in their right mind willl look to this as a real "gaming machine", the games are only mentioned as a side benifit.