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Free Linux Based Web-Appliances (From Spanish Bank)
El Blasphemouso Padre writes "According to this Reuters
story Intel is building 250,000 AOL-Branded Web-Appliances to be given away by a Spanish bank. It runs Linux and soon many people in Spain with no computer will say hola to Tux!" Gotta wonder what the actual cost is on a box like that if they can give away a quarter million of them.
In the context of secure banking, I can see where a copyright-control mechanism could actually be considered a *GOOD* thing : it could result in decentralized banking systems. Admittedly, initially on a very small scale, but later over time, it'd be quite unique.
... it'll be interesting to see if things pan out, either way.
A non-copyable file is pretty much the same as a lump of gold in a vault. Given enough crypto tech applied, you could have your savings account figure of $54,000 encoded in a non-copyable file, which you can store on your own Secure PC.
Nobody can access it, nobody can steal it (presumably), and nobody can copy it. It's a resource (a 'currency' file) that sits there, on your own system, ad infinitum.
And thus, you can establish means of trade into and out of this 'currency' file, bypassing prohibitively large and expensive banking systems.
From a banking perspective, this SecurePC/FreeAOLTerminal concept is a way of Beowulf'ing things out to the people
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
From Intels site, a list of supported media formats:
.DOC file format.
...
.DOC files are a piece of cake under Linux, but that could change at a drop of a version from MS ...
Most web pages in html format
Virtually all web pages using Java** and Javascript 1.5
Websites and presentations that use Macromedia Flash*
Streaming audio and video in RealPlayer* format
Streaming audio in M3U and PLS formats
Audio in MP3, WAV, MIDI, AU, RAM, RA, and RMP formats
Video in MP1 (MPE, MPG, MPEG), MP2, and AVI formats (there is also limited support for MOV)
Graphics Images in GIF, JPG, JPEG, JPE, TIFF, BMP, PNG, PPM, and XPM formats
Text and other documents in PDF, ASCII, and HTML formats
Notice some things missing?
1. MS Word
2. MS streaming media.
3. Apple Quicktime (.MOV/.QT).
To say nothing of the countless codecs that are only available under MS/Apple realms
So, AOL/Intel is now going up against MS/Apple. There is no way in hell MS is going to give MS streaming to any other platform, and the same goes for Apple (though that may change in their case).
Admittedly, MS Word
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I assume that it is using Mozilla but can't see anywhere on the page that confirms it.
As for your comments, think about it this way, they're not going to use hardware that is gonna make mozilla crawl are they? Also a lot of performance work is going into mozilla ready for version 1.0
I assume that this web appliance will be using the Mozilla rendering engine and if a lot of these web appliances get out on the market it'll do a great job to increase Mozilla's market share meaning that people will finally have to develop web sites that conform to web standards.
I come across a lot of crappy sites that use some IE specific HTML or JavaScript that break under moz but with very little effort this page could be modified to work under Mozilla (and Netscape 6) and IE. But most refuse as they're too ignorant to realise that not everyone can or wants to use IE.
But does it run Linux?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Actually, for a bank, the cost of giving away terminals like that should be a fairly good deal. The cost of staffing the banks with tellers, security and other costs make it a huge win for every customer that chooses to do their routine businness via the web rather than in person. An estimate I've seen is that every bill paid in person will cost the bank about $2. With five bills a month ($10), the perminal will probably have paid for itself after 2-3 years. Considering that somebody who has switched to internetbanking probably will continue to use it, a one time cost per customer of $300 or so is probably a good bargain.
/Janne
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
One important thing is that this puts a number of users at a "standard user" level. People with these stations will not be able to use ActiveX controls, not be able to view Microsft word documents and in general not be able to access non-open standard material.
The more users in the world who do not have the ability to access closed format information the more pressure on information providers to provide open standard information.
The other possibility is less attractive.
This is rather likely to be extremely limited in what you can do with it. If you can do more than surf the web and send e-mail I'd be surprised. I wouldn't be entirely surprised to find that limited to AOL and the bank's site, either.
Now. Imagine a whispering campaign here. Nothing official, just MS and others - sadly, schoolkids will be a pretty potent force here - putting the word around. This thing isn't good for much. You want a proper computer. This runs Linux. My proper computer runs Windows. Hopeless logic, no thoughts on causality, but the link is in people's minds.
Rather rapidly, without any real effort, Linux is into people's minds and as a toy. Far worse for it than people simply not knowing about it at all, as the toy perception can be really difficult to shift. Trust the British Amigan here.
Could go either way for MS. Could help AOL quite a bit. Can't do much positive for Linux from what I can see...
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Intel isn't the big player in this deal, its AOL/TW. AOL did the deal with the bank for distribution, Intel was just selected to provide the hardware. Definitely a score for Intel but seeding the open market for AOL subscribers is what this deal is about.
Only 1 in 10 homes worldwide currently has a PC and room for growth in this new market is now best found not in the U.S. market, Welch said.
This is a general trend of the media giants, the US market is "mature" so there's not as much room to grow, so they go abroad. This is what's referred to when you here the phrase "US cultural imperialism".
This is particularly disturbing because its the Internet, AOL/TW is trying to corner the Internet market in a whole country. The markets that they are going to push into aren't going to have an Internet that developed in the noncommercial way that it did in the US, they are going to be commercial from the get go.
Nobody can access it, nobody can steal it (presumably), and nobody can copy it. It's a resource (a 'currency' file) that sits there, on your own system, ad infinitum
Ugh... barf. And if my hard drive goes bad, or my memory goes bad, or my processor goes bad, etc. I've lot.. what was it? $54,000. And because these "secure PCs" cannot be backed up, it is simply gone forever. Trust, me, if I was forced to use this thing, and it lost $54,000 irretrievably, or even inconveniently, I would load the thing up with explosives and hand-deliver it through the front window at Microsoft.
Secure PC is a bad idea, no matter how you cut it. They are offering to sell you less freedom. For the low, low price of $bondage!
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Basically, anybody with a pulse can use AOL. My 14 year old daughter refuses to use it anymore, stating "All it's good for is chatting and I can get that for free everywhere else! I think AOL is for people that are to stupid to understand how to surf the real internet.". Smart kid... Anyway, I think it's pretty cool that they chose Linux for the base OS. Does this mean we're about to get bombarded with AOL for Linux CD's, offering 5,000,000 hours (useable only in the first month, of course)?
Dive Gear
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
Now the bank has lots of cuctomers using their terminals. Sure, it runs Linux. Sure, it can access the web. Sure, you can install your applications on it. but will you?
The next logical step is for the bank to open a server farm to allow it's customers to access all types of applications with X Window servers localy.
"But it's not MS Word, I need MS Word!" OK, for a slightly(?) higher fee, you can have access to out Citrix Server farm, and have access to a full suite of Microsoft applications.
Selling points for this could include the fact that your data is "In a secure enviorment that gets backed up daily" and "You will always have the latest version of the application" and all the other reasons that thin clients are deployed.
Once they have you "locked" into their hardware, and software, they can offer you all sorts of "services" that just might look pretty attractive to some folks out there. Thse folks are the same folks that would not mind AOL as an internet service provider.
Heck, maybe the Bank isn't going to provide the server farm, maybe it'll be AOL/TW...
I'm not saying that this is really a bad thing. It's just a thing.
-Joe
Looks better than the Audrey.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
i don't see where is say "free". this is an AOL/Intel/spanish bank deal.
there is also a service involved called "avant" that AOL recently puchased....
somehow, i seriously don't all of this is free.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
It's an ugly looking thing.
This maybe the start of something that could turn into an AOL/OS. (much rumored for many years) Even though based on Linux, it would be sure to give MS the cold sweats. Most people do not care what the brand name is beyond simple functionality.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
They sell the terminal for a low price.
A lot of adult people in Spain doesn't have a PC or doesn't know how to use it, selling this terminal the bank says "With this device it's easy, and it is not an expensive PC". And some times they will forget to say that the customer could do it with a PC, as easy as with the terminal, and with the PC they can do a lot of things more. Computers illiterate bussiness managers will buy it because it is more safe.
The bank will earn a lot of money selling this. Trust in me, it's more than a fair deal, it is a wonderful fraud.
Excuse my bad English, I'm from Spain
People don't understand to an International government and an International chip monopoly the hardware is pennies. It's the software that costs $$$$. AOL, Intel, & Spain must have learned what the l33t kids have: Linux is a car with its doors unlocked, just waiting to be taken for a joy ride.
Unless we can actually turn it into a buisness model which doesn't involve restructing the world economy, it's going to be nothing more than a corporate scapegoat for those who don't want to pay the great MS monarcy's tax.
Great way to take over, but at what cost to the true fundamentals of what the system set out to be?
Linux has been reduced to a happy meal toy. I wish more people would understand the difference between open source and free...