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Linux-based Convergence Boxes From Rogers Cable
nilstar writes: "Rogers Cable wants to dump (slow) WebTV and move to linux based boxes to connect all the major appliances in your home: stereo, tv, computer, etc. via broadband using rogers@home in a service called "triple play". Will this really happen after MS invested C$600 in Rogers? Here is the press release. As the article here on the star says: 'Rogers Cable Inc. will begin testing a new service next month that turns all the communications, computing and entertainment devices in a home into a high-speed smorgasbord of interactive experiences."' Why do I bet these would only be useful with one company's cable service?
600 Canadian dollars. That's not much.
Even better - I remember the first time I saw a TV remote control which was a little box with one button that would cycle through all 12 (or so) frequencies. Clicked too far? Oops, go around again.
:P
Best part, ofcourse, was the wire from the remote to the TV.
Still, I was seriously impressed.
Convergence is one of those things that just doesn't work out in the ways people predict.
Convergence is generally dumb when you take two items that might as well be separate (TV and VCR), and combine them into one. All you've gained is fewer cables, one fewer power supplies, and a slightly simpler interface for normal viewing.
However, convergence works much better when the converged items share a lot of components. A TiVo and a computer (for example) are fairly similar. You might even say a computer is itself a convergence device, with game playing, word processing et al all merged into one. The cost of making a converged TiVo/computer isn't much higher than that of making one or the other device. You do lose the flexibility in the shared components, but the reduced cost should make up for it.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Why do I bet these would only be useful with one company's cable service?
I couldn't disagree more. I can't believe that Ucentric would be so short-sighted as to limit themselves to only one cable system. Perhaps Rogers will try to give Ucentric a bunch of money for an exclusive license, but I think that would be foolish on Ucentric's part.
This kind of device, if successful, would make the most amount of money if it could be sold to other cable companies, like AT&T, Time Warner, and other cable companies in the US and around the world. If they limit themselves to one cable company, they are severely limiting their revenue potential.
Not to mention I definatly did not submit this 5 times double doh...
sorry bout that
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Sort of. A few months ago, I received an e-mail from the Rogers@Home security department informing me that they did a scan of port 25 on their networks and found that my mailer had mail relaying enabled. I had thought Debian would have had this turned off by default, but I felt like an idiot when I found out it was true. The same e-mail told me the next time they would be doing a scan and if the problem wasn't fixed by then, they would shut down my service. Five minutes after reading the notice, the problem was fixed but this was after the specified date as I had been on holiday during that time. So I sent off a brief email to the Rogers@Home security department to let them know it was now fixed and welcomed them to test it for themselves. The reply I received was rather curt, saying that servers were not allowed as part of the user agreement and that I would have to shut it down or risk losing my service.
WTF? Their notice seemed to indicate that they had no problems with servers so long as they were secure. Needless to say, I didn't pursue the matter any further and just shut my trap. I still have service, by the way.
ian.
ian
Which, unfortunately, consists mostly of pictures of multi-cultural kids at an iMac having a good time.
I mean, there's not even a picture of a product! I take it, then, the product is nothing more than software solution with a hardware reference platform. Bleh...
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
ROTFL... FUD doesn't work on people with competitive pressure. Its delivered goods that count.
M$ takes three tries to get anything right and takes too long to do it. That may work with IT wanks but if you wanna sell something that somebody wants to watch something TONIGHT, you can't afford to wait a year or more as M$ tries to scare off the competition while stealing all their ideas.
A Linux box just trumped M$ where it hurts. In the real world market place.
Kick 'em in the balls.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
A couple of good answers to this one:
(1) There are going to be millions of these things; if they can be attacked successfully, they will be, no matter what the platform.
And, more importantly,
(2) If it were a question of Rogers making its own box, I'd agree with you (subject to argument (1) above). But as it happens, it's looking like a choice between Linux and Microsoft.
(2) If this is so, Linux is a great deal simpler than MS stuff, and is likely to be harder to attack. Looks at the MS web server attacks being posted almost daily - they are all ancilliary functions of the server that are left open by default. Because MS stuff is almost infinitely complex, it's nearly infinitely vunerable.
By going with Linux, which starts simple and builds itself up in layers (i.e. X, etc), you can (at least on paper) stay with minimal complexity, and that's going to mean minimal support expense and minimal vunerability.
Not that people won't try to get in, and not that they won't get in. But it should be easier to fix and deal with in general than the equivalent Windows product.
Hope that helps.
D
----
The point is that MS bought into these cable companies to ensure a market for their products.
Thus by Rogers going to a Linux based system it sends the message that MS's products don't cut it.
MS made a big push into TV by buying into a number of cable companies, buying WebTV, and starting up MSNBC. With Rogers ditching WebTV for a non-MS product it hints that MS's investments in TV may not be panning out. This is news because it shows that MS dominance in desktop OS's and software doesn't directly translate into dominance in other areas.
This contiues a trend seen with MSN (vs. AOL) and WinCE (vs. Palm) and thus may bode well for Linux, at least in the server market, and poorly for the Xbox.
Thus the bigger point is that its desktop monopoly and its bulging bank accounts don't guarantee MS dominace in every market it enters.
Steve M
I had a similar experience with them couple of months ago when they started messing around with DHCP servers - I couldn't get a new lease no matter what I tried, and my old address was taken by somebody else.
It also didn't help that I had one of those blue LinkSys 4-port hubs/routers and no Windows anywhere in sight. The way to milk your static IP from them is to play *really* dumb Windows user("Ummm, where is the Start button?" dumb), and then they'll guide you through step by step. First time around they'll still try to set up your IP settings to use DHCP. Of course, you tell them it's still not working, then they'll have to tell you your new static IP/subnet/gateway/etc. You thank them to the stars, they fell happy, you feel happy. The whole process doesn't take longer than 10-15 minutes (factor in two imaginary Windows reboots). Worked like a charm!
Now I hear they started distributing new version of their client software (Win/Mac only) that also comes with "diagnostic tools" to help you reestablish your connection in case something goes wrong....Hope my little social engineering skit will still work....:)
I just got digital cable from AT&T Broadband, and it came with a Motorola set-top box that is - no joke - wider than my TV. The thing freakin sucks! The manual calls it "Interactive Television." There is absolutely nothing interactive about my piece of crap cable box. It is a step backwards - channel surfing is impossible, because it takes 2-3 seconds to tune in each channel, and you can't go to the next channel until the last one is done loading. My grandparents' 3 year old WebTV changes channels about 50 times quicker than my new box. And the on-screen guide is crap, too. No matter what channel you're on, it starts out on channel 2. The guide can only show a half hour at a time, and there's no way to skip forward by more than a half hour, so if it's 7 AM and I want to find out what's on TV tonight, I have to hold the button down for like a minute! This box sucks!
The thing doesn't even have digital audio outputs or s-video out! Who in the world would make a digital cable box without any kind of hi-fi outputs? Who are they trying to sell this to, anyway?
--
The Ucentric Home Networking Platform consists of a Linux-based operating system, hardware reference design, application server and a host of home networking applications.
I couldn't find source references anywhere on their site.
-ShieldWolf
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
don't forget export EDITOR=vi before the crontab -e or else on most *NIX systems you would end up launching ed.
If grandma has problems with vi, you'd hate to see ed! :)
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
I personally know two people who ran servers on Linux boxes with Rogers@Home. One got one warning, then they pulled the plug. The other person just had the plug pulled on them directly.
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
This kind of idea comes along every once and a while and promises to "revolutionize the way you interact with everything in your home."
Problem is, if there aren't any stereos, vcrs, dvd players with this technology installed in them, then what are the chances there will be? Slim probably.
Furthermore, don't count out MS yet as WebTV is old tech now and still manages to post reasonable sales, the XBox will be the new hardware platform for these types of initiatives from Microsoft, and I have alot more confidence in MS being able to convince Hitachi to put a chip in their stereo than Rogers.
While you did make me laugh, I'd have to point out that your argument makes as much sense as saying:
/index.html
A standard for Internet-based content! Grandma can now access information simply by typing:
telnet www.yahoo.com 80
...
GET
...
and so on and so forth.
Making a low-level standard allows many different high-level interfaces to act similarly, allowing greater choice in interface and the ability to make your own, guaranteed that it will all happily work together.
600 Million American is equal to 600 Canadian
...mistakes.
As a previous employer doing nearly the same thing found out, using Linux in your project will not save you if your management sucks the dot-com dong. Linux will do you very little good if your programmers all came from Windows and the first thing they try to do is implement the MFC API on top of GDK. Linux will not save your ass if the people you contract hardware out to can't hit a deadline to save their company. Linux will help you very little if your programmers never check code into your windows-based version control software. No, Linux is not a silver bullet any more than anything else in this industry.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
MS ivensted $600 in Rogers??? I hope they don't spend it all in one place :)
I think it's supposed to be $600 million dollars.
"The obvious is that which is least understood and most difficult to prove." -- A fortune cookie
Now that would give them an even bigger advantage over anything MS could provide.
Yes, but if those commands worked on all VCRs, and the had an ethernet, 232 plug or even standard IR port, then I could write a C+ program like Cisco config maker. Grandma double-clicks VCR Icon. Grandma clicks record button. Grandma types in time to start record Grandma chooses 1 hour from drop down box. Grandma Checks box to record every week. Grandma checks boxes of days to record. Grandma hits GO, Program sends standardized commands to VCR to record when grandma wanted, Use a small webpad with a 6" touchpanel screen and IR serial and you have the perfect universal remote.
iRepairIT - iPhone, Mac, & PC Repair
The stuff you really need to worry about on a client machine is still a problem under linux or any other OS. Buffer overruns happen in linux and open source won't help against them because updating the firmware in a toaster won't be as easy as on a computer, might even be impossible.
In this particular case I think you would be best off grabbing one of the embedded OS's in the world and go with that. If you want to talk simple then it might even be better to run the applications on the bare metal. Not like a houshold appliance needs much in the way of a filesystem or changable hardware drivers.
As far as SetTop boxes go for i-net and such the key to making that work is either work exactly like what the person uses on thier PC (which would be windows in 75% of the cases) or make it so blatently easy that noone needs to work to learn it. For the former you might as well just use a flavor of windows, for the latter you might as well program bare to the metal and not have an OS per se.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
I can say that they are one company that does not suck.
Their internet cable access rocks! Granted, I've had my share of problems in the past. I was I think the second or third customer in my area, and as more people signed up, things got slooow. But now, about 2 almost 3 years later, it's fast. They upgraded their cables since then. And their reliability wrt to the tv and internet access is really good. And it's been this way for most part. The worst experience was a 3 day down-time due to some idiot cutting the cable while digging in front of his house.
Not to mention the fact that they support static IPs. They don't bother you about IP masquarading, so I can run my four boxes off the same IP (it would be an extra CA$10/month for each additional IP) I know of other providers cough-Sympatico DSL-cough who won't let you do that. They even let you use Linux w/o a problem and I believe that they have tech support for it too.
And they're really cheap. It costs about CA$50/month for the internet (which includes the modem rental) plus CA$30/month for the TV. Which is about US$50. I know people are paying more than that for DSL alone in the US.
The point I'm trying to make, a Linux box replacing the WebTV is great news. And even if it isn't compatible with other providers, it's still ok. I couldn't care less.
As surely as you can bet they'll code it to only with their services, folks like Ken "Codeman" Segler will get one and start reverse engineering (if the hardware is worthwhile and can run linux). He's the guy who reverse engineering the iOpener. Rumor has it he works full-time reverse engineering products, sometimes for fun and sometimes on contract basis for surplus shops.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
You know it would be bitchin-shit to be able to sit down at your terminal and type:
$ telnet jvc_vcr
$ set channel 64
$ set record 11:00pm
$ exit
--
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
600 Canadian Dollar = 457.995 Euro
600 Canadian Dollar = 391.139 US Dollar
After an insult like that, no wonder they're going with Linux.
Convergence of (TV and everything else) makes very little sense! I don't want my CABLE OPERATOR to have control over anything else in my home, even if it does mean I can't watch Star Wars on my alarm clock.
sulli
RTFJ.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Murphy's Law of Copiers
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Convergence is one of those things that just doesn't work out in the ways people predict. Stuffing all the functionality of your TV, VCR, DVD, stereo into one easy-to-use package may sound like a great idea, but things like this never pan out.
Convergence in other areas does, though. Witness:
The Pepper Ball with built-in salt shaker. Now you don't have to have a separate salt and pepper shaker!
The pencil now comes equipped with a handy-dandy eraser located conveniently at the opposite end. Make a mistake, don't go looking for that Art Gum, just flip the pencil and rub!
It comes down to pairing things that are similar enough into one easy to use item. A TV-VCR combo is a good idea. A TV-Stereo combo is a very bad idea.
Dancin Santa
===> An eye for an eye makes everyone blind - MG
I don't see what the big deal is... I've had one of these convergence boxes for quite awhile, its called a "computer".
With it I can
1)Watch DVD and VHS
2)Play any game I wish (through emulators or directly from any system itself)
3)Full stereo with CD support and also this really neat thing that allows you to get music from other people
4)Watch cable and network television
5)Like tivo, choose what shows I want to see when i want to see them by using some special software to "download" them
6)get pay-per-view movies... without paying or renting them
7)dolby digital sound on everything
8)back-up all media formats I want to (including DVDS and CDs)
9)use as a telephone
10)send "email" which is like sending a letter only it gets there quicker and only gets lost 1% of the time
11)Listen to the radio...
12)make my own cds
13)full sound studio
14)full movie studio
15)camera built in, saving the pictures that can be "emailed" later or viewed whenever i want without risk of being damaged
16)using the internet, i can have access to all the information my head can hold if i'm willing to look
17)has a phone book build in
18)a map of the world with direction generators built in
I could go on forever about all the features of this box... but I just recommend you get one...
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
I am curious as to how the CRTC will enforce some sort of Canadian content rules onto this box.
Has this precedent been set yet? I know that CRTC rules certain channels to be mandatory. What about mandatory websites? Canadian music? Canadian movies?