Sony, Toshiba And IBM To Develop New OS

gaijin writes: "According to this article in the English version of the Japanese newspaper 'Daily Yomirui', Sony will use its experience developing the PS2 OS (hey, wasn't it Linux based?) and work with Toshiba and IBM at the hardware side to create a new OS that 'would allow personal computers and home appliances to exchange huge volumes of data, including the high-resolution graphics of a television screen, through a broadband connection.'"

Comments

Sounds to me . . .

[acceleriter]

. . . like they'll probably be licensing that Microsoft Digital "Rights" Management patent. I would beware of any OS offering from the likes of Sony that claims to be all about media over a broadband connection.

Plusses and minuses.

[Alien54]

Probably would dispense with a gui for most applications. get rid of all that overhead. Especially since the peripheral device (tv, vcr, etc) would supply its own interface. But we have this:

According to the sources, local area networks will be used to connect PCs installed with the operating system to TVs, air conditioners, refrigerators and other home appliances, giving great flexibility in controlling home appliances. But we also have this

Strangely this ties in well with the comments I made (1, 2) on the X Box sequel story The possibility of abuse of any technology has to be watched. This story on the Whitdot website reveals one aspect of business leaders trying to use technology to their advantadge.

There are many advantadges to this technology, but there is the flip side of this.

For example, the X-Box sequel fits nicely into this kind of setup. And obviously MS wants to be in this market. Do you trust Microsoft?

Actually, it is more a matter of the advatadges of the technology vs your trust or lack of trust for the big corporations. Which gets us into the whole Anti Globalist thing. I am not so sure of that as well. It spins out of control into a flame war of the evils of technology vs the evils of no technology really fast.

Interesting...

[A Commentor]

...developing a new operating system (OS) to be released in 2005 for computers capable of high-speed Internet connections...

Ok, 3-4 years(depending on when in 2005 it's released) of development for a new OS. But what is it going to provide...

...OS would allow personal computers and home appliances to exchange huge volumes of data, including the high-resolution graphics of a television screen, through a broadband connection.

Current OSs can transfer large amounts of data, it's the broadband connections that are lagging behind... My P-90 can easily handle the 128Kb/s uplink my DSL provides... And the number of people paying for Broadband is not increasing at the rate everyone expected... The research needs to be how to get faster broadband at a cheaper price.

According to the sources, the firms intend to make the source code of the finished OS available to other companies ...

Even though this looks like open source, they have worded it carefully: 'to other companies', doesn't say 'free' so it could be available to other companies at a price that no individuals could afford it.

Users will be able to store television programs in their PCs and watch them at any time and any place.

Doubtful Sony would allow something like that, without charging a arm-and-leg for it...

Re:Interesting...

[pointym5]

Doubtful Sony would allow something like that, without charging a arm-and-leg for it...

DRM! It's so freaking obvious. It's all about a world where everything is cryptographically secured so that the delivery of copyrighted material - the whole experience - can be controlled by the copyright holder.

Re:Interesting...

[goatboy_14]

And the number of people paying for Broadband is not increasing at the rate everyone expected... The research needs to be how to get faster broadband at a cheaper price.

This is the only thing I disagree with in you're post. As I see it, it's availability, not speed that's keeping broadband away from most people. How far can a DSL or cable signal go from your local telco now, one mile, two? For the other 80% of the world (which unfortunatly includes me), we are stuck with crappy dialup connections. I really feal people need to wake up already and stop researching faster connections and research how to get more distaince for their existing speeds. I would gladly pay $50/mo for a 256k connection and a ping under 75ms. But alas, that's not available in my area. v_v

(Please forgive me for going completely off topic and rambeling on, it's really late here and I'm about to recover from an all nighter pinging at ~500ms. sigh.)

the OS so far is missing...

[dollargonzo]

well, first of all, they seem to be hiding something that the story is not telling us. all the things that they say an OS can do, so can linux and windows and just about every other mature OS on the market today.

if they were developing a new OS, they need to do one thing: the thing that makes the Palm different from the Newton: all data is integrated into the OS, making it very easy to communicate between different programs. that is what most OSs lack. it is very difficult to make programs communicate with each other, except maybe with FIFO files that take up extra space. it is not really possible for one program to write in the memory of another. sure that is 3V1L for desktop and server OSs b/c they are VERY vulnerable, but its perfect for an OS that is supposed to communicate with appliances.

Now, if you have been thinking to mod me down because I did not mention grep on unix..wait right there! grep is a great tool, but it still has its extents. you cannot do everything with grep. programs can use each other's data (making it very useful for doing complicated tasks via simple programs) but they cannot in the full sense of the word intercommunicate. most importantly, grep is essentially a one way connection.

QED

compatability

[signore pablo]

The only good thing to come out of Microsoft as a monopoly is that many devices follow their "standard". Yes, it is true that Microsoft ignores industry standards, but at least they create a conformity that allows many devices to work together without too much of a problem.
Look at the cell phone market in the United States and you will see what a hinderance lack of standards can be. The US is very far behind in cell phone techonology with regards to many other nations, and mostly because of big companies each willing to push their own proprietary technology because they believe they will be profiting more in the long run.
Well, back to the new OS, what's gonna happen here? The description of services offered, control their home appliances via PC, and watch television programs and movies on their PC at any location , sound great, but how are Microsoft and even Apple gonna react to this? They obviously both want a piece of that market share and I'm not sure if they are all willing to conform to each others standards.
Ideally, every company would be small and would have to follow industry standards. These standards would be imposed by a legislation with representation from all the developers. Instead what we get is a couple people fighting like babies over who will dictate the future standard. No one wins, and technology gets screwed.

Re:Don't we have enough OS's already?

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I think that we need more OS's. The Microsoft hegemony and the 'back to the future' Linux are stifiling the development of new OS technology.

We need new blood, not stagnation.

For Televisions

[Perdo]

Sony sells a heck of a lot more TVs than playstations. Perhaps this new OS is aimed at the much more ubiqitious TV market. Combine that with IBM's support of CPRM. Welcome to pay-per-veiw tivo work-alike. Shure would make the MPAA Happy.

Not new but maybe useful..

[MikeFM]

I don't know how many times when hauling my VCD, DVD, consoles, etc around that I've wished they could just jack into the local WiFi network and then the tv could pick the feed it wanted to receive by checking a 'Network Neighborhood' type of thing that looked just like picking a channel. You can send video over a WiFi network without any problems so all you need is a tv smart enough to receive it.

Then to be even better they cold make the power cords optional so you could go 'unjacked' for a while and then just plug the system back in later to play/charge. The PS1 already has battery packs so why not DVD players and newer consoles. :)

Not sure why they need a new OS for it. A simple protocol that agrees on the type of video stream and a way to communicate available channels should work. You could even offer encryption of streams if you wanted to make sure your kids couldn't see the porn your watching. Screw the $400 million. Someone hire me for a year and I'll develop it myself using Linux and standard embedded components. :)

And so it begins ...

[kevina]

And so it begins (like it has not already) ...

What the devil am I talking about, I am talking the the assault on our freedom and in particular the freedom of fair use.

This device is precisely the thing the the media industries (The MPAA and RIAA to mention a few) want, a closed device to deliver content to the end user where they have complete control of what gets done with it. It is just one in a serious of steps, including the DMCA, which the media industries hope will eventually lead to this.

Is it going to happen, NO. But are they going to try, most defiantly. There is a fundamental paradigm shift on our hand due to the Internet. The simple fact is that it is going to be imposable to control the flow of any sort of information. It has already happened with music and it is eventually going to happen with video and other forms of information. And there is nothing the media industries can due about it. Unfortunately the media industry doesn't really see this and those that due refuse to accept and will do everything in there power to make the Internet into what they want. And thus it is going to be hell. What we have seen already is just the begging of the storm. It is going to get a lot worse in the coming years as they media industry continue to try there tricks to control the free flow of information. If you do not see this conflict by now I fell very sorry for you as the signs are everywhere, the DMCA, the SSSCA, and Microsoft's .NET to mention a few.

What can we do about it? Well that is a very good question. We can't avoid this conflict but we can prepare for it. Some of the things we can do are: 1) Support Open Source software (although I think that goes with out saying). 2) Write (snailmail, not email) your congressperson to repeal the DMCA. 3) Refuse to buy hardware you can't develop for. I for one have no interest in TiVO are it competitors for one simple reason, it is a black box that is not designed to be user programmable. And finally 4) spread the word.

For more insight into this issue see the article The Coming Storm by Bruce Bell.

Truthfully, one thing I personally would really like to do is to develop, but really don't have the resources to do so, is a truly open TiVO like device that is *designed* to be user programmable and will store everything completely unencrypted. This device will force the MPAA industry to accept the inevitable. It is completely legal but the MPAA will completely hate it and will do everything in there power to stop it. And with out a lot of will power and a major team of legal exports to back me up they probably will.

Re:yomiuri

[macshit]

No it's not.

It's more like, oh, say, the pittsburgh press -- boring, a bit lightweight, and sometimes annoyingly conservative, but basically solid.

I'd describe the various Japanese English-language dailies like this:

• The Japan Times - The biggest, I'm not sure why. Seems to hire anyone who can write in English, and clearly written by and for expatriates. A typical editorial is something like `We Think Beer is Good.'
  
• The Daily Yomiuri - Like I said above, somewhat boring, but seems more like a real newspaper (presumably because they can borrow resources from their parent newspaper). Occasionally has suspicious articles touting various Yomiuri-connected events.
  
• The Asahi Evening News - Not that bad generally, but occasionally bat-wing loony (like a huge front-page article praising Imelda Marcos to high heaven).

None of them are great, but none of them is horrible. I'd go so far to say that the Daily Yomiuri is the least bad of the bunch.

[Note - I gave up reading any of these about a year ago, so perhaps they've all changed in the meantime.]

Re:Yes, but not as its primary operating system

[Space cowboy]

I don't believe I claimed that. I was responding to the claim "The PS2 does not run any form of Linux.", which had somehow got a +3 informative (!) rating ... What is interesting is that the Linux kit supports all the major devices on the PS2 - including the vector units (see http://www.ps2linux.com/dmesg.html :-) There's essentially no reason why you couldn't run a game under PS2 linux...

end of Linux lovefest?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean IBM is over its lovefest with Linux? Too bad they feel like they need to
develop a new operating system rather than
using an existing one like Linux or BSD. Wait,
isn't that what Linux did in not just using BSD?