Moxi Digital's Future Convergence Box Announced

Many readers have submitted news of a new do-everything media box being hyped at CES. Fofer writes: "Steve Perlman, the founder of WebTV, is attempting to infiltrate the living room again, but this time it looks like he's on to something. Officially unveiled at CES 2002, the Moxi Media Center is a souped-up digital media server with an 80-gigabyte hard drive. It can deliver, to as many as four televisions, video recorded from a TV signal off of its integrated cable/satellite receiver, video or audio downloaded to the hard drive or from a built-in DVD/CD player. ... Articles with more info are here(1) and here(2)." When a product is still vapor, it's pretty easy to make it buzzword-compliant, too, and this one is supposed to work with Macs and IBM-style PCs, be based on Linux, work with Firewire drives, etc. Read the linked PR stuff to find out more.

Comments

Moxi vs. iMac

[Jeffrey Baker]

I just got back from the Macworld Expo keynote address by Steve Jobs and there could not be more contrast. Apple is putting all of there efforts into software and hardware to let customers make and share digital media. Moxi and Microsoft and the rest are trying to build devices that maximize the consumption of digital media.

Hmm.

Garbage

[sulli]

This will be for RENT, not for sale, from cable tv suppliers, and it will have copy protection.

From the NY Times:

Mr. Perlman takes an engineer's pride in describing the company's solution to the problem of converting the contents of compact discs into MP3 files that can be stored digitally. Moxi has designed a specialized device, which would be rented to consumers on an hourly basis, that uses powerful microprocessors to convert 100 CD's an hour and store them as digital files. He said Moxi had taken significant pains to protect the digital rights of music and video content producers. The system uses cryptography extensively to place barriers against illegal sharing of copyrighted material, the kind of trading that got the Napster music-swapping service into legal trouble.

Forget it.

More bass-ackward thinking from geekland.

[-=[ SYRiNX ]=-]

When geeks think something is cool, they foolishly assume everyone else will agree. Building a personal media library is a geek-born idea. Average people just want low-cost media on demand.

Science fiction always depicts instant media on demand for little or no cost; personal media libraries only exist for unique or personal content. There's no need for personal copies of centrally available media.

Smart entrepeneurs realize this fact and are working toward two things: ways to stream media over the wire, and heavy-duty centralized servers. Personal digital video recorders or in-home servers are a temporary and weak solution that really only appeals to an expert minority of consumers.

These devices will quickly become irrelevant once a reasonable media on demand solution is implemented. Building a new business around a dead-end concept is hardly a plan for success.

Re:More bass-ackward thinking from geekland.

[SteveM]

There's no need for personal copies of centrally available media.

Unless your ISP goes out of business. Anybody @Home?

Or you're in an airplane at 30,000 feet. No use radio devices permitted, but feel free to use our $5 per minute GTE Airphone!

I'm sure there are other examples. These two are ones I've recently experienced.

Sure instant on, wireless broandband, with redundant servers, at an affordable price (hardware and service)would sure be nice.

You're right, someday there maybe little reason to own personal copies of such thing. But that isn't today. Until then I'll be wanting a personal copy thank you.

Steve M

Re:Rearden Steel technologies

[Tackhead]

> > His Palo Alto, Calif.-based company is also announcing a name change, to Moxi Digital Inc. from Rearden Steel Technologies.
>
> Looks like an Ayn Rand fan.

As many have said "due to licensing restrictions, remote DVD playback is not available in homes using wireless networking".

Looks to me like then he's been beaten by the parasites at MPAA. While there are no doubt other reasons for the renaming, I'd say "consistency" is one of 'em.

When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice- you may know that your society is doomed."

- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Rearden would have built it, and told MPAA to go fsck themselves.

In light of this, I applaud Perlman's decision to rename his company, as I'd have to grit my teeth every time I saw Rearden's name attached to a company with a cool idea, but who paid tribute to the parasites in the MPAA.