Internet Computer from OEone

red5 writes: "Newsforge has a report of a new "iMac-like" internet computer from the good people over at OEone. On an interesting note it uses Mozilla as its GUI. Read the article for all the details." Another submitter sent in an interview with the company.

Comments

Is it just me?

[jerw134]

Is it just me, or does every single one of these "Internet computers" fail shortly after it comes out? Not including the iMac, every other one I know of (iOpener, NIC, iPaq, WebPC...) has failed. What are the chances this one won't meet the same fate?

Re:Is it just me?

[IamTheRealMike]

Do you mean the Compaq iPaq? If so, how is this a failure? They are tremendously popular, at least in Europe.

missing features

[Alien54]

As seen in the source fourge article

• Even though the documentation said it could record TV shows, there is no obvious way to do this yet. One OEone employee told me the documentation writers had been a bit "enthusiastic" about some of what they included in the first version of the user guide. Look for video recording capability in the next software version.
• No chat software, even though chat capability is mentioned in the docs. The story here is that they were planning to include a combination ICQ/IRC client in 1.0, but it wasn't quite ready by the scheduled release date, and was held back for the moment.
• No NTSC or S-video output on the video card. Sad. I am disappointed that it isn't there. Add this capability, and the Internet Computer could amost replace a TiVo or other time-shifting TV-watching aid, and serve as the heart of a simple home entertainment center, over and above its computer functions.
• An optional superdrive (combo DVD/CD reader/writer) and drivers for it would make the Internet Computer a perfect "video archiving" device. This would allow users to save an endless number of favorite TV programs, either for their own future pleasure or to share with friends.
• If you're browsing local files while not connected to the Internet, you get constant "cannot connect to server" error messages. This will never be noticed by users with full-time cable or DSL connections, but is going to annoy people who use dialup and can't tie up a phone line every second they're using their computer.

Also, the screen shots seemed to be hosed in the main page on news forge, so here is the link for screen shots of the Calendar app. I think the OEone site is under s heavy load for some reason ;-)

Ouch....pricey...and bulky

[CDWert]

Well at 799 its a bit on the pricey side.....

I would love to see a cheap internet terminal @ under 300 , with specs like this one, I know however there is no way to make money At that point, I hate LCD's they drive my eyes bonkers and at lower res they box in, ever try and run doom on a laptop ?

On the other hand thats about all I use my laptop for, Laptops have an air about them, just ask all the posers at Starbucks, How about a LAPTOP sized appliance , No hard drive, network capablity, guts could be based on one of the small PDA units, for card compatibility etc, only with a full sized keyboard and screen, it's be LIGHT, CHEAP, and battery life could be pretty amazing. Do most anything you need whilst mobile. email, documents editing, etc. LINUX based of course :) Hell you could probably save almost all tooling costs and buy up another manufacturers mols of a dead line and make em fly as well as the low cost of a say 11.5 screen.

Offer that a $300-400 and they would get snapped up like nuts, if nothing else from all the posers that are too poor to buy a full unit but want to hang out with their buddies at Starbucks, and act all aloof like thier solving the probblems of the world on their laptop >:)

I cannot however see using Mozilla as the GUI at this point, I use and Like mozilla, but if the performance of their desktop compares to Nautilus , ayyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeekkkkk.

The market is there for these applicances, the right one just hasnt hit in my opinion...

Re:Ouch....pricey...and bulky

[stripes]

Well at 799 its a bit on the pricey side.....

Well, aside from clearance sales Apple never priced the iMac lower then $799, and they did sell 3 million of them. Not to many people on slashdot though :-)

LAPTOP...Offer that a $300-400

You don't pick easy targets do you? I think someone did try to sell a GEOS laptop for not much over $500, it sounded a lot like the specs on yours otherwise. It flopped big time. I don't think cutting the price $200 would help a lot, but who knows.

Re:Ouch....pricey...and bulky

[SoftwareJuggler]

CDWert Wrote:

"How about a LAPTOP sized appliance , No hard drive, network capablity, guts could be based on one of the small PDA units, for card compatibility etc, only with a full sized keyboard and screen, it's be LIGHT, CHEAP, and battery life could be pretty amazing. Do most anything you need whilst mobile. email, documents editing, etc. LINUX based of course :)"

You are describing the batch of fullsize HPC WinCE device that came out in 1999 at the $1000 price point, the best of which were Vadem Clio or the Sharp Mobilon Tripad. Generally they had a 640x480 screen, full size keyboard, touch screen, and all day battery life. On the down side they had slow processors and only 16 or 32 MB RAM (which you split between memory and storage) and WinCE as the OS but that at least could be changed. While it didn't have a network jack, but it did have a PCMCIA slot.

I haven't seen a refresh of this form factor come it out since, probably since the drop in notebook prices into the sub $1000 range has squeezed these out of profitably. It would be interesting though to see one of these with a lot more memory.

Re:Ouch....pricey...and bulky

[stripes]

They sold six million iMacs.

Really? I coulda swore Jobs said 3mil on the 7th. You don't happen to have a reference do you? (I don't have one either, unless you count a ~2 hour QT feed)

Don't shortchange 'em. iMacs appeal to everyone who wants/needs an easy-to-set-up, easy-to-use computer.

For sure I don't. A number of years ago I helped my mom get a Winblows PC because everytime in the past I had recomended the technically better machine (Don't get a PC, Amiga is so much better!) it didn't work out. That thing has ben a royal pain. I had to drill a hole in counter top (with a drmel because I didn't think to bring a drill, and live 30 miles away), it's floppy failed, the software is hard to use, and bloddy things install themselves that she doesn't really want, and she can't get rid of. Plus people seel her cheap poorly working add ons (parallel port scanner -- who had to drill another hole?). And the bloody printer keeps failing (well, I think that is a problem on Macs too since they use the same cheep ink jets).

My in-laws bought a computer recently (once again I was dragged along to help). This time it was an iMac. Other then not fitting in my car as well everything went far far better. I even had to set up a network for this one (no phone line close by) and it was still simpler. Oh, and they seem to have far less problems working it. Also as an added bonus I can use my laptop on their wireless network when I visit :-)

So yeah, I think they are a great thing for people that want an easy to use machine.

Despite the fact that many other computer manufacturers *cough*dell*cough* try to come up with a Wintel supplement to the iMac, they don't do so well.

It's hard to do when you are stuck with Windows as a starting point :-)

Apple is obviously doing something well, and, with the introduction of the new iMac, they're gonna do very well in the future.

I'm not wild about the new one. Not just the styling (seeing it in person it's a lot nicer), but that it starts at $1299 which is not only $100 more then the iBook, but right at the old top-of-the-line price. Granted it is effectavly a larger display and faster CPU, but it is still above the magic $1000 price point, and well above the old $799 starting price, which was a hard sell vs. $500 crap-PC prices...

It's a good thing Apple is keeping the CRT iMac in their line up, hopefully they will continue to do so until the LCD iMac can drop below $1000, and hopefully a lot closer to $500.

Re:Ouch....pricey...and bulky

[stripes]

check out this article [latimes.com], look at the last paragraph

Thanks, it's pretty clear your right, and I'm that whole other thing...

6Mil iMacs and over 100k iPods. I wonder how many more CRT iMacs they will sell after the LCD ones start shipping?

But can you blame them?

[JPRelph]

I just wonder whether these guys were hoping or expecting that Apple wouldn't be selling the original iMac design by this point in time. While there are some differences the styling is close enough that I can't see why this one would get away with it considering the other similarly styled machines that were stopped in the past. When it comes down to it, with the amount of they spend on their designs, I suppose Apple feel justified in stopping people hitching a ride on their hard work.

How long before....

[countach]

Taking bets on how long before someone hacks this
latest internet appliance and puts Linux on it.

Oh wait... Damn. What the hell use is it, it comes
pre-cracked.

Error in NewsForge article

[jerw134]

Now we come to a built-in feature Windows and Mac don't offer: a little button that allows OEone tech support to log into your computer directly and fix things remotely. CLICK! and they have access -- and they only have access when you do that CLICK! instead of owning a permanent backdoor into your computer. Linux sure is nice, eh?

Actually, Windows XP does include this exact feature. You can get help directly from Microsoft, or even from a friend who also uses XP. I really like the feature, and it works great. But it's not something exclusive to the OEone computer.

The right market is the poor!

[bigdreamer]

The market is there for these applicances, the right one just hasnt hit in my opinion...

Hypothetically, maybe the price could drop to say, $500-$600, and then more of the have-nots in this society would be interested in getting a computer. The disadvantaged people I've met would like a computer, but $800-$1200 is way out of their price range. Then just pre-install a copy of OpenOffice and you've got a winner.

Re:Why not spin off the desktop software?

[IamTheRealMike]

I read their page yesterday, before it was slashdotted and I believe it says somewhere that they will be selling the software separately sometime in the future, but it didn't give an exact date.

I'd guess this would introduce a lot more complexity because of the myriad of different hardware types out there etc.

Compare to iMac

[brunes69]

After reading the article, I saw alot of comments on the price of the item, along the lines of "Too expensive, I can get Internet PC X for $300/$400/$500". You are making the wrong comparison.

This thing isn't an "internet device", it is a full fledged PC. Most of those internet devices you speak of have 16MB-32MB flash instead of a hard drive, and definatly do not have a TV tuner. You should be comparing the $800 pricetag to that of an iMac (which can range from $900 - $1100), and if you do you will see it is quite reasonable.

Re:Compare to iMac

[ZigMonty]

You should be comparing the $800 pricetag to that of an iMac (which can range from $900 - $1100), and if you do you will see it is quite reasonable.

The bottom of the line iMac (similar specs) is $799. Do some research.

Re:Compare to iMac

[90XDoubleSide]

Compare to iMac, eh? Sounds fair, I'll compare it to the $799 iMac. The computers are very similar in some ways: both have a 20GB HDD, 128 MB RAM, 24X CD-ROM, 100Base-T, 56K modem, and 2 USB ports. The AIO benefits from a 17" display and a TV tuner (which is mostly useless; you could add one to the iMac, but I can't imagine anyone doing so). The iMac benefits from two FireWire ports, Harman/Kardon speakers, a RAGE 128 Ultra, and VGA out. I'd say that VGA out is better than a TV tuner, but having a 17" display offset's the iMacs video card and speakers. The iMac still offers FireWire, has a far superior software bundle (sorry, but giving people commercial software adds more value than saving them a few minutes of downloading) and most importantly, I can play popular games on an iMac, both because it has an OS that supports them and because it has a real video card. The iMac also has a full BSD subsystem, so the AIO has no real advantage being on linux. And lets not forget that the AIO is godawful ugly (it looks like they were copying a Compaq copy of an iMac, badly).

So I think it's fair to say the $799 iMac has an edge over the $799 AIO. <sarcasm>This is incredibly shocking considering everyone knows Apple charges 4-8 times what their wintel competitors do</sarcasm>.

Re:Compare to iMac

[Enahs]

If you're going to compare it to an imac I'd like to see what the hardware support is like - without resorting to standard linux utilities which would feel out of place on a machine where everything is xul based.

And while we're at it, if you're going to compare this device to an iMac, let's specify OSes here. There's plenty of hardware that's MacOS-compatible--if you're talking about 9.2 or below. And some of that stuff won't work in Classic mode on 10.1.2.

Macs, for the time being, now have something in common with Linux users--a great OS with a dearth of native apps. For that reason, I lump OSX in with what the ZDNet trolls lovingly refer to as "not ready for the desktop."

Analysis

[Eloquence]

Too expensive. The brand is unknown, and people are not going to spend $800 for something that just looks nice. This will likely come and go like the Internet computers before it. If they would market it as a versatile Net/multimedia station / PVR, maybe they would sell some units (however, the patents involved in PVR may create problems).

Also, Mozilla 0.93 .. if I remember correctly 0.95 was the point where Mozilla became usable on a daily basis. 0.93 may not cut it and lacks some of the wonderful later features like tabs. They probably should have waited one more month before going public so they could present a mature product instead of hurrying something that still has many loose ends (the DNS requirement for dial-up ISPs is probably a major showstopper for newbies). So my strategy to place this thing on the market would be:

• Make sure Internet setup is very easy with all configurations
• MP3 and DVD playback are nice, but can be had very cheap nowadays. PVR is not so common -- this is therefore an essential feature that should be marketed accordingly
• Get all software to the latest versions and use apt-get, apt-rpm or something like that to fetch the latest packages regularly
• Eliminate stupid product registrations -- they hurt you more than they help you
• Games: There are some nice, free open-source games like Armagetron (which I have yet to get working but the shots looked promising), Heroes, Freeciv, Tuxracer, ... These should be installed by default and easily accessible. It may be possible to cut a deal with Transgaming or Loki in return for access to their subscription services.
• Community: People just love online forums, chat, weblogs and the like. The system should come with easy access to preselected chat rooms (IRC?) and forums (newsgroups?).
• Down with the price. A "healthy" margin is a good thing if you're not planning to sell many units or if you're Apple.
• Clever marketing. If you think the product is really good, donate some to various schools/libraries with an added prominent, non-removable "I want to buy a machine like this" link somewhere. Try to create as much hype for the product as possible.
• Send a cleverly formulated "story" asking for more ideas to "Ask Slashdot" and choose the ones at +5 and -1 for preselection.

It may be possible to create a viable product in this fashion. Oh yeah, I forgot: STEP 3: PROFIT!!!!!

Re:Analysis

[inthehacker]

The next version of the software, due out in a few weeks, is based on Mozilla 0.9.5. 0.9.3 isn't that bad, but 0.9.5 is a lot better.

Re:Analysis

[Eloquence]

I think you are underestimating the relevance of marketing. A lot of the cash people paid for the iMac was paid for their own manipulation, i.e. a massive media/hype campaign that was very effective. Together with the trusted Apple brand which has come to be associated with "easy-to-use computers" thanks to countless movies and hordes of fanatic fans, this has made the iMac a sure winner. When the iMac came out, a lot of people criticized its colors and looks -- without marketing, this might have remained the dominant viewpoint. It is not necessarily the actual design that is relevant, but the media context in which this design is presented. Plus, the design of the AIOERJUGIR or what's it called is no longer innovative.

Re:Analysis

[stripes]

I think you are underestimating the relevance of marketing.

Not at all, it doesn't matter what made people think the original iMac looked nice, just that they do. So this similar looking object can cash in on some of that, wether it is because the original struck a chord in people, or because a massive marketing machine has beat it into people.

I don't think that means this thing can succeed only on it's looks, just that $799 for a computer that makes it's looks a strong selling point, and everything else comes in second has been done before, and it worked.

Re:Analysis

[stripes]

The fact that the machine looks like an iMac may make it sell better, i.e. not that it looks good on its own, but that it looks like something people already know and think is good / pretty.

Exactly. Plus it doesn't hurt that this look-alike is also intended to also target a "it's easy because it's not Microsoft" market.

Of course, this also has its downside, as other posters have pointed out...

Yep, partly that some people have seen the CRT iMac and don't like it, and partly that Apple now has the new LCD iMac as the "cutting edge". (personally I think the old iMac looked nicer, but having seen the new one in person it's actually plesent to use)

Re:Good deal.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a real thing. Understand the comparison of options, say, for my 50 year old mother. The best solution for her up to now has been a secondhand Win98 laptop - all in one, but as stable as a Win98 box gets for under $500. A slow chip but a smooth machine, and just for websurfing. She's had several viruses, and has slowed the thing to a crawl by downloading and installing the "freeware" type novelty programs that grandmothers tend to install. On top of that she still doesn't have a quality office suite for it, because a legal copy of MS Office, the only popular option, retails for $400. An "internet appliance" doesn't give enough functionality, for the typical lack of a hard drive, but it's now demonstrated that a full windows box is asking for trouble, for these types of people anyway. This distro of Linux is adequately full-featured to do everything she needs, but proprietary enough to evade 99% of all viruses and 99% of all dumbware. I just wish I could spare a paycheck to buy her one.. and then wean her off Freecell (evil Nicotine-additive of Windows). It's the perfect compromise, if we must call it a compromise.

Viable business

[Ami Ganguli]

I'm a little skeptical too, but I'm hoping that the management of this company realizes the .com days are over and actually found a market for this device before they built it.

I think there are some real possibilities aside from Grandmothers. Think about different types of specialized kiosks that would benefit from a super-easy interface. (How many times have you seen a mall information kiosk BSOD? I see them fairly often.) Also, specialized terminals for factories and warehouses that mostly run some web-based application.

If they can develop some good niche markets to pay the bills then they might be able to stay in business long enough to see these things go mainstream.

Office computers

[crimsonhead]

A month ago I've written a comment about Linux for the office envieroment. If OEone will make an small office/enterprise version it might be Linux's way to mainstream.

Re:Hello Apple Legal......

[inthehacker]

Future Power are the ones who build the machine and the hardware, not OEone. Future Power has already settled their lawsuit with Apple. (Article Here) The main difference in the two machines is that the OEone unit has a 17" monitor, as opposed to the iMac's 15".

Why?

[ZigMonty]

The built-in speakers aren't great, but they never are in low-cost computers.

That's a bit rich considering that the machine this is ripping off (the old style iMac), for the same US$799 price, has Harman Kardon (read: good) speakers.

They proudly boast about how user friendly it is but then talk about using a terminal window to install a simple Office suite?! A web browser for the main interface?! Are they on crack? Why is everyone trying to do everything with a web browser these days. A web browser was designed to browse the web (shock horror).

I love the idea of backing up data to a sever in case you delete the file. Here's a thought: make a copy somewhere else on the hard disk or copy it to a floppy. Who's going to waste their bandwidth? Do you trust them not to look at your files?

I see this crashing and burning. Basically, for the same price you can get a real iMac. I thought rip offs were supposed to be cheaper? That's if Apple legal doesn't kill it first.

Re:Why?

[inthehacker]

They don't use a web browser for their main interface... They use Mozilla. And if you think that Mozilla is just a web browser, then you better wake up and smell the coffee. Mozilla is more of a development platform than a web browser. You can build really cool stuff in XUL, JS, CSS and XPCOM, as OEone has shown.

Re:Why?

[ZigMonty]

I know that the Mozilla guys want it to be called an application virtual machine. I still don't think that Mozilla is appropriate for this, an ICQ client perhaps but not this. It'd be interesting to see how well OEone has done it. I can't see it being better than a purpose written desktop manager though. IMHO, this is between markets. It's too expensive to be an internet appliance and it's too limited to be desktop PC.

Re:Why?

[stripes]

I wonder how much Apple paid to be able to slap that formerly good brand name (Harmon-Kardon) on the iMac?

Have you listened to the things? My in-laws have one, and it really does sound decent, which is quite a big deal for speakers that small.

What other speakers that small sound decent? I expect there are some, but not all that many. I think it is pretty fair for Apple to say in effect "look these iMac speakers are small, but oddly enough not crap", if pushing the H-K does it, well, Ok.

No, I don't think the H-K sound sticks or iSub are all that special sounding. I mean they sound decent for the price range, but not really better then other brands in that price range. They do look pretty striking though. They don't fit in with the rest of my computer room though, plus my PC speakers have two inputs, so no real reason to buy them...

Space Mutants Attack Windsor Ontario

[SubtleNuance]

Google's Image cache reveals this image

Karma Karma Karmameleon, it comes and goessss it comes and gooooee-ow-wow-wows.

Re:Neat but Restricting

[tftp]

If someone is already familiar with IE and Windows then this guy is not likely to buy a dumbed down appliance. The market for Internet appliances is in homes of people who never used Internet before. My parents, for example, haven't even seen Windows, and they can't care less; they are more interested in gardening and politics :-) Any appliance that is easy to use will do, and AOL is a living proof of that. The extremely simple, automated installation of plugins in Mozilla fully justifies its use - the browser becomes the OS.

Looks like that old E-Machine...

[rebelcool]

We have one of those at the office. Similar to the old iMac, but a bit more useful. It had a floppy drive and a usable mouse and keyboard... I think they got sued over it though.

Re:Why not spin off the desktop software?

[dangermouse]

Depending on how they package the software, they might not have to care about the hardware.

I imagine it runs on top of X...

Mozilla as an Interface - Was Re:Why?

[Jack William Bell]

I agree; Mozilla actually has the potential to completely replace window managers and run the entire desktop. Those who argue different probably haven't taken the time to read the XUL and XP-COM specs (or perhaps do not have the background needed to appreciate them).

This is some powerful stuff, and is reasonably well thought out. Plus, in the case of XP-COM at least, it represents someone stealing the best parts of a Microsoft design (OLE/COM) and doing an 'Embrace and Extend' to it. Delicious irony there!

Personally I would really like to see the programmer community get behind Mozilla as an interface. With a little work Mozilla could become the greatest of all Microsoft nightmares: An application development platform which makes the underlying OS irrevelant. This *really* does scare them. Why do you think Microsoft worked so hard to own the browser market share in the first place?

Jack William Bell, who likes Mozilla more than IE, but has to admit it is still pretty crashy...

Re:Why? (Web Browser UI)

[Pushnell]

While most web browsers were indeed designed to browse the web, mozilla was designed to not be limited to browsing the web. Each component of the mozilla browser (UI, rendering engine, javascript engine, etc) was created independantly of the other components. In fact, the glue that binds them together (xpcom) is itself a standalone component.

One of these components is a user interface language called XUL, or Cross-platform User-interface Language. Mozilla-the-browser (or Seamonkey) uses this language for all of it's UI, but don't make the standard assumption that mozilla == mozilla-the-browser. Seamonkey is merely the union of all of the modular subcomponents.

A user interface that was designed with XUL and Javascript can be indistinguishable from that of the Windows, Mac, X, or even Star Trek interfaces. (Assuming of course that it's well-written.) There need not be the slightest hint that you are not using a native interface. In the case of new appliances such as this, they are trying to create their own native interface; something unique to their box.

The advantage to using mozilla technologies for the UI is that the UI is not only easy to implement (it's xml-based), but it's inherently cross-platform. If they wish the next generation to be based on MS-Windows, and the one after that to be based on OS-X, and the one after that on HP-UX, they can do so with absolutely no effort. 0 UI redesign/porting effort. And even an extremely computer-literate person would never know the difference.

I personally expect and hope to see many more companies using this technology in the future. So in short, when you hear "mozilla-based user interface", please do not assume that it is an html-based user interface being displayed in Seamonkey. More likely than not, your assumption will be incorrect.

Online backup, Corel connection

[mlinksva]

Bundling online backup is a great idea, I'd just like to see more than 100MB. Backup seems like a monster problem, particularly with typcial drives approaching 100GB. Or are modern drives reliable enough that the average person just doesn't care about the small risk of losing everything?

Also, I'm surprised nobody has noted the involvement of Corel alumni Eid Eid. Nice to see that a former Corelian(?) sees opportunity in Linux, despite Corel's failure to capitalize on that market.

No error here

[steveha]

Actually, Windows XP does include this exact feature.

Re-read the part where he says "and they only have access when you do that CLICK!" Roblimo, the author of the article, equates XP with "a permanent backdoor into your computer."

steveha

Re:No error here

[Pope Slackman]

Roblimo, the author of the article, equates XP with "a permanent backdoor into your computer."

Hey, guess what!
Roblimo's full of shit!

C-X C-S

Re:No error here

[jerw134]

Well that equation is wrong. You need to give XP permission too. Just because it's Microsoft doesn't mean it's evil. You can also turn the option off totally. It just shows pure unfounded bias against Microsoft, and nothing more.

Re:No error here

[steveha]

I'm sure his comment had something to do with the recent horrible security breach found in Windows XP, one that lets an attacker totally take over an XP box.

I'm also sure that Microsoft's patch has fixed that breach, although there will probably be others.

If you like XP and want to use it, that's fine by me. It just seems odd to me that some guy got moderated up to 5 pointing out an "error" that wasn't. Oh well, it's no big deal.

steveha

What I really like

[opkool]

..is that they are offering a real product. Most of other stuff sround is just a major advertising campaing with no product behind.

Let alone, giving one to some tester! Anf it runs Linux!

Hats off.