Posted by
michael
on from the penguin-in-a-box dept.
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.
Is it just me?
by
jerw134
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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?
missing features
by
Alien54
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
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;-)
-- "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Ouch....pricey...and bulky
by
CDWert
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
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...
-- Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
Re:Ouch....pricey...and bulky
by
stripes
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
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.
How long before....
by
countach
·
· Score: 5, Funny
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
by
jerw134
·
· Score: 3, Redundant
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.
Compare to iMac
by
brunes69
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
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
by
90XDoubleSide
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
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>.
-- "Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity"
-Alvy Ray Smith
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
by
inthehacker
·
· Score: 3, Informative
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:Good deal.
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
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.
Re:Hello Apple Legal......
by
inthehacker
·
· Score: 3, Informative
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".
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.
Slashdot Mirror
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?
- 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"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Well at 799 its a bit on the pricey side.....
:) 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.
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
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...
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
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.
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.
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.
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!!!!!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.
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".
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.