Microsoft Freon

Veramocor writes "MSNBC.com has an article posted from the WSJ about MS's new plan for living room domination, codenamed Freon. Freon will be capable of 'playing games but also offering television capabilities, such as pausing live TV and recording shows onto a computer hard drive.' The article then goes on to explain future potential business plans for XBox incarnations. The system does seem to have some great advantages. I must question their naming question however, we all know what a disaster the actual chemical Freon was. Here's to hoping, Cheers!" We mentioned the Xbox's planned evolution the other day, too, but without the fancy codename.

Comments

what about the environment?

[pcardoso]

If freon contains CFCs and eats up the ozone layer, what will MS Freon do?

Destroy all my linux distribution CDs?

Re:what about the environment?

[haeger]

If freon contains CFCs and eats up the ozone layer, what will MS Freon do?

It'll contain CRC's and eat up your freedom to choose?

.haeger

Feature Creep

[Gopher971]

Quote "I worry about what I call feature creep -- layering too many things into a product so the original intent of the product gets lost,"

And I thought they were talking about Windows!

Freon?

[PacoTaco]

This proves that Microsoft wants to take over your refrigerator as well.

Re:Freon?

[Thatmushroom]

Hey, don't knock that idea. They've been running mine for the past 3 months. Whenever it crashes, it's usually up in a few minutes, and most of the time the meat isn't spoiled.

I draw the line at having them run my liquor cabinent, though. That's one thing I never want to lock up.

Re:Freon?

[Joseph Lam]

RTFM: "click the Windows Update item under the Start Menu once a week to keep your refrigerator up and running"

Don't you hate the EULA sticker saying "By opening this refrigerator door you ......"

Possible MS Project Names

[Popocatepetl]

Microsoft is running out of destructive chemicals/materials to use as product codenames.

Here are some suggestions so they can continue to innovate:

Plutonium - the "most powerful" platform
Asbestos - Microsoft's new embedded platform
Acrylamide - for next generation restaurant machinery
Lead Paint Chips - top-secret, pervasive computing initiative

it not free-on at all

[falsemover]

Microsoft expect to lose money on the box and make on going money when you are on the net playing games or maybe just surfing with a souped up copy of Explorer. So it's not likely to be free-on at all.

Some marketing genius says: well lets attack the negative and code name it Freon.
another marketing genius says: but isn't freon an unpopular gas?
the first marketing genius: But people will think that it is FREE ON, did you see what I did there? Did you see that?
second genius:Hey, the number one marketing word is FREE. You are a genius.
first genius (smug mode on): Hey, I'm living proof that Micro$oft recruit from the top.

Another idea

[af_robot]

Microsoft Mercury Proxy Server: safe and solid solution for internet security

Re:GNU games console

[turgid]

Better idea: use 8 Z-80's in parallel to make a 64/128-bit processor and then another 8 for the graphics hardware. We'll have an AY-3-8192 for 3 channel sound + white noise. We can code the ROM in FORTH and when it boots it'll go into a BASIC interpreter (written in FORTH). It will have line numbers from 1-9999 (who could ever need more than 10000 lines in a program?) and FOR, NEXT, GOTO and GOSUB for looping and subroutines. There should also be a 1500 baud cassette tape interface. If we're cunning we could make it capable of, say, 64 colours, but only 2 per group of 8 pixels (1 byte) i.e. 0=background, 1=foreground. Then, there's all that CP/M, Spectrum, Amstrad and MSX software we could run on it!

Re:They can't dominate me

[krmt]

Are you kidding? Have you seen an X-Box? If put one in your living room, the room will be dominated by the unholy size of the thing.

Then you can use it as a combination coffee table and space heater. Now that's utility!

xbox as VCR

[Joseph Lam]

Son: Dad can I play Halo now?

Dad: boy don't touch my little Freon tonite

Son: (WTF...)

Dad: I've scheduled recording of Britney show

Son: ...but it ran out of disc space last night already. I told you to clean up those pRoN thing...

Recorded BSOD

[nvainio]

Freon will be capable of 'playing games but also offering television capabilities, such as pausing live TV and recording shows onto a computer hard drive.'

Does this mean that I will get three hours of recorded Blue screen of Death on my hard disk?

weak name

[mieses]

maybe someone at MS was impressed by the cool gassy names the SGI Octane, O2, and Fuel but the best they could come up with was Freon.

Freon seems much more passive than the sgi names. but it is for couch-potatoes after all..

Re:funny names

[iapetus]

Strange though it seems, surely this can be the only explanation for an OS called 'winCE'...

Re:Possible MS Project Names - bad chemicals

[ReelOddeeo]

Introducing Microsoft Agent Orange!

This remote agent is downloaded into your computer overnight by Microsoft. It works behind the scenes in your computer to help keep it secure. (against you, the enemy) While you're using your computer, Agent Orange is hard at work maintaining the integrity and security of your system.

Microsoft Agent Orange can also notify you of special offers that you might be interested in. Such as how to increase the length of your... oh wait.

I think its appropriate.

[Gannoc]

Once you have Freon, it costs a lot of money to dispose of it.

Re: The Environment

[ackthpt]

If freon contains CFCs and eats up the ozone layer, what will MS Freon do?

Freeze competition out of your living room, you had to ask?

BTW, when MS blows it again, you can't dump your electronic trash in China, so might as well pack it up and send it to Redmond, let the Beast's home state deal with it.