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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.
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!
Just you're average nitpicker.
This proves that Microsoft wants to take over your refrigerator as well.
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
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
What we need is a GPL-licenced games console hardware design, built from relatively common components, that can be assembled by the user, or bought.
:-)
It wouldn't have to be very high-powered either, I would suggest an 68030 as the main CPU, with two 68000's one each as a sound and graphics processor - that's more processing power than is in a lot of the games in your local arcade, and perfectly adequate for the sort of games that most hackers like to play, (I.E. RPGs, beat-em-ups, shoot-em-ups, etc).
Just another of my excellent ideas
Microsoft can only dominate your living room if you own a television.
The entire point of the console market is as follows:
one: cheap
two: uniform hardware (or as close to it as possible)
three: a long upgrade cycle (about 5 years)
four: sell hardware at a loss or paper thin margins to make money back on software
My guess is that this will turn out to be the jack of all trades, but master of none. If they sell this thing cheap enough to be a successful console, then they'll lose money for every set top boxer. If they sell it at a respectable profit, it won't be a successful console. Granted, they could simply make it X-Box compatible, but then anyone willing to spring for a set top will probably buy them separately to get better features, or taylor their setup to their own needs. Not to mention the households like mine that have a dedicated gaming TV (nothing spectacular, really) so that other people can watch movies et al whilst the gamers game.
BlackGriffen
"The Xbox console isn't profitable for the Redmond, Wash., company and its costs are believed to be higher than Sony's, partly because of the hard drive and a version of its powerful Windows operating system included with each machine."
Oh cry me a river. Like Microsoft is losing money because of all the billions they're pouring into the miraculous X-Box Bastardized Windows Operating System. Sure, maybe the hard disk is a lotta coin, but the cost of putting Windows on a console? Catastrophic.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
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
I think that some of the marketing/PR people of MS have been sick / on holidays / away these times.
Palladium : was originally the name of the statue of Pallas-Athenas, which was supposed to protect the city of Troie. Which was later invaded by greeks which used a subterfuge which will be known for centuries as trojan horses.
Freon : according to this web page, apart from evident utility in refigerators, "Only decades later did people realize that such chlorofluorocarbons endangered the ozone layer of the entire planet." and, even worse for MS : "The trade name Freon® is a registered trademark belonging to E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company (DuPont)."
#include "coucou.h"
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.
consider coffee a lubricant that helps one penetrate the coding zone
It wasn't until the NES rose out of the console market's ashes did things kick back in gear. One thing that was great about the NES was it was stable and long lived. The same goes for the next market leader, Playstation.
Microsoft could very well risk killing the entire console market if it introduces too much confusion and churn into it. If they make consoles as complicated as PCs, a lot of buyers may just be turned off. Think of all the people, right down to the poorest you know, that have a console but no computer in their house.
I remember an anecdote about a du Pont employee demonstrating the safety of the chemical by inhaling a good breath of Freon and blowing it out to extinguish a candle, demonstrating that it was both non-toxic and not explosive. Try that with ammonia!
Even if it may have had an impact on the ozone layer, there's more than just the safety component of the refrigerant chemical to consider. Where would food safety and preservation be without refrigeration? Without refrigeration, say hello to E. Coli and friends. Get used to salt-curing, preservatives, and freeze drying (yum). And then say goodbye to fresh seafood, out-of-season produce, frozen pizza, and a lot of the food that we eat.
Here's an article about the history of Freon and another about the history of the refrigerator. (Oops, it wasn't just a du Pont employee who did the demo, it was the actual inventor... sounds like a lot of technology demos.)
I would find it highly amusing if someone managed to crack the XBOX & write PVR software for it as well :) since it has the HD on it already..
I mean, one thing is selling a game console at loss -- you can license games, and another thing is to sell at loss a device that is perfectly capable of independent operation. And if they expect that they can tie PVR to a mandatory subscription, their worst enemy would be a... PC.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
This is really quite amazing to me. Microsoft truly is the most braindead company.
Why in the world would anyone buy an xbox now? We now know it's going to be replaced with "something much much better" in a little while.
Now instead of making money selling xbox's and xbox games, everyone will just hold on to their cash and wait for Freon(tm).
In the meantime xbox-exclusive game makers will bleed red, and drop support for the xbox.. when Freon actually makes it out the door, it'll have no games because the game makers aren't going to invest the time and money on a product that already burned them once.
Freon will kill all of MS's hopes in the console market. And you can bookmark me on that.
Does this mean that I will get three hours of recorded Blue screen of Death on my hard disk?
So much for other companies trying to raise funding to develop products in this market.
Oft-observed MS behavior:
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
"...we all know what a disaster the actual chemical Freon was."
Big assumption there cuz I don't know about any disaster. I do know that Freon had some very important uses in refrigeration and electronics which saved lives and improved the quality of life for millions.
How about just reporting the news without the emotional enviromental bullshit panic phrases. Thanks.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
The process that happens inside a refrigeration system is based on physics. It does not matter which gas.
It definitely does matter. Freon isn't just a gas in a refrigerator; it liquefies when it is compressed and gives up heat to the outside air, then evaporates _quickly_ when the pressure is released in the cooling coils. This takes the right variation of the boiling point with pressure. To get just the right physical characteristics in Freon, they tried substituting various numbers of flourine and chlorine atoms for hydrogen atoms in hydrocarbons. And as a bonus, it turns out that Freon is non-poisonous, non-corrosive, and coexists quite well with compressor lubricants.
Nothing else works quite as well. Water and alcohol have too high boiling points (and might be bad for the pipes and bearings too). CO2 requires a quite high pressure to liquefy. Ammonia is as toxic as cyanide. R134a (similar to Freon but with only carbon, hydrogen, and flourine atoms) is not quite as good at lubricating or at refrigerating.
By the way, refrigeration was responsible for only a tiny percentage of the chloroflourocarbons released into the environment. Refrigerators that leak coolant are defective! Spray cans were another tiny percentage. Most of the release was industrial cleaning systems - Freon and similar substances being great solvents that dry quickly, and pose no danger to the workers as long as there's enough ventilation to keep oxygen in the room. Generally these systems would try to recycle the Freon, but it kept leaking out around both ends of the conveyor belt.
I'm not quite sure how MS plan's on evading the patent issue. Unfortunately for Microsoft, the PVR industry is laden with patents like a minefield. Both TiVo and ReplayTV hold a number of them on PVR technology. Unless these companies plan on surviving on license fees like a tick on Microsoft's neck, it seems to me like Microsoft is going to have quite a wait (about 15 years) before it can get into the PVR biz.
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.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Also, freon and its sister chemicals only accounted for a very small percentage of the free chlorine radicals in the upper atmosphere. In fact one volcanic eruption in south america in the early 90's spewed about 10 times as much chlorine into the upper atmosphere as all the industrial chemicals user in human history! Now because of its stable configuration freon has a disproportionate effect, but it is still estimated by some scientists that volcanic activity has had 2 orders of magnitude more impact on the ozone layer than human activity during the period since industrial revolution.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Once you have Freon, it costs a lot of money to dispose of it.
"...Freon box will need to be continually updated."
/. is an MS haters club, but come on...
I wouldn't think this is a huge obstacle. Really. If the thing has a hard drive then updating is a issue unless it were something major. Um, I use my XBox (cue flaming) as my primary (read: only) DVD player and i have to ask why is it hype? Kind of a logical step if you ask me. Your console plays DVD games, why not movies in the same format. Damn useful if you ask me. Which you didn't. But if you did...
"So what happens if just one of the 3 components breaks?"
First, what 3 components are you talking about? The DVD, HD and..? Motherboard? But even without knowing what those components are, the answer is simple- Fix/buy a new one or do without. The more capabilities a unit has, the easier it is to stop up the plumbing, naturally. It goes with the territory of any technology and it's something you have to live with. Other technologies have this inherent problem yet they thrive. Go figure.
"Microsofts track record for defects with the XBox"
Huh. Source please. Link it. The only ones I know of was a small batch of the consoles were scratching disks in Japan and I had my friend mention one overheating as a display model, but that's all I've heard, and since I own one, I like to think I listen for that sort of news. And as much as I love the PS1 I have to mention that it had it's share of issues depite it's popularity, namely the laser assembly burning out or jamming prematurally (discounting hot-swapping of import CDs). I know
"because they didn't want a hunk of plastic that didn't work after 2 years"
If it's anything close to an Xbox, the damn thing is as close to a computer as it'll get. And unlike a computer, it doesn't nessisarily need to be at the cutting edge of technology. I don't see us moving away from DVDs anytime soon. Will TV be changing that rapidly to make this obsolete in 2 years? What, exactly, will make this hardware obsolete? I agree that ll technology has a finite shelf life, but PVR? As long as you can update the software, technology like this will have a long lifespan.
Maybe it won't work, but your "why" needs a few less holes.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Microsoft has always come down heavily in favor of aggressively protecting copyrighted material. They support the media giants in their efforts to make copy-proof one-time use media. They are talking about integrating code checking (intellectual property validation by another name) into future OS releases.
They've always taken this stance because first and foremost, they're a software company. But now they're moving into hardware. Companies like Dell and Apple, which have been up in arms about the media conglomerates' strong-arm tactics, have a vested interest in standing up for fair-use rights as computers become more tightly integrated with media creation and playback.
So far Microsoft has skirted the issue with ReplayTV, but if they try to take TV integration to the next level, they'll run smack-dab into the media giants.
Of course, based on their history, MS is likely to make deals with the media giants that restrict fair use by creating micropayment schemes or some other method of tracking and billing users for the wonderful things they're doing with the TV/game box.
This would alienate users in droves, especially when there are plenty of other competitors out there who aren't primarily software companies. Of course, MS could just wait for the hardware companies to do all the hard work of fighting the intellectual property battles with the media industry. Then they could step in after the dust clears, and reap the benefits without exposing themselves.
Whatever happens, Microsoft is literally getting so big and diversified that some of its products are bound to compete with each other in significant ways. I wonder, can Bill, as clever as he is, continue to advance Microsoft on all fronts without at some point having to scale back his ambitions?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ