Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

TiVo++ from India

Posted by timothy on from the still-testing-though dept.

charmer writes "According to a story in rediff, a company in India, Divinet Technologies, have developed a set top box that plays video cds, offers sms, email, chat, plays mp3s, acts as a game box, has a web cam, video on demand, and a digital VCR, and has a multilingual interface (a necessity in India.) And it looks pretty good too :-) No pricing given though."

8 of 161 comments (clear)

  1. I have to wonder... by Yanna · · Score: 3, Insightful
    if this is one of the dreaded consequences of outsourcing jobs to India.

    I mean, the development of these type of technology used to be the patrimony of the US. Later on, it shifted to Far East (Japan) and now we see really cool gadgets being developed in India.

    A sign of what's to come? Is this the result of the US losing their position as main providers of R&D? What will be left afterwards? An economy of service?

    1. Re:I have to wonder... by jkrise · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "this is one of the dreaded consequences of outsourcing jobs to India."

      Oddly enough, American technology is to a large extent, devleoped by Indians. Consider this: about 30% of Microsoft employees are Indians. Similarly, NASA has more than 25% Inidans.Outside of Seattle, the only other development centers for MS is in Hyderabad, Inida and Israel.
      Secondly, remember that American Corporate success depends on countries like India for their markets. Why'd you think Bill Gates spent 4 days in India? Philanthropy? AIDS aids? Think again.

      "I mean, the development of these type of technology used to be the patrimony of the US."

      See what this has led to... most of the innovation in the US suffers from this self-centred outlook. The Media-Center PC edition is an example. Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic etc. have now joined to put Linux onto their electronics. American tech focusses on 'lock-in' and 'lock-out' rather than 'features' and open-ness. Take GPS, Qualcomm, Microsoft and Adobe as examples.
      Cellphones within the US are generally a few generations behind Europe, Japan and even India!!

      " Is this the result of the US losing their position as main providers of R&D?"

      On the contrary, it's the result of pampering a few US entities for actions which Americans wouldn't stand for, from other nations. I'd name Microsoft, Adobe, Qualcomm etc. in this list.
      It's also a result of the American education system, though I'd need to write a lot to explain this.

      "What will be left afterwards?"

      The fruits of what's been sown. For starters, I'd suggest Americans need to be more understanding, tolerant and mature. There's no need to get angry at the French or paranoid about job-loss to third-world Indians. A little introspection will go a long way.

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    2. Re:I have to wonder... by cioxx · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I mean, the development of these type of technology used to be the patrimony of the US. Later on, it shifted to Far East (Japan) and now we see really cool gadgets being developed in India.

      Do you seriously think that US companies could not have invented a convergence box like the one above? Absolutely not. Afterall, US perfected the use of TiVos and other flavors of PVRs, which got hacked and modified initially. Then if you remember, TiVo bent under the Advertising Corporations' pressure and went from a hacker-friendly box preducer to an essentially a closed, DRM device producer with Series 2. You can't easily hack it anymore to fetch the data, modify software, etc.

      So this move from lobbies and corporations who felt that TiVo was cutting into their advertising pie, seriously hampered the ability of producers to put out better, cheaper, open devices. No one is willing to give market something which would be designated to please both the population and the corporate entities who feel they're getting ripped off (For the record, I believe these allegations hold no ground). There are no companies dumb enough to go against already-established PVR makers, additionally opening second and third fronts with DVD and console producers in the competition department. MPAA, RIAA, DMCA and other 4-letter evils will rain down on this producer till they crack under pressure.

      So yeah. You should first and formost blame the corporate forces for slowing down technology for the sake of few millions in advertising revenue.

      That's my take on it.
    3. Re:I have to wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Indeed.

      Western capitalist markets are based on continuous long term growth. Yet it is plain obvious that the markets cannot grow forever. This means that system is fundamentally flawed and will have to be modified in the future towards conservation of resources, controlled markets and zero-growth economies.

      How this will be achieved, however, is unclear since the public has been brainwashed to believe that (representative) democracy and capitalism are the same thing. Just try saying that there is something wrong about capitalism or the reckless consumption based societies and you are immediatelly labelled as a luddite and communist who is hell-bent on replacing democracy with a Soviet-like dictatoriship.

  2. Re:Stretching by rtmfm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The cable momopoly would never allow it.

  3. CDAC setup to build supercomputers by sonamchauhan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... if this is one of the dreaded consequences of outsourcing jobs to India.

    Hmm - No. Not due to job outsourcing... but its certainly a result of technology that was born in the US.

    I said "No" because the people behind this are (from the article) "founder members of CDAC, the brains behind India's PARAM-supercomputer". If I recall correctly, CDAC was setup by the Government of India in the late 80s as a direct consequence of the US *withholding* export of supercomputers to India for fear it would be used for defense research (more specifically, nuclear research). As a result, the CDAC people built massively parallel supercomputers from off-the-shelf CPUs (IIRC, they still used American CPUs - off-the-shelf 8086s (?) to begin with). They have some very cluey guys with a lot of experience born from research efforts like creating the complex electronics for interfacing supercomputers. Now it seems some of those people are moving to the private sector - kind of like with Govt. spending jumpstarting the computer revolution in the US.

    A sign of what's to come? Is this the result of the US losing their position as main providers of R&D? What will be left afterwards? An economy of service?

    I think every country needs a *balance* of free trade and protection of weaker industries. A "we can sell to you, but you can't sell to us" mentality is ultimately is bad for everyone concerned; from what I understand, 2/3rds of US income derives from exports.

    At the end of the day, I'm sure your leaders have an eye on industry and employment figures. If not, you elect new ones.

  4. Hardware Costs by ShooterNeo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only thing that bugs me is that while tech miracles happen, how can this thing do all these features effectively on cheap hardware? To do games and video on demand requires reliable disk drives or high end processing hardware.

    Also, how is the networking the boxes depend upon better or cheaper or immune to the same problems with rolling out broadband or cable access, elsewhere? Surely it requires the same expensive upgrades to the wiring and nodes as any other networking upgrade, the expense having slowed down adoption of this kind of tech.

    But the real problem is the software, the enormous virtual machine required to do all of these things. Programming software to do all the listed features well has taken years, and still isn't finished. I suspect this machine is not nearly as neat or as useful as the PC you are reading this on, especially if your PC is reasonably recent and has a fast, unrestricted, network connection.

  5. This is not a standalone unit - don't order this. by yo303 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Most of the functionality of this device comes from the way it works as part of a network; the inexpensive client receives services from the central server. A WICE box won't work if it's by itself.

    From the article (you did, read it, didn't you?)

    "It consists of a Distribution Module (DM) box installed in every building or multi-dwelling unit (MDU), with a WICE box in every user's house. Each DM supports 16 users. A single wire brings you all the services."
    If you did buy one of these, you'd have to run that wire all the way back to India.

    yo.