Slashdot Mirror
Dcube: Portable Audio With Ogg And A Scroll Wheel
Slowtreme writes "There have been many attempts recently to cash in on Apple's iPod success. Napster, Dell, and others have made iPod clones. This Korean Dcube looks like they are going all out. With 1.5 gig, Ogg and MP3 support, grey scale display, USB2.0, wireless, FM radio, it looks like a nice device. Most noticeable however is the scroll wheel, Apple holds patents (pending) on scroll wheel design. How much noise will this make?" (The Napster-branded one is actually a Samsung product; Samsung, too, is supporting Ogg Vorbis in some models, though not in that one.)
I would like to see more MP3 makers use FireWire. I speed of updates is very nice. When I got my iPod my whole mp3 collection was on it in less then 20 minutes. (ok I have a small 10Gb collection) But with speeds like this I can run a program off of it, or store large data files off of it. Also the iPod is more then just a mp3/aac/what ever player, it makes a great portable hard drive. I don't use the Pim stuff off of it because I have a good Palm, but that is another story.
Rio Karma supports Ogg-Vorbis and FLAC files already, is 20gig, and can be had for less than $250. Where's the justification for buying a 1.5gig player? Apple is on crack and the Dell is just a rebadged Creative Labs Nomad Zen.
:(
BTW: IRiver also makes an Ogg-capable portable, several of them, but their 20gig model is about $399.
When I hear OGG, I immeidately think that it must be whack, but slashbots constantly say that won't buy something unless it supports OGG. Is it like 220V power or USB something? What is it? good or whack?
If this is cheap enough, I'll definitely buy it.
The one thing still preventing me from buying a portable audio player is the price.
I don't need 20GB of music in my pocket, 1,5GB is more than enough for me.
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
It even LOOKS iPod-ish
My wife would love the FM recording, too.
I'm on a chair.
It's also kinda funny that, on the web page, the device's display shows a couple of Beatles songs. (The Beatle's record label is Apple Corps)
I never fail to be amazed at how often companies try to copy Apple's design only to produce a product that looks similar but is noticably uglier.
It's like on Charles in Charge where one of the sisters was noticeably hotter than the other one, and yet in one episode the ugly sister won a beauty contest just to show that there's more to a person than looks but that didn't change the fact that everybody still would rather jump the hotter sister.
Any Roland/Akai/EMU rack-mount synth or sampler.
Ha! Apple should be happy if they aren't sued because of patent infringement. The australians patented the wheel before them.
How hard would it be to have, instead of a wheel, a thin strip of the stuff they use for touchpads in laptops (god, how I hate them, give me a trackball anytime) on the side to replace the functionality of said wheel?
I don't think it'd be TOO hard, and the results would probably be good.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
All the best interface designs are obvious ... in retrospect. You can't just say "It's a wheel!" without recognizing the enormous amount of effort and care that went into its design and engineering.
The wheel is what makes the iPod unique, and it deserves its success because of it. This is one of the good uses of patents, in the sense that it gives a manufacturer a temporary monopoly as a reward for innovative design, and will hopefully spur other innovative designs in the iPod comptetitors. Seems like a good thing to me.
http://www.nextway.co.kr/images/products/temp.jpg
On the DCude site. It looks like their hand model must be having a heart attack off-camera; if the picture gets slashdotted, just imagine a hand with fingers contorted into a clawed husk, with the nice little dCube in the center of the hand.
Looks very freaky.
Babelfish Translation of the Korean Product page
However don't set your expectations too high, it seems they still need to work a bit on their Korean translation engine:
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
I realize they're pricey, but stop running and accept that you'll eventually pay extra to get an iPod. Stop running to the ends of the earth for every "iPod-killer" to come down the block. The amount of money you'll spend on each new pale substitute will be so much more than you'd spend on the iPod, which works so well with iTunes. This is an intervention, my friend.
Don't confuse this Dcube with NEC's D-Cube .
My lack of God, it's Trotsky!
As regards portable music playback devices, don't compare apples and ogg ranges.
Where can I get one before Apple crushes them?
Ogg is simply a better codec than MP3. The codec simply makes music sound better when played back. In MP3, you get audio artifacts (usually higher frequencies). Ogg/Vorbis attempts to minimize this, and the result is simply a better codec. The downside to Ogg is that it takes a fairly hefty processor for a mobile player to reproduce the sound. Thus, the player costs more because you're using a faster/more complex processor. For audiophiles, Ogg is a very good thing. For budget listeners, MP3 is a compromise.
I'm sorry, but a scroll wheel is what sits between my left and right mouse buttons. Pick another name OKTHXBYE
iPod no got OOG, so OOG no good. Me go ask Apple what good.
Me get free karma now?
My prediction is that this will happen.
NO! Nonononono. Dude. Come on.
This is Slashdot. "I don't need 20 GB of music".. of course you don't need it. But you will demand it. As a... nerd, or something.
Now suck it up, and demand a 1 ounce 50GB overmediaplayer with a folding plasma screen and support for Ogg Stupidname. For $50. It is your goddammed right!
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
IMO, the US patent system has basically desceneded into little more than a registry service. By submitting a patent you're declaring, "I had this idea on this date." There doesn't really seem to be all that much checking going on to see if the idea is actually patentable in the first place.
I see things like this "scroll wheel" patent as an example of the ridiculous things that get rubber stamped at the patent office. It's not as if Apple invented the scroll wheel/jog dial. They've been avaible on VCR's, DAT's, etc for quite a long time. That leaves two things their patent could cover:
1) Using a scroll wheel with *gasp* mp3s.
2) The specfic details of how their scroll wheel interface works.
(1) would be a junk patent. (2) would either be so broad it was a junk patent, or so specfic as to be worthless.
Life is too short to proofread.
A good FYI and discussion can be found Here
I bought a second generation 20GB iPod soon after they came out. However, I now have more music than I can fit on it and I'm getting interested in re-ripping my tracks at higher quality or even investigating FLAC. Also, Apple is doing me a disservice by preventing me from using Ogg-Vorbis which I still think is superior to LAME's output. If I download .oggs, I then have to go through decompression and another round of lossy compression to create mp3s that will play on my iPod.
As such, I'm very interested in the latest releases of hard-drive based mp3 players. I especially like the look of the iRiver players and I'm hoping to try out my friend's new Rio Karma. Nevertheless, I will have to save up again if I want to get a new player and there are a few minimum feature requirements I can't help thinking would be easy to include on a new player.
I don't give a shit for ITMS compatibility or crappy organiser-style features or games. I just want to be able to fit all my songs in my pocket and find the right tunes to play when on the train. Is it really too much to ask?
Turkeyphant
My last MP3 player was a Compaq IPAQ-1. Compaq stopped supporting it and I had a lot of problems trying to get their software to work on Win 2000/XP/20003. I can't just copy my music to its memory cards because guess what? It is stored in a proprietary format. That means you need to have their software which means that if they go out of business or don't support your OS, your nice little gadget is worthless!
With my NexIIe, I can just plug the device in via a USB cable to my computer and it shows up as a disk drive. I can copy music files (or even copy other files for storage). If I want better performance, instead of connecting the NexIIe, I just pull the CompactFlash card and put it into a card reader. I use no tool more complicated than explorer to manage my music.
The current firmware even supports CF up to 2GB. I don't see why you would want a 2GB hard drive when you could have 2GB of solid state. That said, it would be nice to have a 10+ GB version of my player.
Evolution: love it or leave it
Hate to mention it (again and again) but the Neuros 20GB model does everything that this promises to do, and you can buy it today for $200. http://www.neurosaudio.com/ Yes, it is bulky, but it does OGG, FM radio record, FM transmit, and a bunch of other stuff. Plus it has a nice Linux app.
are going to be models with gigantic hands
We shall take Ogg Vorbis to New Hampshire! And South Carolina! And New Mexico! And California! And then we'll take it to Washington, DC! AND TAKE BACK THE IPODS AND WINAMP JUKEBOXES IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!
sulli
RTFJ.
There's also the way it scrolls through long lists quickly, and the way it interacts with the other buttons, that make it such a great and unique piece of interface design.
Hmmm.... just like to jog dial on countless other electronic devices?
Sure the wheel is a good idea, but it's hardly original. And it's not really a major innovation either, more of an evolution. Ever heard of Pong?
Life is too short to proofread.
Ok, this thing certainly has A TYPE of scroll wheel. And yes, Apple has patents for its own version of a scroll wheel - as well as the way the wheel itself works and how it works specifically with the i-pod. It could be that this company has absolutely ripped Apple off.
But Apple isn't suing anyone or releasing statements detailing its intentions to do so just yet, mnk? Lots of things have scroll wheels. My mouse has one. I don't think we can patent a simple hardware control itself. i mean, why not patent a toggle switch if that were the case?
How about we wait and get just a LITTLE more information before we start branding patents as ridiculous or, on the other end, start a wildly speculative crusade to protect Apple's intellectual property.
** Chigusaaa!!! You're the coolest girl in the WORLD!!! **
On this page in the flash banner, it lists it as "FM Transmitter".
I think that's quite a cool feature. Maybe it does both? Dunno... but thats nice to have an FM link built in so I can just carry it in my pocket but listen to it on my car stereo without connecting it to another little box.
Who gives a flying crap about OGG. It's always like Linux users to root for the underdog. In this case however, OGG means shit in the "real" world.
+5 Troll and +2 Flamebait modifiers.
And here is what babelfish thinks it says about "FMT":
The dimensions are comparable to iPod.
The iPod mini is 3.6 by 2.0 by 0.5 inches
The iPod 15GB and 20GB is 4.1 by 2.4 by 0.62 inches
The iPod 40GB is 4.1 by 2.4 by 0.73 inches
The D-cube is 88 by 48 by 19 mm (3.46 by 1.88 by 0.74 inches) using the conversion chart
So, the DCube is smaller in height and width compared to the mini although almost as thick as the 40GB iPod.
Free XBox, PS2
Actually, there is the Neuros which is 20GB, supports Ogg and MP3 and has an FM tuner. It can even record. The best thing about it is the price at only $199, it is hard to beat.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
I think that the scroll wheel patent would be a pretty minor point in Apple's legal whacking of this device. Its design is an obvious copy of the iPod, and would be actionable under industrial design law. Apple successfully sued EMachines for ripping off the iMac design, and this looks like even more of a rip-off than their machines did.
makes no mention of the ipod lookalike (NHD-150D). Perhaps they can get away with copying the ipod interface in Korea because of differing IP laws?
The english site link:
http://nextway.co.kr/english/
I hate Grammar Nazi's
Sorry to go around Slashdot being some kind of mp3-champion but i think it gets an unfair bashing around here sometimes. The LAME team (which I'm not part of) has put an enormous amount of effort into getting transparency at around 200kbps and to say otherwise is doing them a disservice I feel. It is true however that the design of MP3 as a spec has some limitations which are not completely solved even by using very high bitrates, for example, however your post exaggerates the severity of these in real situations. OK I'm done :)
OT: How do you spell art[e/i]facts anyway? :)
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
Now the built in FM transmitter (which this seems to have) IS new, as far as I know. If they do a good job with that feature, that would be quite nice.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
THAT'S NO CUBE
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
Have you USED it? It's not the same as a mouse wheel or other wheels. You can move the wheel the same distance and it goes through the list at different speeds depending on how quickly, or how slowly, you move. You can move the wheel 2 inches and go through either 5 songs, or 100, depending on the speed.
It's not just the fact that it's a wheel, it's how it interacts with the interface.
Depends on if you're another person who does not rip their own music, mearly steals it from other people. Kinda sounds like you might be in that catagory. There are people out there that don't belive in ripping off other people. Why not use the best codec? Why not expect products to support what you want? Why pay a tax to the frau^^^^houfenber people?
"think of it as evolution in action"
That still doesn't explain why they should have a fscking patent on it. It's just a wheel and/or touchpad.
- RCA
- Quassar
- GE
- Audiovox
- iRiver
All these budget companies have created audio crap since i've known about them. What makes you think something thrown together ripping of a patent and having all these features for dirt cheap is going to be worth the money or the ink used to print it. I think the 1 out of 5 Ogg users need to find a different codec or brew up their own firm ware for a decent product. It seems everything wants to touch the iPod but as of right now none of them have all of these Loyalty, Quality, good branding, a good track record of not making audio garbage, international support forums (ie ipodlounge), and excellent 3rd party accesory support. iPod is the new "i'll have a coke" and " can i have a kleenix" The only thing at this point that can kill the iPod is a better iPod. _g"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
The only way to transfer songs is Linux at the moment is through the ethernet interface, because the USB interface does not implement the mass storage standard.
You have to connect the Karma player to your LAN (using either dhcp or keying in a static IP into the device). Then you point your web browser to the embedded http server on the player and download a java program that you can use to transfer songs. The program is not fancy but it has all the essential features it needs for daily use.
It must be mentioned that you cannot upgrade the firmware from Linux yet.
On the whole, I would say that the process of transferring songs in Linux is harder than with the Korean made players, but still easier than trying to get the iPod to work in Linux since at least Linux is supposed to work out of the box.
I own a Neuros and I love it. Its a little bulky and not that sleek, but it gets the job done for half the price of comparable players. And its "backpack" design makes it easy to upgrade in the future.
"the starry sky above and the moral law within"-Kant
"Most noticeable however is the scroll wheel, Apple holds patents (pending) on scroll wheel design"
Oh guys, guys, GUYS! This is NOT a scroll wheel! A scroll wheel is something a mouse has! This is a JOG DIAL!