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MS Plans To Cooperate With Chinese TV Maker
zhangyong writes "Microsoft has signed a strategic cooperation pact with China's top television maker Sichuan Changhong Electric Appliances (which claims to be the world's number-two maker of colour TVs, OEM for APEX, etc.), the official Shanghai Securities News (in Chinese) (in English) said on Monday.
'Changhong would receive advanced IT technology and software from Microsoft to develop digital TV sets and other high-technology products.'
What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"
Apple announces a big monitor, suddenly this Msft innovation appears.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Peace
Microsoft gets to test its DRM in China on a huge populace that has no choice but to except to evil dictates of their pseudo-communist overlords. Once they get some of the major bugs worked out, and the almost major bugs can be papered over, they spring it on the USA just in time for broadcast HDTV, which will use MS DRM and the WMV format.
Apple went to iTunes and music and won that battle handily, but they're losing the war big time, as the next generation of movie houses will use video projection and the WMV file format. The money is in the Big Things, and MS is cozying up to all the evil bastards and putting themselves in centre stage. As far as MS is concerned, the WMV format doesn't care if the DRM is locking down a movie theatre or a home theatre. It's all the same entertainment designed to keep your attention between commercials (TV) or your mind off the horrors of the nightmare we call post-industrial civilisation.
Bread and Circuses, only this time the circuses have DRM owned by a monopoly.
Heard it here first. Sort of.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?
This 'combination' is far from the first time these two items have come together, and for the record, so far, the first attempts have been feeble - thru no fault of the Chinese, I assure you.
TV networks are about the easiest thing there is to government-control; it's both more efficient and more reliable to control the broadcaster. The Chinese gov't has also displayed a dismaying abundance of good sense when censoring their citizens' internet access: They filter the transmissions at well-chosen choke points, which is (again) efficient and reliable. The MS/RIAA route of controlling the individual computers/TVs is inefficient and unreliable, and it seems like they know it. I doubt they're interested in DRM-enabled TVs.
MS is in for a fun ride. The Chinese will figure out how to crack the DRM with Microsoft's unknowing help and then distribute sets/boxes/players that will allow you to disable the DRM. Mark my words - APEX made it's mark selling cheap machines that disabled Macrovision and region protection. Just wait and see.
Nonsense. I have both an Apex TV and a DVD player. Both are quite high quality. The TV has an excellent picture. The DVD player can play MP3, SVCD, VCD, straight MPEG, just about anything. Chinese products are not universally shitty.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
made deals with PC manufacturers to bundle MS-DOS with the machine
You might want to read about the deal Gates "forced" on IBM. It was actually the other way around. Gates wanted to make a deal with IBM to include MS-BASIC with the PC, but IBM didn't have an OS for it, which they needed first. Gates suggested IBM go to Kildall of CPM fame. (Gates didn't want an OS business, he was more interested in languages) Kildall wasn't there; his wife and a laywer turned away "Big Evil IBM". IBM kept twisting Gates' arm, so Gates and Allen bought QDOS (quick-and-dirty-OS) from a guy in Seattle to make IBM happy.
One concession Gates asked for was the ability to sell the OS to other vendors offering 808x boxes. No one thought this was necessarily worth very much since there were not many clones, and everyone thought IBM had the market locked up anyway.
So many think Microsoft is were it is because it is big bad and evil, so there has to be legislation to box the company. Gates on the other hand, has stated that he is always wondering which garage is going to emit something that will undermine the business. I'm not an apologist for Microsoft. The company has done some stupid things. Just not as consistently as the competition
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
I think you are right in that IBM was the one which handed the monopoly to Microsoft. But, it was Bill and Steve who decided to use anti-competitive practices as the basis for doing business instead of competing by producing better products. MBA's love those guys but techies, mostly dispise them. Gershner once said that Microsoft was a great marketing company and a poor technology company and that REALLY REALLY pissed Bill Gates off. Because he THINKS he's a good geek. And he pays the people around him to make sure he keeps thinking that way. :/
Anyway, so once the monopoly was established, Microsoft started pounding on anybody who didn't play THIER game and they did this with the OEMs and ISVs. Like the thread parent said, Microsoft want after the suppliers of the product and took the choice from the consumers since they held a bigger hammer over the heads of the suppliers.
You were both right, just off on the time of the events.
BTW, Bill Gates' paranoia has made him VERY wealthy, but only because he was handed the monopoly power by IBM( as you stated ). This does not make him a visionary or a genius in my book. Far smarter people built far better and useful tools then has ever come from Microsoft. But they were destroyed by Bill and Steves fear of being shown up. Gawd, just look at their "Facts" tour to see what bull they excrete and look at the state of Microsofts 3 year old Secure Computing Initiative. But that just IMHO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Digital Rights Management will have a whole new meaning. It won't just apply to copyright, but to human rights .
China still hasn't managed human rights. Neither has the US for that matter...
I got back from China a few months ago. There are American DVDs everywhere. There was a van going around with 'Intellectual Property Enforcement' written on it... in English only... quite obviously for display purposes. China is probably the biggest pirate nation in the world, maybe second to Russia, maybe not. Combine industrial capacity with a total disregard for property laws.
I would not be surprised if this is a step by Microsoft to get some Chinese folks with clout ("guanxi" in Chinese or "connections" in English is even more important in China than in the U.S.) That's the only way for MS to protect its IP in China and head off a prospective haven of bootlegged media and DRM flaunting software.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Am I the only one that had to gulp on the article headline? In the crypto community, there is a notion of a "Chinese TV set" - a central-authority-controlled computing device that takes part in a distributed computation challenge unbeknowst to the owner, and informs him if he has to report the result suddenly printed on the screen to the authorities (smth along the lines "you've just been randomly selected by the central broadcasting authorities as a lottery winner. Please call this number and read them the following digits to verify your identity (broken key bits encoding follows) in order to claim XYZ Yuan prize"). Perhaps the Chinese govt. finally got the hint and decided to have this really implemented? :)
VKh
Here's what I see - No Support Here - Other goodies to expect can be found at Engrish.com's computer section