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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?"
**wakes up from dream**
What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"
Why, the phrase "Blue Screen Of Death" will take on a whole new meaning of course.
What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"
Cheap + shit == Cheap shit.
Funny, eh?
What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies? That's like throwing gasoline on a man on fire.
Let me guess
Oh..oh I KNOW! Pick me.. PICK ME!!!
Would it have anything to do with Government sponsored DRM so the CCP can control all that you see, hear and download at a more manageable level?
Life is not for the lazy.
Symantec and McAffee stock go orbital?
Hate me!
What will happen when low-cost labor in China (Speaking about the TV manufacturing and IT Technology) is combined with Microsoft technologies?
Digital High Defination Blue Screens of Death?
Friends help you move...
REAL Friends help you move dead bodies... ^_^
Microsoft Now Backing Chinese
Traitors!
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Apple announces a big monitor, suddenly this Msft innovation appears.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
What would happen? I would hope that people could reverse engineer as the DMCA allows for interoperability the technologies in the TV's. It would be nice to have Windows Media 9 playback capability under Linux. :)
Or not.
Shh.
What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?
Unicode friendly worms!
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
Surely you mean Red Screen Of Death?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Doh. Make that playback under your Linux based TV.
Shh.
Peace
...becomes much more popular?
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I just poured an entire six-pack of Coke onto my monitor. Spitting is for barbarians.
So you guys ARE in favor of Government sponsored DRM? Well christ on a stick, I'm floored!!
Life is not for the lazy.
Massive quantities of hardware-based DRM, of severely crappy quality, which breaks in a couple of days. But at least it's going to be cheap.
I can assure you, the best way to get rid of dragons is to have one of your own.
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.
Something tells me that the tv's will have mysterious failures of both the red and green guns after they have been deployed.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
Since a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, it won't be much different from high-cost labor in the US combined with Microsoft technologies.
But where is Microsoft going to get the "...advanced IT technology...?
Veritas patesco per quaestio questio. Truth is revealed through questions.
Does there have to be a damn blue screen of death joke in every microsoft article? It was funny 2 years ago when people actually got them. Pull your head out of your ass or at least get a sense of humor that people in this century can relate to. Actually, the rating system of slashdot should have modded that down below my browsing level but someone decided to waste a whole mod point on thinking that was funny.
Umm, where do you think most PCs are made? The moon? Zimbabwe? Folks, this is the world we live in.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
[Tim Allen Mode][Bill Gates Modifier]More Profit![/Bill Gates Modifier][/Tim Allen Mode]
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
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.
Unlike the old days, where you just unpacked your new TV, aimed the antenna, and turned it on, you now need to update your TV's operating system to Service Pack 2 as soon as you turn it on, in order to avoid catching a worm. Then you need to install antivirus software and a firewall. Lastly, in order to keep your TV working acceptably, you need to defrag it weekly, and regularly run software to remove spyware.
Considering the crap on TV these days, it doesn't sound like it'll be worth the trouble.
I predict:
* People will keep buying microsoft products because they like the products.
* Slashdotters will continue to rant about the evils of microsoft (or whatever company happens to be doing well at the time)
* Linux will continue being a useful and robust platform that's too complex for the average consumer and incompatible with popular applications.
It seems Microsoft is performing an end-run around the free market again.
Not so very long ago, during the dawn of the x86 PC, machines were sold without operating systems. You had to buy your own copy. You were likely to ask friends or consult magazine reviews as to which OS was the best buy. As such, there was a possibility that you would buy, for example, CP/M-86 or Concurrent CP/M and not MS-DOS. In fact, there was a very good chance you wouldn't buy MS-DOS, because it was junk, and everyone knew it.
Bill Gates knew it, too. He knew he couldn't win a fair fight on the retail shelf. So he did the same thing he'd done with BASIC: He took the choice out of the consumers' hands and made deals with PC manufacturers to bundle MS-DOS with the machine. Today, as a direct result of such deals, Microsoft is an oppressive illegal monopoly, and industry innovation has been provably stunted.
It seems Microsoft intends to repeat the process, this time with in-TV software, in a country not yet familiar with their felonious behavior.
Watch this carefully. Microsoft has proved repeatedly that they don't give a damn about the end-user, because that's not their customer -- the OEM is, and Microsoft has shown that they can bend OEMs over at will without repercussions. Personally, I don't think this bodes well at all for the future of TV receivers.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
A voice of reason on slashdot. This site must have been spoofed or something.
I don't think that Microsoft will last very long in China after the party members are subjected to the blue screen of death a few times. The Party leaders will also want to back-stab Microsoft at every turn, which means Microsoft will want out as well. Expect this marriage to end in divorce.
Mathematics is not a crime.
"What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"
The better question is, "What will happen when Microsoft's technology meets China's total disregard for intellectual property rights?"
The answer is, of course, "Hilarity ensues."
3000+ comments meta-modded. 0 mod points awarded.
Lesson for other meta-suckers: Don't believe the hype!
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.
which claims to be the world's number-two maker of colour TVs
Silly Microsoft. Colour TVs are still experimental technology and will never take off. Far better for them to team up with developers of the tried, tested, and true, black and white televion set
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"
All I can say is that they had be better staffing up the Bangalore call center for this right now.
What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies? Even higher priced Microsoft technologies? MS Assistant: Well sir, it costs us 60% less in labor to make these in China. Bill Gates: *excellent....* Have them raise the price by 60%! MS Assistant: But sir... it costs LESS to make it! Gates: DO NOT QUESTION ME, UNDERLING!!
that's what you'll get from a combined MS and Chinese product. But isn't that obvious by now. ;-)
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Make it expensive and cumbersome to watch TV and we will all be better off in the long run
Only fools watch something where content and schedule is dictated by commercial interestes that do not have your welfare at heart.
Help fight continental drift.
webTV????
MS Windows and Apex Televisions.
I tell ya... there's nothing better than the $89 20" flat screen Apex TV I picked up for xmas 2 years ago. Fantastic picture, well-thought out remote, top quality product. Just like MS Windows.
I'm kidding.
-- No sig for you!
Not only will this lead to reset buttons, but for the first time your tv will get stuck in STANDBY mode.
Also, cable TV access won't be available until sometime in 2005.
Remote control is only suported with a "Professional" TV License. Wheee
Wheee!
shouldn't that read M$ plans to assimilate Chineese TV maker?
**wakes up from dream**
Yeah. Dream is right. Television is the opiate of the masses these days and what better source of opiate than China, with a little help for a Yankee trader (Microsoft) to bring it to market around the world.
As more technology is needed (or not needed but crammed in there anyway to obfuscate signals and control content distribution) TV moves further from a free medium into a medium locked down by content providers. Lovely.
"Are you watching that Blue Screen show again?"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
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.
It does happen. Roxio Easy CD Creator kept crashing my Windows XP until I installed the update. Gravis gamepad drivers (GRIP protocol) used to crash my Windows 2000 all the time, and they never did fix those drivers. OK, so buggy apps and drivers aren't Microsoft code, but still, it shouldn't be happening.
the BSOD will be replaced by a RSOD.
Serenity now, insanity later.
MicroSoft's challenge to Apple's iPod is the Microsoft Portable Media Center.
And just as the iPod synchronises with iTunes on a computer, the Portable Media Center synchronises with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 on a computer.
And in the same way the iTunes Music Store can download music, the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 Online Spotlight allows you to download music and videos.
Apple has already made a deal with Founder to bundle their PCs with iTunes, as mentioned on Slashdot before, and now Microsoft is teaming up with Sichuan Changhong Electric Appliances, who produce color televisions
Microsoft may be teaming up with Sichuan Changhong Electric Appliances to produce Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition Television Sets as a method for video distibution, in opposition to Apples move to be a method for music distribution.
"What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"
How about this result:
1) The labor will get more expensive as they get pissed off working on crap and demand better wages and better working conditions - such as NOT working on crap.
2) Everything will be over-engineered and quality will drop through the floor.
3) Security will become even worse than it was.
4) China will nuke Redmond in retaliation.
Oh, okay, everything is fine.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
"What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"
TVs that crash, freeze, and require reboots every so often?
Seriously, this is GREAT news. The Chinese will steal every ounce of Microsoft's technology it can get its hands on. Then it will produce products based on that technology and sell it for a LOT less money. In other words, China will do for the United States' software industry what it earlier did for our electronics industry.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
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
At least you're original.
What happend to the *inux OS China was working on? How did the Govement let that one pass? I think Microsoft is running China. :D
I've been using XP since it was released, and W2K before that. I have not seen a BSOD since Windows ME
That might be because Microsoft decided to "fix" the BSOD problem by replacing it with the "Instant reboot problem"
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
"What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?"
Isn't a great deal of MS Hardware already made in China?
*clicks 'Submit' with his made-in-china Microsoft Mouse...*
Only we're not too sure who the elephant is here.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
You forgot:
* Microsoft and other companies will continue to pay shills like you to astroturf for them here.
What will happen when low-cost labor in China is combined with Microsoft technologies?
Isn't the Xbox already made in China?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I'll face down Tank with MS made targeting software anytime.
99% of tv an is evil brain-rotting drug anyway (except for star trek, simpsons, and pbs). most people who watch it are already brainwashed, complacent sheep who could care less about being jacked into the matrix. !
For those BSOD fans:
Control Panel -> System -> Advanced tab
Click "Startup and Recovery" button.
In the System Recovery section, uncheck Automatically reboot
Click OK button.
There, we got BSOD baby!
Changhong is one of the largest TV maker and it's goverment own. To be precise, owned by Sichun government. Sichun government has been very actively attracting foreigner investor to the province and the province has a population over 100 millions. Intel has spent $400 millions building a packaging factory there and has recently announce to launch WiMax network in Chengdu (second largest city in Sichun).
What are we looking at is a possible backdoor for Microsoft to introducing XBox2 into China walking the gray area of the Chinese regulation. Changhong's future relying on flat TV, HDTV sales and nothing is better then an attractive graphics of a game console to attract customers. Remember, most people in China have not seen a game console in their life. The graphics from XBox2 on a HDTV will like to blow their mind away.
Development of Sichun is one of the major plan of China's "Go West" policy. If Microsoft can help, the government is very likely to make a exception of its no game console policy for Microsoft.
With Microsoft's Xbox2 launch date setting in 2005, the timing is just perfect. Sony/Nintendo will not be able to react to this. Sony TV is a competitor to Changhong or any other TV makers in China so PS2 can't go the same direction. Nintendo may be able to do such thing but they are too stubborn to go with this route.
MS has seen that Linux is gathering support in the far east. They have to stop that. They already know three things:
1. Leveraging an installed base WORKS
2. Embrace and extend WORKS
3. Media and compute devices are coalescing
4. TVs are more prevalent than computers in the East
This is my theory:
They have noticed that leveraging devices from the desktop has failed (by their standards) here in the West - see Windows CE, Stinger, Tablet edition and so on.
Therefore they must try something else, such as leveraging desktop products from devices.
By "working with Chinese Manufacturers" they can promote a large proprietary installed base of Windows codecs, firmware and so on.
Later, when it's time to hook these thing to computers, guess what - only works with Windows Longhorn (or whatever) ring fenced by a minefield of dodgy IP. What is easier - flashing the firmwar or the desktop OS?
I dont believe this is about inserting MS technology into devices destined for the west. I think its a strategic move towards the east.
I wish at was Friday, but I dont want to wish my life away. So I wish it was last Friday.
No text. No text
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Refers to the analogy of getting in bed (doing business) with a behemoth, and seems to be saying MS AND China are both so big, it's hard to tell which one would crush the other.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
MS is just another foreign corporation with no understanding of the Chinese business.
Perhaps. But I didn't see a single Linux machine in the 5 months I was there. Maybe in government computers or somthing. All desktops ran windows, and pirated MS CDs went for about 50 cents on the street. (One in three CDs actually worked. Of course, most were in Chineese, so it did me no good.)
Because China doesn't even recognize domestic IP, Chinese programmers have a hard time making money unles they work for overseas business. Because China is a bad place for IP, the vast majority of Chinese software is designed for foreign markets where it does sell and is then imported, and probably pirated.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I'm assuming you're Chinese and living in China?
I'm not sure how you can tell that the people were Americans just by looking at them, but I agree that most people don't care whether their DVD is pirated or not, so long as it runs. I don't know of a nation where that's not the case. Tourists snatch up plenty of DVDs. In Nanjing, where there aren't a lot of foreigners, there are also plenty of DVD shops and non-foreign buyers. I never claimed that people don't pirate IP in America. But my statements are still true; China doesn't enforce IP laws. it's a location where people can produce and distribute IP on an industrial scale, and this may be Microsoft's motivation for getting in the good graces of possibly influential Chinese businesspeople, in the hopes of stemming the flow at the source.
I'm not supporting MS. I think they're too damn powerful in the US already, and a worldwide monopoly will be even worse. But that doesn't mean they won't make the effort. They have the means and they have the motivation. I'd be willing to bet they do whatever they can, politically and technolgically, to extract a few more dollars from the growing market that is the PRC.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Replying to yourself with 'MOD PARENT UP' is a refreshing new low in karma whoring. My nose cone is off to you, my friend.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling