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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?
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!
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); }
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
Peace
I just poured an entire six-pack of Coke onto my monitor. Spitting is for barbarians.
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.
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.
Umm, where do you think most PCs are made? The moon? Zimbabwe? Folks, this is the world we live in.
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.
How about rather than joining 3 million other slashdotters in bitching about the rich guy down the street you actually contribute. If you think you can do better, than help an open source project. All of the programs you listed have an open source counterpart that in ways don't measure up to microsoft's "crap clones" as of yet. I'd rather you use your talent to help or at least donate to open office. Spreading FUD about microsoft's programs isn't going to help shit.
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
"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!
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
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.
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!
the next generation of movie houses will use video projection and the WMV file format
This doesn't really matter, IMO. Movie theatres are already so expensive that I end up going only once per year, and, then, I'm still dissapointed (people kicking my seat, looking through big hair, $5 popcorn, and all the other reasons why watching movies at home is 1000% better--and cheaper--than going to a theatre). If next-generation video discs go to WMA, then I'll most likely just stop watching new movies altogether (at least there's 50+ years of good movies already made).
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
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.
the BSOD will be replaced by a RSOD.
Serenity now, insanity later.
"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!
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