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Disney Enters PC Market
Zebbers writes "Disney announced today from NYC that they are entering the personal computer market. With a childish design, built in content control and other kid-friendly features, it could be a breakthrough or just another specialized device flop. Do children really need their own specialized computer?" johnpaul191 points out that frogdesign designed the box, and writes "It looks sort of like a squared-off eMac (but blue), and has a flat mouse-shaped front (the ears are speakers!). It uses a a pen for on-screen input, as well as a keyboard and mouse."
Just what we need, a computer from a Mickey Mouse operation...
Frogdesign is awesome. They've done projects for Disney before (including the Disney Cruise ship) not to mention their work in Windows XP, a longstanding relationship with Apple, Ford, Motorola... the list goes on and on.
That what was all this school was for... to teach us how to solve our own problems. -- janeowit
Well, Windows XP's "Luna" certainly looks kiddie enough for this type of PC.
Kids hate using things that are purposefully crippled for kids. Adults seem to forget that at the same time they are buying the same basketball shoes Shaq wears and the same skis the US Olympic team wears. People want to use the gear they envision themselves using in the best of all worlds. For kids that means using what adults use.
You know, for the bad kids.
now all we need is a fully-immersive virtual reality where schoolboys and girls can send impressive suicide notes to all their friends, one of whom will realize that she is much more important to the Internet than she ever thought.
Oh, and tentacle porn in the last episode.
... does the mouse have circular black ears and a cheesy grin?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
they'll contain PCChips motherboards? ;)
Yet another Mickey Mouse computer design.
gee everyone's tried this so why not the mouse. the look will have problems, most kids don't remember mickey. They know blue and bear but not the mouse. But maybe disney can partner it with some video deal and sell millions of them wired only to connect to disney.com thru a disney ISP and break even.
I'm told you are what you eat, does that mean I can be you by tomorrow with some A1?
The old ?partner=google thing didn't work for me. :( Anyone got a registration-free link?
Drill baby drill - on Mars
The market of people who are willing to pay several thousand dollars for an underpowered PC because it appeals to their children is a small one.
Besides, we should have all learned by now that if you plop a small child in front of a normal PC they will figure things out at an alarming rate. No animated rodent middle-man required.
lysergically yours
I would feel so dirty browsing for porn on that thing.
and frogdesign is not responding already?!
Looks like Apple is going to get some new competition.
Mouseware (TM) is where it's at!
Case modders rejoice! I can already see them come up with a line of computers with Mickey Mouse ears mounted on them.
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
Seriously, I've seen MickyMouse-ized TVs, TV/VCRs, and even telephones (my mom actually HAS a Mickey Mouse telephone). Is Disney actually manufacturing this computer instead of just licensing it? Even then, I really, really do not see Disney becoming a Big Name in the computer industry, kids or no kids.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
.. max, then they'll quit. Do their execs know hat they are getting into? If there's money in such a niche, Dell will move in and Disney won't stand a chance. Mickey may be able to sell kid's shoes, clothes, but PCs? I don't think so
And why not branch into computers? Disney has had the best mouse design in the the business for over 75 years!
Disney-based DRM to boot.
I can just see it now - Mickey pops up, a smile on his face and a shotgun in his hands.
"Ho ho, kiddies, I'm afraid you can't do that! It's called copyright infringement, and if you do," he cocks the shotgun and points it at the user, "I'm going to blow up your fucking computer, so put the fucking mouse down, bitch, and move away from the keyboard before the mouse gets mad! Ho ho!"
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Simplify the darn thing for kids... oh wait.
The horror...the horror...
Without a computer, how will a child sync his PDA or download new ringtones for his phone?
Use the Firehose to mod down Second Life stories!
(upon opening the case)
...alright, I'm done.
"Man, this design is goofy."
"You're telling me"
This sig contains repetition and redundancy.
Slashdot story from THE FUTURE!!!
Disney announced today it is getting out of the PC market due to lack of sales. The remaining unsold stock will be used to build a renderfarm to compete against Pixar.
Unknown host pong.
for Kiosks in Disney stores, Disney Land/World etc, maybe daycare centres. I expect that Disney would be bundling a suite of Disney related software titles etc. This is most definately targeting the 2-6 year old range. It may actually take off, its amazing how many people I know whos young childrens bedrooms have a Disney theme... adding a Disney PC would be the icing on the cake.
Like other Disney products styled by Frog, the design firm behind the original Macintosh SE, the model sports rounded edges, big buttons and soothing colors.
Ouch. Maybe they took a few design cues from
(i'm also curious as to what part of nyc the writer lives in. the computer looks like a box with mouse ears - not exactly a mouse)
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
It comes bundled with ContentWatch's Internet filtering tools and multimedia children's software called Disney Flix, Pix and Mix.
/.), but content-watch is a bad program.
I believe their biggest mistake here is using Content Watch. My wonderful mother had that lousy filter installed on our computer when I was just a young-in and it is the buggiest thing I have ever seen. It crashes the computer, takes up the resources, and DOESN'T work. It blocks programs from running that are perfectly fine programs (like VTI from ticalc.org). (and one of the bugs present here is that if you leave the "this program uses a bad word 'sex'" window on and open the program again, it doesn't catch it).
Anyway, I don't mind filtering the internet for children (i know i'll get flamed by the 'yro' crowd here at
Account #1
user: stupid6
pass: stupid
fyi.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Now you have a computer made just for you!
What better machine could there be to view child porn!
Go Here and click top link.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Wasn't IBM's "PC Jr." an attempt at making a computer for kids? What about the Tandy Color Computer 3 (my first "Computer" by the way)?
Full on computers geared for kids don't work...it's better having parents install kid-related software on regular PC's/Mac's...no point in buying another PC just for the tykes (instead, you could buy them educational electronic toys, but not full on computers)..
Won't the kiddies grow out of the kid-centric PC? Or will it be a race between children growing up and PC obsolescence?
With a childish design: Windows XP
built in content control: Windows Media Player
and other kid-friendly features:Admin accounts, for playing games and then browsing to spyware-installer sites in IE
Microsoft and Disney: both sell mice. So are they really one and the same?
This is going to so make it onto those 'top ten gift ideas for your boss' lists.
I see a computer as a computer, but that's just me. It's not going to be running DisneyOS (tm) or anything like that... it'll just look "cute." Hopefully parents will see this as a waste of money, because a normal computer will do.
And if you asked me, Disney should be more worried about their cartoons than anything else. They cling to Mickey Mouse as their "founding cartoon," but I haven't seen a Mickey cartoon in years. Hell, I bet the kids that will be using these Disney computers won't even know who Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Donald Duck, etc.., are.
Just what we need, a computer from a Mickey Mouse operation...
I thought Microsoft only made software...
Would my users be insulted if I started replacing their regular machines with these?
Just wondering.
Love,
BOFH.
Would it be morally wrong to run Doom3 on a Mickey Mouse computer?
Or a touch-screen... all sorts of systems used to come with light pens etc, but now it's pretty much only the mouse except on PDAs.
I always wanted a touchscreen/pen to play RTS games with.
It's brilliant, really. The guts of a PC are about as much of a commodity market as you can imagine. Just add some flourishes to the OS (which I'm sure MS would be happy to oblige to) -- and here we're talking some new icons, backgrounds, etc. Something I could accomplish in a weekend. Add some kid-friendly interweb-nanny software, some prebundled crappy games, and TADA! you've got a Disney computer which you can now mark up. And since Toby and Caitlin don't need to run Photoshop or FoxPro, it doesn't need 1GB of RAM. Then make each case a different color, sell them as limited editions for one year (Tan and brown Lion King PC available only through fall! Get yours now!), pull in profit.
Genius.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
If do see a good, independent review of the computer that says that it's not total crap, I will change my mind about the computer. However, until that review comes out, I'll be telling my friends who aren't as computer literate as me and are thinking about buying one of these, to hold off until a review comes out.
Zagreus sits inside your head, Zagreus lives among the dead, Zagreus sees you in your bed and eats you in your sleep.
I'll tell you why this will flop, and it's not just some "I think disney sucks" diatribe.
In the computer industry, you either have to have a superior design and high profit margins, or deal in large volume. Niche markets for low volume in the computer world don't work. Also, tie in's between computers and other products have always flopped. Look at the barbie computer and matchbox computer. Last a couple months.
Parents buy computers, not kids. Some kids will be able to get their parents to buy this stuff, but its a very small niche, and there's no margin to justify the industrial design costs for things like this. You just won't get the volume of purchases. People like well designed computers, but they look at it more like an appliance.
Apple can get away with high cost industrial design because of their niche, and their niche has nothing to do with appealing to kids. Back in the day they targeted education in order to get kids to grow up on macs, but it had nothing to do with how the macs looked.
I also noticed this line in the end of the article:
"There may not be anything technologically new about any of the gadgets, but it's easy to imagine them inspiring toy lust. "
If that's not corporate pandering I don't know what is. This computer will not make anyone gadget envious, and either the author is an idiot for thinking that or he's kissing up to the corporate parents. I mean c'mon, people don't have printer envy these days, and joysticks and digital cameras are common place.
Finally, I'd just like to say that the spin of the poster makes it seem like disney is actually into the computer business to compete with Dell. This is just a brand tie in, and is nothing new.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
For those wanting to RTA without registering.
I know the kids I know (6months-12years) would rather have a real pc with a real keyboard and mice because they like to use the computer cause that is what they see me doing. I showed a 2 year old my laptop for the first time and he said he didnt want to use it cause it was just a toy, he wanted to use the computer at the desk. adding a cool shape and crippling the OS does nothing to teach the children how to use a computer
Mattel has tried this trick before by licensing their Barbie and Hot Wheels brands to a small PC maker known as Patriot Computers back in 1999.
However, parents who paid $699 for the units just before Christmas Y2K got seriously burned when Patriot Computers went bankrupt. Nearly 1100 customers ended up out their money and getting only a $100 coupon for Matel products. For families that only had $700 to spend on toys for the kids, this was a fiasco.
Of course being a Disney computer, my first response is - so what's the DRM on it like and how badly is it locked down eg. are you actually *allowed* to do anything on it besides Disney (TM) approved actions? I just keep on thinking of another big megacorp who tries to do hardware and is part of big media *cough*Sony*cough*. They make good hardware that is badly crippled with DRM and anything else their media side wants to put in - and I don't mean crippled as in the Slashdot version "Anything with DRM is bad" but crippled as in it is actually a pain for normal people to use and people keep on mentioning it in reviews "Well this is a great piece of hardware but..." I can just imagine that Disney's dream of a perfect Disney computer is one where you have to ring Disney for permission everytime you want to do something not specifically Disney (TM) approved eg. installing software not on the Disney (TM) approved list.
I haven't RTFA'd yet, but I'm wondering if this has wireless?
That has been the most important aspect of my daughter's (5 yo) acceptance of the machine. No matter where you 'think' they want the PC, they always want to drag it somewhere else. With 802.11b, I was able to build it into a self contained unit where it could be moved anywhere she wanted. (Well anywhere there was a power cord). Now she has one of my old laptops, and can even go sans power cord.
(what does a 5 y.o. need with 'net access? Well besides the normal kids flash sites, it's amazing what you can do on a homepage. She left her ever-present stuffed lamb toy at a hotel once, and some photoshopped googling showed that lamby was 'on vacation' with all sorts of pictures from the road)
I also find this makes the machine become more than just a glorified PC with a mouse. When you put it in the kid's little world it becomes a tool for 'normal' play activities instead of another ADD training excercise. She plays Barbie.com with friends (real and stuffed) and integrates the happenings of Disney games on screen with the physical toy world around her.
When the machine is locked down at a desk, it's amazing how it becomes the sit-straight-mouse-in-hand-1000-yard-stare effect.
Of course this is anecdotal, but I bet there's some universal truth to it. So I'm interested to see if this machine is intended to be an enhancement of the kids normal playworld, or just another implementation of what's been done before.
a story about someone who booted Linux on the Disney PC.
With a childish design, built in content control and other kid-friendly features, it could be a breakthrough or just another specialized device flop. Do children really need their own specialized computer?
The more important question is... Will it play Doom 3?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Just wait until your kids draw on the screen with real pens. If bozos at Kroger can't figure out to use the pen attached to the display, how is my 3-year old supposed to?
Anyone remember when they had those Hotwheels PC for boys, and Barbie PC for girls? That company went bankrupt real fast. Apparently this type of marketing is just plain stupid. Kids want "kid-themed" PCs as much as women want "female-themed" cars. Frankly, if I was a kid, I'd be insulted.
Also, the target market (kids who were born in the 90's) know as much about Micky Mouse as I know about Charlie Chaplin. They grew up with Buzz Lightyear, not Micky.
"Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever" - Napoleon Bonapart.
Slashdot story from THE FUTURE!!!
You have to predict further than a week into the future to get any credibility as a psychic.
Damn! Just we bloody need. Disney, a company which hasn't had an original idea since the 1940's, now comes out with a computer system. I wonder what intellectual property control programs they'll try to come up with.
Jeez, if Disney had its way, the new wonder computer would:
/* Dang, I can't type that well. */
so there is no doubt that eventually a kid will be at their computer and a nice little popup will come up saying, "fucking 03wnz0r3d by Goofy" and then of course direct the young tike to some fun sites
Single frame of porn to flash on screen at start-up for .08 seconds, anyone?
But I don't think that it's going to be very successful. If only because of how it looks. If given a choice, I think that most kids would go for an iMac. And I doubt that parents will buy such an ugly box just for very young children. After all, computers generally hang around for a few years. What happens when the kids grow up?
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I thought it was amusing when the substitute host on the Cavuto show on CNBC asked the company president if the computer would block references to Disney's Gay Days at the park. Hummina hummina hummina.
I need this so I won't feel so scared playing Doom3.
I think it will be a bad flop (yeah, children hate things made for children),but anyway it's a diseducative move.
Children have to learn computing on real computers. Real computers are NOT difficult for children (expecially now),and there was a /. story about 3-y.o. people using Linux ;)
Anyway,I remember I learned computers when I was 5, on my dad's VIC-20. I remember I was amazed I could tell that machine what to do!. I just typed :
10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10
and I stared looking that machine that did what I asked it...Ok,I asked something stupid,but I felt powerful! And I had just learned what a loop is...
Later (when I was 6-7) I learned to POKE around...and,guys,there were *worlds* in the memory of that machine! I remember I thought I would have "decrypted" the odd character noise that happened with some POKE command...
The fact is with that computer I learned how to program and how computers were made, seamlessly, and having fun. Because it was a real machine, and because I had to program to make it work. I felt powerful.
Therefore, wanna build a children-oriented computer? Just do it :
;) )
-Install Linux (Mandrake -or any other well-done KDE/Gnome desktop will work)(oh,I know this advice is pure mod-gold
-Install all xmms/mplayer codecs etc.
-DON'T install all games you can think of : tell him/her how to find and install them!
-Give your child a good Python tutorial and tell him/her "Can't you find that game?You can do YOUR GAME.Now."
-- Patent no.123456: A way to personalize
Indoctrinate them when they're young.
...does it meet the minimum hardware specs for Doom3?
USA Today has an article about this as well, along with a photo of the monitor with "mouse ears" and a matching blue printer.
Do they all come with "Fondle me Tigger" screensavers?
You laugh, but mark my words, if you're smart you'll run out and pick up a couple dozen and sell these things on eBay. People on eBay will fork over insane amounts for banal garbage, even when they can go to the store and buy it for less.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It might involve even swapping a CD during the process!!!1
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Kids these days are so computer literate that this will only appeal for possibly 1 or 2 weeks before they are coding PHP and recompiling the Linux Kernel. I always feel like such a chump talking to my gf's 10 year old nephew. I have less intelligent IT conversations at work.
Little Girls can use this computer to chat with Disney Executive Patrick Naughton
Hello kids, I notice you are surfing the web. Want to buy some overpriced chinese made stuffed toys?
"(the ears are speakers!)"
...my troll-o-meter went up to 70/100. ;P
Un-news
You thought wrong
I just sent a few emails to our COO & CAO's to buy these as new expansion PCs.
* Microsoft and Disney will partner to create a cobranded OS called "Lion King" to compete with Apple's "Tiger" OS X rev.
* It wasn't Bill Gates that invented the Internet. It was Walt Disney.
* Disney is in violation of copyright with SCO and will be sued shortly.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
case-mod stories, please
First off, I'm not going to buy my kid a $900 computer just cuz it's blue and has mouse ears. Now to my actual point.
The nifty blue LCD monitor with the ears with speakers in them was obviously designed by someone who doesn't have a kid in the age range this computer is aiming at. I bought my youngest daughter an old Apple 7500 with a 15" monitor when she was about 18 months old so she could play the Jump Start and Blues Clues games, she is now 4 and has graduated to an iMac so she can play internet games, but that's a whole other subject. The monitor is thouroughly covered with stickers, has been colored on with crayons, and generally beat to hell. This is a nice solid CRT, think of what would have heppened to an LCD, it'd be toast. Moreover, I want to know how they're going to lock it down so the kiddos don't accidentally throw the Windows folder in the trash. Can you imagine having to reinstall and reconfigure it everytime something happens? The joy of that old 7500 was that it ran OS 8 and I could boot from a CD and recopy known good system folders and such over in about 5 min if necessary (and believe me it will be).
I have always seen kids as the perfect computer recyclers, they don't need a 2.6 GHz P4 to play Reader Rabit, even 500 MHz is overkill for most kids in the target age group. You hand your old computers down to them and buy yourself the new stuff. I see this going the way of the Barbie and Hot Wheels PC's that were on sale ever so breifly a while back. I take that back, I bet most of these will go to the grownups who are Disney freaks and would never consider letting a kid use it since it 's a "collectable"
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -RAH
It has been found that the computers will not play Farhenheit 911.
They are only doing this so that they can tap the sweet Mickey Mouse PC market before his likeness enters the public domain. Boy, when that happens these Mickey PCs will be all over the friggin place.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Please don't tell me it's M$ Bob!
SourceHosting.net, LLC
Ready. Set. Code.
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Well real computers cost money, and I'd rather use the unlimited power of my imagination.... cause I ain't got no damn money.
...By pushing the money that went into this project into school literacy and children's reading programs. It's critically important for kids and adults alike to be able to effectively read, write, and (perhaps most important) apply critical thinking, logic, and analysis to what they're reading and writing. However, how often have you seen real debate being taught (or even encouraged) in any classroom outside of college level?
In other words: Teach 'em how to ask the right questions, and look carefully at the answers they get back. The rest will follow easily enough.
For those who I know will promptly claim that a system like this can serve as an educational tool, well, that's true to some degree. However, I gained my reading skills (I was reading at college level by the time I was eight), and my love of books, from the fact that my parents took the time to introduce me to the world of printed media early on (including maps and basic geography -- fascinating stuff!)
There's no way that a computer can ever replace the experience of a parent reading to you, encouraging you to read right along with them, giving you the meaning and context of the words on the spot, or pointing to a spot on a world globe and telling you about the different cultures that live there.
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Why do I have this mental image of a Disney webproxy that when you surf to porn sites you get tame MickeyMouse stuff instead. Like "hotmale.com" for example, rather then gay porn popups from hell you get Disney(tm) popups from hell.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
With a childish design, built in content control and other kid-friendly features,
Hey! They're ripping off Slashdot!
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
Now i can really say that ive got a mickey moused PC. and not just mean something i threw together out of old used and spare parts.
At least thats what mickey moused used to mean.
You thought wrong.
Yes, you're right. In fact I use a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro and a Microsoft Intellimouse optical mouse.
But "I thought Microsoft only made software and perphiperals..." seemed a bit too pedantic.
They are only doing this so that they can tap the sweet Mickey Mouse PC market before his likeness enters the public domain.
Too late. Copyright in Mickey Mouse's likeness has already lapsed, not because of expiration of twice-extended copyright but because of a defective copyright notice, according to an article published in the Virginia Sports and Entertainment Law Journal.
iMac's are a better deal. And are not that blue.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Seriously. Don't buy them this piece of crap. Pick up a used iMac, one of the CRT ones. The design is colorful and kid friendly enough, yet they don't look like silly toys. Most of all, they're so cheap now that when he or she inevitably destroys it you won't be out a serious amount of cash. Or, pick up one of those clamshell iBooks. Again, kid-friendly design, extremely sturdy and available for $250-$300.
Would someone please explain to me how "built-in content control" makes a computer "kid friendly." All that is going to do is make children (who, after all, will find out right away that there are cool things on the Web that their stupid computer won't show them) seek out "objectionable" content any way they can. One might argue that the forbidden fruit syndrome will come into play ... I may not really care even a little bit about how to make suitcase bombs but I'll read up on it just because I'm not supposed to.
... sounds good on paper but will be worth about as much as the paper it's printed on.
Hell, If my parents had bought me one of those things when I was a kid (granted back in those days your average computer weighed a few tons and ran off of 440V three-phase) I would have immediately tried to find a way around it, or failing that found a friend with a more cooperative installation. This is like Prohibition
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Does it run Linux?
..for the mouse ear shaped DVD/CD trays on this one.
while childish is lexigraphically correct, it may have a negative connotation attached to it, connotating immaturity and puerility I humbly suggest 'child-friendly' be used instead of 'childish' to describe an user interface that kids will understand.
Personally Im holding out for the disney laptop, all the krad 1337 haxors will have one at next years defcon.
...will it automatically come with some pornography hidden away somewhere in the system? like some of their animated films supposedly do?
"The bright blue Disney Dream Desk PC ($599 direct)--designed by Disney and frog design and built by German electronics giant Medion AG--will include a 2.6-GHz Celeron processor, a CD-RW/DVD combo optical drive, a kid-sized mouse, and a multimedia keyboard and digital pen. The matching 14.1-inch ( touch-sensitive ) LCD monitor ($299) sports signature Mickey Mouse ears." Disney Enters PC Market for Kids
Surface-mounting the touchpad-display in your desk solves this problem
And Nintendo solved it for a laptop-shaped form factor with the Nintendo DS design. It's dual-head, with one vertical screen for display and one horizontal screen for interaction with the touch screen.
but that requires specialized furniture.
Not necessarily. Just put the keyboard aside and place the tablet PC or other LCD touch screen on your keyboard tray when doing pen-based work.
Does anyone know if it comes bundled with Doom III?
Boycott Disney, Sony and Microsoft.
They are evil corporations that make ugly products designed for people with small brains. If I see this in a kids room or even worse on an adult desk, I will make certain assumptions. Frog design should be ashamed to have their name attached to this product.
Is it slobber-proof?
a Bigbadwulf cluster of these?
Do we really have the kids a computer with a touchscreen? I have a hard enough time getting co-workers and family to stop poking my screen as it is.
Seriously, I really do hope they succeed. Yes, so much so that they will want to get out of the copyright, media, and DRM business.
The shortest Neil Stephenson book ever (and non fiction) In the Beginning Was the Command Line says, "Disney does mediated experiences better than anyone. If they understood what OSes are, and why people use them, they would crush Microsoft in a year or two." Maybe they read the book.
You can also download it here or read it here.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
Say, that would be a rather insidious way to get a render farm and write it off as a tax loss.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Management has been pushing us to eliminate our Sun workstations and replace them with the "standard" windows 2000 boxen. This computer looks like a perfect platform as we move from Solaris to windows.
---- perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5,(41*2),sqrt(7056),(unpack(c,H)-2),oct(
I think this is a dumb idea. The pc market is already flooded with competition it's almost impossible to turn a profit. And I've always considered it most important to set up the desktop to suite each person's needs. Naming and placing the icon on the desktop properly means a whole lot to make people feel secure. I switched one of my family's computers from Windows XP to Gentoo last week and I'm paying close attention to what works and doesn't work. So far it's been smooth, but I'm very aware that the most subtle differences can scare the hell out of people.
I guess this could be a lot worse, it is ugly. They should have more then one design to the computer so that it reaches a broader area. But this could be a positive thing, especially sence the future will depend heavly on computers, but it can work the oppisite way and make kids less computer competent because there hands were held by this piece of junk.
You, sir, owe me a new keyboard.
I am so going to start using that with my High School students (who are Japanese and since Christianity is not the dominant religion in Japan, they don't really know what Easter is).
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
Like Disney's videos and DVDs, I bet this plays dumbass ads for other Disney products while it boots.
Microsoft doesn't make them. They're rebranded.
503 Sig Unavailable
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Maybee Disneys content-control stuff will help, but who knows.
Can you imagine how embarrased someone might be bringing their Lion-King PC in for service :)
Hack the case into something more eye appealing. Is it going to be affordable? Imagine a touch screen linux box for all your media! A 7 inch touchscreen by itself is a couple hundred dollars. This could become more appealing than the Xbox for hardware hacking!!
That looks nothing like an iMac. But it does look like iCrap.
It makes no sense to buy a computer for a 7 year old, that's going to need upgrades, patches, and is a huge security risk (IE), not to mention it needs to be defragmented regularly as well as the registry cleaned for it to boot with any speed. Why didn't they go with MacOS X? It's secure, stable and REALLY easy to use. Even Linux would have been a better choice because it's also stable, secure and with the right amount of GUI tweaking, easy to use. Both MacOS and Linux require much less maintenance. They both "just work" out of the box, and don't break easily.
They want their once good idea back!
Wow! A case mod!
I don't think disney is gonna be marketing anywhere past a 6 year old. and haven't many companys tryed making "kid computers" before?
most parents share a computer with their kids, or tos them the ol'486
They will probably end up having dell make them or something.
Microsoft doesn't make them. They're rebranded.
Sort of like MS-DOS bought from someone else, and Windows NT, designed after VMS. What next?
Infuriate left and right
As a person who attended the event, I can definitely say that the product needs much work before it sells.
The systems were slow. The software was confusing for children. Several systems crashed. The demos were all pre-production models and varied in logo representation.
The specs do not meet the demands of the software. Low memory with an on-board video chip does not cut it. The pen for drawing rarely worked due to the lighting and seemed to stick on clicks. It may come down to needing special pads for them. The pens were even thought to be for the screen leaving damages on the screen and one screen cracked.
The children seemed more interested in Goofy Skateboarding than any other piece of software on demo. Even that game was quirky since the game controller (a PS-2 variant) was not on display.
Definitely not a good sign for Medion, CompUSA, or Disney.
After all the hooplah at the event, it seems the media coverage overall was lacking after checking abcnews.com and others. ABC was onsight for the demo yet only mainstream news site I found to mention it was MSNBC.
I note that my sister has a Disney tv and DVD player set, the TV is a bright red 13" set with Mickey Mouse ears on it, and the DVD player acts as the base to set the TV on. A DVD player and a 13" TV should probably together be less than $200 and I know she paid considerably more than that.
In effect, Disney expects to get a premium on this computer of close to $200 for what in effect is at most a $50 pair of speakers (and probably closer to $20) shaped as Mickey Mouse ears.
Paul Robinson <Postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Disney is the legal powerhouse trying to make general-purpose computers illegal. You want to be free to install any OS and perform any computation, they want to sell you a welded-shut box with pushbuttons labelled "Lion King", "Beauty and the Beast", and "Little Mermaid", and no disk drives, slots, or connectors.
This version may be crude and we may laugh at it, but this is the start of the slippery slope. This machine can utterly fail in the marketplace and it won't matter because they'll learn from it and they'll be back. If they win the war, it won't matter to them or to us how many battles they lost along the way.
When I was a kid in the 1960s nobody worried about Japanese competition because they only made junk. Twenty years later they were eating our lunch. Disney knows exactly where they want to go and they have the blessings of the current administration and they don't have the disadvantages of centuries of cultural isolation and a language barrier.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
A mickey mouse doll is less expensive. Most of the time a family shares a computer, or has a LAN. There's not a huge need on a LAN for a workstation to be "kid-friendly" because that can be administered from the server. It probably costs a lot more (less value) than a regular PC.
I hope disney looses a huge wad on this retarded venture. maybe this will be the last straw to throw out the brain dead execs at disney and return disney to the original goal of producing quality entertainment that isn't labotomized hunks of crap. it's about time disney die and get sold off in pieces so someone young, fresh and driven can get a shot at creating new works of art.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Do children really need their own specialized computer?
No. I'd liken this specialized computer to saying "goo goo ga ga" to babies instead of using real English. The idea of childhood is growth and adaption of children to their environment; modifying their environment to make growth and adaption unnecessary or less necessary circumvents this process.
In this case, skills with a specialized computer will just be something to unlearn when they have to learn how to use a real computer.
Dude. I saw one of these in Circuit City a week ago, at least. And it was pretty beaten up, too, so I'd bet it had been there awhile. And yes. It has mouse ears...
No trespassing. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of those!s ound of head exploding)
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!
(
Did you know you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
Sounds to me like they really are losing touch. A computer is supposed to be a tool to encourage thinking, so they want to give it a lobotomy? Is this like kid's shoes that they grow out of in a couple of months? Well, if they can get the price down to the price of shoes, maybe they can sell a few...
Actually, on deeper thought, the real problem is that they have become so stifled in their own thinking precisely because they are hung up on defending old copyrights like Mickey Mouse. If they had any creativity left, they wouldn't be worried about an ancient mouse, and they would constantly be coming up with better things. Poor Walt must be spinning in his grave. Yeah, Walt was stealing ideas right and left, but he created NEW things out of them. (Did you know the basic idea of Steamboat Willie (Mickey's origin) was stolen? Under modern copyright law, Walt Disney would have gone directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200.)
P.S. I am NOT violating the copyright of Monopoly! I'm just reviewing the game with a fair-use brief quotation!
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I mean, they invented the original mickey mouse computer didn't they?
ive used a "real" computer since I was 2.I now (joint) top my class in IT and am in a special IT GCSE cource on wednesdays.
If you have nothing useful to say post as AC.
What difference does it make? HP doesn't even make printers. Does Sony make batteries?
I used to work for a company called ESS. They make over 60% of all DVD players in the world; most of the DVD brands you're familiar with don't ever touch the hardware. ESS puts the brand name on it and ships it to the wholesaler.
If the company puts their name on it, it's close enough.
Issues about the computer's technical viability aside, I think that the "mickey-mouse" design shows just how out of touch they are.
Mickey is no longer a particularly well known (or loved) cartoon character amongst young children. I don't therefore see how they are going to be that interested in a computer with silly mouse ears.
You mean the Shogun? Or the RangeRover? A few tons of metal 4x4 so that they can crawl along the (flat) suburban road at walking pace to take a kid to school...
I know a little girl who can't talk yet (at least, very little), and still eats everything that gets into her hands, and she has successfully booted up her family's Windows box and started one of her favorite games, all by herself. If someone this young can use the average computer (working Windows box) why on earth would we need to simplify a computer so kids can use it???
Well, er, good.
Oh, I don't know... A couple of hours would impress me if it was a prediction of the lottery numbers...
<Mystic Meg>
I See... I see... wait... A two digit number! The first digit is between zero and four! And I see... Another two digit number! Different to the first one!
...
</Mystic Meg>But you really ought to pay better attention in English class :-)
*ducks*
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
Microsoft ought to be pleased, they are no longer the most internationally renowned 'evil' company in the IT industry.
Homer: "Kids are great Apu, you can teach them to hate the things you hate. . . and they practically raise themselves what with the internet and all."
Walt would be so disappointed. He wanted to inspire creativity and imagination - this design is completely obvious and uninspired. Remember "Tomorrowland"? This doesn't fit.
Why does Disney feel compelled to jam Mickey Mouse ears on everything?
I'm a 2000 man.
Ha ha, I really should of hit preview. ;-) I know it should be "I've" instead of "ive".
If you have nothing useful to say post as AC.