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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."
clicky
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Go Here and click top link.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
For those wanting to RTA without registering.
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.
It's true that the OP didn't RTFA, but it should be noted that a similarly configured Dell (the lowest model they have with some RAM tacked on) is currently priced at $476, including monitor and speakers. So there is definitely a sizeable Disney premium on a decidedly low-end system. Tough sell.
Now watch me hit this drive.
Actually, the PC jr. was IBM's attempt at making a home computer at all. In some ways it was tehcnologically superior to the IBM PC, but its complete lack of DMA made it useless for anything more demanding than Word Perfect 4.2 for DOS.
I never owned one, but a good friend (as opposed to all of my evil friends) had two of them.
The Color Computer 3 was Tandy's last-ditch effort to keep its venerable Color Computer line afloat. I owned a Color Computer 2 for a while and they were fun, if not limited, computers.
(I am a huge nerd.)
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
USA Today has an article about this as well, along with a photo of the monitor with "mouse ears" and a matching blue printer.
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.
Microsoft doesn't make them. They're rebranded.
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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.