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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.
... does the mouse have circular black ears and a cheesy grin?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
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.
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.
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.
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"
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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.
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."
Go Here and click top link.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Just what we need, a computer from a Mickey Mouse operation...
I thought Microsoft only made software...
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.
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"
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.
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.
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You have to predict further than a week into the future to get any credibility as a psychic.
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.
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 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
...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.
Microsoft doesn't make them. They're rebranded.
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