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Intel Cutting Linux Out of Content Market
An Anonymous Reader wrote in to mention an Inquirer story suggesting that Intel is planning on cutting Linux out of the content market. From the article: "The vehicle to do this is called East Fork, the upcoming and regrettable Intel digital media 'platform'. The funny part is that the scheme is already a failure, but it will hurt you as it thrashes before it dies. Be afraid, be very afraid."
Don't buy it. Don't very buy it.
Or something. Look, if you want to use your media the way you want and not be locked into DRM, don't buy this. Also don't buy RIAA CDs or download from sources you think are too restrictive. If enough people do it, they'll have to change their DRM. If (as I suspect will happen) everybody else in the world is fine with the DRM, then they won't have to change and that will suck. But you don't have to use it, so it shouldn't matter to you.
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews
Time to buy stock in AMD. I imagine they'll be happy to support the market share that Intel doesn't want to.
-TLAY
Wow, I haven't seen an article this biased in a long time. This is not journalism, this is flaming.
-- Cheers!
the server domain, i find it very hard to ever imagine Intel doing anything with purpose to hurt linux. Intel makes hardware, I doubt they really care what OS the hardware runs, as long as they sell chips. Intel may hate AMD and program there compilers to hate AMD, but I seriously doubt they would maim there own hardware to knock down a OS that doesnt support DRM. Besides, who's to say they cant code linux to adapt to it?
Sunday is a slow news day, but geez. This is news? So Intel (or Microsoft/Toshiba/Sony/Phillips/Haliburton) is making a media PC? Um, who cares?
My CDs play well on my $29 stereo, and in my car. FM radio, where it isn't ClearChannel, sounds just fine. Perhaps the drones who are EMPOWERING Intel to make this move are going to suffer. Why must your PC converge with your TV?
Why must you have 55" plasma, Dolby 11.1 surround, with Foomatic DSP and Orgasmatron effects? Christ, step outside and go for a walk, see a local band, read a book, play with your dog, have sex with your wife. This is your life, man, and its ending 1 minute at a time.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I'd love to use something like iTunes. Unfortunately, because of the DRM, the fact that the files aren't compatible with Linux, my Palm, and whatever else I want it to be with, I'd rather just pirate the damned thing. Then I get it in a format I know works.
Computer software. If the first damned thing that I'm going to do is scour the net for a "nocd" patch to get rid of the ridiculous SecureROM crap, then I'm more likely to grab the entire package. Add to that a point-of-sale variation on DRM, the no-return policies, and the fact that so much of the software out there sucks, doesn't perform as advertised, crashes, or is incompatible with hardware it should work with, and people are more likely to pirate the software.
The content companies can keep shooting themselves in the foot. Hopefully, the U.S. government will eventually come in and slap all these companies down with anti-trust violations and the like, but I'm not holding my breath. Microsoft, the RIAA, et al. donate a lot of money, you know.
Then how will you get your TV?
/.ers do now.
Over the internet, from people in countries with sane copyright law, same as a lot of
0 1 - just my two bits
This sounds a lot like the DRM built into the XBox/PS2, which both have copy control protection built into the hardware. What will end up happening is that the hardware will have the DRM built in and people will make mod chips to bypass it. Software DRM doesn't work because cracking software is a simple thing to do. Hardware DRM will stop more people from copying and using the content in manners which the provider doesn't want but the more technically proficient people will buy and install modchips and do as they please.
You may not be able to buy a "general purpose computer" anymore. They will all have this specialized DRM crap and who knows what else. All built into the chips, so it will be difficult if not impossible to avoid it.
No. It's more like
If you don't like it, you can live without music, TV and movies, an increasingly appealing proposition to me.
Sign me up.
Is it just me, or is this written very very strangely? Instead of explaining anything, the article sounds like the inane ramblings of a crazed lunatic. That said, it is difficult to take its contents at face value. Could we get a somewhat more reasonable explaination of this technology, and what it really means for Linux?
tv and movies wouldn't be that much of a loss to me, but i really dig music.
then i remembered that one nice part about music is you can make your own.
What got Intel where they are is making custom chips for large company's niches. Pretty much there have been 4 main surges
1) Being a cheap memory supplier for IBM mainframes
2) Designing a CPU with a 20 bit and not a 16 bit address scheme
3) Integrating Risc technology into CISC and thus killing the advantage of RISC
4) Winning a speed war
_____
I can see from there perspective why:
5) Moving computer technology into the mainstream of all media
might seem like an option for a major surge. An expensive CPU in every: speaker, TV, video screen, etc... is a dream come true for them. They would love to see incredibly complex DRM requiring massive realtime computation become mainstream.
I work at Intel in an unrelated group as a Validation Engineer although I have knowledge of this project. There is a plan for Linux support of this content distribution service, although the team responsible has found it much harder to develop for Linux than Microsoft. They have good relationship with Microsoft and Microsoft may make enhancements requested by the team. For Linux there are tons of different options out there which makes their job much more time consuming. Linux support will follow windows support by ruffly 6 months.
True ... but you're assuming that much of the cultural production of our day has any value. Most of it does not, and can well be lived without. That, ultimately, is the crux of the matter. At what point does the impact of DRM and other anti-competitive, consumer-unfriendly technologies become so great that we will turn back to each other for entertainment and companionship?
... so what? To me, cultural production should be a product of the culture itself, not a tiny, unenlightened, arrogant subset of it that claims to represent everyone else in it. There's a lot more to life, to culture, than the products of the RIAA and the MPAA, although they'd rather you didn't think too much about that.
... I say switch that little bastard off, go kiss your significant other right on the lips, and go out for a nice long walk. In the long run, you'll both be better off without Hollywood running the show.
The media people will try to find that "sweet spot", the point where they remotely control all content distribution and use, but where we aren't quite irritated enough to keep our wallets firmly jammed in our pockets where they belong. Current experiments with copy-protection and DRM are proving that the threshold of pain is currently very low for consumers: if I can't watch what I want when I want then you can just stick this disc up your a** (and this is as it should be!) However, after some time and incrementalism, whereby we keep losing bits and pieces of what we've come to enjoy since the advent of the VCR, we will one day wake up in a world where there is an automatically-deducted charge for viewing each individual frame of a movie. If I am still able to buy books at that point, that's what I'll be entertaining myself with. The rest of the population probably won't have that option, since at the rate we're going, it is unlikely they'll even be able to read.
We've been hypnotized into believing that we absolutely must have a television (the larger the better, and preferably HDTV-ready), a DVD player and disc collection (the larger the better) and that the movie theatre is so important that we will regularly part with nine or ten bucks to see the latest round of wooden acting and plotless filmmaking (can you say, "Episode III?" I knew you could.) To that I say
To all you people that spend your spare time in front of your computer or watching that 60" Hi-Def
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is actually the very doomsday scenario that caused the British Government in the 1940s to ban the use of cable for broadcasting. Dissent will be impossible, you WILL see the content that is proscribed and no other, for no other content will exist.
In the same way pirate radio simply doesn't exist in the US, pirate TV will not do so either. If more people had access to multicast streams, it would be very easy to set up dissenting sources of media, but that isn't going to happen.
Sure, there are technologies like DeCSS around. They are banned in the US, under the DMCA, but they are around. Eventually, though, they are bound to fail. The penalties will become too severe, there won't be any safe havens left for developers to operate in. (DeCSS only exists because other countries haven't gone DRM-crazy yet.)
There is also the fact that Intel is a near-monopoly. In the same way Microsoft killed off Netscape, Intel CAN kill off all non-DRMed media by simply refusing to play it - or, worse, creating a log of un-DRMed content and sending the list to "interested parties". The technology for this exists and would certainly be in the spirit of the DMCA.
Does this mean Intel are evil? Not necessarily. "Can" is a long way from "will". There is no proof of intent to cause harm. Harm is inevitable, when you go down this kind of road, but there is no proof that that is why Intel is going there.
Personally, I believe Intel see this as a way to make money off the RIAA and MPAA - sponge off of their paranoia - and therefore solidify control over their corner of the market. I don't see this as Intel trying to censor or trying to "cut Linux out".
Nonetheless, once the technology is out and branded with the Intel logo, it will be used to censor (by the RIAA and MPAA) and will be used to cut Linux out (by Microsoft and possibly SCO). The long-term consequences are inevitable, even though I don't believe Intel are doing this for those reasons.
Intel is out to make money, and the most money comes from having the most power. The same is true of all the other companies. Power is not an end in itself, it is a means of becoming filthy rich and staying that way. It is necessary in order to attain and maintain that state. Without power, alternatives can thrive and that will reduce profit.
Intel are no more evil than Star Trek's Ferrengi and are driven by much the same belief system. Their "crime", if it can be called that, is to ignore the consequences of that belief system. It doesn't affect their profit margin, so is of no consequence to them, regardless of how it impacts others.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Seriously, this sort of thing does encourage a counter culture and an escalation in the evolution of measure/counter measure. Mod Lumpy 'insightful' ('funny' doesn't net any karma, unless they've fixed that).
Loose lips lose spit.
"This guy sounds like a doomsday fanatic to me."
Why? Because he paints an unpleasant picture?
What part of the picture seems unreasonable? That Microsoft, Intel, RIAA and MPAA could be in bed together? That these corporations are run by greedy bastards that really don't have your best interests at heart? That these powerful corporations could buy congress? That people are fucking sheep too busy with their little lives to pay attention to important issue until it's too late?
The man hit the nail on the head folks. The corporations have done that statistical math as it applies to a population of self centered, apathetic consumer drones. Their formula is based on the fact that although a small percentage of the population is unpredictable, the vast majority are predictable.
John Lennon said it really well in "Working Class Hero"
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free,
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see,
So go ahead and ignore all the warnings and mock them as doomsday predictions. After all, you must. The corporate consumer drone formula says so.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Same article was posted last week, was it not?
c -usat_x.htm t rategy_in_tatters/
l eID/15996/15996.html
And anyways; big whooping deal!
1. It will *fail*. The cable companies, and alternate provides (like TiVO) will crush Intel, Microsoft, and anyone elses who attempts to develop a media pc. Why? Because the average consumer is much more willing to have an instant-on appliance managed by an outside operator which looks to cost very little (only $5 more on your monthly bill!) than an expensive looking ($500-$1000 at your local electronics store) box with a moderately arcane setup (all you have to do is use this IR transceiver to transmit codes to your cable box, and then program it for the right codes!, or something to do with this new 'cablecard' deal, which few people (especially the cable companies) seem to know much about)).
Also, I suspect the Windows-based media boxen will be notoriously unreliable and buggy. Also late. Look at Microsoft's IPTV initiative. It's running *way* late. Even for the providers that are already signed up! SBC's techs are sweating bullets right now:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2005-06-07-sb
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/01/ms_iptv_s
While it *looks* like Microsoft is on-track with Comcast, Comcast excutives have repeatedly said they are evalutating both iGuide (their current supplier) as well as Microsoft for their boxes. And historically, Microsoft has a terrible record when dealing with cable companies:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/Windows/Article/Artic
Do you *really* expect to have any of these companies roll out a full MS solution on-time without siginificant bugs? I don't, and as soon as one supplies switches, or has a miserable failure (ready Comcast's Oregon MS set-top system freezes for a week) the whole market will break loose.
Which, incidentially, is how Microsoft lost the *rest* of the world regarding IPTV and set-top boxes, which is especially ironic given their size (4737489372 pound gorrilla), and that most content providers started out by saying that the MS solution was their future.
2. Intel's DRM will be cracked. Anyone play a DVD on linux? Did you do it using your licensed player, or your technically illegal libdvdcss? (Except, of course, in a few countries in the world. U.S. is *not* including). This is the primary way that people play DVDs on linux; this is not a niche solution.
3. Most likely, Intel will provide a closed-source kernel module that will provide an API to interact with a closed-source graphics driver. Nvidia and ATI will do the same thing, as well. So you'll be able to get gimped, DRM TV on your linux box, as well.
People have been crying that the sky has been falling for a long time. The problem is, Intel/Micosoft have never been able to deliever the 'killer' solution that ends all competition. They are always a day late and a dollar short. I really just don't consider them a serious threat.
A *far* more serious threat to home linux theatre PCs is the arcane setup required for most linux DVR projects. Fix that mess, and you'll see cheap linux home theatre pc's avaliable at walmart.
Not that I'm blaming the MythTV developers, or the Freevo developers. But it is hard to get those projects up and running correctly at home, and I imagine that from a developer perspective it looks easier to build an MS solution than a Linux solution, which is why the big media distribution companies are looking at MS first.
Once they get their hands wet (as the European firms did), they give up on the MS bugs. I expect an annoucement from Bellsouth to that effect shortly.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Is there really anything worth watching on TV anymore? I probably watch one or two hours a month tops. They put out boring crap that doesn't even interest me in the slightest.
Go rent the movie you want to see and watch it on your DVD player. Or, for that matter, a few minutes spent looking for torrents will find you almost any movie or TV show worth watching, if you don't mind waiting for the download and taking the chance that you will get caught.
Music? Well if you want the latest top 20 you will have to either pay for the cd's, listen to the radio or try to find a download and take your chances.
I think that all the interesting new stuff is being put out by small independent bands. if I like the music I try to buy directly from the band if I can. I don't plan on buying anything at all from the big studios if I can help it. Hopefully my refusal to buy from them is part of the reason the greedy bastards are complaining so much.
There are a few people putting out "open" content now. Some of it can be found on http://www.legaltorrents.com/
Talk up "open content" to all of the non-tech's you know. How many slashdotters are there? If a hundred thousand techs started mentioning it to the sheep tomorrow it would create some buzz.
Every wrong attempt discarded is a step forward - T. Edison
Scary. I think I'm going to go clean my assault rifle now. :)
Seriously though, DVR boxes and content-protected television have only reached a small percentage of the American market. Although I can't prove this to you, my feeling is that that segment of the market is comprised mostly of early adopter types, who tend to be more willing than average to put up with corporate bullshit, in order to be the first person on their block to have X, whether X is a Hidef-capable TiVo or ultra-hifi digital audio on SACD.
The average American consumer, of which there are lots (and who doesn't upgrade very often), and whose VCR is probably flashing "12:00" right now, will probably be a lot less tolerant of DRM, especially when it starts to interfere with things he/she always used to be able to do. Remember, those people will be going directly from their old VCR and stack of unbranded blank cassettes to 'content-protected' television, without witnessing any of the strange machinations or compromises that spawned it (Divx, etc.). I think when the wide deployments of these technologies start, we'll start to see a backlash. The question is whether the technology will by then be too entrenched by the early adopters and the networks for the average guy to reject it, when he finds out he can't tape the Super Bowl, or load that new "CD" onto his iPod.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Intel tried to go with Apple, but from what I was told, Apple told them where to stuff it. Originally, Intel wanted to make a big happy prison for us all, to consolidate the little less happy prisons the others were making.
THe wardens did not play nice, and MS stepped in with currency by the cubic meter, and a match made in hell was born.
Sort answer, no, no Apple for now, they have no reason to dilute their brand. From the Apple side of things, they are right.
-Charlie
DRM is only a problem if the content is being distributed with it attached. When the artists are in charge of their own distribution, they are free to not do this. As technology drives the cost of distribution towards zero, distribution will become commoditized. Artistic effort, by its very nature, can't be commoditized. The end result will be that the artists will be in control, as customers and clients. Some will choose to use DRM, some will not. The market will take this into account when deciding who is most convenient to pay attention to, and any DRM that inconveniences consumers substantially will not be economically viable.
The only problem is that this will take a while.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
Isn't the new Xbox coming from Microsoft going to be PowerPC-based? I had always thought the Xbox was an important factor in the "invade-your-living-room" strategy of Microsoft. So is IBM putting similar technology in these custom PowerPC chips, too?
But ultimately, I think the PC will never topple the TV. While technically they could be blended into a single machine, people have been enculturated deeply to keep them separate entities.
Seriously, what value does a Media Center PC have over a convential media center? If anything, "convential" media centers are going to increasingly get PC-like functionality and displace the computer in people's homes, not visa-versa; they're the ones coming from a point of strength.
random underscore blankspace at ya know hoo dot comedy.
Believe me, I hope you're right. And yes, if they try full-bore you-can't-copy-jack DRM there will be a backlash of Biblical proportions, just like there has always been when vendors of all kinds tried that. But Internet-based systems allow a lot of flexibility in that regard: it doesn't have to be all-or-nothing. They can turn it off or nearly off initially, to convince people that "see, it's not so bad" and then slowly turn up the heat, too slowly for the bulk of users to even notice. In a few years, nobody will think twice about their media only working in certain places, or not being able to copy it ... that's the kind of world the media types want. They want us to accept total DRM as a fact of life and still keep giving them money. And you know what? It will work. They are learning that they can't do it all at once. But it will happen, and sooner rather than later if Microsoft has its way. And for that matter, I don't trust Apple any more than Microsoft in that regard ... Jobs is just as rabid about slicing off a piece of the action as Microsoft. This Wintel deal seems like a pre-emptive strike on the part of Hell, Gates & Co.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
In the same way pirate radio simply doesn't exist in the US, pirate TV will not do so either.
Pirate FM radio does exist in the USA but only a few channels in hyper-dense markets like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Individual channels come and go depending upon how necessary that the FCC feels that the station needs to be shut down.
I suspect that pirate TV will happen when NTSC broadcasting goes off the air, which is scheduled for Dec 31, 2006. Suddenly there will be millions of TVs that will be receiving nothing but static and millions of people ready to watch anything. If you want to get a message out but couldn't afford expensive television advertizing rates before, that time will be your chance. Just have your own transmitter (a small neighborhood one to start) ready to go as soon as the major commercial stations switches off.
Since this big shut-down is tentatively scheduled to occur in 17 months, now would be the time to get the equipment ready for broadcasting whatever you want when the majors go off the air.
Uncensored footage of the endless war, antiwar documentaries, conspiracy research, 'truth about UFOs', corporate coverups, home porn, whatever. When the television airwaves go off, there is going to be once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fill the vacuum with your stuff. Pirate and Guerrilla television will be actually exciting for the first time.
I don't really disagree is some ways but delivering content is NOT information. Europe, America, and China work because there is information. Countries without collapse and are poor. Content is the product of someone(s) and their hard work. They have the ownership right to it. The other thing is employment. A society must create jobs and compete, if something is too low cost all the inputs (labor, land etc) have to be found even cheaper. It is the race to the bottom. By the way my small consulting company runs Linux server so I don't have to pay license fees. This is the most capitalistic thing to do. It saves me money there for I could expand the business and buy a second home. Find the lowest cost solution to the problem IS capitalism (why do you think mega corps like low cost labor). I agree free is good for services like delivery vs. creator....Kind of like not tipping a waiter, why do it, they don't make the food just deliver it???? Linux to me means more profit and less control by others in services.
You can't afford $5 per year?
--
Runnin' around, robbin' banks all whacked on the Scooby Snacks...
"Well we have a fundamentally difference of opinion about DRM. I think DRM is good and you think it is bad. With DRM I have the choice to watch movies like the Matrix, Batman reborn, and revenge of the studs (that was humor). With DRM I don't have that choice. I don't see the evil in DRM that you do"
This is a false set of choice. That's because DRM != Watching A Movie.
If Congress passed a law tomorrow outlawing DRM, do you think the studios would say "oh, no more content for people, we'll sit on it and not let anybody see it!" Or is DRM simply a way to ensure 5% better margins and incidentally screw everybody out of fair use?
The answer is, without DRM, high-def (note, I didn't say high quality) video would be available, and you'd be better off as would the rest of the world. The content will be sold. I'd rather it be on my terms rather than the MPAA's terms. And I'd rather my PC not fall victim of Intel/MS's desire to increase margins just so I won't make a copy of that marvelous "Batman Begins" movie.
I'm okay with you giving up any and all your rights just for 1080i. Don't ask me to do the same all in the name of entertainment.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I'll go along with that statement. After I started having trouble with meeting all the various dependancy nightmares of the VLC player, I decided to just ditch it for a while and check out my other options.
At first I laughed at my own joke of installing Real Player... Now I'm still scratching my head in confusion because this isn't the pure concentrated evil I had experienced while using it under Windows.
It's easy too: To make it work under an RPM based distro (such as Fedora or Mandriva), Install Firefox if you haven't already. Download and install RealPlayer10GOLD.rpm (Yes, as root), then download RealPlayer10GOLD.bin into your home directory, make it executable (chmod 700 Rea[tab]) and run it (./RealPlayer10GOLD.bin) as user. Enter your newly created directory (cd RealPlay), and run (./realplay) once to initialize it. Close it, and Fire up Firefox and go try a site that uses Real media.
It works really well, and I kinda feel bad sometimes because I know that it's not nearly as positive an experience for Windows users, and they will continue to bash the format for the pure evil that they feel is embedded in the Windows application.
Not to mention that you have to actually talk to the woman sometimes. I mean, I've got UT to play
/. to post on!
/. (I mean, this is a pretty scary den of idiots and trolls, see the LA Times Wiki debacle).
I play Quake with my fiance. She doesn't like deathmatch, but coop is much more fun than single player (I'm hoping Quake4 has a good coop mode).
and
You probably can't talk her into
And to top it off, I gotta pay a whole dollar to have sex?
You don't need to pay a buck to have sex with her, it's more of an insurance plan against a possible liability of tens of thousands of dollars per year for the next 18-24 years.
Man, I'm glad I have a right hand!
Try your left hand sometime. And no, it isn't cheating.
Jeff
Yes, but Apple controls a percentage of the desktop that you can count to on one hand after an industrial accident. MS controls a little over 40 times that, Intel a little less than 40 times.
If you were worried about one group ramming standards down your throat, would you put money on the guys controlling 2% or the two controlling ~85% each?
-Charlie