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A Serious Contender for the Couch Throne
TractorJector writes "It is no secret that the competition for global domination in the operating system market has moved from the desktop to the living room couch. The Olive Symphony, a Linux-powered hi-fi wi-fi stereo hub, stands a decent chance for a prime position before the living room throne."
Really... why do I need a "stereo hub"?
I've got a stereo. Is that not good enough?
This doesn't seem like it will be very likely to bring linux to the masses. Anyone who is enough of a technophile to be able to find a use for this thing already probably knows what linux is already.
Really, isn't that all this is? Its a networked mp3 player that looks like a stereo component - because it is, but whats the big deal? It has linux?
What "throne" is it supposed to capture? Networked dvd players do this, plus they play movies. A mythtv box does much more.
For $899 it better deliver my morning toast. I'm all for linux, but isn't the whole idea open source, low cost and "do it yourself"?
Why would I be more interested in that than, say, a $99 Tivo that can stream MP3s, has an accessible UI, and can also record video.
Would it be too much to ask the "editors" of /. to stop posting stories of the form "There is a new device X out there that is controlled by Linux. Look out Microsoft/MPAA/RIAA/TSA/CIA/FBI/DoJ/Apple whoever because they're soon going to 0wnz0r all of your base!". I mean really, the fact that someone has come out with an MP3 player that is controlled via embeded Linux isn't news. It might have been eight years ago, but it isn't in 2005.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Wifi has been a term for years, are you just now seeing it?
There's already several things similar to this out there:
j /viadj.asp
http://www.elanhomesystems.com/product/music/viad
http://www.slimdevices.com/
http://www.escient.com/products.html
http://www.request.com/us/
exactly.. I dont see anything special about this box other than the price.. but then the page is completely devoid of facts but filled with lots of fancy flash..
One of the many advantages of Open Source is that you can see the real feature set... too bad their web page doesnt list it.
(ie, they say it does wireless: what wireless? 802.11a, b, g? Encryption? Which?)
Slim on the other hand, tells exactly what the features are and you can download the server and an emulator to play with.
If you want Linux to win some mindshare, you can't shoot down every company that tries to make money with it.
Consider, for a moment, that it has DA and AD converters that are more than standard. Consider that it can stream to multiple sources wirelessly without having to learn how to use ndiswrapper.
A year ago you all shelled out $600 for an iPod that had color. Is $300 more too much to spend on something that probably sounds better, and may offer many more features for a home sound system?
The big difference between this and an iPod (or most of the other players mentioned by other posters) is that this thing is completely stand-alone, no other computer is required.
This thing will rip its own CDs and provides its own storage. The iPod will provide storage, but you still need a computer to get music into it somehow, be it ripping CDs or downloading from iTMS. Many of the devices mentioned by other posters don't even have on-board storage, requiring a computer set up as a music server.
Not that this is much of an advantage to your average slashdotter, but an non-techie looking for a music appliance might find it very appealing. It remains to be seen if there is much of a market at the $900 price point, though.
They are marketing this as the audiophile's music player, yet no where in their datasheet do they list the signal to noise ratio this thing uses. They also say it has a unique playlist editor, but from what I can tell, it is just a rehashed version of the iTunes interface, complete with "smart" playlists. For $900, this thing seems way overpriced and way under-innovated. It uses industry standard parts; CD-R, 2.5" notebook HD, and most likely a 4x 10/100 PCI NIC. From the sounds of the headline, I was expecting a small form-factor computer that could go in my entertainment center. This is the price of one, but without the actual computer. They say it uses a "lossless" compression, which just turns out to be FLAC. How did this make the front page? I don't even see where it says it runs Linux... It just says it uses a PowerPC chip, and considering how aligned they seem to be to Mac OS X, I would not be surprised to find it running that instead.
today is spelling optional day.
Hm. I agree that Wifi is an incredibly dumb name, but I don't mind the -gate naming convention to indicate a scandal. Obviously it's not logical, but from what I gathered in 4 years of studying linguistics, language isn't logical very often. And with -gate at least I can see where it's coming from, also typically the usage is at least somewhat humorous (as in "Coffeegate" for the recent GTA "issue"). Wifi is just nonsensical, or worse a result from an odd ignorance about the term Hi-Fi.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
You just defined the product in a way that will guarantee that it isn't a mass market winner. No niche product marketed to a select few with arguably better ears and money to burn will ever gain the "couch throne" (or whatever equally ridiculous faux title the article used).