It seems that subscriptions are being sold by Silicon Mountain. From their website, atleast, it seems as if Divinet is a kind of sister concern that is setting up the network. So my guess is, I'll have to buy a subscription from Silicon Mountain, and they will probably give me a WICE box and probably charge a refundable deposit for the box or make me buy it at a 'specially' discounted rate. In india, this is what WLL operators like Reliance Infocomm are doing right now. As far as Cable TV goes, In india, there are large companies who have bought out the first 'dishwallahs', and who now run consolidated networks. The 'local loop' of 100s of subscribers, if you will, is still controlled by the local cable dealer, but he is kind of affiliated to a larger company.
As I kind of mentioned in one of my other posts, there are two entities right now who provide the two parts of the whole system.
1.) Silicon Mountains - http://www.smjet.com These are the cable guys. Check out their Board of Directors. Most of them are people who set up the cable industry in Pune. My guess is, these guys will provide the content (using tie-ups with Star, BBC, Discovery, Playboy, your local cable-wallah etc.). I suppose if this thing becomes a standard, there could be many other companies who could play the same role.
2.) Divinet Access - http://www.divinetaccess.com These guys have designed the set-top box. The board has people from C-DAC, like Vijay Bhatkar, the guys who invented the idea that you could connect many Sun Sparcs over myrinet, run PVM/MPI over Solaris/Linux and call it the PARAM supercomputer. I think these guys are also in charge of running the network. They plan to have content replication all over India for video-on-demand and other similar applications.
And Since all of these guys are basically from Pune, India, it gets to be the first place to see the WICE box.
As I have said before, it all sounds extremely ambitious, and only time will tell if these guys manage to get Cable TV companies, Cellular and Landline providers, and ISP's to all jump onto their bandwagon. And considering the fact that they plan to roll out their own network, they actually threaten the very guys they are trying to bring together.
IMHO, it seems like another one of those ideas that are technically feasible, but seem doomed to failure because of the hugely complex corporate tie-ups that have to be in place for it to succeed.
But that shouldn't prevent Puneites from subscribing to the service and checking it out while its still alive.
OK. All you jealous geeks, I'm an Indian *and* I happen to live in Pune, the home of C-DAC, and the first city to get a sneak peek at this hyped up device. he he he...
But cheap shots apart...
The real juice here is not the WICE box -- its the *network* (RAMnet or whatever). The websites of Silicon Mountains, the guys who will be, I guess, the content suppliers and Divinet Access, the box makers and network engineers, both make very ambitious claims about content replication and the sophistication of the network itself (its so sophisticated, its mentioned as one of the risk factors in this venture.) As far as convergence goes, I personally don't believe in a set-top box that does everything. I would prefer a relatively simple access-point kind of device that allows me to plug my computer, TV, VCR, sound system, coffee machine whatever and intercommunicate between these systems. The network should be sufficiently intelligent and filled with enough active elements to do the routing and delivery. e.g. Can it allow me to schedule my TV programming from my computer using my scripts or maybe using an SMS from my cellphone?
This degree of convergence is really a bit too much for anyone, really. Especially for someone like me, who grew up on a single, state-sponsored TV channel, and actually liked most of what was on offer then.
Well, guess all I have to do now, is fill up the forms on the website (http://www.smjet.com/smjet/Inquiry/inqui ry.jsp) and wait for them to reply... Har har har...
I _resonated_ with this movie. Anyone who's been 10-11 and changed schools will understand what I'm talking about. Does anyone know if the house of spirits metaphor means something special in Japanese culture? Something that got lost in translation?
Regardless of what the article says, human freedom hasn't changed drastically because of the 20th century technological explosion. On the other hand it has only created an exclusive community of information and wealth hoarders who decide what propoganda to feed to the not so fortunate majority. I mean look at the world today. Who do you think decides what is good and what is bad in the world today? Look at international diplomacy... a country that dominates the world economy and has superlative military strength can just arbitrarily decide what the 'axis of evil' is. Look at economics...What we buy is decided by the marketing budgets of giant conglomerates who can trivially crush any small scale competition in the market simply on the basis of the depth of their war chest. The same goes for morality and education -- the culture in control of the world forces its own version of history and morality down our throats, and we have no choice but to accept their rhetoric simply because our voices are drowned out by their overwhelming media presence. It may sound strange to someone living in the 'first world' -- but for someone like me, this is an everyday reality. They may be MIT, but these guys don't know what they are talking about. They don't know how heavily the odds are stacked against anyone in the world who refuses to conform to what Big Brother ordains. You see, the beauty of 1984 was that while to a detached reader, the system seemed brutal and repressive, to someone absorbed by the system, it was the only way of life they could possibly dream of. The fact that these guys seem so convinced of their own infallibility only portends that perhaps, we are letting down our guard and letting propoganda get the better of us. Vigilance is the order of the day my friends! Let technology be your friend, but don't let it lull you into false complacency...
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It seems that subscriptions are being sold by
Silicon Mountain. From their website, atleast, it seems as if Divinet is a kind of sister concern that is setting up the network.
So my guess is, I'll have to buy a subscription from Silicon Mountain, and they will probably give me a WICE box and probably charge a refundable deposit for the box or make me buy it at a 'specially' discounted rate.
In india, this is what WLL operators like Reliance Infocomm are doing right now.
As far as Cable TV goes, In india, there are large companies who have bought out the first 'dishwallahs', and who now run consolidated networks. The 'local loop' of 100s of subscribers, if you will, is still controlled by the local cable dealer, but he is kind of affiliated to a larger company.
As I kind of mentioned in one of my other posts,
there are two entities right now who provide
the two parts of the whole system.
1.) Silicon Mountains -
http://www.smjet.com
These are the cable guys.
Check out their Board of Directors. Most of them are people who set up the cable industry in Pune. My guess is, these guys will provide the content (using tie-ups with Star, BBC, Discovery, Playboy, your local cable-wallah etc.). I suppose if this thing becomes a standard, there could be many other companies who could play the same role.
2.) Divinet Access -
http://www.divinetaccess.com
These guys have designed the set-top box. The board has people from C-DAC, like Vijay Bhatkar, the guys who invented the idea that you could connect many Sun Sparcs over myrinet, run PVM/MPI over Solaris/Linux and call it the PARAM supercomputer.
I think these guys are also in charge of running the network. They plan to have content replication all over India for video-on-demand and other similar applications.
And Since all of these guys are basically from Pune, India, it gets to be the first place to see the WICE box.
As I have said before, it all sounds extremely
ambitious, and only time will tell if these guys manage to get Cable TV companies, Cellular and Landline providers, and ISP's to all jump onto their bandwagon. And considering the fact that they plan to roll out their own network, they actually threaten the very guys they are trying to bring together.
IMHO, it seems like another one of those ideas that are technically feasible, but seem doomed to failure because of the hugely complex corporate tie-ups that have to be in place for it to succeed.
But that shouldn't prevent Puneites from subscribing to the service and checking it out while its still alive.
OK. All you jealous geeks, I'm an Indian
i ry.jsp)
*and* I happen to live in Pune, the home of
C-DAC, and the first city to get a sneak peek at
this hyped up device. he he he...
But cheap shots apart...
The real juice here is not the WICE box -- its the *network* (RAMnet or whatever). The websites of Silicon Mountains, the guys who will be, I guess, the content suppliers and Divinet Access, the box makers and network engineers, both make very ambitious claims about content replication and the sophistication of the network itself (its so sophisticated, its mentioned as one of the risk factors in this venture.)
As far as convergence goes, I personally don't
believe in a set-top box that does everything.
I would prefer a relatively simple access-point kind of device that allows me to plug my computer,
TV, VCR, sound system, coffee machine whatever
and intercommunicate between these systems.
The network should be sufficiently intelligent
and filled with enough active elements to do
the routing and delivery.
e.g. Can it allow me to schedule my TV
programming from my computer using my scripts or
maybe using an SMS from my cellphone?
This degree of convergence is really a bit too much for anyone, really. Especially for someone like me, who grew up on a single, state-sponsored
TV channel, and actually liked most of what was on offer then.
Well, guess all I have to do now, is fill up
the forms on the website
(http://www.smjet.com/smjet/Inquiry/inqu
and wait for them to reply...
Har har har...
I _resonated_ with this movie.
Anyone who's been 10-11 and changed schools
will understand what I'm talking about.
Does anyone know if the house of spirits metaphor
means something special in Japanese culture?
Something that got lost in translation?
Regardless of what the article says, human freedom hasn't changed drastically because of the 20th century technological explosion. On the other hand it has only created an exclusive community of information and wealth hoarders who decide what propoganda to feed to the not so fortunate majority. ... a country that dominates the world economy and has superlative military strength can just arbitrarily decide what the 'axis of evil' is.
I mean look at the world today. Who do you think decides what is good and what is bad in the world today? Look at international diplomacy
Look at economics...What we buy is decided by the marketing budgets of giant conglomerates who can trivially crush any small scale competition in the market simply on the basis of the depth of their war chest.
The same goes for morality and education -- the culture in control of the world forces its own version of history and morality down our throats, and we have no choice but to accept their rhetoric simply because our voices are drowned out by their overwhelming media presence.
It may sound strange to someone living in the 'first world' -- but for someone like me, this is an everyday reality.
They may be MIT, but these guys don't know what they are talking about. They don't know how heavily the odds are stacked against anyone in the world who refuses to conform to what Big Brother ordains.
You see, the beauty of 1984 was that while to a detached reader, the system seemed brutal and repressive, to someone absorbed by the system, it was the only way of life they could possibly dream of.
The fact that these guys seem so convinced of their own infallibility only portends that perhaps, we are letting down our guard and letting propoganda get the better of us.
Vigilance is the order of the day my friends! Let technology be your friend, but don't let it lull you into false complacency...