Nokia and Loki Together on Linux Terminal 95
barrettlight50 writes "Nokia released news that they plan to distribute Linux games from Loki Software with their up and coming Media Terminal due out this fall." I'm hearing rumblings from people who have their hands on this box, but am still waiting for more meat. What remains to be seen is if Nokia will embrace the Open Source model, and let us hack the hell out of their box. Here's hopin'
Re:How does Nokia hope to lure developers (Score:1)
That is the reason people are going to buy it. It is nice that you can also play DVDs, record video and play games that is just icing. Its a DVB tuner.
366 Celeron?!? (Score:1)
Nokia is big... (Score:2)
XBOX and Nokia Open Terminal are different markets (Score:2)
It is clear from the specs that Nokia is not going after that market. The development is also cheap, they are mostly reusing existing technology, much of it without any license. So they are probably going after low price.
I think they might succeed, a settop box which can also play games on the Quake II level, which are acutally pretty impressive to a non-gamer, at a price that is sufficiently low that you can buy one just to see if it is something for you, might open a large market.
If it looks good, is silent, have an easy to use shell, a TV recorder no worse than a VCR, a couple of bundled games, at a price below US$130, I just might buy one for the convenience. Even if it is slower than my ancient PC. And even though I'd probably not use the browser.
Re:Publisher fee-free console? (Score:1)
I saw the latest Motorola Timeport for sale untied in Tottenham Court Road, London, a month back - but it cost about £400 if I remember correctly.
However, in the UK I think it's illegal to lock pre-paid phones to a network, and those cost less t han £100. And post-paid phones generally only require a minimum 12-month contract, which can cost as little as £120.
If the standards are keep open (Score:1)
Re:Recognition of the name. (Score:2)
Fine, except it's not a game box (Score:4)
This is first and foremost a Cable/Broadband access device (look at the supplied libraries - lots of HAVI, lots of MHB stuff, but little gaming-related stuff. Look at the Nokia Pirates and Parrots game)
Yes, it will play games. So do the OpenTV and cable set-top boxes - but they aren't terribly good because that is not the prime function of the system.
It's optimised for streaming video and web access. This is a sounder straegy than the reverse (build a games box, make it a web access platform later as the deceased Dreamcast, PSX2 and Xbox teams plan(ned)). High-end consoles tend to end up in otaku household who already have those things.
This will end up in houses where people don't want a computer: it allows Nokia to own a portion of the market that isn't online. As such its an evolution upwards from set-top boxes of the past - the open sourcing of it also makes sense in this context. The closed set-top boxes are usually very good at decoding MPEG streams but useless for any rich services - open sourcing means a million developers working out neat home automation and video gadgets (and yes, games, but not of a Quake level. Stones might work).
Given a million eyeballs all business problems are trivial.
Recognition of the name. (Score:4)
Now, with this on the way, we find a big brand name that many seem to identify with 'cool' (can you count the number of young teens chasing the latest images for their Nokia phones, and identifying that with the brand 'Nokia'?) that's leveraging Linux.
If it sells well, which, given Nokia's marketing engine, it should do.. Just think.
When people say "Linux, that's that hard to use unfriendly system, isn't it?", you can point to their easy to use box by the TV, and politely let them know that they're already using Linux...
Once people get the idea there's nothing to be afraid of, then a lot of the FUD from Redmond counts for naught.
It's a far cry from beating Windows on the desktop, but it's certainly stealing a march on MS in getting market penetration of product.
Bravo, Nokia. I'll be watching this with interest.
Malk
Statements like that insure they won't! (Score:2)
They're responsible for getting a product out the door according to their spec.s, not your's. To do that they have to retain control.
Try coming up with sentences like: We have a plan to explore the limits capabilities of your system. We would like some information, collaboration and coordination (at least a corporate contact.)
We will inform you of any security deficiencies, report on the actual capacities of the system and make general comments and contributions to expand the potential uses and markets of your system.
That is far more likely to get you on-side as an unpaid resource rather regarded like something stuck to their corporate shoe.
they dont say what they use (Score:1)
or wether it will use DRI or what video card (hope its ATI)
or what file system they use (ext2 prob but hey fsck times arnt great for the user I love XFS)
or how the IEE1394 software works wether I can record with it ?/can I roll my own ?
its all a bit iffy I would recomend GCC 3.0
regards
john jones
p.s. here is part of the GCC 3.0 news (-;
"The release will be made on or before 11:59PM GMT -8 (Pacific Daylight Time) June 15th, 2001 A.D. Because otherwise I will commit suicide at 12:00 AM on June 16th, and you will all feel very, very bad.
"
Yeah, but is the FUN part open? (Score:1)
Re:Hmmm... Not sure what to make of this (Score:2)
Says you.
If the xbox is sufficiantly hardware-hackable, I'll be first in line to buy one. Knowing Microsoft, they will probably attempt to shutdown anyone who posts hardware hacking information regarding the machine on the web.
Re:That 3D card isn't a NVIDIA one. (Score:2)
Apparently (Score:3)
"We would rather have a small part of a large market than a large part of a small market if we had used proprietary technologies." is the quote.
I think this could be cool, but Nokia is obviously thinking that they can make money out of services to the consumer, and sales of the terminal, as they won't get royalties from each game created this way.
What is the difference between this and Indrema? Well.. contrary to what the older slashdot-story seemed to suggest, I don't think this is really an Playstation2, Nintendo and X-box-competitor. It's more like they are selling an Internet-appliance, that can also play some decent games. If it has good software, and some good functionality, it might work
.Re:DVB - digital video broadcasting (Score:1)
The UK has no HDTV and wont for a long time. DVB is the Dogs bollocks and this thing seems to do Tivo's job, mp3s and umpteen other things.
Tivo is expensive for what you get. From what I understand the time shifting gear in this baby will be opensource too. Advert skipping here I come...
Those griping about the celery; Seeing as this is an open standard I can see competition ( or Nokia themselves) releasing faster, higher spec boxes.
What's the price? (Score:2)
Anybody know where the PVR software is coming from, and whether they're going to charge a monthly fee for the TV schedule? Of course it should be easy to hack it to get data from tvguide.com
Publisher fee-free console? (Score:2)
Typically, console hardware is sold at break-even or even loss pricing. The intention is that the hardware manufacturer makes their money back by charging publishers a fee for every title sold. If Nokia intends to make their money on the hardware, network connectivity or another service, and if they intend to leave the publishers to do as they please (and if this thing has good 3D - they don't name the chipset) it could mean a ready supply of game titles, which would help push the system into market.
Re:Read about this elsewhere, but... (Score:1)
Back when programmers were wizards? Guru? Keepers of hidden knowledge?
We're not gonna get back to that paradigm. Nope, every suburban jock has an AOL account now.
Your average Joe just ain't gonna learn BASIC (or Perl, C, C++, Python, or even Visual BASIC. Let's face it, PCs have become the TV of the 21st century.
I hope it is not like their P020 Router (Score:1)
Grr. No, I am not happy with Nokia at present.
Re:For fuck's sake, this isn't an XBox!! (Score:1)
Rather important... (Score:3)
On the surface this would seem like just another company trying to milk the free software community of gratis code without giving anything back, but it could also be extremely important. Remember that Sony and Microsoft are both creating "media terminals" with the very clear goal of usurping the PC and becoming the main devices for accessing the Internet. And there can be no mistaking about their motivation behind this - to take charge of and close off the agents with which people access and handle networked information, so that they can regain the total control of it they need further their ultimate goals (their bottom line - at any cost to our network). Remember Sony's words: "We will block you at you PC".
I don't think it needs to be said again how profoundly dangerous this process is, and the enemy knows it.
It would be dangerous to try to paint Nokia as an angel of grace in this regard - cellphone handsets are hardly open platforms, in fact I know of few devices so infected with fuckware. But at least this move looks genuine, and while it may seem like an underdog Nokia should not be underestimated (handsets are the largest sector of consumer electronics, and Nokia the market leader by a long shot). Certainly, this looks more realistic then anything that Indrema put forward, and by not targeting games specificly it is in a better position to not have to go head to head with the big two (leaving their legions of evil to hack at each other) and target a market where Linux is more useful. I think that we could do worse for ourselves than support this effort.
Re:Rather important... (Score:3)
The reason that cell phone fraud is big business is exactly because it has been so closed. When the "security" relies on the obscurity of closed standards and hardware barriers, then the hacks wander over into the realm of those who can take the calculated risk and have money for the investment (read, organized crime). If you open up the system then you can make it truly secure (don't tell me that cannot be done), possibly at the cost of some amateur hacking as the system evolves.
The truth is that the closed and fuckwared nature of cell phones has nothing to do with actual security. It has everything to do with the environment in which they evolved (the traditional telecom companies have little understanding of openess, let alone giving away control) and trying to keep freedom from the users - for example the ability any user to strongly encrypt traffic (the GSM encryption is purposely broken, eventhough all legitimate phone tapping could be done at the operator base station) or to optimize usage (they don't dare have open devices accessing the new GPRS packet radio services here, as people could write IP voice programs that would be cheaper than normal phones).
Re:Publisher fee-free console? (Score:1)
I'd be expecting to never see one of these for sale on it's own - why? Because this is Nokia we are talking about and when was the last time you saw a cellphone for sale without a network contract.
These boxes will probably be given away for free as set-top boxes to replace your current digital cable box. You'll probably only get them with a $50/month subscription to a high end cable plan, and then it's quite likely that all content (including games) will come down the cable and not be bought on the shelves, or even be available to run.
Sure, a few geeks will add their own CDROM drives, figure out how to get external titles in and so on, but that will be the vast minority, and remember, after 12 months this low end TV decoder will have cost MORE than that XBox with a few orders of magnitude better graphics processing.
I'm not optimistic about the whole games thing on the Media Console.
Re:Hmmm... Not sure what to make of this (Score:1)
It is also possible that the DVDs will be encrypted (my guess is using some standard 128 bit crypto - MS already has the code to do this in Windows with CryptoAPI). Remember MS is a software company and isn't going to use the same crappy crypto as CSS - look for something equivalent to AES or TwoFish).
All of the above could be defeated through the simple act of replacing the boot ROMs. I'd be assuming they will use standard surface mount flash ROMs, so all you need to do is unsolder a few surface mount chips, solder a few more on and you have an XBox running anything you want.
Of course, desoldering surface mount BGA chips is probably gonna be tough...
Re:For fuck's sake, this isn't an XBox!! (Score:1)
Where did you see it has a LAN port? The specs sheet just says USB and IR, not LAN. You are also assuming that if it does have a LAN port you can get at the data on the HDD, which is not necessarily the case. If the machine is not running any file sharing daemons, and has no shell then you are going to have a very hard time getting your hands on anything.
I still don't see how you are going to be able to buy this as a VCR without Nokia losing money. They are going to have to require a subscription to digital TV with the machine - read their press releases:
i) It is for digital tv, internet access and games - no mention of LAN there.
ii) Games are preinstalled, no mention of user installation.
Figure it out - it's a closed box, not open or useful at all!
Re:Publisher fee-free console? (Score:1)
(How do you get a £ symbol from a US laptop keyboard? I had to cut/paste)
For fuck's sake, this isn't an XBox!! (Score:3)
Fact is you will be NOT be getting the latest games, more likely remakes of Gameboy stuff or Quake 1 re-releases and more importantly you will NOT be making a dent in XBox, Gamecube or PS2 sales.
Nokia will not be able to make any money from the direct sales of these boxes either (they would have to sell for more than the vastly superior XBox or PS/2 for this to happen), so expect to get them leased to you for about $50/month or more (along with a digital TV connection). Nokia is simply USING the open source community as a group of people who can provide gimmicks to sell their digital TV boxes.
So, don't expect to EVER see these on shelves but expect some cable guy to drop one on your desk and the games will be much the same distraction you get on the current Nokia phones - a gimmick and a long way from the real purpose of the box in the first place, which is to pipe an encrypted stream of media to your TV, decoded by a proprietary smart-card all for the monthly hit to the cheque book.
To sum up, this box WILL end up costing a substantial subscription fee, probably will never belong to you and the instant you stop paying they will come and take your slow TV-game box away. It isn't a games machine, it will never be a games machine and is going to do nothing to MS/AOL/Sony/Nintendo's bottom line.
Nokia's objective (Score:3)
slice of a large market than all of a small market. This implies that the media terminal will
have to comply to "open standards" and also be
clonable.
This box could be our only hope against the
lock-in hell of Microsoft or Sony/AOL.
I hope Nokia "gets it".
Re:What would really be a cool app... (Score:1)
"My works are like water. The works of the great masters is like wine, but everybody drinks water."
Using Indrema work? (Score:2)
nuon, xbox, ps2 (Score:1)
spiny
When and How Much: (Score:1)
The Nokia Media Terminal will be priced competitively. The first Nokia Media Terminals will be available in Sweden in the middle part of 2001 and later on in the year in Europe and North America.
All Swedes visiting
Re:How does Nokia hope to lure developers (Score:2)
Thus, while most Linux users might not be so interested about buying a separate game console, this is great news for all Linux gamers who want more games.
Some have argued that game consoles are usually sold with loss, and real profit comes from games. You should remember that this is a digital TV box, and Internet terminal, so it has much more value in itself than any pure game console. Also, many Linux users who would not be so interested about a game console, might be interested about the digital TV receiver, digital recorder, DVD player.
While the announcement answers my questions about Loki, it still doesn't tell which current Linux games will be available. I'm also little worried about the openness of the system for installing new software that has not been packaged by Nokia, as Nokia probably doesn't want to be responsible for customers messing up the system software.
I still have a strong feeling (Score:1)
Re:When and How Much: (Score:1)
Yeah, but Nokia have lots of development people here in Sweden.
I have seen several ads here in newspapers where Nokia is searching for software engineers and stuff...
NOKOS and Open Source development (Score:1)
Actually, NOKIA did already embrace the opensource model (as mentioned in some comments before) with their NOKOS license.
The new open source development license with examples on how to code on their media-terminal is located at: http://www.ostdev.net [ostdev.net].
The site is still under development (some faq answers aren't filled out yet etc.), but all in all gives a good introduction to programming for their new box.
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
It's amazing to see this many stupid americans in one thread writing stupid things about a great product and not getting it. It's a digital set-top box. It's a digital TV-recorder (tivo, etc). It's a internet@home TV-box. It can also play games that are a few hundred times more advanced that the usual digital set-top/cable boxes.
Oh, yes, it's going to be sold world-wide it seems.
(Yes, since I'm writing anti-american stuff in here I'm going to get modded down - you know, it doesn't matter what you post as long as you write "America rules!", but write the truth and you'll get modded down in an instant .. *sheesh*)
Re:install (Score:2)
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=
Re:Hmmm... Not sure what to make of this (Score:1)
I maintain that:
Chaos is the future and beyond it is freedom
Re:Recognition of the name. (Score:3)
People do not care about which OS their PC is running. Therefore, the way for Linux to 'dominate the world' is to become invisible. To smootly running boxes of every type without letting people know that it is there ( much like what is it doing now in web servers, print servers, etc... ).
People using this nokia box will not see Linux (at least, this is the hope).They will see the Loki games, plus whatever they put as general GUI (if any).
Hackers around the world will see Linux, however, and then will start playing with it. Some of them may come with nifty new games or software toys (or new tools to build them), which will encourage people to buy more Nokia boxes (again, this is the hope).
I guess.
Why wouldn't Nokia embrace the Open Source model? (Score:4)
The even have their own OSI [opensource.org] approved license. NOKOS [opensource.org], the Nokia Open Source License.
The specs. (Score:1)
Re:More models (Score:2)
You can always alias a single ethernet port and then plug your broadband modem into a switch with everything else. It's not quite as secure (or efficient) as using two ethernet ports in your gateway but it works just fine.
That 3D card isn't a NVIDIA one. (Score:3)
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Re:What would really be a cool app... (Score:1)
Can't make money... (Score:2)
Considering its rather low performance the box will have to come out at a lower price than the PS2 or the yet to be released xbox. I think the big problem with this box are that its benifits are not that great compared to a celery based computer of the same speed and they are entering an arena where you have to sell your hardware for no profit in order to get anyone to buy it.
One key to marketing this would be to stress the "everything included out of the box" aspect and also to sell the reliability. Convince everyone that because all the machines are built to the same specifications that the drivers and OS are much more stable on that machine than a general OS on a general machine because they were able to debug against thier hardware longer.
Honestly though I have to give this box a thumbs down. Old computers in new boxes don't sell without a great gimmick and I don't see the great gimmick in this.
Re:Interesting... (Score:2)
Therefore it is important that Nokia produce something decent in its initial release. Not only will this drum up enough sales to assure the life of the product but it will motivate people hack around with it.
Re:Interesting... (Score:3)
This is the main problem with expecting open source developers to develop code without owning the hardware.
If Nokia wants to pique the interest of the open source crowd it has to release a kickass product (hardware & software) first and open up the source at that point. It's no good dumping some buggy code on ostdev.org and expecting people to do much with it.
Re:Content Protection (Score:1)
And Macrovision?
Bjarne
Sell it at a profit, Nokia! (Score:1)
In days of old, hardware makers sold thier hardware at a profit, and pretty much left the software developers to do thier own thing.
Games were written by people in thier own homes. No need for big software houses.
Technology has improved, but the games have not. The innovative people can't afford thier own copy of the SDK.
The sooner the world gets away from the con of software sales subsidising loss-making hardware, the better.
Bill, jet set.
Whatever Happened ...? (Score:3)
Last I'd heard, they were taking pre-orders and then -- suddenly -- nearly doubled their pre-order price -- from something like 499 (599?) to around 799 or 899.
Moving more on-topic
None of them -- with the sole exceptions of TIVO and Replay -- have made it to market. Zapstation, Indrema, and
You gotta hand it to TIVO and Replay -- they're coming up on 2 years old, no? I don't own a Replay, but I have a couple TIVOs. Despite the fact that the hardware is aging somewhat -- it's an amazingly forward-looking product.
The fact that it came out nearly 2 years ago (more?) just boggles my mind. I suppose the market conditions, as they say, were a little more favorable for "visionaries" two years ago (although one could debate whether or not the visionaries were actually "visionary") I'm amazed that something like TIVO -- which still really hasn't caught the fire of the mainstream, although the word itself has most definitely entered the cultural vocabulary -- made it off the drawing board and found itself in actual living rooms.
I don't begrudge failures like Indrema and (perhaps) the ZapStation, but I do get a little miffed when I read their product literature, actually want to buy the product, and then find out that not only is the product not out yet, it probably never will be and (in the case of Indrema, at least) has already gone belly-up.
I really hope the Nokia product makes it out of the gates. But with a Celeron 366 and a 20 gig hard drive -- you gotta wonder: why?
The XBOX is definitely the power house. Say what you will about Microsoft -- evil empire, deceptive business practices, short sighted managers giving stupid speeches about open source -- they're committed to it, got the developers to commit, and will deliver the goods.
And you bet, I'll be first in line for the XBOX -- assuming that they can overcome the PS2 problems with supply the first few days of release.
But Nokia? Dudes, just give me a price, a firm date, and I'll be there, too. But I have my doubts.
Re:DVB - digital video broadcasting (Score:2)
Speed (Score:1)
All that aside, it's cooler than not having loki games for it
Embracement... yes! (Score:1)
one important thing I remember is that he said all the software on it is opensource, except some of the very specific video software ("nobody but us has use of it anyway") and I think Nokia's screen interface is propietary (sp?)...
In fact he said that even if they'd keep the whole box closed source he knew people were going to hack on it anyway so why make it difficult?
He was also showing off some kinda open developers portal they fully supported, which was linked to the development of the device...
Re:Interesting... (Score:1)
You can SEE it tomorrow in LA. (Score:1)
Re:What would really be a cool app... (Score:1)
Re:they dont say what they use (Score:3)
Nokia seems to play fair _already_. DVB API (Score:2)
linuxtv.org is developing / has developed a driver for a certain group of cards that allmost all available models are based on. A tivo like VDR application has been written. There even is a legal way to watch PayTV channels via a standard smart card interface.
It works great.
Nokia is cooperating with them in developing an open API. (As I understand it the linuxtv people had a working system and Nokia approached them, to work with them on that project. So it's not a case of a company allowing others to participate, but a big company joinign in. I think that is a good sign.)
So I have build my own Tivo (not available here yet) like device really easily thanks to the great work of those people.
With LCD and remote it is a real appliance, usable without any great knowlege about computers. (Just the beta status of the software
With the onboard MPEG2 decoder chip, it puts not a great load on the CPU and DVD playing is also possibele without a glich.
Yeah! I'm very happy.
Marcus
How does Nokia hope to lure developers (Score:3)
I'm VERY exited over this machine though. Nokia certainly has the money to design, build and distribute something like this, and considering their success with the IP-xxx firewalls, they have more than zero experience dealing with electronic appliances. "It just might work!"
But again - are they just 'testing the waters' to see developer/community interest, or is there really a machine/dev-kit (which is a whole other issue) and a business plan? Is Nokia really committed to delivering a new console/appliance?
sedawkgrep
Re:Hmmm... Not sure what to make of this (Score:2)
/Brian
Re:Rather important... (Score:2)
Don't forget about cell phones that even if it seems like a good idea at the time, there are serious security risks in Open Source cell phone drivers; I'd say this is a pretty clear-cut (and rare) case of Open Source being more trouble than it's worth in some circumstances. (Cell phone fraud is a big industry that caters to some pretty shady characters, in case you have no clue why I have a problem with this.)
The problem with Nokia's idea is not that it's a bad one -- it's not -- but if it's not focused on games, than what is it focused on? They need to hire some very good technical marketing people to make this the killer app it needs to be; focusing on the hack value of an open source games^h^h^h^h^hmedia console is going to sell a lot of boxes to the
Certainly Nokia is in a better position to do this than Indrema could ever dream of being. They're a big company, based in one of the most wired countries in the world, and they know enough about consumer marketing. I say I'll buy one when it hits the light of day. Question is, who else can they sign up, because at the end of the day it's still about games over everything else. (And they better have the best damn Snake game ever created on this thing
/Brian
Re:Whatever Happened ...? (Score:1)
When it comes to MS operating systems, the hardware specs must be "high". Their operating systems suck away about 30-50% of the available RAM, require anywhere from 200 MB (Win98) to 800 GB (Win2k) of HDD, and also work your processor harder.
This isn't just repitition of other bashes here: This has been my experience writing device drivers for Win95 and WinNT (and researching WDM for Win2k).
Make fun of the Celeron, but if the mobo is optimized for the processor and graphics, it'll be faster. Examples are (just about) any desktop verses the equivalent Insipron laptop from Dell. My boss has one, and it screams compared to my workstation (which is equivalent in memory, HDD, processor, and graphics). The structure of the hardware can do a LOT.
Besides, where's the "firm date" on the XBox? If it follows MS tradition, it'll be 2-6 months late. I understand "late" in the console business means DOA, no?
Re:That 3D card isn't a NVIDIA one. (Score:1)
Re:Publisher fee-free console? (Score:1)
More Games! (Score:3)
Just what We Need!
How am I supposed to play all these games and make time to fight the Evil Empire of Redmond as well?
Check out the Vinny the Vampire [eplugz.com] comic strip
Some info for those who can read PDFs. (Score:2)
Re:Nokia's objective (Score:3)
Consider:
- They have the infrastructure to build and produce LOTS of these. The plan might be to get people to hook onto successive buys like cell phones, but that's still less of a market gimmik than M$ everything...
- They have the marketing base to promote this out of obscurity. Not necessarily to challange the top players, but enough to make this a house hold question: Media Top or XBox or PSX2??
- They have taken a completely different tack on profit for this. They expect to make some revenue off the hardware and none off the software.
- They already have some big name players (RealNetworks and Loki) helping to make things move along, and have asked the Linux community in general to help out.
I think this is a carefully crafted move to get a foothold in the home appliance market. They probably looked at it as a gamble, but the upside of winning is Killer User Base for them.Further, I think this is a great opportunity for Linux to become a common household name. A large, international company has just planned to offer cheap, useable, Linux boxes to the masses for interactive tv and games... and then how much of a hop to the desktop and/or workplace??
*duck first fireball** not to start a flame war on linux's place in the world, but to prod those who feel a great need to evangalize to put out code for this product instead..
my $0.02 and SCl... ;-)
Linux Games? (Score:1)
While it would be great fun to play xbill or Quake on my cell phone... is it really that feasable?
Re:Linux Games? (Score:1)
High Hopes (Score:2)
I must admit to feeling quite optimistic about this whole thing, from reading the details on the Nokia site. They say they are planning to open the hardware specs, and I can't really see how they could be planning to prevent hacking if this is what they end up doing.
I posted a message here is response to the announcement of the Indrema console all those months ago, expressing my doubts about the future of the machine, but at they same time saying that if it did fail, I would make damn sure it was not because I did not support it. I tried to support it, but it failed anyway. I feel so much more optimistic about the Media Terminal. They have something that actaully looks like a working prototype, rather than just a mockup. They have actuall hardware specs which fit with the photographs [nokia.com] of the back of the prototype. They have documentation for their IO API, and a developers site with real information on it. Most importantly of all perhaps they are a decent sized company with the technical and financial clout to build a machine that works.
I just can't wait to get my hands on one. Looking forward to having a WorldForge [worldforge.org] demo running on the beast before the end of the year.
Smart Card Slots? (Score:1)
Re:If the standards are keep open (Score:1)
This is great (Score:1)
The whole community just seems to be getting better and stronger everyday.
Linux has really made a giant leap in the last year, it really blows my mind. Linux has been put on a watch, game console, Google has 8000 Linux servers, corporations seem to be embracing it, more users are hearing more about Linux everyday it feels like it won't be long before it's a household name and almost everyone has a partition of Linux on the computer.
Only if the 13373575 of the group could grow up....
Content Protection (Score:1)
secure (triple-DES) content protection.
Will we be able to do simple MP3 jobs, even,
never mind other media???
------------------
Re:How does Nokia hope to lure developers (Score:1)
We already have digital TV (Sweden).
Boxes has been out for sale/lease for atleast a year.
Yay! (Score:2)
Read about this elsewhere, but... (Score:2)
Agreed. Here's hopin' we get back to that paradigm.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
Re:install (Score:1)
Re:Smart Card Slots? (Score:1)
Re:Speed (Score:1)
Hackable? Sorta anyway (Score:1)
1 - DVB System running on separate RTOS
DVB, ATVEF and MHP Compliant
2 - Macrovision 7 compliant
3 - Intel Celeron ® 366 Mhz CPU or faster
(listed separately) Full MPEG2/DVB compatible engine
This seems boils down to an entirely separate sub-system that handles _all_ broadcast type digital video. The overall DVB spec has two specs inside of it that deal with content encryption/protection. No telling from the site just _how_ compliant their DVB imlpementation is, but with Macrovision also listed, it seems safe to assume they are leaning towards the look-but-dont-copy side of things. This thing may be able to be hacked up to run some games, but looks like you can forget doing much digital video hacking with it.
LEXX
More models (Score:1)
Unix geeks wont buy the X-Box (Score:1)
Re:Whatever Happened ...? (Score:1)
Good work Detective! (Score:1)
What would really be a cool app... (Score:3)
This would be a great way to get the cable companies to recommend this box, because it could theoretically replace a lot of normal telephone usage and give the cable companies the edge in providing services to home users. Not to mention the conveniece of paying less than 10 cents a minute to Europe or Asia...
Re:High Hopes (Score:1)
They say they are planning to open the hardware specs, and I can't really see how they could be planning to prevent hacking if this is what they end up doing.
And thats why this will never fly as a games console - as soon as its open, it will be modifiable, and then its a moving target - and console developers HATE that.
I myself will be shocked if this ever gets released in North America.
Nokia (Score:3)
The reason I think this is not vapor, that Nokia has put some reputation, behind this. They will bring it to market, even if they would LOOSE money, after change in conditions, and not do well in the market, since their reputations is more worthy than 1G$. Well after they find out it doesn't do well, they would slowly reduce the availability. Compared to other things that failed, they have money, so they wouldn't drop out of project if it failed, not this late. Perhaps redefine, and upgrade specs a bit, and come 2 months later. But not give up. Too much in stake when they have putten that website there...
Re:Hmmm... Not sure what to make of this (Score:1)
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Hmmm... Not sure what to make of this (Score:2)
Look at the politics involved:
I'm sure there's more but I can't think right now. In a way - and I don't mean to troll or invite flames here - I think that it's still a hype thing. I didn't find out until recently that TiVo runs Linux. It's not something it wears on its sleeve. The OS is invisible.
Mmm
Claric
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Interesting... (Score:2)
install (Score:1)
Celeron 366? (Score:1)
While I don't doubt Nokia's intentions for using Linux (low development cost, etc.), I can't help but be concerned by the fact that there has not been a single widely-succesful Linux-based product to date. With all the half-baked, consoles/devices/software products brandishing "Linux!" as a way of gaining attention, I'm afraid the reputation of our beloved OS will suffer in the eyes of the general public. Obviously, the Eazel announcement isn't helping things either. People may begin to associate Linux with "failure" or "low quality". I don't think anyone wants that.
Realisticly, games should just be an afterthought for the MediaTerminal, and perhaps that's the reason for the Celeron 366. Anyone who thinks this thing has a chance of drawing people away from the XBox should really set their crack pipe aside for a minute or two. C'mon, remember Indreama? The game support for Linux, let alone a just-announced console is not sufficient to build a profitable product around. If, however, MT could play
Perhaps the people at Nokia are envisioning something different that what I can forsee, but it seems to me that it's gonna be tough sell for the average user.
--Greg