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Intel Releases Red Hat Based Netpliance 67

Posted by CmdrTaco from the what-a-lame-name dept.
waldoj writes: "Intel has announced their "Dot.Station," a Red Hat-powered Internet appliance. With a price around $500, I think I'll just buy an eMachine..." I wonder how much the marketroids were paid to come up with the name... the article is fairly skeptical, and I don't see enough non-vapor to know for sure.
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Intel Releases Red Hat Based Netpliance More

Intel Releases Red Hat Based Netpliance

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  • These appliances are supposed to be cheap or free with long term service contracts. For the most part, these fees are similar to standard dialup access (in some cases, like that of Virgin, much less). What isn't considered in this pricing model is that appliances are intended to become a normal part of the home. You may have a set-top box in your living room, an I-opener-like device in your kitchen, a PDA in your pocket, and a webpad in your bedroom. If we're really expected to pay for service and not the devices themselves, it becomes almost impossible to fulfill the purpose that internet appliances were meant for in the first place: ubiquitous access. I'd much rather keep spending $20 a month for access from my ISP and drop a few hundred bucks on whatever appliances that I want then spend $200 a month covering all of the service fees that keep the "free" machines working.
  • Why must all net-pliances suggest that they be put into the damned kitchen? Is online recipe-surfing that important to today's cook? Does it REALLY serve a purpose?!

    Put the thing in the bathroom is what I say! There could be a weblog for just such an appliance. Crapdot, perhaps! Honestly. Give me a bathroom without the same old magazine I've been leafing through for a month! Anyway, i'm off to register FREEJOHN.COM.


    Ham on rye, hold the mayo please.

  • I can't count the number of times I have seen a similiar looking device sitting on the kitchen counter of some futuristic apartment of some 80's Sci-Fi flick...Get over it people! What is the need of these companies to make largely impractical "nifty" looking boxes that are basically useless on the grand scale of things but look flashy and futuristic? For my money I will stick to a desktop thanks!

  • Jelous is the only spelling mistake I see and I even put "(sp?)" after it to signify that I was unsure of the spelling.

    Mark Duell
  • What sets this apart from the other net appliances out there? It uses Linux (which is cool) What's so cool about that. It's free so that makes it a good choice. Other than that they could have used FBSD or SCO etc.
  • Some years ago, I read in a magazine that in the future, even microwave ovens would be connected to the Internet.

    Indeed... this monstruosity looks just like my microwave oven.

    Stéphane

    Have you checked out Badtech [badtech.com] The daily online cartoon?
  • > This is an offtopic post. You can tell that it is offtopic by the complete lack of any reference to the article or anything related to it.

    Alas, but you did refer to the article.

    --
  • I think it's quite fascinating to watch big hardware and software companies moving into the consumer appliance market - Microsoft and the XBox, Dell and their MP3 stereo machine, and now the DotBox or whatever Intel's incantation is called. I'm just curious if they'll actually do it right, or if they are going to get burned.

    It goes without saying that consumer electronics is a whole, entirely different enchilada than computing products. For one thing, they are really, really hard to build with quality. Anyone play with one of the original Diamond Rio PMP300's, or, more recently, the no-name MP3-ROM players out there? Cheap, flimsy - you felt like it would break if you used it the wrong way. Compare with a Discman from even ten years ago, and you'll get the idea. There are only a handful of consumer appliance makers out there (Panasonic, Sony, RCA, etc.) because the investment it takes to design these things idiot-proof and durable is just fscking huge. I heard an estimate in the tens of millions once just for R&D on a portable CD player, back in the day. Compare that oligopoly with computer makers, where literally anyone with an Ingram Micro account can suddenly be a manufacturer - it's a lot different.

    Now, with that in mind, how successful will big PC companies be at moving into this market? That's a question I just don't know the answer to. Microsoft's XBox, especially, worries me because they are sticking a Nvidia graphics card in there. TNT2 and GeForces have great performance, but they aren't exactly known for their stability. How many people are going to want to buy an XBox that has heat issues or crashes after strenuous Quake sessions when they can get any one of a number of other consoles that has been well thought out by a small army of Sony or Nintendo engineers and playtested for thousands of man hours? Not many, if you ask me.

    Dell also interests me - after all, the only reason they were able to carve out a (now admittedly huge) niche for themselves was because they totally revolutionized the way PCs are ordered and built (i.e. carrying no stock of supplies; ordering parts when the actual system is ordered). That is a pretty smart approach to building PCs; Michael Dell's $6 billion speaks for itself. But consumer electronics are almost by definition produced on a huge scale - not on a customer to customer basis. If Dell is trying to sell their "appliance" at such a low price ($200) I hope they either have a huge supply lined up or don't anticipate selling very many.

    --
  • You're right that it's a risky business. But how many of these do we need? Well, how many VCR's do we need? The answer is millions and millions. Many households have two or more.

    I realize that $500 is too much for a mass-market device; but that's just the starting price. VCR's started out a lot more expensive, and now they're around $100.

    Also, Intel does have a history of seeding the market to increase demand for their core product, microprocessors. They'd probably be quite happy if some other company saw that their design was good, but found a better way to produce something similar at a lower price.

  • If you want a almost free Internet appliance check out the Virgin Webplayer Virgin Connect [virginconnectme.com]

    If you want to see the inside Pictures [computechnica.com]
  • I understand that they will be selling these to service providers, so the consumer can probably expect to see them offered in the $99-$199 range. The providers will probably take a loss, à la Netpliance, and then try to recoop it via service contracts.

    Speaking of NPLI, the article stated that US West was one of the potential customers for these things... Odd, US West has a service agreement with NPLI already. Do they sense the demise of NPLI (after the PR disaster of slamming customers and losing their biggest retailer), or does US West want a bigger slice of the pie?

  • So, Intel ship it to ISPs, who ship it to users. The ISPs will, therefore, be shipping a *lot* of GPL software, which is great. I'm sure they'll all make the source available (by FTP or whatever). But wouldn't it be nice if they made a point of informing the users (who will probably not know about free software) that they get a whole load of important rights with these systems.

    If this sort of Linux-powered device becomes popular (and I think they will - even if not in this incarnation), I think it would be sad if the users didn't know how the software is developed and the freedoms it gives them. Most probably won't care, but it could make a difference to a significant number of people.

    Perhaps the GPL should have a clause requiring distributors to specify clearly that software is under GPL.

    The downside of shipping lots of Linux boxes to relatively non-technical users is the potential for extra load on the IRC channels and mailing lists where Linux support usually happens. A bit like the September that never ended. I know that RedHat, LinuxCare etc would be delighted to offer support, but you can't use free software for long without realising that excellent support is avavilable for free.

    Share and Enjoy.
  • Ummm...I hate to sound like flamebait, but wouldn't it have been wiser in this age of PC-conscious mania to have picked a name not so offensive to those of the Hindu persuasion? I mean dot-station could be misconstrued as a derogatory remark against those of Indian heritage who work in the Computer Science and Engineering fields....really, INTEL should watch their patootie on this one.
  • Why not both the kitchen and bathroom? I have a netpliance in my kitchen and a laptop in my bathroom. I use my netpliance mainly for recipes and shopping lists, but it was well worth the ~$200 in parts for it. It does see a lot of use as an MP3 player also (I can't cook to dead silence). In the bathroom, self explanatory. Sometimes (depending on how well a cooking experiment went) I spend excess time in there. I like to watch radar, listen to music, read linux HOWTOs, just make the whole bathroom experience much more inviting. I think my guests like the idea of checking their e-mail when they need some "personal time". Let's face it... sometimes you just need a sleek, stylish terminal instead of a big honking monitor and tower case. For the price of this Intel thing, I'd much rather find a laptop on ebay though.
  • ***I am posting with +2. Fight that temptation*** But everyone knows that a Lawful/Evil, Neutral/Evil or Chaotic Evil (Most Common) Moderator has +5 Apathy Mail...
  • >Put the thing in the bathroom is what I say!
    > There could be a weblog for just such an
    > appliance.

    I agree with you. I'm more likely to surf when I'm sitting on the can. When I'm in the kitchen I'm too busy to surf. I have 5 magazine subscriptions right now, and it takes me about a month's worth of bathroom time to read them all. That's just about right.

  • You're kidding, right? What's the "connection"? That same comment has been posted before.
  • I'm impressed with Intel's quick and somewhat knowledgeable response:
    Subject: RE: Home Products Group Form

    Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000 15:00:38 -0700

    The CRT version gives a much better resolution and viewing experience than a passive LCD display would. Further, with smaller display, the Internet is often clipped, or reformatted, so that the Internet looks different. We made a trade-off--- good display, full Internet for aesthetics.

    Thank you for your feedback.
    They forgot about the touchscreen. Oh, well.
  • Where, and by who? I seem to have missed it.
    It seemed like an obvious thing, but I like to think that my execution could scarce be improved upon.
    --Shoeboy
    (former microserf)
  • Actually Intel had been selling complete PCs for year to OEMs. They were generally made in Korea, and always used Intel motherboards. They were OK, but not as configurable as they could have been.

  • Intel has a press release here [intel.com] that describes the Dot.Station, and has pictures! The unit seems to be the first aimed at service providers rather than the consumer. The Intel System Management Suite "will [allow the service provider to] be able to use the software management tools to manage customer accounts, update software, and perform remote diagnostics. This features helps service providers contain costs while providing a high level of customer service".

    Looks like a good product for its intended market.

  • I can't remember where (maybe I saw it in a story, or in meta-moderation). But I'm sure it was before today. You could just check the user's info page - it was most likely posted by the same person.
  • A company called Adomo [adomo.com] is making what I think could be the "next generation home computer network".

    It will be client/server and wireless network, where all software and data is located. The clients can be everything you could imagine, a normal PC, a music player (the music is located on the server as MP3), a terminal (just for browsing and email, etc.

    It is all based on Linux an other open stuff, and you are therefore free to make your own clients for whatever you would like.

    My description is probably not very good, but ZDNet has a very god article here [zdnet.com].
  • While I am sure that the Dotstation will be a cool appliance that I will be drooling all over. I am not sure that it will be my favored alternative. Many of intel's products are a little bit steep on the price margin if you know what I'm saying. As the internet appliance market is really aimed more towards people who don't want to buy/use computers, I think that this will be a bit out of the price range of what they really want. However, I think that it will do well simply since Intel is marketting it, and when they really care about a product, they sell the hell out of it.
  • Ok, the name Red Hat is confusing me here. Which parts of this will be Red-Hat powered?
    1. Will it be RPM based?
    2. Will it use GNOME?
    3. Will it be standard Red Hat Linux?
    I think that Intel is just using the Red Hat name for marketing purposes and has no real plans for the product.
  • It's spelled "Dot.Station", but it's pronounced "computer".
    --
  • The article expects most of the sales to be to ISP's and such, who will subsidize it for their customers, the old Gillette razor and blade strategy.

    George

  • How many of these things do we need? (Score:4)

    by DrgnDancer ( 137700 ) on Thursday June 22, 2000 @10:11AM (#982403) Homepage

    What sets this apart from the other net appliances out there? It uses Linux (which is cool), but other thna that (and a few others also fit that statement), it is yet another "almost computer". Why is Intel getting into this crowded market one has to wonder?

  • Dot.Station... so that would be pronounced "dot dot station"?
  • By "RedHat powered", do they mean it's REALLY powered by RedHat? Does it burn RH CDs anything like a coal burning stove? How much power does RH have? Is it like a battery? Could I use RH CDs to, say, power my portable radio? Or even my car?

  • Intel's one good idea... (Score:4)

    by Animol ( 120579 ) <jartis&gmail,com> on Thursday June 22, 2000 @10:10AM (#982406) Journal
    The most redeeming part of this particular article was Intel's for-once genius move. They plan not on targeting the device toward individual consumers, but to businesses that provide internet services to their customers. I for one have been kicked out of many a cyber-coffeeshop for messing with the system. Intel seems almost to be paving the way toward the future portrayed in sci-fi, that of an internet connection as ready as a payphone. Not many other companies share that as a vision for a product. With that strategy, it would be nothing to get Telco support in this.
  • aitch tee tee pee colon slash slash slashdot dot org

    dot dot station

    Hmm.. I wonder who their target audience could possible be?
  • This is an offtopic post. You can tell that it is offtopic by the complete lack of any reference to the article or anything related to it.

    The correct action to take is to moderate this post down as offtopic.

    You might be tempted to moderate it down as overrated as I am posting with +2. Fight that temptation - this path leads to madness. The correct mod is offtopic.

    You might also consider me a troll. I'm not. Look up troll in the jargon file. Trolls have a sense of humor - this post does not. Go with offtopic.

    Under no circumstances should you choose flamebait. No one cares enough to flame this post.

    So offtopic it is. Got it?

    --Shoeboy
    (former microserf)
  • Buyer beware on those eTowers, kids. I've got one, and have two big complaints:

    1) The modem is a cheap piece of junk that will a) never connect at over ~30k and b) die within 2 months
    2) the USB ports on these puppies are wickedly FU-- which is to say very inconsistant. They'll support a USB ZIP drive, but not a USB modem, for no appearent reason. eMachine's tech support just scratches their heads on this one.

  • This post was on-topic. Sure, some nitwit moderator didn't see the connection between this post and "Intel Releases Red Hat Based Netpliance" but we all know how dumb moderators are (present company excluded).

    So please, mark this "offtopic" moderation as "unfair".
    --
  • Perhaps a little off-topic but it struck me that if internet appliances are going to be as common as paper (did someone brandy the figure of 250 million units by 2003?) then it seems a little excessive to brand every single class of them. Apart from the minor inconvenience of running out of english names/trademarks and filling the coffers of NSI, do we really care about who manufactures every single lever and widget in our car? Similarly are companies going overboard in trying to brand the nuts and bolts of the evolving information infrastructure? Apart from certain classy toilet paper, we don't go around naming bits of paper after their distributors. An internet appliance is just that, a convenience to access structured information. Once people settle on a form factor (e.g. Nokia handset), entry sytem (e.g. Palm Pilot), battery life (still an iffy), then the rest is asthetics and widget frosting (granted nice electronic interior decortating but not germane to the actual information).

    Have we reached the point where advertising has become sheer noise? Or is there something called a brand-free zone?

    LL
  • It's funny, with more and more "internet appliances" coming onto the market, they each are more and more expensive. Each new appliance has more features than the competition, it's almost as if their goal is a complete PC. The irony is that eventually you'll be able to buy a complete PC for the same price (as seen with the eMachines).
  • Holy crap. this puppy is just about like the old Mac Plus/SE/SEII/Classics.

    Hell, I used to work on a compter 'bout this size.

    Definately NOT an internet appliance.

    Think again guys.....

  • I would never buy an eMachine. I hope all of you out there in /. land don't either.

    My fiancée bought one in October 1999 and after three phone calls still hasn't received her $75 rebate. (We'll send it soon, it's in the mail, must've got lost, we'll cut a new check, yada yada.)

    As for service, when the hard drive started acting funny, causing frequent BSODs, their tech support people said it was probably a virus. Uh, yeah. In fairness I have to admit they sent the replacement machine fairly quickly.

    <rant>And the damned hard drive keeps going klunk! I hate noisy hardware!</rant>

    ------

  • When, oh when, will they learn? There's a magic price point for consumer electronics, and that magic number is $300... which I think of as "the mad money you get twice a year when your biweekly pay cycle laps your monthly bill cycle". $300 is where average people start thinking about buying unneccessary electronic goodies.
  • Well, looking at the pic it seems that they're trying to push the iMac form factor without the gooshy candy colors. Remember black=badass when it comes to electronics in most consumers' minds.

  • Kinda like 'slashdot dot org'?

    Refrag
  • You got it. I recently ripped into a guy who wrote an editorial about how Microsoft didn't have to worry about Linux (one of his points involved comparing revenue, how clueless is that!?). One of my main points was to look beyond the traditional desktop PC, toward "appliance" devices and others. Linux is a much better fit for these types of things than Windows.

    Linux activists don't really want to talk about these types of machines because they don't really interest them. These machines are supposed to be easy, dumbed-down, even a bit boring. They're Linux-Lite. Intel or other companies probably won't open source anything they write for them and even if they do it'll be software of little interest to most Linux-using Slashdot readers.

    That being said, I think this type of news is really good news. Imagine kids for whom the appliance is the first computer. When they want to move up to a "real" PC, they'll be more likely to choose the OS with which they are already familiar. The Linux brand will be embedded in their little brains like cigarettes and cars with breasts (er, nevermind). It's another step toward World Domination.
  • Yea, but this time the DDoS will be blamed on Linux (Red Hat)!

    Later...
  • ....By the way when you purchase your intel dot station, I hope you enjoy the IRQ conflicts and bluescreens....?

    Errr - the DotStation runs on Linux? You know - Linux? Last time I checked bluescreens were a Windows feature.
  • pretty stringent terms on that, wouldn't you say?
  • Probably RedHat, with a copy of X11 and Netscape. I assume that it will cut most of the administrative and office utilities, and keep only the media ones that are used as internet plug ins. If they are smart, they will keep the IRC software in there, and the FTP software, which they probably will leave both the console and gui versions of. RPM will obviously be the package manager, and probably there will be systems to make web upgrading more "userfriendly" [userfriendly.org] as it were. Gone will be gimp and such utilities, it will be stripped to GUI and internet junk, all of which can fit on a fairly small drive, and with identical images, fairly simply administered. The one interesting factor will be the security model that they implement. I am sure that they want to enable the user to install upgrades, but will they circumvent this to increase security?
  • Nice idea by Intel, but let's see what Transmeta and AMD come up with. I'd personally like to see an AMD-powered system like the iOpener but a little more full featured for close to that pricing point. Plus, what will this do to their Celeron line, and more to the point, with Micro$oft's latest goat-loving technique with Win2K CDs, how will M$ position the product? Or will they create their own or even try ot roll it into xBox?

    JHK
    http://www.cascap.org and if you don't visit, you'll never know... [cascap.org]

  • Correct me if I'm wrong... but isn't this one of the first (if not THE first) full computer that Intel has put out? That would be rather interesting, because they wouldn't have gotten their hands dirty with Windows!
  • Will they require the users to change their passwords?

    Will they set the machines up to automatically update their software?

    It would be relatively dangerous of them to dump a few million of these out there all with the same root password. I hope that they include instructions on changing the password/so forth. They really should include such things to enable proper administration.

    As for autoupdating, that's probably a given, or at least some bastardization, er, uh, simplification of web update scripts.
  • So much breath is wasted in the Linux activist community on the comparison of Linux with Windows on the desktop. But surely that's a dead market not long from now. With huge bandwidth and mass-market consumer applications, we can start again to think about what computers can do.

    It's not just .doc - let MS have that if they want. It's about multimedia, ubiquitous, embedded, mobile processing and 'experience' of the computer's manifestations all around us, transparently.

    So Linux, running on ARM, MIPS, 68000, etc, etc can be the compact, reliable, efficient, open, free kernel that forms a foundation to start building upwards again for the new wave of technologies and applications, leaving that Redmond dinosaur in the dust....

    AOL's taking up Linux, and now Intel. If you forget the MS battle, things are really hotting up. You can get Linux on many PDAs, now set-top boxes, a games machine (Indrema), etc. Judge Linux by its penetration into the new wave of set-top, mobile, embedded machines and applications. Mass consumer apps, not office apps. This is bigger than even the Borg could have dreamt of.

    Push multi-platform Linux, small-machine Linux, 3D games Linux. Forget the old 2D desktop Linux.



    --------------------------------------
  • And if they want it in the kitchen, why don't they make a screen that can be easily cleaned and which can hold up against some cleanser? And the keyboard should come equipped with something like a keyboard condom so you don't have to freak out if you splatter sauce on it. A dishwasher safe keyboard would be ideal.

    Hmm, they could also reach an unintended market of consenting adults for whom the computer plays an important part in their social lives :)
  • Yeah! While were on the subject, why are there all those pesky computer manufacturers out there? We only need one good one, right?
  • Has anyone looked at the picture [intel.com] of this thing? It's huge for a web appliance.
    It looks like over a foot deep. One of the things that makes the Netpliance
    I-Opener so attractive is it's incredibly slim form factor.

    This thing reminds me of the first handheld cellular phones.
    Remember how Radio Shack used to photograph them almost
    head on to hide the fact that they were 6 inches deep?
  • Yeah, but for $400 [e4me.com], they're pretty much disposable. I use 'em for servers. No need for USB or a modem. As long as I back up regularly, I've got no problem with one dying.

    But I've got to admit that I bought my main one 12 months ago and it's run continuously since then. No problems at all, not for a moment. Running Linux, of course. :)

    Others that I've used tend to have hard drive problems, though nothing critical. Just the occasional error printed to the screen about having to reset. Like I said: $400, why not?

    -Waldo

  • Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of "It is unlike Intel to try to compete in an already crowded and very risky market." They usually prefer to play it safe. It is not that I dislike competiton, I simply don't see the attraction of this market for so many companies. As of yet every attempt has met with somewhere between little and no success, yet companies keep throwing out products, seemingly convined that since THIS box is from {insert company name here}, it WILL succeed. I do rather like Intel's ploy of selling to ISP's and web portals though... It may work... Just seems sort of unlike Intel.

  • They look quite a lot like a minitel...

  • The whole point of the Matrix is to turn a human being into this: [points to RH CD].

  • Wow, there seems to be quite a divergence of opinion here:

    Moderation Totals:Offtopic=4, Insightful=2, Funny=4, Overrated=1, Total=11.

    Overrated was probably accurate after four people moderated this up as Funny, but on the other hand it is the funniest post I've seen all day. Right after the first paragraph you should have said "Do not adjust your browser.". Even as it was I almost fell out of my chair.

    As a tribute to the gedankenexperiment that I'm replying to, I'm also willing to burn karma by posting at +2. Remember: offtopic, not overrated.

    And now for something completely different...

  • I guess the name "Dot.Station" is said as "dot-dot-station." That's just as bizarre as the press (Wired does this -- it drives me nuts) writing "dot.com" all the time. "dot-dot-com"? I could see ".com" or "dot-com," but "dot.com" makes no more sense than "Dot.Station."

    -Waldo
  • I submitted this article at about 8am this morning and it got rejected. Way to go guys!
  • That hasn't stopped Microsoft, has it? What will happen is one of two things: 1) The machine comes with super-conservative security settings (the best overall choice) 2) The machine comes badly configured and in six months we hear about yet another DDoS coming from these guys. Either is equally probable.
  • This article at Yahoo! [yahoo.com] has some more information, and says the device has a phone and a "household organizer". It also "looks stylish" and has a "silver keyboard."

    It also recommends putting it in the kitchen.

    wish
    ---
  • Here's a comment that I just sent to intel...

    Dear Intel,


    I think that your new internet appliance is quite ugly. Before you delete this comment as a random flame, please consider that a flat lcd screen would have given your product a slim, sexy look, similar to Netpliance's I-Opener. I know that smallish lcd screens can be quite cheap. Please consider using one in the future.

    Finally, what made you choose to use a keyboard instead of a touch screen? That gives the whole package a computerish look which is what you state that you are trying to do away with.

  • Dot.Station Now say that out loud. You would say "dot dot station". STUPID. Just like warnings like this: No Running. Period. If you said that you would say "no running period period period". STUPID.
  • You know, I wish you didnt have to include (br> for spaces, because that would look alot better. now it looks STUPID.

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