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Home / I-Appliance BBS General / NEWS, Breaking NEWS Future of Internet Apliances Need your input!!

Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) BoFinger Profile Hello all.. I work for lets say an unnamed company. We design modems/UARTs for computer products. I would like to get the real feed back from users on what they rather see in internet apliances. Modems? or Ethernet? or Both? And do you think that broadband lines are going to be the standard or are people going to stay with there 56K modems? Thanks for your help. 09-11-2000 18:47:58

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) vwbug19 Profile i'd suggest offeing both 56k modem and rj45 ethernet for flexiblity and covers wider areanot served by broadband like remote rural this allows those stuck on 56k to be able to switch over to ethernet when broadband comes without it being obosolte again 09-11-2000 20:15:10

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) Jhon Profile In all honesty, I believe that 56k modems will be around for a while yet -- especially for portable internet devices. Broadband options would most likely be best, but I doubt would be successfull as the *only* option. I could see someone paying $20-$25 a month on internet access with some type of "browser" device, but I highly doubt the masses would pay for an additional $20+ on top of that for broadband unless they already have it (or have it available in their building (ie college dorms)). Just my opinion -jhon 09-11-2000 20:17:44

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) cyrixone Profile The future of Netpliance looks bad: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=NPLI&d=1y Oh, you mean OTHER i-appliances? Well, I'd say there's a bigger problem than just bandwidth, but I'll get to it... <rant mode> The way I see it, there are QUITE a few mistakes being made in the way i-appliances are being designed/sold and marketed. Let's start with Netpliance. Netpliance offers a great piece of hardware with arguably the worst possible software installed. There's quite a few things this is lacking that WOULD still appeal to the "less-technical" croud. How about offering: Wordprocessing capabilities Support for USB storage devices Support for USB networking for broadband A FREE Instant-messaging client for NON-USERS of the Netpliance service to chat with their relatives/friends that ARE on the service. A "web-based hard drive" that you can use to store your documents, images and sounds. As for their pricing, instead of just offering one price-one ISP, they should offer (and in contract form like MSN does, not a "you can't do this because the software doesn't support it"): $99 with X-year contract $299 with no contract, use whatever ISP you like. You're still using THEIR software, their service and seeing THEIR advertisments - just accessing it all via a different ISP. </rant mode> As for the whole cable/DSL vs modems, unless the i-appliance maker is in bed with the high speed access provider, they're gonna want a chunk of the ISP fees. That means dialup is going to be standard on I-Appliances for a long time to come. 09-12-2000 03:58:27

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) webtvplus Profile How about creating appliances that are designed for Musicians,without all the stuff that does not apply to our needs such as software for spread sheets and word processing. Musicians need set top boxes that have all the hardware and a invisable O.S. so we can spend our time making the music not fiddling with a P.C. attempting to do the most simplest of things over the net! Anyone out there agree and want to help me make one? 09-13-2000 10:40:18

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) wiggles Profile How about you go right back to your webtv, Mr. Musician Man, and I will see what I can do about an invisable OS. - wig 09-19-2000 19:33:48

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) Skidmark Profile all i want is a cheap appliance i can modify. so damn it bofinger, make it hack able. and no contracts! 09-22-2000 20:04:18

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) wiggles Profile The only reason that the I-Opener was attractive to hackers is: 1) It was a heavy loss leader, insanely cheap as an initial purchase, depending instead on the Internet service to turn a profit. 2) The hacker crowd was always one step beyond Netpliance when it came to repurposing the I-Opener. Some downright amazing development happened on this very board. No one would "willingly" target an appliance at the hacker crowd, at a price point attractive to most hackers i.e. high-school or college students, or recent CS and EE college graduates. Your best bet is to target loss leaders like the DreamCast, WebTV, PSX2, X-Box, etc, and try and repurpose those. DreamCast development is already a very active area, with emulators, mp3 players, what have you, being released weekly. There are efforts to port NetBSD to the DC. You might want to start from there, especially now that the price is $149 down from $199. 09-24-2000 14:24:44

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) webtvplus Profile Hey Wig, I appreciate the reply,would you be interested in selling that O.S.? Believe me "all" Musicians would run out tomorrow and buy a internet set top box that worked like a glorified tape-deck,such as webtv-plus unit with a smooth running O.S. Just let let "us" know when its ready and see for yourself. 10-05-2000 09:44:32

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) skippy Profile | Email How about putting a modem and an ethernet on board. The components aren't that expensive. Then set an IPv6 address internally. Then set up routing between the internal IPv6 network and whatever interfaces are on-line (similar to the way a Novell Server worked). The Ethernet port will provide the needed MAC. This would allow the device's telephony interface to become a means of getting the rest of the house on the net until a broadband solution in installed. Some form of a discovery protocol on the ethernet port would allow the device to be a DHCP server or client depending on the internal network and re-route data out the home network after the broadband access is installed. This arrangement has additional advantages in addition to ease of use, such as preparation for IPv6 and inclusion of NAT and eventual enhanced security services (which are likely to become important in the home market in the near future). 12-15-2000 08:26:40

RE:Future of Internet Apliances (modified 0 times) Sinner Profile | Email I think above all don't waste time and effort on trying to lock out hacking attempts. The main problem with Internet Appliances is that the hardware is to expensive to sell it outright, and there is no good medium to sell the device at retail and enforce a TOS. I bought a $199 epods appliance from Fingerhut.com. Epods has no way to force me to sign up for their service. Before I did anything else I disabled the devices ability to call Epods then systematically removed their apps and installed my own. Sure I violated the TOS, but how are they going to enforce it? At retail they make you sign a contract before you take the device home.....the result. No one takes one home. Let's face it, the average American is already locked into to many long term contracts like Utilities, Phone, ISP, garbage and so on. Some internet appliance they may or may not use isn't going to get added to the list of monthly bills at $25/month. I can tell you the *I* don't need another monthly bill for the next 3 years. So appliance companies try to make money on advertising, but we already know that model doesn't work. If the device were to be $299 or less, and didn't have a hard TOS it'd be attractive. You could make money selling peripheral additions like printers, network adapters, CF cards, PC cards, internet telephone add-on (Yapgear-like USB device), and other upgrades. Partner with an outside ISP for dial-up and broadband access (you never make money selling access to consumers). License con....hey! Ah hell. If you need a product manager then email me. I've worked in the biz in hardware, software, retail, distribution, and ISP. Kinda gives me a unique perspective on the computer consumer marketplace. 12-15-2000 14:27:22

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