“Microsoft will demonstrate on Monday a tablet-shaped device that will serve as a bridge between the TV, the PC and the company’s .Net services, according to sources familiar with the plans. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will show off the device, known as Mira, during his eHome presentation Monday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The device is effectively a cross between a Pocket PC-based handheld computer and a TV remote control. […] Mira will be a wireless handheld device and contain a sizeable screen. In conjunction with a TV or a PC, Mira will deliver Internet content, serve as a portable game player in conjunction with Microsoft’s Xbox video game console, and allow consumers to shop online, see program listings and perform other tasks.” The story is at C|Net-News and the funny thing is that the demonstration will take place the time that Steve Jobs will be delivering his highly expected keynote at MacWorld on Monday and will be uncovering the new Apple “secret weapon”. Is Microsoft trying to minimize the potential surprise Apple is preparing? Is Apple’s secret weapon also a tablet Mac? We will know for sure on Monday.
Microsoft Device to Bridge TV, PC
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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How typical of Microsoft to try and steal Apple’s thunder! Mira must be Luna’s new hardcore sister 🙂
Well MacWorld Expo will be the big event no matter Bill’s you can stack up!
Seems Microsoft knows no bounds in the market as they are trying to penetrate every part of the consumer electronics catagory. Seems that they have the PC, handheld, Console and now Home entertainment Markets. Another thing I remember hearing is that Microsoft was devloping Cable TV server software for a future digital cable TV system.
BSOD on your TV:
WindowsTV
Warming Playboy Channel has caused a fatal error in Cabletv.dll. The current channel will be terminated.
* Press any key on your remote control to terminate the current channel
* Press power-tv-channel up on your remote to restart your TV. You will loose any unsaved channel settings in memory.
MS has been around in the digital STB arena for a long while. They have developed and they have deployed.
I expect this to be embedded XP saturated with the fat of Messenger and all the other MS trapware i.e. .NET services. Should be a great little tablet to hack on though – but only if it meets the demise of all the other IA tablets/devices (ePods, Virgin Webplayer, etc) and starts selling on eBay a year after launch for $50 🙂 Then, it may be worthwhile.
$2k is slightly too much dough for this device, thanks very much. No I take that back, its bloody murder.
Hope they don’t call it Mira in the UK. That name will, for many people, conjure up the image of Mira Hindley, the infamous Moors Murderer! Actually, I hope they *do* call it that
Oh no, Microsoft isn’t a monopoly, 85-90% of the destktop computers run Windows but apple is in a close second with 5%! And hey, Xp isn’t another GUI ripoff of osX. And while we are at it, why don’t we let MS buy @home and let msn undermind AOL… And while the magician has you looking at one hand, he is shoving a knife in Nintendo’s(and not-so-much sony’s) side while also setting up his power on the TV! Good G*d ppl! What the heck has happened to us? Are we truly this blind as a society to not more actively try to stop the Blue Screen Mammoth?
P.S.
I swear when/if MS gets its own digital cable system, problems won’t show a “technical dificulties” sign on the screen. It will BSOD!!! are we gonna need a dos TV boot disk just in case? Will ABC,NBC and CBS soon support the start button next to the company logo?
These devices & associated “.NET subscription software/services” are on the same priority as my desire to purchase that $2,000 heated toilet seat I thought would be nice.
Now that PCs are cheap and notebooks dropping (but still expensive), they figure the future is setting standards for the new low-end “take anywhere” hardware in a stripped-down portable device, with most of the grunt work done on some remote server to keep hardware costs & power consumption down. Sure, there’ll be niche applications and a niche market of niche devices, but the whole idea of computers is to empower the end-user, not take his/her control away. Nice try MS, but I don’t buy it – and I certainly don’t trust you, and most of all I don’t see how this will change my life in any way/shape/form.
Let’s see. They carved out a nice monopoly of Operating Systems (the real issues ignored in court, instead stupidly focusing on what I believe is their very right to bundle the browser with the OS), and now they’re using the money they’ve illegally amassed over the years (ie. with teir ‘illegal operation’ operating systems) to control hardware markets and now the networks & the very news we read daily. What’s next? Consumer hardware that only lets us copy what THEY want us to copy, and only lets us read what THEY want us to read, and only lets us share information THEY want us to share? Heh; nope, I’m not giving my power up like that. This move will fail miserably if there’s any common sense left in this world, though I understand they’re working on removing common sense bit by bit with every broadcast from their media empire…(in small steps, just enough so Joe Average doesn’t notice…)
Well could be the other way around. At any rate monday will be interesting. People from both sides will/might get something they can ponder if they want to buy and might have to decide between which one. I want to see that MS laptop thing were the screen turns around and it becomes a webpad, that could be neat. Also if there was a mac web pad thing like shown the other day in renderings that would be cool. If I had money I might actully think about getting a mac for that. I really want to know what the hold up is on cheap mass produced web pads. What happened to Qubit (sp?) did they go under? The few web pads i have seen were expensive and don’t seam to be a mass produced thing. I don’t want something that is more rare than a Tucker.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that everyone except MS is a goody-two-shoes. AOL + TW = cable monopoly and content (video, audio) monopoly. Sony and their PS2 which never gets a price drop, and their nazi anti-emulation efforts (seeya Bleem!), etc. And these other companies stiffly control THEIR markets too. BTW you should blame the controllers and distributors (video distributors, record execs, etc.) of the CONTENT not the PLATFORM for what you are ‘forced’ to hear and see.
We live in a democracy, nothing wrong with nixing the competition to make a profit though 🙂
BTW MS STB platform has no ‘start button’. Check out UltimateTV. Their advantage (give them credit) is that they provide decent development tools vs. the other competition that has crappy if any development IDEs.
X-Boxes have GSODs
some cable/satelite company i saw got amiga “guru meditation” from time to time
Back to M$, go buy some chip maker with lot or RAM production.
-Hey little Timmy what did you got for xmas this year?
-We got a 512M of RAM TV!
http://www.amiga.com/feature/about_amiga/
https://www.ostdev.net/