Death of the General Purpose PC 242
phil reed writes "This article at The Register provides a deeper view of what has started out as the discussion about copy protected hard drives. Basically, the author is saying that the end of the general-purpose PC is in sight, and we're likely to end up with special purpose appliances (witness Tivo) with all kinds of built-in copy protection. He does a good job of justifying his view, and it's depressing. Comments?"
Re:Misses the mark entirely (Score:1)
YouYou nerd. ;-) You're outnumbered a thousand to one. :(
No I am not. Look at all the people that bought beta video tapes. Look at how memory sticks (Sony proprietary) are fairing versus SmartMedia cards in digital cameras. The market rewards open standards time after time.
-josh
What about business? (Score:1)
So... (Score:1)
Re:Brave talk but what happens when.... (Score:1)
Besides, for me (and most of my friends) the trend has been the opposite; replacing all this specialized crap with the PC. I watch movies on it, listen to music, play games, and do work. Maybe i'll even get a tv card some day.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:2)
While that is exactly what the entertainment industry is trying to do, capitalism is not the problem. The only way the MPAA and RIAA can "arrange the market" to bring about their controlled-content/rent-everything/produce-nothing dystopia is to use government power to eliminate their competition. In a real capitalist marketplace the crippled hardware they're trying to foist on us would never survive.
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:1)
Stupid laws cut both ways.
Re:apple and the dmca. (Score:2)
This is not actually true. The DVD software that comes with Mac OS uses a technology called "direct screen blast" (also used in some games) to dramatically accellerate the framerate. All the OS knows is that there is a blank space there. The traditional Command-Shift-3 keystroke goes through the OS, and since there is no data there (to the OS's knowledge) the screenshot turns out black. Same thing, incidentally, if you try to use a projector on certain laptops to project a DVD (using certain software, I don't know the details). It's not the fault of the OS, it's a way of getting you (the user) a better quality picture.
BTW, if you must capture DVDs while they are playing, there is a utiliy called Snapz [ambrosiasw.com] (for the Mac) by Ambrosia Software [ambrosiasw.com] can capture even direct screen blast images.
Re:Yeah, right.... (Score:1)
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes.
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of American people.
Re:Profitability, not Popularity (Score:2)
Oh, bullshit. Complete and total hogwash. The PC industry is extremely profitable. The problem is that companies such as Intel, Dell, etc. got used to 50 percent profit margins during the late 80s. Getting by on what a normal company would get (10 to 20), seems like bankruptcy to them now.
How much profit do you think a printer makes? My brother-in-law ran a printing company for years. It's generally considered a good year if you have anything left over after paying employees and all the rest of the bills. Do you see any lack of printers?
Someone will always be there to make money from me when I want to buy a PC. Even if it is some guy working out of a garage.
Re:Umm, yeah sure (Score:1)
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles
Circumvent? (Score:2)
---
No proprietership without representation..... (Score:1)
Re:Don't sound the Death knell yet (Score:2)
Re:Brave talk but what happens when.... (Score:1)
We'll always have innovative computer scientists, and I think that what we do as consumers, and computer enthusiasts is very important. We cannot sit by like sheep without informing people about the actions that they can take to prevent this type of thing from becoming widespread.
The music industry lobbying groups, computer manufacturers, and software companies are all feeling the bite from a decline in consumer spending right now. We have the power, not them. If consumers don't feel the need to support the companies that are inclined to impose these types of restrictions on machines that we pay for, these companies will be forced to change their policies.
More and more I'm seeing a defeatist mentality coming from a lot of people who are supposed to be very involved with the industry of computers. The power of the DOJ and the corruption of congress are so prevalent because the people have become like sheep.
SubtleSeer
Re:What does this mean? (Score:1)
Re:Brave talk but what happens when.... (Score:2)
In fact the morons might even take on the head-up-the-ass attitude that Microsoft has adopted when it was ruled against... or the same arrogant attitude Steve Jobs had when he was ursupped from the company he founded by his own people.
-----
"In order to be effective artists you have to steal" --paraphraze of Steve Jobs on the creation of the Apple II (or was it the Mac..DOH! don't blame me...I was only four when it came out)
"The lowdown dirty Bastich stole from us!" --paraphraze of Steve Jobs on Bill Gates's creation of Windows 3.0
Re:Brave talk but what happens when.... (Score:2)
The prospect of this nightmare scenario makes you wonder which side really won the Cold War. We may have beaten the Stalinist dictatorships in the short term, but giving the powers that be control over the technology available to us will eventually gravitate us towards Orwell's "1984" scenario.
Now, what's next? That we'll be required to use only devices that not only honour copyright protection, but also control content, as decided by our authorities, corporate and government? How about mechanisms to monitor our activities as well?
Needless to say, this will tremendously retard advances in computer science, the physical sciences, and many other fields, but the powers that be don't give a fuck.
Not only that, they'll love it. Imagine, limitless monopoly-assured profit for very little money spend on R&D?
Capitalism says "no" (Score:2)
How happy are @home and RCN going to be when it turns out they can't pawn cable service off on users because there's no content they need?
The same thing come up here. Would you buy a hard drive with *optional* copy protection? No. A CD burner that didn't allow mp3's to be burnt? No! The only reason DVD's are how they are is because the format was defined by content creators rather than hardware creators.
But, you might ask - what if all the software vendors banded together to demand copy-protection? Fact is, they won't. Because if the software dosen't work on heritage machines, Corps. won't buy it, and there will be no sales. Thus, copy protected hard drives will never make it. Period.
Yeah, they might make an easy to use personal home controller internet applicance xbox. But that's not going to replace what wageslaves use at work, and you'll sill be able to get those. FUD about copy protected hard drives is bull untill one hits the market, sells well *AND* has software that can only be used with it. See anything requiring the "secure audio" on windows yet? Neither have I.
As long as there's legacy hardware with new software and PCs on work desks, I have no fear.
Nothing New (Score:2)
Computers are not only for entertainment. (Score:4)
But how about academia? If someone's running a server or a database, or if someone just has tons of MS Excel (excuse the swearword) files with data in them, then copy-protected harddrives and stuff like that will only be a hindrance...
In my opinion, this will never fly... and if it does, I'm pulling out my old 105 MB HD from where it has been for the past 7 years: under one of the legs of the coffee table, preventing it from wobbling too much...
Only applies to "low end".. for now.... (Score:2)
Re:It's Not Just Digital (Score:2)
Just to be troublesome, I actually use my MiniDisc player to record LPs and 45s and tapes, then output the analog from a portable MD into the mic jack on my Macintosh. Then I rip to AIFF/MP3, burn CDs as needed. In fact, this is about the only use I get out of the MD unit now that CD burners and blanks are easier to come by.
Power of slashdot was: Re:I'll tell you who. (Score:2)
Still, even though the schemes aren't hard to make, ultimately they always fail. As soon as you have hardware designed to protect something placed in an environment where it can be taken apart by the owner, or the output recorded in some way, you soon have a non protected thing IMNHO.
Besides, don't underate the POWER OF SLASHDOT!
The number of times I have seen a story in slashdot and then later seen the same story somewhere else- I think some journalists read slashdot. It's only sensible.
Journalists do have significant power over the thoughts of population. Slashdot is all powerfull.
Re:Who has the control, really? (Score:2)
That's like the difference between a VCR (illegally) ignoring Macrovision, and simply recording a copy of something that was never Macrovision-protected in the first place.
Umm, yeah sure (Score:4)
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:2)
Capitalism has nothing to do with encoraging free markets; it is a the description of a system whereby people inves capital and obtain a return on that capital. If fostering a healthy market maimises return on investment, individuals and companies will do so. If not, they will act against customer choice.
Free market theory is concerned with maximising value, usually to the consumer, through competition. Capitalism is interested in maximising value to the owners of capital. The entertainment industry is lousy at markets, but great at capitalism.
Re:silver lining (Score:2)
In fact, "special-purpose" modifications are already becoming the trend to push the margins back up. People will pay more for a computer with a volume knob on the monitor because that's a doohickey they can see (just like the consumer stereo market!) Who cares if it's got the world's crappiest sound card inside?
Would someone mind explaining something to me? (Score:2)
I mean, I just don't understand it, it's been explained to me several times, but my thought is, if my PC can figure out how to execute the code, I can figure out how to copy it. Its just a thought, so if I'm wrong, enlighten me.
Re:sony scares me. Look at the global picture (Score:2)
I'll change professions. Open a bar. Teach Math. Whatever. Heck, I'd rather live on 25% of what I make now than help murder people's freedom. I'm serious.
Exactly! (Score:2)
Re:Don't sound the Death knell yet (Score:2)
Why do you think that PC's are needed in order to use email? It's possible to send and receive email via thin clients. It's equally possible for a corporate IT department to block, limit, censor or log email sent to or from PC's. To back up a level, I can imagine a very free, user-empowering workplace where all users use X terminals communicating with big computers. I can imagine (and have seen) very restrictive workplaces where everyone has a PC.
Re:Don't sound the Death knell yet (Score:3)
The consumer market PC isn't going anywhere. Everytime someone thinks that they have a gizmo that would fit the average consumer's needs (for less) someone else comes up with another killer use for the PC.
It used to be that all a PC replacement needed to do was some word processing, and perhaps a spreadsheet. Then it was office type stuff and web browsing. Now it's all that and be a multimedia center as well. Who knows what will be next, but whatever it is it will almost certainly require a general purpose machine. And you can bet that Microsoft isn't going to think of it first.
Remember, a few years ago pundits were telling us that the future was WebTVs. Now we look back and realize that the WebTV was a total dud, and the reason that it failed is obvious. WebTVs suck! They can only do a handful of things, and they can't do them as fast or as easily as a modern PC (and they aren't even really that much cheaper).
The open nature and the general usefulness of the PC is the reason for its success. For most tasks the PC isn't the fastest or the least expensive solution, but it solves more problems than anything else, and it does it fast enough, and at a low enough price. Companies that try to make the PC less useful are bound to fail. For these CPRM devices to work, they are going to require drivers that trigger their special properties. I personally am hoping that Microsoft builds as much content protection as possible into their OS. I hope that they make it impossible to access a single solitary piece of digital content without someone's approval. The less generally useful Windows becomes, the easier it will be to replace Windows with something else.
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, right.... (Score:2)
And the obvious things to consider about this point are that:
A) On average people are becoming more computer literate, rather than less. Five years ago, computers were scary to a large percentage of the population; today Grandma has her own web page and
B) Added processing power and software development is making computers generally easier to use on an absolute scale
The combination of those two factors suggests that special purpose devices should be getting less practical over time rather than more practical. The way to think about this is to look at TiVo. Yes, it is a special purpose computer, but then again so is your VCR, and TiVo is much closer to your desktop machine than the VCR is. After all, TiVo uses a lot of off-the-shelf PC components, including a general purpose operating system. TiVo shows that we're quite close to putting TV recording functions into a standard computer- i.e. that the general purpose box is likely to start swallowing up functions that once belonged to separate devices- not that special purpose boxes are going to start taking over from general purpose ones.
Re:Interesting. (Score:2)
Possible but I think that even M$oft would be against this one because it would make all current versions of Windoze illegal as well. That could be an interesting battle, M$oft against the MPAA and RIAA. Not sure who would win.
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Gov't forcing copy protection (Score:2)
Failure to do so can result in being sued and being order to pay up all your profits, the "injured" parties losses and/or statuatory damages (i.e. even if you didn't make money, and they didn't lose anything, you can still be ordered to pay them off!), injunctions, destruction or sale of your facilities, and 5 years in prison/$500,000 fine for the first offense, 10 years/$1,000,000 for any subsequent ones.
That's gov't power for ya.
They just need to keeping "renting" (*) Congresspeople and judges to enforce their agenda with government force.
(*) You don't really buy influence and then be done with it, you have to keep paying them off - that is why campaign finance reform is important - once the corrupt money stops, so does the favors). The entertainment industry pays off both parties a LOT of money each and every year. I would not be suprised if Macrovision paid some people off as well.
Re:Who has the control, really? (Score:2)
In Michigan I have the "right" to refuse to take a breathalyzer test, but if I refuse any cop can and will suspend my drivers license immediately, sans due process.
Can you show me where you have a *right* to drive a vehicle on government roads and highways? Here's a timesaving hint before you go looking: You can't.
Driving in the USA is a privelage, not a right. Part of that privelage in most states is that you MUST consent to a violation of your 5th amendment protection against self incrimination (AKA breathalyzer) if asked by a law enforcement officer.
A *right* is something that you can give away or have taken only by due process. A privelage can be taken away much easier.
How this applies to the Fair Use doctrine (Which could be considered a right under the 10th Amendment) Vs DCMA is a matter for the courts.
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:2)
Maybe we need to push for more "Open Content". Open source everything, not just code. It works GREAT there, but there is more than just code. We need open music, open video, open everything.
Death? Hah. (Score:2)
(I guess getting linked by Slashdot accomplished just that.)
Death is a bit of an exaggeration. The general purpose nature of the PC is exactly what will ensure it's longetivity. Sure, a dedicated $800 MP3 machine sounds good, but a general purpose machine can provide that, dedicated NAT and firewalling, a 'vcr' using a TV tuner and software, and much more.
The general public likes appliances, their is no doubt there, but if you think that the average technology-focused individual is going to give up the machine he can tinker with, then you'd be mistaken.
Plus, my father may have a TiVO, and a DSS machine, but he still uses his PC to write letters, e-mail and browse the web. Find me one dedicated appliance that can do that and has any sort of discernable market share.
Quite frankly, the PC is here to stay. Read this comment again in five years, and let me know if I was right. (You'll likely be writing it from an AMD running at 10ghz, but it'll be a PC all right)
I'll tell you who. (Score:2)
People who use AOL
People like my mom (even though I'll try to explain it to her)
"Normal" people AKA non-geeks
The only people who will refuse to buy this stuff will be us geeks. And face it, the big companies don't care about us because there are not enough of us to make a difference. We will refuse to buy, the standards wil change, then we will be forced to buy. It doesn't matter to these companies that %5 of people won't buy thier stuff when %95 will buy it anyway.
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:2)
The problem is that Companies and even Governments (China, India, other Asia, Europe) are competing for markets and customers here, too. They don't work as a monolith.
Just look at the latest Apple TV ad "Rip. Mix. Burn.". The only hardware manufacturer I know of that has a stake in CPRM is Sony and they have a tiny market segment. Hmmm.... maybe that's why MS is doing the Xbox, actually, they would have a big interest in CPRM, too. Tricky business there, they'll have to go head-to-head with all of their customers (Dell, IBM, Compaq, Gateway), eventually.
The hardware manufacturers will do anything to undercut each other, and if that means selling Open computers, then that's what they'll do. There will continue to be a market for general purpose machines with consumers AND businesses.
Competing interests is what markets are all about. Will business stand for lock-in hardware/software solutions (read MS), when they'll be able to deploy Web servers based on Linux/*BSD far more cheaply and effectively. No fscking way.
I do agree that we need to be watchful, if the Governments got together and put together treaties that required this sort of thing then it could be bad. Fortuntely, I think there are a lot of competing interests involved that will make it difficult to build the kind of concensus necessary to put down all general purpose computers.
---
And *how* do you write software? (Score:2)
Consider this... I've spent several months programming a Quake 3 Mod [planetquake.com] using TextPad [textpad.com] and the base Q3 code from Id Software. I can't imagine doing the development on a specialized computer appliance. Even if I had a machine that only played games (eg. a PS2), I'd still need access to the general purpose computer to develop the mod [planetquake.com]. And making your PS2 or Dreamcast boot linux doesn't count-- that's making the specific system more general. The fact is that we'll always need a more general computer for the purpose of developing specific computers.
Of course, the average person will use far more specialized computer. But I'm happy as long as I have my PC.
-Ted
Misses the mark entirely (Score:5)
This pretty much ignores the fact that the market demands interoperability. Great, Intel can make more money selling proprietary 'wireless 1394' because it is a standard it owns, and has no direct competitors. This ignores the fact that if a corporation spends $1million of bluetooth PDAs they want them to work with their intel hardware without having to by an extra interface card or adapter.
Yes, the tech market is rampantly competitive, but the market has proven again and again that proprietary vendors are the ones that become non-competitive in the long run. How many closed standards have we seen become defacto open standards because the market demands that level of interoperability and efficiency. VHS, CDs, the original IBM PC, even to some extent Intel's older chip designs.
The same thing applies to encryption, as this has the same goal in mind, but instead of making proprietary hardware, encrypting creates proprietary information. Again, who in their right mind is going to buy a DVD that can only be played on Sony hardware, or a TV that can only get service from certain satellite providers.
Yes, it's hard to make money in the computer industry selling or creating hardware or software. Incorporating encryption and proprietary hardware will not solve the problem, if for no other reason than the fact that I will always pay more for open products.
Perhaps manufacturers should just threaten these moves, creating a perceived scarcity of 'open' products, and then up their prices. Hmmmm....
-josh
Re:People are growing accustomed to the PC idea (Score:2)
On the other hand, with the Car hobbyist thing, I chose classic VW's as my car of choice, because they're very simple to work on, because they don't have to conform to current emissions and safety standards. If they did, I would NOT be working on my car today. Other old cars are similar, but not many people soup up modern cars (except for those whack-job Honda-Civic nutbags, and the Monster Truck people, but the Civic guys, they aren't rebuilding engines in their basement, they're bolting on coffee can mufflers and putting on window decals).
Extend this to the computer scene, do you think that the US Govt will grandfather computers made in 1995 so that the DCMA does not apply to them? Consider the DCMA to be the emissions and safety regulations of the computer industry. They have been the absolute fucking bane of the automotive industry (unless you care about safety and pollution; if you care at all about performance and style and value, and ease of maintenance, you'll agree). Yeah, there's a demand for these older cars that you don't have to buy a new catalytic converter for every 3 years, cars with reasonable power, rear-wheel drive, simplicity in design, but if they were illegal, nobody would be able to buy them, and we'd all be driving Honda Civics.
Modern computers threaten the income of ALL corporations who rely on Intellectual Property. The DCMA is an IP safety regulation. The case can be made that if Media Conglomerate X employes N people, and isn't making as much money as it could because of piracy or some other IP issue, then some people are going to have to be laid off (um, forget about cutting the CEO's salary and perks, 'k?) Laid off people means less tax revenue, weaker economy, starving poor people, downward spiral.
Making these restrictive laws will not be an economic impediment, because all other industrialized countries will follow suit with the carrot of liberalized trade (IMF-WTO-M-O-U-S-E) dangling in front of them. (WIPO anyone?) Countries that do not do this sort of thing will lose free trade status, will be found in violation of treaties, and will not be eligible for IMF loans, etc. Will Sudan be manufacturing hard drives without CPRM? Will those drives legally be allowed to be shipped to markets within signatory nations?
Re:Yeah, right.... (Score:2)
Second: Exactly how many times has your Tivo told you you are not allowed to record a program. I'd bet none here.
The Tivo is a specialized device and carries as mentioned above an big ease of use factor. Its not a PC, but as my first question states, it does no eliminate the need for a PC.
Specialization is an ease of use thing.
The copy control stuff that is being worked on will not be what the consumer wants to buy. As dumb as consumers are, they always recoil at attempts to control their actions (see Divx, etc.). Content controlled hardware will suffer the same fate, all that will be needed is manufacturers who DON'T make it. Those manufacuters will OWN the market, because consumers will notice the benifits of having devices without those limitations.
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:5)
A 96GHz computer, with 20GB RAM, 1TB HD, 10Gb ethernet, and a 20" flatscreen
A 1.5GHz computer with 1GB RAM, 50GB HD, 1Gb ethernet and a 19" tube.
Did I mention that all the current software and games are only available on the former? And that there are no cheap upgrades or support for the latter?
Get real. Companies and governments want these, and will ban or undercut anything else. Linux is great, provided that there's a strong base of generic hardware. Get rid of that, and the rest falls apart. Laws are turning out to be very effective in comparison to winning in the market.
In short, we're in deep, deep trouble. Why don't we assume this to be the case, and act accordingly. If we're wrong, the only problems will be that we looked foolish. If we're right, we might have a chance to save microcomputing from being ruined. I'll be a pessimist and hope I'm wrong.
What happens when... (Score:2)
Someone comes over to my house and sees that I can actually store MP3's on my old, clunky, ATA hard drive.
When they ask "How did you do that?" when I'm watching a DVD movie on my computer, and fast forwarding past the opening trailers.
When I simply refuse to buy a proprietary device, and build a few for my friends for a price using "old fashioned" computer parts?
When the entertainment industry finds that I'm not buying everything they make just because they tell me to.
When people start to think for themselves, instead of buying everything that's told to them by industry.
When a group of people simply don't buy, and other people see profit in providing them with what they want: storage devices that they can use in whatever they see fit.
When people realize that just because there's other people with a lot of money out there who can purchase control of many things, sooner or later, freedom always wins out in the end. Not because it is right, but because its the only answer that makes sense in the long run.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
Re:The inevitable (Score:2)
Your offer is acceptable.
Re:I'll tell you who. (Score:2)
Fine. Elsewhere in the world, we'll be able to buy normal disk drives and laugh our brains out at how stupid the yankees are in making custom-made laws for Hollywood...
--
Re:Interesting. (Score:2)
In that case, the rest of the world will sit back and relax enjoying a good laugh at the stupid yankees who do whatever Hollywood decides...
--
Re:Interesting. (Score:2)
Ha! Au contraire, mon cher!
Boy would Microsoft LOVE that one: a law that would FORCE all current users of Windoze to UPGRADE!!!!
--
Re:CPRM - not about PCs (Score:2)
Ha! I just can't believe that an industry whose prime directive rule #1 is " the mental age of the average Joe Q. Public is 12 " would be afraid of Joe Sixpack pulling out the disk drive from his TiVO and stuffing it into his PC to pirate the latest broadcast of Seinfeld...
--
other countries (Score:2)
People sometimes forget that the lifestyle we are living is a small oasis that is not accessible to most of the world. Drinking water is a luxury to large sections of the world.
No problem... (Score:2)
I love Sun/SPARC. :)
Re:Would someone mind explaining something to me? (Score:3)
(note to pedants, I am describing the next generation of CPRM, the current one isn't quite this strong.)
Second PC's from Dell/Gateway (Score:2)
I also foresee a time when you buy a home based on whether or not it has a good server rack system and telecomms closet and what kind of networking media it has installed. I know i was upset when i realized that there was no good place to put servers in my house.
----------------------
Ignorance and apathy (Score:3)
Yeah, wow, you call for
Hear that great, roaring noise? That's the RIAA laughing at you.
(sigh)
-Kasreyn
Re:I'll tell you who. (Score:2)
Drives that do not support CPRM will be made illegal. Free-copy devices are the bane of IP. It's likely that a case can be made that without IP protection at the hardware level, western civilization as we know it could collapse. (of course, many of us here will argue that that would be a GOOD thing!). They'll craft laws to protect that. And they'll do it internationally, through the current model of WT0/IMF bribery/coercement.
ph33r this future.
Dream On (Score:2)
CPRM is the BEST thing to happen to having secure systems. ... You are protected by the DCMA since every directory listing is covered by your compilation copyright :-)
Get real. The CPRM drives will be protected by public key cryptography, and the megacorps will have all the keys. Remember, they don't want cryptography for its own sake, they want a monopoly on distribution, storage, and playback.
CPRM - not about PCs (Score:5)
As many have pointed out, CPRM is probably useless on a "general purpose" computer -- there's just too many software packages and operating systems and filesystems to deal with, not to mention the somewhat educated userbase.
However, where it is useful is Single Purpose devices. What if you could just wedge out the IDE drive on your HD-Tivo and get access to the unencrypted MPEG-2 stream. Instant Internet Rebroadcast. Repeat for various other audio and video devices.
Sure, the Single Purpose Device guys (read: the MPAA and the RIAA) could go and invent their own disk interface or their own encryption systems, but what that's probably too high cost of a solution for them. They want to freeload off of the economies of scale of PCs and use standard motherboards and IDE disks, and they want to push the encryption down to the hardware level and make it automatic.
The drive companies are of course jumping on this because it potentially opens up a market 10x the size of the PC market. The could make a killing if they just offer a nice enough package for the consumer electronics people to buy in - Imagine if every TV had a cheap IDE drive in it.
Re:People are growing accustomed to the PC idea (Score:2)
Check out Bill Cardell's http://www.flyingmiata.com for more info.
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:4)
Still, I think that the PC user market is both large enough and entrenched enough to keep this sort of thing from happening anytime soon. Look at the outcry over the P4's embedded tracking features. I'm not as pessimistic as the author is on the matter.
Linux on Dreamcast, PS, etc (Score:2)
Don't know about anyone else, but I don't want a mail reader separate from a browser, separate from a word processor, separate from... Get the point?
Punditry is frequently wrong. Why bother posting it? Doesn't Katz have another article coming on that kid in SandyEggo (and the two followups today)?
One key reason it WON'T happen (Score:5)
While I do find merit in the ideas expressed in the article, I find it difficult to believe that all so called 'General Purpose PCs' will wither and die. If for only one reason - software development.
All of these new PC Appliances require software to be written for them in order to perform anything useful. Software development essentially requires the use of a 'general purpose' machine in order to target the multitude of platforms you are writing for. It really is the epitome of computer generalization, and as such will remain in strong demand as long as there is a need to develop software.
I really couldn't imagine having a 'Development Appliance' for development work since every developer I know does things a little bit differently - you simply couldn't make an appliance suited for such work.
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Go ahead, try to alienate the developers. That's a good idea...
Profitability, not Popularity (Score:3)
Re:Brave talk but what happens when.... (Score:2)
Re:Who has the control, really? (Score:2)
As for Bush... ugh, don't even get me started. His administration makes me sick.
Re:I'll tell you who. (Score:2)
People who don't want CPRM will not be able to upgrade to the Pentium 5. Which will be "twice as fast" and make surfing the internet faster.
Re:One key reason it WON'T happen (Score:2)
I really couldn't imagine having a 'Development Appliance' for development work since every developer I know does things a little bit differently
Not sure I agree with this.
You only need a general purpose computer for development if you are running the program on your own machine. But there's nothing stopping you from having a "development machine" to do your coding and a "testbed machine" to do testing and debugging. In fact, as long as the interactions between the machines are nice and streamlined, this might be a much nicer way to do things. One really nice bonus would be that there's absolutely no chance of crashing your OS.
For example, as a developer, I've never needed a 3D video card as part of my development environment, and that's unlikely to change, unless Microsoft goes and makes something silly like "3D Visual Basic". (Not that I'm a VB programmer; I'm not.)
Sure, the development machine needs some flexibility, but there's definitely a lot of junk you'll never need on such a machine.
--
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:3)
What is different here though is: the copy protection mechanisms are in fact an additional feature. There will be software accessing these hardware functions which won't work with a HD without them. You can still use it as a normal HD but you can also use it to store special, copy protected, content, which you cannot store on an older HD (since the software handling that content will simply not allow that).
For the customer there is no immediate disadvantage: He can do everything he could do with the old HD, and if he ever intends to use aforementioned software he can do that. The problem then is, that once those new HDs are so widely distributed, that copyprotected content can be marketed (the software to do this probably comes for free) it will become harder to get the content in the unprotected form.
Re:apple and the dmca. (Score:4)
The 'blank screen' provision is there to comply with Apple's DVD consortium license. The 'direct screen blast' as you call it is a measure taken to avoid copying as well. The Ziva decoder chip in the first Apple DVD decoder cards for PowerBooks uses Zoomed Video (a PC card standard), which bypasses main memory and writes directly to VRAM. There's no speeding that up by using a 'bluescreen' method as you imply.
Don't go telling me I'm mistaken, since I know the guy who wrote the software in the first place.
Yeah, right. (Score:2)
It is silly to think that people will just randomly accept a segregation of the PC into separate entities. If people really wanted separate deviced to do the various functions that a PC does, they'd ask for it. I, for one, am not asking for that. I think the author has forgotten about consumer backlash.
The almighty buck has much power, and that power will be what decides the fate of home computing. The issue of copy protection is a hot issue now, but will it be next year, or will it die a quiet death?
Re:People are growing accustomed to the PC idea (Score:2)
If worst comes to worst, there's always used server parts. Nobody's going to put up with all this CPRM nonsense on a server, and yesterday's high-end servers architecture is today's average PC.
Some people have mentioned the car as an example of something that began hobbyist-accessible and turned into a shrink-wrap one-size-fits-all world.
There's a difference, I think: It gets harder and harder to roll your own car from parts because of all the safety requirements. To have a practical car, you are limited by the market because only car companies can afford to get their designs past the NTSB. This is different in the computer world. Despite some alarmist contentions to the contrary, the government does not and will not have a sufficiently strong position to argue that my safety or that of others is aided by preventing me from having a homemade - or otherwise nonstandard - computer. People already know that's not the case. The powers that be can point to legends of "hackers" and all the trouble they purportedly caused, but at the end of the day it's not the same kind of bone-crunching trouble that was prerequisite to justifying the sweeping restrictions on vehicle designs.
Furthermore, the economy depends on computer innovation in a very different way from how it depends on automobile innovation. Any country that made it impossible for people to learn and explore technology would be at a severe disadvantage to those that were more open. Some bright kid in Paraguay is very little threat to the American auto industry. But he might well be able to compete with the software industry.
Re:other countries (Score:2)
What's scary is that, quite truthfully, MORE people on earth have TVs and telephones than safe drinking water. I don't think many folks in the US realize what an unusual thing it is to be able to drink right out of the tap...
---------------------------------------------
Re:Interesting, but I disagree (Score:2)
You, Sir, are a geek. I also prefer a PC combined with several other devices to form an entire home entertainment hub, but I'm a geek too.
Who uses their computer with a CDROM drive and Napster to play music, a TV decoder card to watch their favorite shows, a DVD drive to watch movies, and a kick-ass video card with the latest drivers to play games? Geeks.
Who connects a CD changer to their stereo system for tunes, plugs their big screen TV into the cable outlet for shows, plugs a DVD player into their TV for movies, and plugs a Nintendo/Playstation/Whatever into the TV to play games? Everyone else.
There are still a few "killer apps" that people use PCs for. Mainly: word processing, spreadsheets, and surfing the web / accessing Hotmail. Once those functions are integrated into toaster-type devices most people will no longer want to deal with big, ugly, space-hogging, frustrating to use, and expensive to maintain/upgrade PCs.
Think about it: Why was it even necessary to create a program like DeCSS?
Re:Umm, yeah sure (Score:2)
2nd it isn't Apple that is the porblem with this copy control shit, it seems to me that most of this shit is coming out of Redmond....
Re:Yeah, right.... (Score:2)
I think you underestimate the value of convenience. If it were just an issue of end-user intelligence, something like a TiVo would be strictly an item for Joe Consumer. However, the proliferation of the TiVo hacking community and the repeated mentions of TiVo on Slashdot indicate that it also holds a geekish appeal.
So why would an intelligent, geeky person go for something like this? Convenience. Am I capable of, say, recording programs by specifying it as an at-job? Sure. Do I really want to? Hell, no. Especially not when I'm sitting in front of the TV. I just want to be able to pick up the remote and push a few buttons in a nice, friendly GUI. And this is coming from someone who, under normal circumstances, is a die-hard CLI/text-user -- Hell, I even use lynx and emacs to read and post to Slashdot. But when I'm in front of a TV, all I care about is ease-of-use. Period.
Re:I'll tell you who. (Score:2)
CPRM was intended as sort of a trojan horse. They'd secretly slip it into millions of personal computers dormant until the day that the music and movie industries decide to release products dependant on it. Until that time, damn near everyone would've been ignorant of it, and after that point, there'd be virtually nothing anyone could do. Sinister plan if I do say so myself. Thankfully, these standards boards are still comprised with a few people with morals and without a corporate agenda.
The only way that these companies will succeed in making the pay-per-use dream come true is if people turn a blind eye to it. We need all the public backlash that's possible to make sure we're not trapped into a situation that we don't want to be in. The fight's not over yet, and I don't intend to lose, but then again, neither do the media industries.
Re:Misses the mark entirely (Score:2)
Bwahahaha! Uh, don't you see? People did buy DVDs, and the real situation with DVDs isn't very different than your hypothetical example. Prior to DeCSS getting around, DVDs could only be played on hardware that was licensed by a single entity: DVD CCA. That license fee (that you pay every time you buy a DVD player) is only available from a single source, and is not subject to market forces.
There's a single choke point, so stuff that requires a license from a monopoly (which consumers have accepted) isn't economically much different from stuff only available from a single manufacturer.
You nerd. ;-) You're outnumbered a thousand to one. :(
---
People are growing accustomed to the PC idea (Score:5)
While niche machines like Tivo are bound to proliferate, the PC itself has ensconced itself in enough homes now (especially in the US) that to write it off prematurely would not be wise.
_
Re:I'll tell you who. (Score:2)
The only people who will refuse to buy this stuff will be us geeks.
"
Perhaps, I don't know about you but I frequently get asked for advice over buying computers by new and semi-experienced computer users, whilst I've only bought about 3 machines myself, I've been primarily responsible for the hardware choice on about 10-12. Not to mention the influence I have on hardware buying at the company I work for. As someone who is considered knowledgeable about computers I hold a disproportinate amount of influence.
Re:apple and the dmca. (Score:2)
A similiar thing can be used to circumvent RealPlayer on Windows.
When you take a snap of the RealPlayer window, there is the same empty space there. Paste this snap into a paint program (I use Paint Shop Pro).
Now, move the RealPlayer window over the picture of the RealPlayer window. Suddenly drag the window to beside the picture of the window (so now you see two RealPlayer windows side by side. both showing the video) then just as RealPlayer does some colour adjustment, take another screenshot.
You will now have a picture containing the RealPlayer window and a picture of the RealPlayer window. One will have the video shot in.
Yeah, right.... (Score:2)
General purpose machines are only going to be replaced by special purpose machines in places where a general purpose machine isn't "useful". In this case "useful"=="too complicated for your local boob to handle".
Brave talk but what happens when.... (Score:2)
What happens to the growth of Linux or any other alternative platform. when you can't go to a parts shop and build the Dream Machine of 2005?
What happens when you can't even buy a software license but have to RENT it month to month?
Interesting, but I disagree (Score:5)
Look at the evidence that already exists. 10 years ago, people were using PC's for text editing, programming and a few simple games. Now, just look at what MP3 and DVD have done to the PC world. Not only can I download and store hundreds of hours of high quality music on my machine, but I can watch full-length movies right on my desktop. As HDTV is further developed, and bandwidth going into the homes increases in the future, I think we'll begin to see the convergance of even more audio and video into the PC market.
My machine at home has an S-video output connected to my 36 inch TV, a Soundblaster Live, with a SP/DIF output going to my receiver, and a wireless keyboard/mouse combo. Anything I need to do on the PC, I can do sitting on the couch.
Re:Who has the control, really? (Score:2)
Apple desperately needs QuickTime to take more marketshare (then get rid of the stupid Pro-nagware bs, and ship a fucking Linux version!), and one avenue would be to get Sony, etc. to standardize on it as a format, slipping in some copy protection features would be a nice tidbit in trade for a deal like that. I bet it's already in the code, just commented out.
But your points on Open Source are well taken. But like I said about CPRM in another post. Intel could bundle it indivisibly with some other very attractive features in future machines. Microsoft did this very successfully with Windows/IE "innovation". Then the Open Source software people would be forced to modify the software for the new platform (or ignore any new CPU upgrades entirely). Hackers could modify the open source, but I'm sure that will be considered illegal as circumvention under the DCMA, from there on, it's just a matter of enforcement.
Plus, don't kid yourself about the Tobacco lobbies. It was the Insurance lobbies, not the public outrage, that did in the Tobacco industry. And currently, I would expect a huge softening on the stance on Tobacco with the new administration. They gave a lot of $$$ to Bush, and there's already noise about stopping any further prosecution of these cases already pending.
Re:Brave talk but what happens when.... (Score:3)
I wish it would work the way you describe it. But until the DOJ cracks down on anti-competitive "industry associations" like the RIAA, they'll still be ridding the world of fair-use rights.
No one will manufacture user-control free media if they RIAA/MPAA/IDSA/BSA get their way. They'll pay, sue, threaten, or legislate manufacturers into manfucturing only media and hardware with user-control measures built in. Eventually it will be illegal to own any media which is not produced by an authorized producer, which is not does not allow them total control over your actions, and which does not come from a certified manufacturer.
Needless to say, this will tremendously retard advances in computer science, the physical sciences, and many other fields, but the powers that be don't give a fuck.
Re:I'll tell you who. (Score:2)
Now assuming that us geeks make up %5 percent of the harddrive market, that's still nice chunk of the market for a small company. If a new HDD maker were to spring up that made a big deal about not complying with CPRM you can bet, as long as performance and quality were acceptable, that they'd take that %5 market share almost overnight. Whether or not that %5 of the market would be enough to sustain such a company, I don't know, not without a whole helluva lot more information about the HDD industry and it's finances.
However I wouldn't limit the number of people that won't by "protected" drives to just the %5 geek population. I think you can safely include the majority of Napster/Gnutella users into the market for non CPRM media. Most people may not be into technology for the sake of technology but they will take notice of it when their interests are directly affected by tech changes, the same forces that caused the Napster and MP3 explosion will also work against CPRM, which directly affects peoples interests (in the case their ability to get free music.)
So don't quite count the "normal" people out entirely, people can be suprisingly clueful when their interests are threatened.
Re:Who has the control, really? (Score:2)
--
Interesting. (Score:2)
I mean, it doesn't seem possible right now, but then neither did the DMCA seem possible 5 years ago. What if they somehow spun it so that the operating system itself were circumventing the copyprotection, and therefore ought to be declared illegal?
Also, I'd like to believe the public will "backlash" against the recent laws that take away our fair use rights, but most people just don't seem to "get it."
It's like the people I discuss Napster with: the "pro" side tend to be "information wants to be free" rampant pirate types, while the majority (no, really...the majority - try talking about it with relatives, or people that just don't use it - if you live in a geek only world, you wouldn't see this) think Napster needs to be banned because "it" illegally copies copyrighted material. Either that, or they don't really care either way - they don't see the future ramifications.
People just don't "get it", that there's a fair-use middle ground, and that our rights are being stomped on. I just haven't seen this public outcry except from us, the minority, and most of us don't really do anything about it - we run home to napster to try to download our stuff before napster gets shutdown instead of contacting our representatives.
Cool Thought (Score:2)
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:3)
While this post might be a troll, it brings up some valid points. "People" in general are likely to accept division of the PC into appliances, but can you really consider them true PC users now? Think of all the people who only use email, instant messaging, and basic web browsing.
They have no need for a PC, but many others do. The typical slashdot reader uses a PC in ways that could never be duplicated by multiple devices, as do millions of business users. Anyone who does processor intensive work needs a PC-after all, a PC is just an appliance with enough power to handle multiple functions. PCs are also perfect as hubs to link and control other appliances using wireless technologies like Bluetooth. Who wants to fool around with 10 different systems when you can control everything from one device?
In any case, the parts needed to build a PC will be used in other appliances, so even if prices are raised to where they were a few years ago premium manufacturers and do it yourselfers will be able to make PCs.
Re:People are growing accustomed to the PC idea (Score:2)
There is still a LOT of "souping up" you can do without messing with your car's computer. It varies from car to car, of course, but you can't fairly say that the whole car modification scene has been reduced to chipping.
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:2)
Re:apple and the dmca. (Score:2)
Supply and Demand (Score:5)
If given the choice, who would choose a PC that restricts your rights to copy files you rightly own? Nobody. No demand, thus the supply will falter (witness Sun's Network Computer)
What if this thing does take off? There will be a demand for normal hard drives still (I know I don't want hardware with copy protection built in), thus someone will need to supply the demand. It may be some yet unknown company in Asia, or maybe of the large hard drive manufactuers here in the states won't give in and still make normal drives.
In short, I don't think stuff like this will go over because nobody except companies and governments actually wants these products. However, governments forcing us to use them is another debate....
Maybe the uninformed... (Score:2)
Yeah, I could see it. The average consumer isn't going to know any better, and doesn't even use 99% of the functionality of his computer. But the average geek? No way will we give up are machines!
Re:Who has the control, really? (Score:2)
Who has the control, really? (Score:5)
"And why is Intel doing a "wireless 1394"? What is wrong with BlueTooth? Answer: BlueTooth is not a specification controller by Intel."
Well, 1394 isn't controlled by intel, so it's doubtful that the same protocol run over RF would be controlled by intel either. For example, Apple heavily influences 1394, and given Apple's recent direction (with iTunes, the digital hub stuff) it's doubtful Apple would favor any sort of digital "rights" protection in the 1394 spec.
Furthermore, if an OS doesn't support CPRM, then it'll just ignore the CPRM parts of a drive, and render the copy protection useless. Linux, Mac OS X, and to my knowledge Windows, have no provisions for supporting CPRM, and it would take a fair amount of work to put it in. And certainly Linux would never support it. Indeed, OS X would probably never support it, as the parts of the OS concerning hardware and storage are open-source as well.
Essentially, I fail to see how any new developments would render existing computers unable to rip, trade, etc. mp3s and such. Furthermore, I fail to see how anything T13 does will make it so that an open-source OS on any kind of hardware will be required to respect any form of digital rights management. There will always be an underground for this stuff.
Also, eventually the public backlash against the complete loss of fair use provisions ("You have the right to fair use, but it's illegal to exercise that right!") would end up dismantling parts of the DMCA. As the Tobacco Industry has shown, eventually public outrage can overcome the most powerful lobbies in the world.
Of course, the fact that in this case the lobbies would BE the media industry is a little more worrisome.
Re:Capitalism says "no" (Score:2)
In the case of Music, the industry is screwed, because the CD format is already perfect. The only way to improve on it is to do something that will appease the audiophiles who insist that Vinyl is actually better, then market that technology, and bundle it with copy protection. But it will be a very hard sell. It doesn't take trained eyes to see the difference between DVD and SVHS. But it's a rare ear that can tell that CD is not perfect.