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Appliance, Shmappliance (5/3/98)
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Are you as sick of hearing about Columbus as we are? Okay, we would be a little more receptive to the whole thing if anyone knew just exactly what it's supposed to be (Set-top box? NC? Space-age all-purpose food preparation center?), but for now let's assume that it's a low-cost set-top unit that will allow consumers to play DVD's and enhanced CD's, and also to surf the 'net and maybe run a few games and other applications. If that description is fairly accurate, it sounds like Apple's going to have some competition in this "information appliance" field.
MacInTouch pointed us to this ZDNet article, which describes several possible high-tech amenities that may enter our homes in the next several years. Most interesting is the bit toward the end, which states that a "high-profile manufacturer" is paying a company called Multimedia Convergence Corp. to create a "TV set-top device" that combines "DVD, web browsing, gaming, and high-speed data and telephone capabilities." This unit is expected to enter manufacturing this summer and will cost less than $500. Who's Apple's competition here? Or could the "high-profile manufacturer" be Apple itself? We'll apparently know in a month, when the name of the company is made public.
Whether or not this is even relevant depends on whether or not Apple has killed the Columbus project outright in the first place, as had been reported by Apple Recon. More recently, though, Mac OS Rumors claimed that Columbus was being killed only to re-emerge in a Mac OS Lite version, as opposed to the original flavor which allegedly ran some other proprietary software. As far as we're concerned, it's still early enough where all of this is conjecture. There's a slim chance that Apple/Steve will talk a little about this project at the Worldwide Developer Conference in a week or so, since Mac OS Lite is reportedly a hot topic for that particular gathering-- but we're not holding our breath.
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SceneLink (671)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/3/98 episode: May 3, 1998: Defenders of the faith: sharpen those swords, fill those Molotovs, and prepare to do battle. Meanwhile, Apple's not the only one getting into the "information appliance" game, and somebody actually described Microsoft as "desperate," which is noteworthy even if it's not true...
Other scenes from that episode: 670: Throw Down the Gauntlet (5/3/98) Bungie, those mad geniuses who defined Mac gaming with Pathways Into Darkness and the Marathon series, recently redefined gaming on both platforms with their real-time tactical 3D simulation Myth... 672: "Desperate?" Naw... (5/3/98) It's not often that you get the see the word "desperate" applied to software giant Microsoft in the press these days, but it does happen every once in a while. Take, for example, this Bloomberg News article, which reveals that Microsoft is recruiting companies to join in on a press conference next week, intended to show the world how badly the entire computer industry (and the U.S...
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