Marshall Brain's Blog: Three gadgets, for a price

Sunday, March 28, 2004

Three gadgets, for a price

There is a page in this month's Wired magazine that contains three fascinating gadgets. They are pricey but interesting. They are:

The Kaleidascape DVD server. It rips DVDs and stores them on an internal hard drive. You can then play the DVDs wirelessly by installing receivers at each video display in your house. The server and one player cost $27,000, and each additional player is $4,000.

If you only need to drive one screen, it seems like you could get almost all of the functionality with a PC, a copy of DVD Decryper or similar, a player, and a wireless video transmitter for $99 or so.
The Data Bahn. It's an antenna that you carry with you in the car, and when you park you stick it on the roof of the car to get a satellite signal. It gives you T1-line data speeds no matter where you are. It's $4,000, plus a $80/month fee.

It seems like you could carry a DirectTV antenna with you and sign up for their DirectWay data service and do the same thing. It only costs $600 for the equipment and $60/month for the service (or you can pay $99 down and $99/month).
The OQO Ultra Personal Computer. The cool part is the fact that it is a complete Windows XP PC in a 14-ounce package. It has a 1-Ghz transmeta processor, 256 Mbytes of RAM and a 20 GB hard disk. This computer was originally announced 2 years ago, and was much cooler then. The hoped-for release date is Fall 2004 for $2,000.

It seems like you could get approximately the same thing in the Compaq TC1000. It too has a Transmeta processor running at 1-Ghz, 256 MB of RAM and a 30 GB hard disk. It's a bit bigger, but it has a very nice full-screen LCD. It's also a Tablet PC, meaning you can write on the screen. If you go to eBay you can regularly find them for about $1,000.

It's interesting how much less expensive things can be if you are willing to improvise a little.

# PermaLink -

Comments:

How to bet on different sports and get more cash bonuses | Betting guide with tips at OddsDigger. These advice are useful for every player.

# posted by

Leonie Daecher : 11:22 AM

27 Grand USD?! Jesus, now we have the same wireless functionality pretty much for granted everywhere. Did technology came a long way, whoah, 27K.. like for that you could get 30.7BILLION osrs gold, absolute madness, would be enough for multiple lifetimes

# posted by

Richard Ressinger : 6:50 AM

Should be recommended to the virtual game currency trading website you know,

GameMS

The choice that will never let you down. Buy NBA 2K MT, Madden 20 coins and enjoy the low price beyond imagination. We are the choice of most players. I hope you can experience our excellent service.

# posted by

Cadencealida : 4:08 AM

Apppreciate you blogging this

# posted by

Kendrick B : 4:08 AM

Marshall Brain's Blog

Sunday, March 28, 2004

Three gadgets, for a price

About

Feedback

Essays

Archives