Shanda Box vs. Microsoft Venus After Six Years? 103
Luyi Chen asks: "Shanda revealed their new PC entertainment center (aka Shanda Box) at China International Consumer Electronics Show (SinoCES) last Friday. It's strategy is to move Internet content to TV. Six years ago, Microsoft Venus was to provide a cheap operating system with basic information processing ability for the TV set-top market. While Microsoft focused on reducing the price, Shanda focuses on reducing the entry level. Both strategies are based on the fact that the number of TVs dwarfs the number of PCs in China, which won't change in six years. What is different is that we have faster hardware, more Internet content and users. Amazingly enough, Microsoft's Venus didn't make it out of the laboratory. Does Slashdot think Shanda will succeed where Microsoft thought it would fail?"
Re:lol, what? (Score:2)
This certainly bodes well for its future success.
Re:World's Worst Code Name...EVER (Score:2)
Re:World's Worst Code Name...EVER (Score:1)
Re:World's Worst Code Name...EVER (Score:1)
yawn, not again ?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
More importantly.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Chinese text requires far more resolution than latin text. While you might get away with a 6x4 character grid for latin characters, very few chinese characters can be rendered at that resolution.
A set-top-box that does video chat over broadband and displays to a TV might work, but it seems unlikely that a useful amount of chinese text could be displayed on an ordinary TV.
Re:More importantly.... (Score:3, Insightful)
TRUE: You will not be able to fit that many characters in a 6x4 grid so you will need a larger grid per character.
FALSE: it seems unlikely that a useful amount of chinese text could be displayed on an ordinary TV.
Remember, in Chinese, 1 character equals ONE WORD, not 1/5th of a word.
Not only that, Chinese has simpler sentence construction and ideas can be expressed in fewer words.
Can all be expressed, basically
Re:yawn, not again ?!? (Score:1)
Shanda... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shanda... (Score:1)
Seriously? Beer is the first thing that came to mind?
Re:Shanda... (Score:1)
Re:Shanda... (Score:5, Funny)
CHINESE PEASANT #1:Look at this swell panda I got at the market in Beipao! There's no limit to what I can do with this panda! I can harness him to a cart and use him to haul my rice! Give him to the local head of the Communist Party as a bribe! Start a petting zoo- or chop him up and make panda jerky! My fortunes have changed at last!
CHINESE PEASANT #2: Much did you pay?
CHINESE PEASANT #1: Only 1000 yuan!
CHINESE PEASANT #2: Wait a minute... that's not a panda- it's a shanda!
CHINESE PEASANT #1: What? A shanda? Are you sure?
CHINESE PEASANT #2:Positive! See? It's just a sheep with a bit of black paint!
CHINESE PEASANT #1: Shit!
Re:Shanda... (Score:2, Funny)
-Peter
Like Pigs to a Trough (Score:2)
Is the problem the cost of displays? Seems like the cost of cheap displays should be approaching the competitve point with TV-PCs. For instance, I thought with the MIT $100 PC would be competitive with this Shanda idea -- which, according to the article, will not be released, identified, or priced!
It seems there are several technologies converging on third-world mark
It's entirely possible (Score:2, Interesting)
It'd be good for the US and China to get into a trade war NOW while China still doesn't have too much leverage against us. Yeah, they could do a good bit of damage, but nothing we couldn't recover
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:1)
Sure we could. We just don't want to do that. We are not a nation that can handle short-term instability for the sake of long-term stability. But we could afford to call their bluff.
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:2)
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm an American and I don't want the communists to get richer at our expense.
You talk about the free market, but you ignore our freedom to *not* buy their products. Are you an American, or are you selfish? If you're an American, and you're concerned about China getting rich off of us, then stop buying Chinese products. Or, you could selfishly give into the market, and buy whatever is cheapest.
It'd be good for the US and China to get into a trade war NOW while China still doesn't have too much leverage against us. Yeah, they could do a good bit of damage, but nothing we couldn't recover from within five to ten years
IANAE, but I've had this same thought for about ten years. I don't understand the hypocrisy of our trade policy with China. We wouldn't even have to get into a trade war, honestly. It wouldn't come to that.
It'd be nice to see Bush actually pull one of his "homeland security" initiatives by getting a law passed that mandates a major US divestment from China. Why we're investing in a country that is belligerant toward Taiwan, Japan and South Korea, three of our largest trade partners and three good allies is beyond me.
Because Bush isn't stupid (for the record, I'm a member of the Green party) and has read his history. The same history that tells us that whenever America tries to ignore the rest of the world, it doesn't work. We end up getting into wars anyways.
We live in a global economy now. Nothing is cut-and-dry, there are no easy solutions to simple problems. I'd be willing to bet that if we really had a free market, you wouldn't like it very much, since your standard of living would significantly decrease. Significantly.
if and when the PLA invades Taiwan before 2008.
Please. There will be no invasion. It will be a peaceful coup. It will happen anytime China decides to make it happen. But it won't be an invasion.
I almost agree with everything you said. I don't agree with any of it.
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:1)
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:3, Interesting)
What China is proving today is that free market capitalism doesn't inherently lead toward freedom.
While I'd agree with that, China is still a third world country outside of a few major cities.
Of course, China is democratic at the local level.
And America is only so democratic at the national level - we're effectivly dominated by the two major parties, and have proven ourselves unabl
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:2, Interesting)
I know this is a dead horse, and way off topic, but I figure I'll get back up on my soap box.
First of all, America is not a democracy. We were never meant to be a democracy. We're a republic. I'm surprised the Founding Fathers haven't gone on a zombie rampage with all the recent talk about bringing democracy to the rest of the world.
Democracy != freedom. Democracy == rule by the mob. We elect congressmen etc. simply because the Founding Fathers hoped we'd elect enough vaguely competent & wi
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I think it's China who is taking the 'long view,' somthing that the Chinese are known for. They entice companies with short term profits, but the end result is that the Chinese will have their industrial technology. These companies going to China are either selling themselves out or investing in their competition.
Once these companies are knee deep in Chinese territory, China has an established history of selling them short.
In the Chinese view, this is the time when "sheep eat people." Just as various attempts to starve the southern states to feed the industrial north led to the American civil war, China is working to exploit their agricultural base in order to get cheap currency to buy foreign goods. In short, they're doing whatever they can to get industrial technology and the foreign currency that they need to buy advanced weapons.
Add to this the fact that China is massively corrupt, and it becomes clear why this huge influx of money isn't creating the basis for democracy.
Government (at the risk of sounding stuffy here) is pretty much a formalization of existing power relations. And China hasn't created a broad middle class. They're where we were at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution with Robber Barons, cheap labor, etc.
Also, I think some of this "globalization" trend is an effort by Western companies to counteract the power of unions and drive wages down. With industries in several labor pools, each working below capacity, any labor shortage in one pool can be made up for by switching to another.
Having been to China, I can say that there is certainly a market for high tech gadgets in the cities. The purchase of cars has soared. The roads can't take it. Internet bars are everywhere. There are more cell phones there than in the US. High tech stores run a brisk business. But you can't make software since there are no patents and so much readily available pirated software.
Don't believe any of this stuff about the Chinese switching to Linux. In sensitive govt. operations, maybe. But everywhere I went they were running pirated copies of windows.
Of course, I taught in Nanjing, which is in Jiangsu ( the wealthiest province in China) and the other provices are much different. Heck, even the rural areas of Nanjing are different. I guess what I'm trying to say is that 3rd world countries aren't typified by poverty as much as extreme disparity of wealth. There is a market for high end goods.
The Intellectual Property Law of China (Score:3, Informative)
Required reading for anyone tempted to post a comment on the IP law of China: Ministry of Science and Technology: Laws and Regulations [most.gov.cn]
Topics:
Patent Law
Trademark Law
Copyright Law
Technology Contract Law
Product Quality Law
Freedom to buy alcohol and cigarettes without a license or age requirement
Shops ignore the law, but sales of alcohol and tobacco to minors is illegal in China and you are expected to show your ID. People' [people.com.cn]
Re:The Intellectual Property Law of China (Score:3, Insightful)
All I can say is; go to China and see what any of these laws are worth to you.
China recently made some IP concessions, but I don't know how they're being enforced. It happened less than a year ago.
Re:The Intellectual Property Law of China (Score:2)
The IP laws referenced were adopted or ammended between 1984-1994.
Following China's entry into the WTO, Microsoft China became the first foreign company to become a full member of the China Software Industry Association in 2002.
The president of MS China at the time moved to Shanda in 2004. Shanda is to online gaming in China what Sony is to online gaming in Japan. Former Microsoft Chin [chinadaily.com.cn]
Re:The Intellectual Property Law of China (Score:2)
Online gaming in China, or at least Jiangsu - seemed much like in the US - Warcract, counterstrike, playstation, etc.
Seriously, have you been to the country? Do you have friends there? If so, I welcome your opinion. If not, I think you're relying far far far too much on published news sources, which are not a reliable way to get to know the
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:1)
Chinese Market is quite open now. And according its commitment to WTO, you will see more big change recently. On the other hand, the inbalance of trade between USA and China has many reasons. One of them is USA forbid many kinds of high tech products to be exported t
Re:It's entirely possible (Score:2)
Do you have any idea what would happen to the US economy it the DOLLAR TREE had to change it's name to 3-DOLLAR TREE?
If you don't see the humor here, just mod this as a troll.
Wait!
NO!
Don't!
I did't really mean it! I was just funnin' with you.
What ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Inside China? Who knows? The State might just force all its citizens to buy it at gunpoint.
Outside China? Probably not.
Re:WHAT??? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WHAT??? (Score:1)
Re:WHAT??? (Score:1)
They've had those for years. Wake me up when they have an inexpensive operating system.
Re:WHAT??? (Score:2, Informative)
What *also* hasn't changed... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is the same is that unless the Shanda folks are assuming that the number of HDTVs is going to also dwarf the number of PCs in China, it doesn't matter how fast the set-top box is: Surfing teh Intarweb, whether you do it in NTSC, PAL, or SECAM, is going to be teh suck. It's bad enough trying to read ASCII characters at resolutions comparable to 640x480 -- can you imagine trying to read Chinese characters?
Sometimes you can leapfrog technology - as China did with wireless telephones vs. land lines.
Problem is, you can only do it when it's cheaper to set up the new technology (cheap transmission towers in the middle of nowhere) than the old one (a hunk of fiber or copper, to every home, multiplied by a billion users).
Barring a miracle in materials science, we're not going to see HDTV sets eclipsing TV in China. We're therefore, I think, not going to see "Internet TV" taking off in any big way, either.
Re:What *also* hasn't changed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Queue all the obligatory 'that's nothing, in my day we only had ONE pixel' jokes, but the Internet was more than usuable at 640x480 resolutions 'back in the day'. Actually, it still is. Just because *you* think it's 'teh suck' doesn't mean the vast majority of people in China will.
Re:What *also* hasn't changed... (Score:3, Informative)
No. Surfing the web on a low quality analog TV sucks ass. Even someone who has never used the internet before will notice the problem.
Modern websites are graphics heavy and designed for resolutions of at least 800x600 (1024x768 is the most common design target now).
Additionally, a normal quality analog television is worse for web browsing than a Windows 3.1 era 640x480 16 color monitor would be. The display resolution is slightly better (in china) at 768x576, but television are designed for a significan
Re:What *also* hasn't changed... (Score:2)
Unless all these TV's have some "nice" connections on them, it's not really close to comparing it to a 640x480 VGA monitor.
Re:What *also* hasn't changed... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What *also* hasn't changed... (Score:1)
Another doomed platform... (Score:5, Interesting)
The only platform people are somewhat willing to compromise on is their mobile phone. They can't carry around their windows pc in their pocket so they'll settle for less. For the rest it will be not worth it.
It's kind of like the office suite market. The only question that matters is does the thing read and write word flawlessly every time. If it works 99% of the time it better be free or else nobody will use it.
Re:Another doomed platform... (Score:2, Insightful)
You aim too high grasshopper, 90% of users just want pretty pictures and no pop-ups, the rest sounds too techinical for them.
[BEGIN USER MODE]
D-H-T-M-L? Sounds too complicated, I just want to see slideshows in my browser!
[END USER MODE]
Re:Another doomed platform... (Score:2)
Just shove something down their throats and they will eat it. Go ask any random computer user if they made a conscious choice to use the software they have on their machine. The answer is no.
Corporations understand this very well. that's why in most fast food
Crashing Appliances (Score:3, Insightful)
Some form of web tv will eventually catch on and bring with it new problems. There should be a betting pool on the date of the first television virus, possibly one which hijacks the display to present spam advertising.
Re:Crashing Appliances (Score:2)
Complexity is where the bugs come from. It increases the chance that people forget to check some corner case where a bug is lurking.
Anyways, the future is now. Have a nice day
And how would you even know? (Score:2)
The first tv virus was in the 1940s. It was intentional too.
I have one thing to say to shanda.. (Score:5, Funny)
Shanda VS. Venus, sounds like a catfight at a strip club.
a TV strip club.
Watch that voice change (Score:5, Interesting)
We? The article started as "Shanda did this", and then transitioned to "we did this". You see, if you're trying to plug your technology by making it appear like a legitimate Ask Slashdot, at least have the courtesy to pretend to be impartial. That and pitting it against a Microsoft research product that never existed outside the lab (six years ago) as if you're competing with it. This has to be one of the worst plugs I've seen.
Re:Watch that voice change (Score:5, Informative)
The submitter is a Chinese PhD student blogger, legitimately trying to source for more opinions from Slashdot about this issue.
If you had read his blog linked from his submission, you'll see he has done some of his own analysis. Quite a bit more than what most posters here have so far, and it's not very much yet.
Are you retarded tinfoil hate wearer? (Score:1)
Otherwise
How can people be so paranoid and suspicious of everything? Wait a second
Gosh, why don't people think a bit critically and analyze evidence carefully without immediate bias?
Who were the idiots that modded you up?
Moderators, PLEASE mod the parent post down, dont waste a mod pushin
Yes. (Score:2)
MS failed/fails because it is MS. Load of crap to think anything else.
Shanda will succeed because it knows it's markets...very simple.
Re:Yes. (Score:1)
I don't know, does Shanda think Microsoft will think it will fail where Slashdot think it will succeed? That would make the question more clearer.
Re:Yes. "Venus" reminds me of... (Score:1)
"There once was a woman from Venus
Whose forehead was shaped like a..."
Riker and Picard knew where the joke was going, but Picard cut Data off at the pass...
Maybe there is an undisclosed reason the Venus never made it out the underground/windowless? lab? Apparently, they hid it where the sun don't shine...
Heck... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are only a few problems with this though:
1. China still has a huge number of farmers who do not have electricity.
2. Most of the people living outside of the major cities have hardly any money at all and get most of their news from radios or TVs which are run by generator and are communal radios/TVs.
3. Unlike the US - the people of China do not have the "I've gotta have it!" kind of outlook. It is more like how the US used to be. The "If it won't solve my problems I don't want it." kind of outlook. And their major problems are food, clean water, medicines, and shelter. Electricity would be nice but just having enough fuel to keep the fire burning is better in some areas. (I'm not saying all of China is backwards or anything like that. Just that in some areas they live with the land and have more basic needs than some electronic gadget.)
There was a story about Africa from some years back. (I know a couple of them actually.) Anyway, people thought that it would be a great idea to send tractors over so the people of Africa could plow the fields and produce more goods. Only they forgot that there weren't any oil refineries, gas stations, and the like in place yet. So all of the equipment just sat and rusted away. This situation is similar to that problem (IMHO). There are huge numbers of people who live so far below the poverty line that we tend to just push them out of our minds. So a few million people in China may be able to buy a box to watch TV and play games with. Well, what about the other 3.5 Billion people who are just trying to make it day by day? They aren't going to buy anything.
Unless we treat them like we do some of the other countries. Where we give them our money so they can buy our products. Sounds crazy I know, but the US does that to several countries. As far as I can tell, we do that to help jumpstart those countries' economies. But that's just my opinion. What's yours?
Re:Mod down parent (Score:2)
Re:Heck... (Score:3, Informative)
3. Unlike the US - the people of China do not have the "I've gotta have it!" kind of outlook. It is more like how the US used to be. The "If it won't solve my problems I don't want it." kind of outlook. And their major problems are food, clean water, medicines, and shelter.
I think parent is stuck in the 1980's mindset of China. I've visted China 4x in the past decade and I was most recently
Re:Heck... (Score:2)
As a "for instance" kind of remark - you state tha
Re:Heck... (Score:1)
1. China has a huge number of wealthy city dwellers who have electricity.
2. China has a growing, urban middle class who have extra cash to spend and want the same luxuries as many 'westerners.' This may be Hol
It's always about Microsoft with you people. LOL (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:It's always about Microsoft with you people. LO (Score:2)
I don't know why they emphasize some product that did not leave Microsoft's lab but WebTV sold in the millions and they got a lot o
M$ is still in the market (Score:2)
In Communist China... (Score:2)
This won't take off (Score:1)
Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd be better off building very cheap laptops like the Indians are doing.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:2)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:2)
Microsoft left at the starting gate (Score:1)
WEB TV (Score:3, Funny)
browsing on a TV
is the future.
There is little or
no advantage to an
expensive PC, so
soon "WEB TV"
browsers will be
in the majority.
Re:WEB TV (Score:2)
That was an oxymoron (Score:2)
Using "Microsoft" and "cheap operating system" in the same sentence is an oxymoron, it's a facially invalid statement. Like using "Verizon" or "SBC" and "cheap phone service"; or using "military" and "intelligence."
Microsoft's cost structures are too high, and they can't afford to provide anything "cheap" unless you also add "shoddy" as in the case of Windows XP Crippled Edition or whatever the name of the version they are selling in Asia is called
Closest I'll ever get... (Score:2)
does it come with built-in censoring? (Score:2)
What the hell does amaze you? (Score:2)
Microsoft R&D is there to keep smart people out of other companies, if Microsoft wants any innovation they'll buy it wholesale if it looks like the market takes a shine to it.
Shanda Box sales will rock (Score:1)
A few comments on the Shanda Box:
The "Box" will be one of the best low profile computers available. It's got a DVD drive, a hard drive, a mid-end ATI DirectX9 video card, and 802.11 wireless from Linksys. Just open up the box and upgrade the memory module, and you have a fairly powerful PC. The production versions will probably need some hardware hacks to make it a full PC, but the pre-production samples can be installed with any OS with no changes!
Shanda's big marketing theme for th
Wonder what the politics are? We're making TV (Score:2)
They are moulding their society into a passive receptacle for propaganda, or beer commercials. I wish them luck.
The natural order of things is entropy. Our model requires far less coherence that t