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Internet Appliance Machines

Internet Appliance is the buzz-word nowadays, new toys and machines are appearing on the market, waiting to host a decent OS like *BSD or Linux. The useage goes from X-terminal, MP3-player, or home-automation terminal . . .

I-Opener by Netpliance.Com, ~$99-$400

An internet-appliance machine is foremost All-In-One machine, with modem or ethernet connectivity. The most decent ones come with an LCD screen, and therefore qualify to become low-cost UNIX machines running *BSD or Linux on it:

• X-terminal (diskless), check LEM, 8MB Linux distribution, full network & X11
• MP3 player (check mp3-section)
• Home automation (X10)
• Portable machine (adding batteries)

Internet Appliance 2. Selection

Qbe Personal Computing Table by Cirrus, 13.3", PII-400, 128MB, 12GB HD

Here are collection of internet-appliance devices. Majority of devices are not yet available (fall 2000) or only available in small quantity (due to the known LCD shortage) and in combination of net-connection contract (e.g. dial-up).

Some of the devices are truly nice designed (e.g. Qbe Personal Table) and provide almost full PC functionality such has a hard-disk.

Local Resources

IOpener First famous linux-hack, $100-$400, 10" 800x600 LCD Fujitsu Stylistic 1000/1200 Refurbisged pen-computer, $75-$150, 8" 640x480 LCD

IApplianceWeb.Com News source	DocuNote.com Wireless, Pen-based for $800 (11/2002)	Hitachi: Wearable Internet Appliance To be launched Q4 2001, headset, ~$2000
ScreenMedia.No: FreePad 10.4" LCD, no keyboard, $???, runs Linux native	EPods.Com 130MHz Mips, 16MB, 8.2" 640x480 LCD, $200-$520 (seems stopped as of Nov/2000)	Qbe Net.Com 13.3" LCD, PII-400, 128MB, 12GB HD, ~$2600
ThinkNIC.Com P266, 64MB, 56K, 10/100 ether, no monitor, ~$200 (open nic)	FIC: Aqua Transmeta 300-400MHz, 7.4" 640x480 LCD, no kb, pen, price unknown	Pocket PC Real pocket-size PC (Celeron based), ~$900
Qubit.Net linux by default, ~$400 (no disk) 800x600 LCD (n/a)	EON from NeoWare Thin client, no display, ~$400 (n/a)	IBrow i-opener alike, runs linux, ~$500, 800x600 LCD (n/a)
Virgin's WebPlayer (IBrow) $500 if you buy yourself out of the TOS (discontinued by Nov 15, 2000)	Portwell: Panel PCs Panel PCs rather expensive (still)	PCChips: BookPC ~$270 (without CPU, RAM, drive)
Dell: WebPC ~$580 (64MB, 6.4GB, 466MHz)	Compaq: iPAQ Ethernet ~$550 (64MB, 4.3GB, 500MHz)	IBM: NetworkStations Thin-client serie ~$630
Elite I Zero-Footprint PC PC within a keyboard, $650-	XOpener Open- source / -hardware effort (seems dead)

                                                                                                                                   

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