CES: PC hides in Nokia media terminal
Cell phone maker tries a new number
BY JON FORTT
Mercury News
It was one of the most intriguing new products at the Consumer Electronics Show, and Nokia doesn't have a name for it yet. For now it they call it ``The Nokia Media Terminal.''
The media terminal, due at the end of this year, is meant to reside in the living room. It resembles a George Foreman Grill, except it's gray and has ``Nokia'' emblazoned on it instead of the boxer's signature.
The list of its capabilities is a long one. Its hard disk records and pauses live TV, it stores and plays digital photos and video, and plays MP3 music files. The media terminal even comes with its own video games, and the potential to download more games off the Internet.
Nokia, the biggest cell phone maker in the world, is branching out. The company says the media terminal's price will be competitive, which suggests it will sell for around $400 like the digital video recorder from TiVo.
One problem though. Nokia's media terminal isn't a digital video recorder like TiVo. It's a personal computer in sheep's clothing, and it runs the Linux operating system.
Nokia's marketing folks might get upset when they read this, because Nokia doesn't like to call the media terminal a PC. But it is one, as the engineers who built it will admit.
Here's what makes it a PC. The media terminal has a 366-megahertz processor, 64 megabytes of memory and a 20-gigabyte hard drive. It comes with a Mozilla Web browser ready to handle Java and 128-bit encryption. In the back it has two USB ports (which can easy be made into eight or more using a hub) and a FireWire port. Out of the box, it's ready to hook into either a TV or a computer monitor.
More than all this, what makes the media terminal a PC is Nokia's decision not to keep it from being one.
This might sound silly or even a little perverse to experienced computer users, but a new industry fad is to build what could be a decent PC and then cripple it to make sure it doesn't act like one. These hobbled machines often can't download or install software, or read e-mail attachments. Instead of Windows, they run operating systems from Linux, Be or some other company. These crippled machines are called Internet appliances, and they are billed as easy for beginners to use.
There's nothing wrong with that; there is certainly a place for simpler computers. A cool thing about Nokia's media terminal, though, is that it was built to be easy to use, while leaving the door open for Nokia to suddenly, with minor modifications to hardware and software, turn it into a fully functioning Linux-based personal computer.
There are barriers. You can attach CD-ROM drives, printers and scanners to the media terminal, but before they will work you must download driver software -- something Linux fans will be more than happy to do. Once that's done, there is some decent software out there for Linux, including inexpensive productivity programs that are compatible with the Microsoft Office suite.
Yes, Nokia has not decided what to call its box yet.
``Trojan Horse'' has a nice ring to it.
AI
