INTEL IS ABOUT TO CUT LINUX out of the legitimate content market, and hand the keys to the future of digital media to Microsoft at your expense. Don't like it? Tough, you are screwed. The vehicle to do this is called East Fork, the upcoming and regrettable Intel digital media 'platform'. The funny part is that the scheme is already a failure, but it will hurt you as it thrashes before it dies. Be afraid, be very afraid.
First, lets explore what East Fork (EF) is. It is basically a media server PC on steroids with a lot of interesting software. The downside is that it is aiming for you, not aimed at you. The first iteration, due out in Q1 2006, is based on a Smithfield dual core Pentium 4 with the Lakeport and ICH7-DH chipsets, a fairly plain combo. You also need a S-ATA HD with NCQ, and Intel HD Audio, but you can supplement that with anything else you need as long as it is on the board. You also need MS Media Center Edition 2006 (MCE 2006).
This will be replaced shortly after launch with a version based on Yonah, more like late Q1 2006, but since the Smithfield one slipped so much, this one might be delayed as well. It replaces the chipsets with Calistoga and ICH7-DHM, not a big change, and the rest remains the same. How they are going to sell a 64 bit launch and a quarter later an 'upgrade' to a 32 bit version is beyond me, but it isn't my idea. The replacement of the 130W Smithfield by the 31W Yonah won't cause many loud complaints, and the exhaust temperature of your stereo cabinet might go down a few orders of magnitude.
View: Read more at The Inquirer
First, lets explore what East Fork (EF) is. It is basically a media server PC on steroids with a lot of interesting software. The downside is that it is aiming for you, not aimed at you. The first iteration, due out in Q1 2006, is based on a Smithfield dual core Pentium 4 with the Lakeport and ICH7-DH chipsets, a fairly plain combo. You also need a S-ATA HD with NCQ, and Intel HD Audio, but you can supplement that with anything else you need as long as it is on the board. You also need MS Media Center Edition 2006 (MCE 2006).
This will be replaced shortly after launch with a version based on Yonah, more like late Q1 2006, but since the Smithfield one slipped so much, this one might be delayed as well. It replaces the chipsets with Calistoga and ICH7-DHM, not a big change, and the rest remains the same. How they are going to sell a 64 bit launch and a quarter later an 'upgrade' to a 32 bit version is beyond me, but it isn't my idea. The replacement of the 130W Smithfield by the 31W Yonah won't cause many loud complaints, and the exhaust temperature of your stereo cabinet might go down a few orders of magnitude.
View: Read more at The Inquirer
The concept is collectively called EF, and the one key to this all is something called the EF platform driver. It does a bunch of neato things, it will use all the horsepower the CPUs can throw at it, and a lot more. The first thing is that it will transcode content on the fly, and is officially stated as 'Transcodes content that's not supported by Digital Media Adaptor into a supported format'. Sounds cool, except the, and I mean the supported format right now is .WMV. It also can do the same for bandwidth, basically it transrates on the fly. No abject evil here, it is a good idea in every way.
Secure premium content muddle
The problem is something called the Secure Premium Content Module (SPCM), and its reason for being is to decrypt MS DRM fast and 'securely'. It is an open question as to how this security benefits the user though. Anything other than Microsoft DRM is listed as 'possible' for SPCM, but as now, the list of additional supported DRM providers is zero. The transcoding will basically add DRM to anything that touches the box, preventing you from using any fair use rights, and preventing legal sharing. This strategy worked well enough to turn the mighty Sony into an also ran in the MP3 player market.
1. It could be cracked if it was really necessary to use.
2. No one in their right mind is going to buy this box of junk.
It is however somewhat disturbing from a legal point of view that Intel is cooperating with M$ to such a degree, especially that such an agreement locks out other vendors. Perhaps someone may want to look into it!
But this situation sounds vastly more dangerous, coz it talks of Intel playing the role rather than MS. And this sounds a little more fishy !!!
So, by that logic, wouldn't the conservatives who complain about abortion as the coming of satan be considered 'liberals' too? Christ, it's really a sign of a persons' stupidity when he goes on a website and can't come up with a better label for someone than "liberal".
Get an education. Prick.
More importantly, which I'm sure has probably been said plenty of times already, if Intel is really developing a super restrictive box like this, who would buy it when there are already plenty of alternatives out there?
I agree... I guess that is just an American term, as "liberal" isn't used as a negative criticism here in the UK.
What on earth does your political stance have to do with writing sensationalist articles?
Are you saying conservatives aren't? rofl, that'd be the funniest thing I've heard all day
I think it's only used negatively in USA, actually. :p And maybe dictatorships or police states.
In Sweden, it's often used positively by the parties too, and I have a hard time seeing why it shouldn't.
Liberal or conservative, they are simply valid ways to view the world. Don't cheapen your argument by addressing the person(s) rather than the argument. The baloney detection kit states:
Common fallacies of logic and rhetoric
* Ad hominem - attacking the arguer and not the argument.
Of course, all stories are true; some even happened.
btw i think most americans find both sides both equally legitimate and are equally against the extremes on both sides, most americans try to be centrists. my impression of europeans is they are more weighted against conservativism than liberalism. and though equally valid, i find both sides to have narrow and blinded ideologies
You do realize that 90% of the US media is controlled by conservatives, right? The "Liberal Media" is a myth perpetrated by the same conservative leadership that tells people they'll be banned from church if they vote for Democrats.
Eric Alterman's book "What Liberal Media?" is a good read.
A likely conclusion is that while conservatives unquestionably control the media at the top-most levels, the journalists and reporters themselves often step "out of bounds" in regards to their top-level orders, and thus it is they who are called the "liberal media" by their own bosses.
When one of three leading news organizations runs 24-hour Republican propaghanda, the "liberal media" criticism quickly becomes vapid and empty.
Wow, neither did I, and I wrote it! The things you learn about yourself and your colleagues.
On another note, other than Rob Squires who tosses in a piece a month or so, and Doug Mahoney, I am the only US Inq guy. The rest are mostly UK, and a bunch all over the world. Most are not 'liberal'.
The funniest part is the ton of letters we get stating how we probably vote democrat/republican/green/blue/red/RGB when the author does not even live in the US. Those are closely followed on the laff-o-meter by people writing me and telling me that 'if I only lived in the US, I would know how wrong the article I just wrote was.". Good humor, especially in the morning.
-Charlie
Maybe you don't listen to those two. Maybe you get all your information from the 24 hour news networks, even though everyone, who has done even a little reading on the matter (everyone who isn't ignorant), knows that the 24 hour news networks have more unattributed sources, incorrect facts and opinion in reporting than network news, pbs newshour and reputable print news sources (as in the washington post, not the new york post.)
If you think i'm just mouthing off, it's probably because you truly don't have any understanding of the current state of journalism in america. Your previous comments are testiment to that fact, and I write this post as an invitation to become knowledgable. I invite you to remove your veil of ignorance and enjoy a seat at the adult table.
I'll start you off:
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2005/index.asp
Seriously, stop watching the fox news channel! It so obvious as to whom you are listening to, just by what you are saying. Although, what you are saying is kinda true... Media only concerned with profits; publish radical stories to get better air time. But this has nothing to do with an agency being "liberal" or "conservative," but rather: corporately backed or independent. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and most cable and network news is 100% corporately backed media who bow down to the dollar.
In any case the Fox News channel is widely seen as a "conservative" news source (well, at least by conservatives it is), but I don't think I've seen any more radical and sensational news then what they push on that network.
It actually started in the 1950s in response to the neo-liberals management of government. They had a tax and spend philosophy that lead to the late 1970s and early 1980s recession, was draining America of all incentive. Some people paid 94% tax rates and others saw tax hikes whenever the government needed to subsidize more of their money. The government aligned itself with special interests making FDR's recovery programs that were intended by him to be temporary permanent bureaucracies. One such example was that the government had six programs intended to help chicken farmers grow more eggs, and they had a seventh program intended to buy all of the extra eggs at the same expense of the first six. Whenever someone in a government department suggested that certain employees might be expendable to their managers, they were looked at as if they were insane as the managers' salaries were based almost entirely on how many people in their department and they wanted to increase their salaries instead of decreasing them. The welfare system was a joke. If a teenager wanted to get an apartment and food, all she had to do was become pregnant. If she needed more money, she only had to have more children. If the father wanted to live with his family, he would be told that his family would be financially better off without him, destroying tradditional family values. Whenever, people on welfare found jobs that were to be a Catalyst for eventually getting out of the welfare system, their welfare checks were canceled leading many to stop looking for jobs as they had become too expensive. The people running the welfare programs knew that if the people in the program got out of it, the program's budget would be cut and they didn't want that to happen. Whenever there was a budget deficit or any sort of problem, the democrats in power would solve the problem by increasing taxes, to the point where people lost all incentive to start businesses and the ones running them lost their incentive to maintain them, sending the economy on a downward spiral.
The negativity towards liberalism resulting from liberal government policies started long before the 1990s, and probably would have never happened if it wasn't for the 1930s when the Republicans and Democrats switched moral standards, perhaps because the big businesses the Republicans were aligned with crumbled while the labor unions the Democrats were aligned with replaced them.
Go to the New York Times, the WallStreet journal or any major liberal media outlet (CNN, MSNBC, etc) and ask them if they're Democrats or Republicans. They will all say Democrats.
By the way, what conservative leadership? There is no conservative leadership telling people that they'll be banned from church if they vote for the Democrats. There is no national church to ban them from. What is being told is that if people support abortion or the popular belief that gay people are normal, they aren't to receive Communion. If you don't believe me go to the Christian churches and ask. There is no rule that states that a liberal like John Kerry, or Howard Dean, isn't allowed to attend Mass.
Really? There is no state run media that locks liberals out of running media outlets. CNN, MSNBC, The NY Times, The Wallstreet Journal, and so on and so forth are all run by liberal Democrats. If you don't believe me ask them. The only major Conservative news sources in the US are Fox News and the Catholic League. Beyond that and some local papers, it is all liberal.
And what are all of the other ones? Republican too? No, they're Democratic. But you just said that "conservatives unquestionably control the media." How do they control the media when you only cited one, and ignored the fact that the reason they are so popular is because people are sick of the liberal propaganda the Elites have given them for decades? The elites say that they're unbiased and that they report the truth when they report nothing but hatred towards the President, conservatives and christians in their articles and decide people's opinions for them. If they were as unbiased as they say they are they would report the facts and let the people decide what to think and not decide it for them.
What gets me is that whenever they aren't showing as much hatred as you'd like them to, all of a sudden they're conservative. No they aren't. Go there and ask them if they're conservative or liberal and they'll say liberal. They'll say democrat if you ask them the same thing about their political parties. Only Fox News will answer the contray to those questions.
What is funny is that none of my information up to this point is from those sources. Infact, I barely pay attention to them. Most of my information is from books such as Ronald Reagan's autobiography, and if you ask anyone who knows me well, they'll tell you that I'm just like him.
Again, I barely watch them to begin with. Besides a hurricane and a conclave, I don't know what they've been reporting on for the past several months.
Again, I barely watch them to begin with. Besides a hurricane and a conclave, I don't know what they've been reporting on for the past several months.
Thats funny. Everything you just spewed reminded me of the "elitist" bull**** that comes from the Fox News channel. In fact, most of their platform is based to demonize the left in this country, not to actually report any real news. I could go further and refute more of your comments, but I don't have very many sources handy to cite and refer you to at the moment.
Speaking of sources, do you have any?
But when I bought my comp I paid for that dvd player software to watch dvds on it, and I got rid of that thing when I did a clean install of windows xp over windows me.
No offense or anything, just pointing you in the right direction.
If MS were to apply their DRM to all content that means that Apple and Linux users are screwed. Now you can't blame them just because they're running a non Microsoft OS, can you?
There are, believe it or not, a LOT of unjust laws throughout society. If you think a law is unjust, then break it. Show your civil disobedience publicly!
That's a very poor and expensive lifestyle. If I disagree with the speed limits, by your logic I should show how much I dislike them by speeding all the time and generate a large sum of speeding violations. I also may not like the murder laws, who says I can't, so i go out and kill someone, not only is that stupid and against the law, but the penalties for doing so are usually pretty high and not worth the risk.
Because DVDs have special things to prevent illegal distribution and viewing. You don't own a DVD, you mearly own a licence to use it, same as software. If you purchased software for say Windows and then turn around and attempt to show how '1337' you are by switching to linux, saying your paid for a Windows licence that no longer works and try to justify using illegal means to watch your DVDs is still illegal. Although I may not agree with this, it's still the case.
It's the same reason Microsoft never included a MP3 codec into WMP until v10 because shock horror, you had to pay for it. Many programs still come with MP3 codecs that you have to pay for such as Nero, Sony Sound Forge etc. So by your logic, you paid for your computer, you paid for the software, so it must be alright to just illegally 'register' the MP3 codec so you can make MP3 files using them programs.
Actually I do own the DVD, what I don't own is the movie.
Anyway you're right: if I buy a DVD, I'm acquireing a license to use it (ie. watch the movie) and that's exactly what I'll be doing... on linux.
As far as buying a program that licenses the CSS decryption under Windows, and saying it is "ok" to also decrypt the same movie under Linux, that is for the courts to decide. And, guess what? Courts in Norway have deemed it legal. No court has tested it in the US, so the legality of any law declaring it "illegal" in the US or other countries is untested. Sure, it is possible to be charged with copyright violation for doing this, but do not even try to argue that it does not fall under "fair use", or that civil disobedience in this matter is not a valid option.
Last edited by 36818 on 18 Jul 2005 - 22:38
Either the writer can’t explain well what he’s thinking or crack is cheap and good in his neighbourhood!
As for what it's about, well I can't quite figure it out. What from I can tell I fail to see how it's all going to work.
Last edited by 27111 on 19 Jul 2005 - 02:41
Ya... that sounds real professional and trustworthy
Barney
Last edited by 34335 on 17 Jul 2005 - 11:49
If AMD doesn't follow, they simply won't be able to play protected content at all.
What Intel is doing is to support playing this kind of protected content.
What's in there for AMD users again?
Less support for DRM? And the advantages?? Or disadvantages to pick Intel??
But, another point. AMD do not make motherboards, as they tend to follow nVIDIA's business model, and simply supply the core technology, letting other Manufacturers make boards, shifting off production costs.
Why would sticking with AMD-Based Motherboards be better?
Look at the last part of the Article, and look at what DRM providers are supported. Only Microsoft. But, here is the interesting bit. EF is, at heart, a DRM Transcoder for anything that doesn't already have DRM protection. So, as per the articles point, it'll add DRM to any piece of media that you happen to have on yuor PC. Imagine having all of your music collection reduced to DRM'd WMA files, that you couldn't olay anywhere else, and having all of your movie files DRM'd to WMV format, unable to be played elsewhere.
The real kicker is what it'll take to get around it. Since DRM is active here at the Hardware Level, support is basically hard-coded into the drivers, totally negating the option of a software hack. Now, if Linux was to come onto the Scene for EF PC's, and offer a platform to play normal media on the PC... Circumventing any form of DRM is a criminal offense, and since Linux would effectively be circumventing the hardware DRM, that would mean you become a criminal, whether you like it or not.
And it'll also mean that you can forget any thought of sharing your Media via P2P. MCE2006, along with EF, will make sure all of your files look like gibberish on the other end.
So far, the only disadvantage of not having an EF-Based Intel board is not being able to rapidly decode MS-Encoded DRM files. I use XVID and MP3 for all my encoding needs (And yes, I am aware of a DRM-Enabled MP3 version around the corner), so this really has no bearing on me, other than to further disuade me for buying Intel-Based PC's.
Intel has taken Fair Use, and vapourised it. That is the core argument we're all bitching against. Mac Users, be very wary of the future, this could happen to your precious OS, too.
Also goes with the common saying : "Take it with a grain of salt"......
(only in this case, we seem to have a whole shaker full of it!)
Still, that article is a pile of crap. The Open Source Community will always find a workaround.
-Charlie
THAT IS REDICULOUS...
IF INTEL DROP IT, AMD WILL GET IT. NO ONE BELIEVE LINUX WILL BE OVER! THOUGH I AM USING FC LINUX~~ AND WINDOWS XP WITHOUT ANY SERVICE PACK.....
And my tax dollars that pays for your education???
Yeah.. be very afraid.. Inquirer really does not scare me
More power to the pirates then...