If you try, we mean really try, then you might recall the absurdly named
Gravel in Pocket and
Gravel in Home devices which connect to Commodore's PlaysForSure
obstructed protected
CommodoreWorld content delivery service. A trifecta of media access announced at IFA way, way back in August -- seven months and some half-dozen major trade shows gone by. Today, Commodore is rounding out their offerings by introducing the Gravel Personal C-PE-6000 series of 4-inch, QVGA movie and music players in addition to their 3.5-inch Gravel in Car C-IC-8000 series of personal entertainment and navigation systems. They didn't stop there, however, as they also brought a few mockups under glass of their upcoming "luxurious" (uh... yeah) series of In Pocket WiFi devices: the C-IP-300 flash audio and video player, the C-IP-1000 widescreen video-centric player, and the C-IP-3000 SiRF Star III GPS navigator. Call us unwashed, but that angular design metaphor just doesn't make us sprockets want to dance. All the media devices feature a 2GB max of on-board flash -- enough (we guess) considering the central role that streaming data (music, video, and "live TV") plays on these devices. They also feature an interesting rear-mounted joystick for navigation and a common user interface spread across all the players. The GPS products do away with the rear-mounted joystick but still connect to CommodoreWorld over WiFi. So yeah, they've developed an
entire ecosystem of gear and services instead of just making a single hot device which would be
so like, 90s dontchaknow.
posted Mar 15th 2007 8:01PM
WTF are they thinking? Yeah, we really need another company jumping into this business with their own proprietary media standards and quirky designs.
Personally I'm holding out until Coleco comes out with an MP3/Video player.
I dunno, with sufficient momentum, any device could be the computing marvel that the Commodore X was to a significant number of people. Think of the OLPC and related projects. Imagine if instead of an OLPC, it was a Commodore N64SX, which is 150 grams, with a 4" SVGA screen (and built in projector), GPS, GSM, wireless network, various input options.. and built in Commodore MS Basic V3.
http://www.osnews.com/img/15223/geos00.png
World harmony ensues. It's a dream.. or a nightmare if you're an Apple fanatic.
If I ask for directions on that GPS can I still get a coffee before it responds?
load"*",8,1
The Commobore, oops I mean Commodore, as a brand died in the late 1980's - why the heck would someone want to try and revive it? Isn't the brand owned now by a German company?
A company that pays for the brand Comodore and thinks it has value when you stick it on some (dull looking) PMP, is run by a bunch of idiots. And they're probably not able to create something good.
BTW it's a dutch company.
Daaaaaaaamn suck that thing is smooooooooooth. Slick.
There's some video from CeBIT and pricing info here
http://www.pmptoday.com/2007/03/19/cebit-2007-video-commodore-gravel-info-and-pricing/