NO! NO! Anything but this!!!

PC Advisor – INTEL INITIATIVE — Along with this check out the Intel home computing site and find the throwback rationale for using a computer: recipes!! AGH!!!

Intel has created a brand name for home entertainment PCs that the company believes will stand for the same quality experience promoted by its Centrino home technology, it announced yesterday at the IDF (Intel Developer Forum).

PCs with the Viiv brand name (rhymes with five) will start appearing in the first quarter of 2006, said Don McDonald, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Home Group, in a keynote address yesterday.

There will be no keyboard; instead consumers will operate their Viiv device solely by remote control. Once booted up, Viiv machines instantly power on and off and can provide a range of home-orientated and distinctly non-PC like functions. In a demonstration, Macdonald showed a Viiv device that could control the temperature and offer other forms of home automation. He demonstrated the reference Viiv model providing video messaging, online services such as booking tickets and verifying travel arrangements, as well as time-shifted television streamed from a nearby digital media adapter.



  1. Jim T says:

    It sounds lame, but I frequently look up receipes on-line, and I usually print them out. But the print outs stink because they’re formatted for web display not printing, plus all the ads around the border print.
    A wireless notebook in the kitchen is not a bad thing. The kids play games on it, while I’m cooking, so they don’t bother me, but I can see them.
    So lighten up a little.

  2. Miguel Lopes says:

    2 comments about this:

    1) This is old as the hills – been hearing about stuff like this for the past 30 or 40 years, right? Nobody wants a computer to check recipes.

    2) Computers are too complicated for what Intel is trying to sell. MOST people (computer geeks such as us who read blogs like this) don’t want a PC in the way of their hobbies/occupations. The only uses of PCs that have achieved some sort of mainstream are web surfing and video games. Both can be done without a PC. Keep it simple, stupid!

  3. Jim Dermitt says:

    Intel is good at making CPU’s. I already have a home thermostat which has a board, can be programmed and is easy to use. I don’t see how connecting it with my PC is going to make it any easier. It takes maybe 30 seconds to program the thing and you never need to touch it again. Time shifted television. Well there’s something new. What is a digital media adapter? Will it be very expensive? If you get a digital media adapter, will you need a new thermostat.

  4. M Smith says:

    Now John, don’t mock so quickly! There have been a few occasions where I’ve had the laptop in the kitchen to do recipe searches. Sometimes it’s easier than walking into the office to do the search, then go back into the kitchen to check for ingredients, and then back to the office, etc.

    My wife doens’t mind because it means a more interesting dinner. Of course, I keep a beer close at hand to balance off the geekiness of the whole event. 😉

  5. Adam says:

    They allways said that the justification for computers in the home would be for storing your reciepes….Good to see the promise of the TRS-80 made manifest.

    FWIW though I run a small free-Video hosting company, and we get about 300 home-videos uploaded every day (and about 350K streamed out). Right now users can only share videos through our portal, but with the Xbox 360 we anticipate that we can get those videos to the living room. I know this is a direction Intel wants to go in, I just hope they leave it open enough for small Start-ups like mine to actually use it.

  6. Ima Fish says:

    Let me get this f-ing straight. To read a recipe in the kitchen, we need, 1. a laptop. 2. a wireless network. And 3. A desktop system. Can we simply print the recipe from the desktop and take it into the kitchen? Nope. Can that notebook store the recipe? Nope. For some bizarre reason we need all three to make this seemingly simple task posible.

    John, this isn’t some “throwback.” This is a system that’d make Rube Goldberg proud.

  7. Steve says:

    “Viiv”? Rhymes with five?

    It’s a stupid idea to begin with, but the name alone would kill it. I know a lot of product names are misspelled, like “Kwik”=”Quick”, but “Viiv” just looks like something made up a marketer who needs to read “Roman Numerals for Dummies”.

    Perhaps a better name would be “Apple ][“, which could store recipes as well as any modern machine.

  8. Ed Campbell says:

    The dude actually said, “orientated”? Bah. humbug.

  9. AB CD says:

    Why haven’t other PC makers come up with instant on, of the non-hibernating type?

  10. Pimp Daddy says:

    Someone please tell me what is wrong with this idea.

  11. Ed Campbell says:

    After reading comments, I should note that the sites run by Martha, Epicurious, FoodTV and King Arthur all offer printer-ready versions of their recipes. One click. Print it. Carry it to the kitchen.

    If I use the same recipe a few times and we’ve enjoyed it — I use my old 3-hole punch and put the critter into a loose-leaf binder, alphabetically.

    Plus, I’ll save the recipe to a recipes folder on the HD — when I remember to.

  12. Lindsay says:

    Someone please tell me what is wrong with this idea.

    Laptop, Kitchen, Raw ingredients

    Nothing like cleaning batter off your keyboard. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

  13. AFD says:

    I agree with #11 – Intel and OS, memory and motherboard manufacturers should get on the ball with “Instant-on” for consumer PCs.

  14. Teyecoon says:

    Isn’t this just an expensive terminal with less functionality? You’d have to have a lot of recipes to make this anywhere near worthwhile. I can only really envision this being of use in a restaraunt or bar for the new trainees.

    Next, they’ll try to sell you a printer for your bathroom that will print custom graphics on your TP. This would make the holidays so much more festive not to mention is gives new meaning to reuse and recycle. : )

  15. Floyd says:

    My wife and I actually have quite a few recipes stored on our PC as Word documents. No the PC isn’t in the kitchen, but paper copies of the recipes are. I print one as needed (typically because the current copy has food spilled on it). I can send a recipe to any of friends or kids as mail attachments. Very simple.

    Conceivably I could install MS Access on my PC and store recipes in a database, but haven’t seen the need.

  16. Edward says:

    Here we go again… an “Internet Device”. No keyboard, a touchscreen, and limited functionality. My Dad used one of those for a while, it was good for him getting email and doing basic web browsing, since even a mouse was a novelty. So I guess there may be a market for dedicated web browsers after all.
    The key is price. If I could get a lightweight wireless “tablet” that did nothing but browsing and email, and had a looooong battery life, for $300 or less, I might be interested. And yes, going to “cooking.com” to look up a recipe might be practical on a device like that.

  17. Ima Fish says:

    Teyecoon, if your idea comes to fruition, we only have YOU to blame. You should feel bad. Very bad!

  18. Mike Cannali says:

    look closely – Mee is boiling water


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