audrey

By anders pearson 17 Oct 2001

i just ordered one of these Ergo Audrey internet appliances. they used to sell for about $500 but 3com stopped making them and they’re being liquidated for $89 now.

<p>a friend of mine got one and spurred me into ordering mine. it&#8217;s basically a little web-browser/email device with a 640&#215;480 12-bit colour touch screen and a wireless keyboard. it&#8217;s designed to connect via a phone line to a <span class="caps">PPP</span> account but with the right <a href="http://shop.store.yahoo.com/compuvest/nc-3c19250.html">adaptor</a> you can use it on an ethernet network (ie, you can use it with your cable modem or dsl). either way, just plug it in and it works. it runs the <span class="caps">UNIX</span> derived <a href="http://www.qnx.com/products/os/rtos6.html"><span class="caps">QNX</span></a> real-time OS.</p>

<p>the real joy of the audrey though is that it is pretty simple to <a href="http://www.audreyhacking.com/">hack</a> and make it do all sorts of other cool things. you can get a terminal, run <span class="caps">VNC</span> on it, play mp3s off a network mounted samba drive, and basically make it do anything that the <span class="caps">QNX</span> OS can do. </p>

<p>based on the response in my office (pretty much everyone who saw it went out and ordered one) i think 3com, sony, or any other company can learn something from this: internet appliances <em>can</em> sell, but they have to be reasonably priced for what features they have. 3com gave up on the audrey because no one was willing to spend $500 on one. sony recently dumped their internet appliance too because it was similarly high priced. if they could market a device with functionality equivalent to the audrey for under $100 i think they would have no problem reaching the consumer market who want web and email access but don&#8217;t want the complexity of a PC.</p>