Audrey: The Early 2000's Failed Internet Appliance

[@utubepunk]

The stylus also being a notification alert antenna is pretty genius.

[@lawrencedoliveiro9104]

Total internal reflection FTW!

[@ian_b]

Yes, I like that.

[@JohnDoe-wq5eu]

Easily the coolest part of this device hands down.

[@MrTLsnow]

Apple style industrial design

[@alainportant6412]

Yes its very nice looking at nigth

[@waterbears9874]

I really love old late 90s/2000s devices like this, old tech looks more futuristic than modern tech sometimes

[@Bigbadwhitecracker]

It was the best time for technology. The last 10-15 years, it's been so boring, except for the introduction of the iphone but even that's pathetic.

[@Maki-00]

@@Bigbadwhitecracker I miss the days when getting a new cell phone was so fun because you had so many styles to choose from. Now, they all look alike, no matter who the manufacturer is.

[@stevenalexander4721]

@@Maki-00 We all had Nokia cell phones back high school and would buy different covers for them.

[@Maki-00]

@@stevenalexander4721 Yaaaas! Good times! I could text a thousands times quicker and more accurately on phones before they had full number pads! 🤣

[@aleisterlavey9716]

It was the future.

[@obt74]

I was involved in the NYC debut of the Audrey. It was my first job out of college and I was a young and inexperienced employee of a consulting company 3com hired to help at the event. I distinctly remember seeing the CEO there and thinking WTF is this thing, it’s going to be a complete flop… and it was.

[@joshitheyoshi2533]

Too bad you didn't hop onto a successful thing and became an easy billionaire. There were literally thousands of opportunities back then that made easy fortunes.

[@khalifiker7845]

@@joshitheyoshi2533 In 20 years people will be saying the same thing about our current era, there are always thousands of opportunities you just have to be smarter than most

[@twerkfromhome]

@@joshitheyoshi2533 wow, great insight

[@jnharton]

@@khalifiker7845 Being smart is not the magical key to success that you suggest. - In many cases the successes and failure in tech products have been mostly having the right thing /at/ the right time /for/ a competitive price. E.g. Apple created the Newton around the same time as 3Com? Palm? was working on the first Palm Pilot. One was an astounding success and the other became a historical footnote.

[@JohnDoe-wq5eu]

@@jnharton I mean with technology it's only occasionally harder than it looks to pick a winner. Usually you can use things like value for price or certain functions or upgradability to easily ascertain how successful something is going to be. Apple products are typically successful because they're easy, ubiquitous and the price/value (More or less) is much easier to figure out than it was back in the late 90s early, 2000s. This was a good concept it just was a very poor execution for the price they wanted.

[@ukozi]

I'd never heard of Audrey before and my oh my, what an eye-pleasing little thing. Hard to imagine these days that vendor lock-in would be *bad* for business.

[@AmstradExin]

I would actually love such a think in a busy place at home. But modern. Better than a tablet in every way.

[@Aeduo]

@@AmstradExin tablet case with a kickstand?

[@dgpsf]

@@Aeduo Yeah I'm pretty sure a tablet on a stand with a bluetooth keyboard/mouse or keyboard/touchpad thing would give you exactly what this promised but 1000% better. PIM + news/info + browser was all this did. If an Android tablet, you would also get multiple user support which would be especially welcome today.

[@darkwarrior7356]

@@Aeduo or if looking at it as a tech/design accessory for a home, its real modern counterpart is products like the Nest Hub Max

[@Helladamnleet]

Imagine if Appl..... Oh.... Right....

[@bayareanewman1566]

Wow! Okay so former 3Com engineer here who worked in Santa Clara from 1999 until 2002. A couple of things. First of all, did you know Oprah gave one to every audience member on her “Oprah’s favorite things” episode?? Also I’m surprised you mentioned Kerbango. It was a great idea, but sounded like a clock radio!! I did tech support for their enterprise products (server NIC cards, switches.. that sort of thing) we should have stuck with that! Believe it or not, as early as 2000 we had Cardbus and PCI Wi-Fi products! We had a new CEO, who wanted the consumer market though….. we had no chance. Just because we bought USRobitxs (mainly for the Modem IP) and got Palm in the deal…. He thought that could mean we’d succeed in any consumer market. He was dead wrong!!!!!

[@89ludeawakening1]

Hmm... I've never seen one of these but it's definitely interesting. The way the stylus turns into a notification indicator is probably my favorite feature. It annoys me how phone manufacturers are removing notification LEDs from their devices.

[@scorch527]

Does anyone know why that happens? My 4 year old phone seems to have more features (headphone jack, notification light) than my brand new one.

[@Nahpax]

I miss my LED notifications dearly. There's 3rd party apps that fill the gap but none of them work as well at the stock LED did. I can't tell you how many texts I've missed because I became so dependant on it.

[@volvo09]

yeah, I loved the notification led on my blackberry. closest thing to it was the "always on" portion of my LG V10 and v20 that stayed lit and visible in darkness to show notifications.

[@Nahpax]

@@volvo09 The closest thing I have to it now is I have notification reminders on my phone. So like every 3 minutes my screen will light up. Which is nice and all but doesn't work out as well as the LED did.

[@eaglewi]

My. Xperia has the led why does your phone not

[@BigDrewski1000]

Oh man, this is such a throwback for me. Lol. My stepdad was 1 of the dozen or so people who bought 1 of these things. He bought this (our's was an odd green color) and a pda for my mom for an anniversary gift. I remember me and my sisters thinking it was a kinda crappy anniversary gift, but I'll be damned if my mom didn't do almost everything with it and go everywhere with that pda. She thought she was too cool back then. Lol.

[@Helladamnleet]

She had a PDA AND home internet access. She was cooler than you by a country mile lmao

[@russiasgreatestexports4026]

@@Helladamnleet Amen!

[@MyNameIsUnavailable]

How long did it last?

[@BigDrewski1000]

@@MyNameIsUnavailable A hair under a year & a half. The PDA was still working when she donated it.

[@jpc2267]

I worked on the original product design team. The video did a wonderful job in describing our work. The experience creating something that really didn’t exist was one of highlights of my career. And yes Oprah Winfrey featured the product on one of her shows and she gave an Audrey to each audience member. Thank you for all the kind words as well and for the respect you all have for true innovation. The iPhone and iPad are directly influenced by this device and I believe iOS is rooted in the Zen of Palm design philosophy. Thank you all.

[@fuzzywzhe]

You do realize that Oprah Winfrey was paid to showcase the product on her show by your marketing department, I hope.

[@jpc2267]

@@fuzzywzhe Of course I do. I was in the Marketing department. At that time an Oprah endorsement went a long way towards a successful product launch.

[@blackniga420]

I guess the true pioneers aren't always the guys that get the recognition

[@fuzzywzhe]

@@jpc2267 As an engineer, this is what annoys me about the world. I have seen so many great and wonderful innovations ignored because the public didn't get the proper marketing. That you have to convince people through entirely superficial means, is maddening.

[@hansmaulwurf1119]

I think that's would be a good idea for elderly people. But with modern technology

[@6581punk]

I worked at 3Com for about a year as a contractor and remember hearing about the "web appliance" project. But never saw one.

[@bayareanewman1566]

I was there! Did you work at the main campus? Off Great America Parkway in Santa Clara? What did you do there?? I was in building 6, tech support!

[@megan_alnico]

Another interesting internet appliance from the late '90s would be the i-opener. I remember being in college when it came out and a bunch of people were buying It's super cheap because It was supposed to be useless without signing up for a specific internet provider. Instead they just hacked the thing and put Linux on it. The "just put Linux on it" meme started very very early.

[@Kalvinjj]

this dang pun name feels like either you're gonna get your eyes wide open when you visit _certain_ websites with content you've never heard of before and didn't think was anatomically possible, or an Apple branded bottle cap opener.

[@littlewendigo5055]

Okay, that name is pretty genius, not gonna lie

[@greggv8]

IIRC the early iOpener used a socketed Super Socket 7 CPU and SODIMM RAM so it was upgradeable. It also had an IDE header for 2.5" drives but the rows were swapped or something was backwards so it needed a custom cable. People found places to shoehorn in laptop hard drives or CF cards to install Windows or Linux. ISTR the company retaliating by doing things like clipping the pins off the IDE connector then later not installing one. Might have switched to soldering the CPU and RAM too. But even upgraded as much as possible it was still a slow PC in a slab with a poor display.

[@th3-moto-id10t]

Yeah, but let's not forget it literally had a PIZZA KEY

[@geekwithsocialskills]

When I saw the video title pop up in my feed, I was thinking it would be about WebTV, but seeing a 3Com Ergo (Audrey) was a neat surprise. I had totally forgotten about this device. Great job on telling the backstory and showing Ergo in action.

[@ctcards2636]

I remember for a simple internet setup for my grandfather back in the 90s we had WebTV dial up. Was a top box with a wireless keyboard. I actually found the setup when we emptied his house last year after my grandmother passed away. Was a internet browser basically hooked up to your TV. Very very basic. I think Microsoft ended up making it into the MSNtv box or something like that. Cool video, stuff like this brings back memories for sure :-)

[@eric_d]

I think the only time I ever saw WebTV was when I stayed at Caesars Palace in Atlantic City, NJ in 2004.

[@MrKillswitch88]

I haven't seen a WebTV setup since like 99 or 2000 and yea it was pretty basic.

[@sideskroll]

I had that in my home. It worked well enough...

[@rezmedic57]

I had a few around the early 2000’s lol worked ok

[@MultiTelan]

Oh God, webtv…I remember the ads and commercials for the dang thing.

[@soviut303]

Ahead of it's time. Now people mount tablets and video digital assistants like the Echo Show in their kitchens.

[@eric_d]

2 of my previous jobs had a 3com Audrey mounted on the wall. The data center I worked at in 2001 had one right outside the server room that was modified with a loud piezo speaker that would beep along with the flashes when a message arrived so we didn't have to sit near a computer and monitor an e-mail account to see when a customer requested a server reboot. In 2004 I worked at an office that had one mounted just inside the main enterance. I remember installing a custom OS on it, but I don't remember which one it was. It was mainly used for employees to clock in and out.

[@darkdeity2012]

For the time, the design is actually pretty clever for the most part. The stylus acting as part of a notification light is a really interesting concept.

[@MSmith-Photography]

I used to work for AT&T WorldNet Service (for one of their CS vendors) on their knowledge base team and was the guy responsible for putting together the help content for the customer support agents for the 3Com Audrey in time for its launch. The package that I had received from the client management team was just a large PDF file with screenshots, basic info, and a huge flowchart showing how the features worked and I had a week to get it published. Four days in and I got it all ready to go. I felt awesome! However, the next day, Friday, I was informed that AT&T WorldNet Service decided to drop the 3Com Audrey. So...yeah.

[@JamesSmith-sw3nk]

I wish this still existed today, it would be great for seniors.

[@protocetid]

as someone with a distaste for mobile I can’t deny tablets are better than internet appliances

[@rmcdudmk212]

The Audrey has a cool form factor. I could see someone 3d printing a copy of the case for a custom SBC rig.

[@Choralone422]

I remember the late 90s / early 2000s being a very exciting time for devices like this. It seemed like every company was looking for any way they could to get new users online. Sadly most devices like this ultimately failed or found a very niche audience. Thank you for the video on this one. I remember reading a little bit about it and it's failure but didn't know much beyond that.

[@RocketboyX]

They were one of those good ideas that just never worked.

[@nonyobussiness3440]

Computers were still expensive but advancing so fast then

[@TheSimoc]

@@RocketboyX I don't particularly agree proprietary computer implementations being a good idea, but I definitely do agree that it is sad that they failed, because the real reason of their failure is the very same reason also generic-platform computers, such as PCs and smartphones do fail after just a few years - it is the planned obsolesence of *software* which is getting more and more horribly bloated with little or no added functionality, added frivolous and stupid functionality, or even reduced functionality, API and protocol changes for sake of change, and support droppings for sakeof dropping. All while the usability and aesthetics getting horribly worse. Really admirable to see really beautiful, clear, and easy-to-use UIs on the device in this video! And we need more frogfinds!

[@Helladamnleet]

I miss the mid 90s to mid 2000s so much. There will never be excitement like going from Windows 9x to XP, or the jump from dial-up to broadband, et cetera ever again

[@TheSimoc]

@@Helladamnleet Yep. Nowadays instead we have a major PITA of exponentially added bloat and more scrambled and uglier UI with every forced migration into new release. I wouldn't be that cynical though - I believe that as more and more people are getting ultimately fed up with this demoralized culture and corruptes markets of software industry, eventually we will have something reverted back into something similar as with good old software - lightweight, efficient, function-rich, beautiful, useful, and user-friendly. You are right though that due to "all good having been already invented", we will probably never have those exact feelings again, but hopefully we instead get rid of the constant changes for sake of change.

[@angryshoebox]

I remember this device. Not having an active matrix screen was a huge strike against it IMHO. EMachines PCs could be had for the same money.

[@volvo09]

yeah, those passive matrix screens are terrible. I had a laptop with one. only thing worse is a dual scan.

[@Wasmachineman]

@@volvo09 Passive matrix = DSTN

[@10MARC]

Nice video. I was right there in the middle of all the Internet craziness of the late 90's and early 2000's and knew these "appliances" would never make it big. They were too close in price to a low end PC and just did not have the features people wanted. 3COM made some really dumb choices back in the day and went from a trusted mid range brand to a joke in just a few years. They could have been here now competing with TP-Link and Netgear if they had just stuck to what they were good at.

[@Astrophysikus]

Interesting! Around the same time, in 2001, Siemens (then still in the consumer electronics business) introduced a similarly minded product, the SIMpad. It was pretty much an iPad before the actual iPad. Portable, 800x600 LCD screen, and running Windows CE. It had a built-in DECT modem for wireless internet in combination with a suitable base station, and you could even get "proper" WiFi with an extension PCMCIA card. Back then, I would have loved to get one, but as kid without too much money, my regular PC was all I had.

[@ds-il7ik]

The blinky stylus antenna on top is the best part.

[@OneDudeWithACamera]

I loved these little internet appliances back in the day. I had a Virgin Webplayer with an IDE hard drive added in that ran Windows 98. It was a decent PC for the time, and much smaller than most other x86 stuff

[@DarkFiber23]

That lightpipe stylus is brilliant. What an amazing and elegant concept.

[@stupid8911]

I thought I dreamt these up, nicely done! Thank you for the review. A lot of what Audrey offered was ironically ahead of its time; I'm sure they picked up a lot of cues from Mac, but I was shocked as soon as you opened the box: the styling of the instructions and "What's inside" sheet, [chef's kiss]. And that clear stylus and sorta-retro/sorta-future set-up?? Way cool in my book.

[@kbhasi]

(10:19) Yep! In the photo you showed at 0:55, someone modified theirs to launch into the QNX desktop instead of the Ergo homepage (shown at 2:01 and I think that's what it was called). YT user "Cameron Gray" demonstrated his and it too was set up to launch into the QNX desktop as his had a custom firmware installed, if I recall correctly.

[@kylehazachode]

I miss my Pepper Pad and Mylo. I've always had an iBook, but man these internet devices were the best tinkerer's toys. My main goal was always to get AIM working flawlessly on these devices.

[@ACRPC-dot-NET]

I was working at Circuit City during this time, remember these well. I actually bought myself an i-Opener net-appliance, because I had heard about folks hacking them. Ended up upgrading the RAM (to 64MB iirc) and CPU (180mhz IDT WinChip to a 200mhz Pentium MMX), and added a 3.2GB hard drive, ran Windows 98 on it, put it in my moms kitchen for her to look up recipes and stuff. I might still have it packed away in a box somewhere.

[@CoolTurtleCreations]

Ahh the memories. I bought one if these for probably $50 in early 2002 and used it to make a touch screen remote control system as a senior project. Had an ir-blaster controlled out from the serial port. Thanks to the QNX OS I was able to fairly easily write my own software to run on it. If my memory serves I did not need a special USB ethernet dongle and I used a cheap generic one, but that could have been because I wasn't running the Audrey software but just the core OS and my own software. It was a pretty neat project, and I had the coolest home entertainment system control panel next to my couch.

[@Old_Man_Jay]

I just wanted to say, as a guy whose a bit of a tech enthusiast, and lover of gadgets old and new, I appreciate the work you put into these videos. One of my favorites KZbinrs for sure

[@cryptocsguy9282]

I think the physical design of the device looks cool especially with the stylus sticking out and the notification light at the top. Pretty cool that hackers found a way to enable the use of MP3 players and messaging clients , maybe 3com should have enabled such features from the beginning

[@S31Syntax]

My dad acquired several of these well after they were EoL and adapted them to be very basic web kiosk/music players for the house. He hunted for MONTHS to find that 3com ethernet adapter, and bought several of them for about $20 a pop. We had one mounted in the kitchen *and* the bathroom, it was always a conversation started whenever people came over. Such a strange vision of what the future could have been. Not gonna lie, I miss the bizarre novelty of this goofy looking thing on the wall that played music streamed over the house's network.

[@DenisCheong]

I still have two of these devices that I bought in a fire sale back in 2001, along with two of the USB ethernet adaptors. Your review and insights into them is spot on and you covered off everything that I remember about them, well done.

[@Crimerenegade]

Audrey realy gives out, a more modern Minitel terminal vibe, to me

[@NavajoNinja]

Awesome video! I kept thinking about ur video with a deep, investigative style of narration. Like a murder documentary and a side story of a man who brings home an Audrey for him, his wife, 2 kids and dog. Then it slowly starts disrupting their lives till he throws it out. I can picture the audrey comin on at midnight with some scary dial up tone, messed up appointments, etc

[@fredm2007]

Great video! When Audrey was being closed out at steep discounts, I bought one for my mom and set it up for her. She never ended up using it 😐

[@u2bist]

I loved the Jetsons look of the Audrey. During a big home remodel in 2004 I bought 5 of them for $80 each, intending to wallmount them as intercoms and home automation control stations. There was a fairly active Audrey hacking community and I played around with loading an alternate OS and actually used one of the Audreys as a bedside MP3 player, but ultimately they ended up as a future project that never happened, and are still in a box.

[@CoachOta]

I was fascinated by these when they came out as I thought they did offer a look to the future of connected devices. Like others have commented, it was pretty clear that price vs. functionality was not in internet appliance's favor. Tech was changing so fast around 2000 that even non-technical shoppers could see that it was better to get a PC or Mac rather than save some money on a small device that looked like it would be quickly obsolete. For more technically minded folks like myself, it might've made an interesting kitchen device if it had networking built in and had some way to sync with contacts, calendar and notes with a PC acting as the hub. Fast forward a couple of decades and we have all sorts of smart and connected devices, with the closet to internet appliances being smart phones and tablets.

[@jason3fc]

Brings back memories. I was one of the ones that found these in the clearance sales and got into to hacking this for awhile. Got it working over ethernet and used it in my parents kitchen for a year or so and they used it to check email.

[@chenvictor8]

Old vids like this make me feel old

[@robsquared2]

Hey Colin, it's everyone.

[@1-eye-willy]

How's it goin'

[@1sonyzz]

From bulky classroom sized machines to pocket computers and everything in between.

[@pettyfan45]

As someone with and Google Nest Hub I kinda wonder where we would be if they could have pushed the price down of the Internet Appliances to a sub $100 level...

[@CasioMaker]

I remeber seeing one at a computer fair done by a local retail store in my corner of the world (Chile). It wasn't on sale at the moment but it was shown as "the new wave of tech" that was trying to be the hot new thing at the time.

[@MattExzy]

8:09 - I never thought I'd feel so much dang nostalgia from PC ads. I'd always be pricing systems in my head as a kid, daydreaming over PCs... "if I only got that birthday money..." - oh well, an old used Mac had to do, but it did manage most of the internet.

[@SuperNicktendo]

Ah dedicated internet hubs. How anyone could put up with these is a mystery but then again it's not like $300 capable pcs were a thing back then.

[@volvo09]

they were popular with the elderly and non tech people who were uneasy and "afraid" of using a computer... you cant drag and drop your icons into a folder and "lose them" or save a document into a random folder, open a settings screen, etc.... they just did one thing and if you got lost you could hit a button. my grandmother used a web appliance and loved it till it no longer worked... she wasn't comfortable on a computer because she'd always "break it" by doing the random things that unsteady hands do... clicking and right clicking the mouse when you go to move it, and accidentally bringing up and selecting things on a right click context menu, or a scroll wheel click... then before you know it text is massive, or the size of a grain of sand, or you have no icons on the desktop, whatever....

[@BigFamilyGaming]

I see you in these comments haha nice to see a familiar face

[@PockyRedux]

I swear Audrey’s UI reminds me a LOT of Windows Codename Whistler, yet it’s also quite reminiscent of Aero… and this thing was made before either of those things existed! 3Com were really ahead of their time here.

[@gluttonousmaximus9048]

Recently I'm on an Audrey Hepburn binge and this video could not have popped back into view at a better time.

[@MagnumForce51]

I wonder if this was a secret PC in a fancy shell like the I-Opener. Depending on the hardware revision the iOpener required some mods to boot off the IDE port which required a special crossover cable. I'm curious if this one is similar. Though since this one didn't require a specific service maybe that's less likely. You did mention there was software mods for this device but was there OS replacements?

[@oseidwomoh]

I think it's like the modern IoT/Smart Home devices and even appliances (Ever heard of Samsung Smart Fridge and iRobots?) but back in the early 00s. And even though The Audrey flopped, this paved the way for future improvements and the device we take for granted today. Much like the Walkman. It failed but paved the way for the iPod and Digital/Internet Music that we use all the time today. Great Video BTW. It's interesting to see internet devices before Google Home/Nest and Amazon Echo were even a thing.

[@ShockerTopper]

Dude! I had that Compaq in the ad you showed in the beginning haha. I remember the two speakers that hooked to the monitor, I took them off and spread them out for better dispersion. My mom bought something like this but then ended up getting a iMac (CRT) in red from Circuit City I remember. That was our 2nd Mac, I had the Mac that was a flat desktop with a monitor that sat on top in the early 90's. I used that Mac to go on AOL 2.6 when I was like 8 or 9 I remember. It was funny because despite the lack of people using the internet I still knew quite a few people in Elementary school that also had it. I totally forgot about the 'mail in' manufacturers rebates. I remember a lawsuit over those because of the length of time it took to get your money back. I recall Best Buy being a major player in that whole thing. That's where I got my Compaq, in 1999 (my 3rd computer), I believe it was $2000? and came with a scanner that hardly ever worked, a printer, the monitor and the humungous tower. It even had a ZIP drive lol...which shockingly my 'web development' class in High School had, so it did have its use.

[@Helladamnleet]

Me: "Oh, that's pretty neat! I can see this being cool for people that didn't want to spend $2,000 on a computer!" OP: "No mouse support" Me: "Oh....."

[@scottmallonee]

I remember being 22, hacking one of these things to be an mp3 playback device, and having music parties in my apartment with all my friends from my apartment complex after a night on the town.

[@toasTr0n]

Excellent video! I feel like you're the first person to truly do justice to these unique machines. ❤️

[@erosore]

seeing my name in this title surprised me a little bit, and reading that i was a failed internet appliance made me feel even better

[@notthegoatseguy]

Honestly the little pre-installed news feeds reminds me of the Nintendo's Wii's OS and how the channels are organized.

[@r.j.etrogames]

This thing looks really really cool. It reminds me of a Nest Hub circa 2000. Very interesting! I wonder what would happen if it released a little later on.

[@ErynTzun]

I remember selling the Compaq internet appliences at Radio Shack, I really hated selling them knowing they would just be creating e-waste in a couple of years with no upgrade path.

[@Aeduo]

I remember seeing this in magazines a lot at the time. I always thought the flared top made it look ugly. But yeah probably good these things weren't that successful. Kinda needlessly limited and built on proprietary tech that the businesses themselves couldn't even easily adapt the advancing technologies to. They could've just sold a simple PC and skinned up Windows or bundled in some application that fulfilled the same purpose but had full support of new web technologies and internet-enabled software that were coming out at the time (many of which thankfully failed). Kinda like the Monorail PC, which had some of its own problems and maybe came around too soon, but was at least a lot more flexible.

[@The_Wandering_Nerd]

yeah, and the fact that in the early 2000s web technologies like HTML5, HTTPS, streaming video, social media, push notifications, and software as a service were either in their infancy or not even there yet. Also, CPU speeds and internet speeds were increasing exponentially and websites with dynamic content were major drivers in people's hardware upgrades. (Nobody's getting on KZbin or Facebook with 32 MB of RAM, not even when they first launched.) 3Com ought to have had some sort of firmware or hardware upgrade plan in place for Audrey users if this device became successful or it would have quickly become a $500 paperweight. And if users have to upgrade the firmware or hardware themselves, they might as well have bought a PC.

[@Girder3]

I was always intrigued by these internet appliances I kept reading about at the start of the 2000s. People looking at the growth of the Internet and trying to figure out what would stick. I do wonder if this would have had a better opportunity if it had been released as a terminal for something like France's Minitel?

[@matthewfarmer6830]

I'm 46 and never heard of this it's good you have one in an original box like it's an old store stock. You'll just have it up and running for your own enjoyment. To remember the time it was out to buy these back in the early 2000. It didn't catch on so it failed and went off the market. Thanks for sharing to see one that was what it was like.🙂

[@boppins]

Pretty clever device all things considered. A touch screen, written text and voice attachments in emails? Impressive. I didn't realize computers could be bought so cheap at that time, that's a killer for Audrey.

[@kyle8952]

The thing is that while you could buy a computer that cheap, you'd end up with a computer that's almost completely unusable. The specs were always so poor that they could barely run windows. You'd see the desktop start to appear but have to wait 3-5 minutes for the hourglass mouse cursor to go away. Very laggy, constantly running out of ram, impossible to multitask. And by god they sold hundreds of billions. laypeople just thought that's what a computer is normally like.

[@9mmmike642]

It looks like the front of a toilet tank with a screen.

[@tyzerro]

this alongside the WebTV devices of the era were definitely ahead of their time now that everyone basically uses "channels" but now theyre called apps.

[@HeatherHunterJ]

Notifications Antenna is genius and I want to say the display Alexa’s are getting close to this

[@CrabOfDoom]

The tulip-like top to the unit wouldn't have been for me, but the clear stylus that doubles as an alert light is pretty dang clever, and I like that a lot. Makes me wish my graphic tablet's stylus could be set to do that.

[@NiGHTSaturn]

A lot of the features reminds me of the Wii! The automatic channel updates, the notification led, almost its aesthetics too. Though the design is truly the in-between of the 90´s and 00’s. Bell Canada did a paid by the minute internet public device (kind of like a futuristic phone booth with Access to the Internet), and it looks like both solutions were released at the same time.

[@zerocks88]

this device was HUGEly ahead of its time wow

[@Bunny-ch2ul]

I feel like it's worth mentioning how condescending people thought this was, even back then. *An easy to use computer for women, that looks cute enough to put in the kitchen!* was seen as tacky even by 2000s standards.

[@capnmorgan1979]

Ah for simpler times! I love early 2000's web appliances! It was a lot of fun hacking them to make them do more than they were originally designed to do. I had some webTV ones set up as media players before roku and firestick were a thing, and I still have 2 (one white, one black) of these in a box in a basement that I hacked to be a centralized MP3 jukebox.

[@tsunamirider9895]

Cool video. Even though I had a computer, it was still cool to try out stuff like WebTV. I even used the Dreamcast browser and had the keyboard and mouse. Good times.

[@JHMBB2]

I was ready to laugh this device off, but that stylus doubling as an antenna light up notification was brilliant. And the idea itself is so novel. I really like this idea of having something that’s convenient but doesn’t make you feel reliant on technology all the same time, like a phone. I could see something like this modernized coming back

[@NoahGooder]

pulling out some of the internals to make way for a raspberry pi would make this modern. the screen is honestly kind of a perfect fit for some kind of portable raspberrypi pc.

[@DavidRavenMoon]

Don’t forget the ultimate internet based computer that did survive; the iMac.

[@AirknightTails]

6:37 Talking about the QNX system. I wonder if you'll cover the Blackberry Playbook at some point?

[@ClassicGameSessions]

Interesting stuff for the interwebs at that time

[@stevarino1989]

So … I was 11 and in 6th grade when this first came out in October 2000 lol. I don’t remember this at all! I kind of remember the Palm Pilots but Audrey? I’m really surprised I never heard of that! And wow … those old AOL, Gateway and Circuit City commercials … what a throwback lol.

[@LuisMercadoorg]

The fact this runs QNX makes it even more powerful than many can imagine. I’m surprised hackers haven’t tried to remodernize the system.

[@CubeAtlantic]

didn't even know these computers were a thing but i like how visaully-appeling, & complex their designs are.

[@christophercox6092]

Looks like the sort of thing that would have been financed by a kickstarter these days :)

[@CF542]

These products are fascinating as they were well thought out and fairly complete for a narrow audience but they were negligent on predicting the future in a clear fashion.

[@justinedge5081]

Good videos man I always like your videos brings back memory's of all that tech from the 80s and 90s and early 2000s which you would upload longer videos I like the hour ones

[@eyeflaps]

Launched for USD 499.99 plus sales tax in 2000. You could have just gotten a lower end computer with windows that would have done way more than this. This reminds me of those netbooks that were also a scam.

[@GregoryLindsey1979]

Hey, I have one of those right behind me! Sadly, even the hacking community for it is practically gone. It was an interesting idea, but the tech simply wasn't there at the time to do what they envisioned.

[@davidflorey]

In Australia, we never really saw any of this tech - it was PCs all the way, in fact, even Apple Macs weren’t that big until around 2010 when people started buying them and using Parallels with Windows 7 alongside them (until more mac native apps came along)…

[@jz4697]

That palm-pilot sync stand though. Very cool, the interface still looks kind of nice.

[@iblackfeathers]

i remember this device. this was not the only device like this of its time. for example, there was also the i-opener internet appliance, the virgin web appliance, and later the chumby, which was more of a mini stuffed beanbag email client. the appeal of this was not a replacement to an actual computer, but rather to have an always-on or mostly-on iot-like appliance to complement a computer… a way to access info from the internet outside an office without waiting for your computer to fully boot up and do the usual routine of dialup, opening the application, etc. all of these could be and were hacked/ modified for different added functionality.

[@Fisha695]

I miss this time frame of internet & PC. Like yeah always on instant internet is great but there was something so cool about the AOL GUI or Packard Bell Navigator that I miss and wish we still had today.

[@wordsmith451]

This thing is brilliant for its era. I'm impressed. This is basically like the Amazon, Facebook, and Google tabletop devices we have nowadays.

[@MultiYogibear]

I distinctly remember my grandparents have a box like this that connected to the TV

[@ccricers]

I remember back then Real Media player boasting about being the only video and audio streaming service on the web. They lost their only advantage really quickly.

[@braddl9442]

Man I remember things like this and thinking they were so cool back in the day. Yet it was a time before everyone really used the internet for almost everything.

[@CommodoreFan64]

Yeah I remember seeing things like this, and WebTV thinking that's cool, until I got a WebTV as a Christmas gift from a clueless aunt who did not realize I already had a PC, and thought I would like it just because she had one. I tried it out anyways, and it was so slow, limiting, and frustrating, so 2 days later it went back to Montgomery Wards where she bought it from, and I used the money to buy some games for my PC lol!

[@DicePunk]

This reminds me of those sci fi "phonebooths" you used to see in 90s movies and FMV games. You could place a call "offworld" or "upload" the photos you took at a crime scene.

[@justbulma]

Really enjoyed the video very informative and entertaining brought back a lot of memories of the early days of the internet you got yourself a new subscriber 😊

[@Markimark151]

They failed just like Web TV, because the technology was too young and didn’t have enough apps until modern devices like Apple TV had lots of apps!

[@angieandretti]

I remember this thing! Probably saw it on TV or in a catalog back then, but it obviously made an impression. For all this thing's flaws, that transparent pen which looks like an antenna while in its dock - and it blinks to tell you there's something new to look at - that's damn sexy and I say it was a great idea! On the other hand though, you really couldn't plug in a mouse?! And such limited single-user Palm Sync capability? Those were very short-sighted decisions which could have been addressed purely with better software. I had my own Palm Pilot back then, and I would have been all-in as a 15-yo on the idea of being able to dock my Palm with the family Audrey and get the content driving those "channels" synced over to my own handheld device, which I could then carry around and browse through at my leisure! 15-yo me would have gone nuts for that!! Not to mention that the system limitations would have actually appealed to my paranoid mother who still believed in 2000 that children regularly disappeared from their beds at night after visiting their first online chat room, lol. I might have actually been able to sell her on this thing as a way to safely "dip our toes" into the Internet as a family thing.

[@celebrityrog]

Audrey is basically the device that I still think if it existed but was adopted early on by say telephone and other internet providers and given freely to every single subscriber/home, and the development of future versions and models (like every other product) introduces new abilities, features, hardware, etc., with the intent of connecting every home to the internet with this device should they want even a basic connection they don't have to pay for it, they just get it. Like running phone lines and electricity to every home in America, this is the device that would/should have been in every home. From email, simple live text messaging/chat to other users/homes, deliver the news, weather, etc content. Ability to create a shopping list, reminders, notes to other family members. Have an emergency function to automatically send emergency services your home address, door codes, etc to access your house in an emergency, say, fire, medical emergency automatically at the touch of the SOS button. Just an all around device that would have connected more homes and advanced our technology much further. Perhaps home to home video calls to keep in touch with loved ones, home alarm systems where the device can sense whos home and not, the possibilities are endless - this is essentially the beginning of a SMART HOME HUB.

[@mind-of-neo]

Jesus i just adore the sheer variety of tech, and just stuff in general, in the world of the 90s

[@TBustah]

I remember seeing an ad for something similar to this, but I think it was even smaller and cheaper. An old woman uses it to email her grandson, the grandson thinks it’s a prank from his sister because he knows she doesn’t have a computer, and then the grandma says something like, “Hey dude, you got my email!” the next time he comes to visit. Does anyone know what device I’m talking about?