I chose my favorite up top made by team BICOM. It has a laser-cut touch-sensitive front panel that provides force-feedback when your fingers come close to the buttons (hit the jump for a vid on how it was made). The others, to me, are looking a little fugly. What do you guys think?

– Louis Ramirez
Voting Page [via Reg Hardware]

For anyone interested in a Viiv media center, I guess this is a good thing. But I can't get excited.

My problem is that I just don't get Viiv. The Viiv architecture and its attached software should handle all the details of ensuring I can play back my copyrighted standard of choice in my manner of choice. Why do I need a TV that can translate the signal from Viiv's language? Don't such nuisances defeat my reasoning for going Viiv in the first place - compatibility and ease of use?

We know that these ridiculous standards come from entertainment industry pressure. But the harder consumers need to work in order to access their precious copyrighted material, the sooner they will realize the deeper truth: the content isn't that good in the first place, so these hoops aren't worth their time. – Mark Wilson

All this high style comes at a price, though, where even the stripped-down version sells for $1958. Available in lots of snazzy colors including black, silver, green, red, white and yellow, a respectably-equipped version will cost you upwards of $3400. It's nice looking; Maingear is literally thinking outside the box, but PC Magazine's opinion of the Maingear Prisma? Eh. 2.5 out of five. – Charlie White

Product Page [Maingear]
Maingear Prysma Review [PC Magazine]

By hooking this up to your TV via composite/S-Video/component/HDMI, you can stream MPEG1/2/4, WMV and XviD straight from your PC to the DMP300, which decodes on the fly. Not only that, it's got 802.11 b/g for wireless-ness, in case there's no 10/100 ethernet cable able to reach your TV.

No availability or price on this yet. – Jason Chen

BenQ Unveils DMP300 Digital Media Player for Intel Viiv Based PCs [eHomeUpgrade]

Tango Cocktail Mini PC VIIV, prettier than the Mini? [Akihabara News]

In the comments for yesterday's Origami revealed post, strangeweather said:

Two things this form factor is perfect for:

1. A portable movie player — it's about the same form factor as a portable DVD player, only you can rip a bunch of DVDs and store them all on board.

2. A web surfing device. As WiFi and other wireless platforms get increasingly ubiquitous, you'll be able to carry around one of these suckers and look up anything online, wherever you're at. The screens on PDAs are a little too small to be good at this, phones are worse, and conventional lightweight notebooks are utterly useless for something like this.

So yeah, minitablet, minischmablet—Origami sounds like a glorified media player to us. So it's got Microsoft's imprimatur on it; big whoop, right? One of our readers wrote us this morning, a long-time very senior industry insider who felt compelled to point out that:

THE MAIN USE OF THIS DEVICE IS A DRM MEDIA PLAYER!

All other PC functions are bonus.

This is why VIIV is being used and previously advertised.

More on how Viiv is horrible and why you should care after the jump.

Viiv in a nutshell, from its Wikipedia entry:

"It is intended for primary use as a media platform or to play DRM-protected content created by one. Media recorded by an Intel VIIV processor is locked to the processor and may only be played by an authorized VIIV processor."

Locked to the processor? Only be played by an authorized processor? Nasty! You'd think Microsoft would know better because Research Group invited EFF/BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow over to give a talk in 2004. The gist of what he told them:

1. That DRM systems don't work

2. That DRM systems are bad for society

3. That DRM systems are bad for business

4. That DRM systems are bad for artists

5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT

Either none of the Research Group's many brilliant people was paying attention, or the media cartels really just don't care. Guess which one we're going with.

Origami Revealed: It s a 7-Inch Tablet PC Platform [Gizmodo]
DRM: Three dirty letters you won't hear in a CES keynote [ZDNet]
Intel Viiv is stupid and broken [the Inquirer]
Viiv Off to a Slow Start [Gizmodo]

Unlike many of Intel's other branding attempts, Viiv seems to be flying under the radar. What does that mean for us at home? Not much. There is some speculation that the standard will be revamped to offer something a little more interesting than instant-on multimedia and Plays-For-Sure-esque promises, but that's about it. We'll keep you posted.

After the jump, a poll.

Langberg column: Will ``Viiv'' and ``AMD Live'' sow confusion? [SiliconValley via TechDirt]

Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click through to view in your Javascript-enabled web browser.

The Hi-Grade DMS P60 Viiv PC [Trusted Reviews]

More CES news from Aopen, which claims that we'll get a peek at the first Intel Viiv small form factor PCs at the big show in Januray. The miniPC runs both Windows and Linux and Viiv machines will probably use both Intel's Pentium and its Yonah notebook processors. Of course, I'm sure there'll be about a kabillion other Viiv products lolling around CES, but I do have a soft spot for these little Aopen PCs.

Aopen to launch Viiv machine soon [The Inquirer]

Intel is planning to launch their upscale Viiv computers will be bundled with entertainment links. Working with film distributors, music publishers, game developers and others, Intel has decided to integrate easy links to all kinds of media to their upcoming line of PCs. Of course, right now only European and Asian companies have actually signed up to provide content including Canal Plus, Japan's Bellrock Media, and Britain's Sky Broadcasting. Pricing and amount of active services will obviously vary in different regions, but it is a start. All Viiv computers will include Intel's top-of-the-line processors, the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system and other audio and video technologies to help these negotiations along. And yes, the first Viiv computers will be shown at CES this January, though they should be available to the rest of us first quarter.

Intel links with movie, music powers for ViiV PCs [Cnet]

What is VIIV? It's music! It's video! It's clothes, it's belts, it's fashion! Everything with this sticker will be compatible with some yet-undescribed media framework and will make us all very happy, in the end, once we all climb on board. Ok, Intel. Centrino was a good branding decision. This rots.

For Intel, home is where the VIIV is [News.com]