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Newspapers pile on Viiv

Newspapers pile on Viiv

Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
  • Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
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Dan Ackerman
As Rich notes here, Intel is now pushing vPro, its technology platform for business PCs. It follows the resounding success of Centrino (for wireless networking) and the somewhat more muted reaction to Viiv (for multimedia PCs). In fact, not one, but two major market newspapers took swipes at the long misunderstood (or perhaps under-explained) Viiv designation in the past few days.

Sunday's Washington Post has a Personal Technology column headlined, "Intel's Hard-to-Define Viiv Doesn't Live Up to the Hype." It says Viiv, "amounts to a smattering of free Web video clips and discounts on online music, movie, and game rentals--plus a nifty rainbow-hued Viiv sticker on the front of the computer."

Not to be outdone, the New York Times weighs in on the subject as well today, with a story about the long-standing Intel/AMD rivalry. The article doesn't dwell on Viiv, pausing only long enough to say, "Users so far have shown lackluster interest in Viiv, the name Intel gave to a set of technologies for multimedia computing."

While we're not Viiv evangelists by any means, we're not haters either, and you can see some of CNET's hands-on coverage with our recent roundup of the first Viiv systems.

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