News

New kiosk to help prevent unintended changes to machines

July 24, 2003

SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- Lindowshas introduced a dedicated Web kiosk that is says is intended to prevent users from accidentally making catastrophic changes to the machines.

Lindows is touting the $169 WebStation as ideal for public kiosks and other areas where users could accidentally or purposefully abuse the machine.

According to an ExtremeTech report, the WebStation foregoes a hard drive, requiring a user to work with documents stored on the Web or on a floppy disk. Certain versions of the new kiosk also seal the CD-ROM drive inside the case, preventing additional retail software from being added later.

The WebStation runs on the LindowsCD, a bootable CD-ROM version of the Lindows OS the company announced on July 10. Simply restarting the machine restores the system settings, meaning that any changes made to the configuration have to be made again and again, according to ExtremeTech. 

The Web terminal includes the Lindows OS, as well as the company's standard office suite of word processing, e-mail, presentation software and other utilities. As the WebStation lacks a hard drive, users are apparently prevented from downloading additional software from the company's Click-'n'-Run software repository.

The company says the new PC is one which cannot be easily altered and is thus appropriate for sites such as a museum display or a child's bedroom, where fiddling with the software's guts might accidentally prevent the PC from operating.