Sony eVilla BeIA (was Re: strangest systems I've sent email from)

[Swift Griggs]

On Fri, 22 Apr 2016, Chris Hanson wrote:
> > 2. Sony eVilla BeIA appliance using some kind of (crappy) built-in mail
> >   application. 
> Were these ever actually shipped?  I only recall hearing that they were in
> development.

Not that I'm aware of.  My friend Takeda-san and I were fiddling with one 
he had and he was a Sony Playstation developer who was able to get me a 
tour of the Sony building in Ginza (Tokyo) during off-hours, so he must 
have had some juice with Sony. I met him when I worked for a Japanese 
company and used to travel there a lot. However, the place where we did 
the fiddling was actually in Las Vegas.  I was there at the same time as 
he was for two different conferences. He had a whole room full of toys 
that year. I think he wanted to show the device to me because he knew I 
liked BeOS.

-Swift