They rejected my story that I submitted several hours ago. I made sure to highlight the fact that it is running Linux, and is by the same people who made the empeg, so the hackability should be high. But they chose that story instead, and Now I'm not even going to bother with trying to convey that information in the comments.
The slashdot croud is going to bash the hell out of the thing. Unlike the empeg, it is very easy to build something close enough at a much cheeper price, complete with software. But the main market as Tony said below is those people not wanting to use their PC for all of the managment of music. Sell this to the same people who buy the Sony 100 disk changers, and they can use it, and will be willing to buy it.
As far as $1500, I'm not sure how well it will fare though. The HP one is $1000, and on store shelves now. Can SonicBlue market it well enough to justify the lag time in getting it out, and the $500 price increase.