Companies vie to create a single device, or hub, to handle all your home entertainment needs

It's a set-top! It's a home server! It's a digital hub! Whatever you call it[~]a souped-up cable box or a hard-disk recorder with wings[~]companies know that whoever gets it right will rule the entertainment gateway to the home.

More than a half-dozen companies so far are scrambling for the billions of dollars they hope to reap by offering consumers a single machine to handle their home entertainment needs. The companies agree on what the machine should do: record, archive, and play back video and music, organize digital photo albums, and distribute digital media around the home. Where they disagree is on what shape that machine should take.

As might be expected, each company is casting this new species in its own image. To Apple and Microsoft, it looks like a computer. To cable To cable and satellite companies like Charter, Echostar, or DirecTv and their suppliers, it's a set-top box. To consumer electronics companies like Philips or Samsung, it's a stereo component.

Visions abound.

[Source: IEEE Online ]
5:31:35 PM    

Innovation and creativity.

The report found for high-speed home users, broadband lets them use the Internet to:

* become creators and managers of online content;

* satisfy a wide range of queries for information, and;

* engage in multiple Internet activities on a daily basis.

As Homer [the yellow one] would say, D'oh!

Roughly 24 million Americans, or 21 percent of all Web users [US based], now have high-speed connections at home, an increase of more than a quarter since the start of the year, and quadruple the number of broadband users just two years ago.

"This places broadband adoption rates on par with the adoption of other popular technologies, such as the personal computer and the compact disc player, and faster than color TV and the VCR," Pew researchers said in reporting their findings.

[Source: WashingtonPost.com ]
3:57:13 PM