The Future of Fun
Coming soon: All the movies, music, and TV you want, when and where you want them.
Dan Tynan
Gearvolution
"In the future, the lines between TVs, PCs, and phones will break down completely," says Meredith Flynn Ripley, COO of Integra5, which sells systems to cable providers for delivering such services. "People will be able to log on and choose what services they want to access on which device." She estimates that around a million homes already get caller ID or RSS feeds on their digital TVs, with voice mail and text messaging services expected to roll out in early 2007.
By the close of 2007, we'll see an assortment of multifunction PC-like living-room media centers that play DVDs, rip CDs, and let you stream content throughout the home, says Axel Fuchs, vice president of business development for SimpleDevices. Apple's coming iTV is a case in point, as is Verizon's Home Media DVR (for details on the latter, click the screen at the top of this page). Ultimately, such media centers will connect with every device in the home, including the lighting and heating systems, your cell phone/media player, and the infotainment center in your car. For example, Motorola has shown a set-top DVR that can send content to Razr V3x phones, though the service is not yet available.
Home Theater Helpers
As the HDTV replaces the analog set--research firm Park Associates forecasts nearly 100 million HD sets in U.S. homes by 2010--you may want to make room for at least one additional box in your living room: a high-def movie player. Blu-ray and HD DVD players debuted this year, but many buyers have steered clear, fearing a repeat of the VHS-Betamax debacle that left thousands of people with dead-end technology. That may change as converged players that combine both technologies appear. Ricoh has developed a laser that can read both formats, but vendors have yet to announce plans to ship a dual player.
Eventually, consumer electronics makers will likely fold support for prerecorded high-def entertainment into their connected DVR/set-top boxes, but until then you probably will have to put up with another device in your home theater cabinet.
Surround sound will also receive a boost, but not from new speakers. Though Dolby has demonstrated surround sound employing 22 discrete speakers and 2 subwoofers, 5.1 or 6.1 systems should remain the home theater standard for the near future. Instead, smarter audio receivers will use "psycho-acoustics" to trick your ears into believing that sounds are coming from places where you have no speakers--above your head, for example, says Jack Busser, worldwide technology evangelist for Dolby Labs.
Future couch potatoes will also need a smarter way to control their gear, such as Universal Electronics' NevoSL, a Wi-Fi-enabled universal remote featuring an LCD touch screen, or Hillcrest Labs' The Loop, a donut-shaped doodad with built-in motion sensors. The Loop works with Hillcrest's Freespace software like a mouse without a pad, letting you navigate set-top box menus through hand gestures (click here for a picture and details). Products using The Loop should ship next year. Such remotes will also support more types of devices than today's models.
Networked News
The heart of the next-generation living room will be a network that lets you move content easily from one device to another. Today, products such as the Philips Streamium WACS700 and the Sonos Digital Music System stream music over Wi-Fi networks. Tomorrow's products could be shuttling bandwidth-intensive HD video, surround-sound audio, and more. But how they'll accomplish it, whether gadgets from vendor A will be on speaking terms with gizmos from device maker B, and whether they all will be able to stream copy-protected content remain to be seen.
Berardino Baratta, general manager of Freescale Semiconductor's multimedia applications division, envisions three wireless networks in the home. The first, based on the emerging 802.11n Wi-Fi standard, would bring Web content to every room. But your DVR could bypass the Wi-Fi network, transmitting bulky video files to your HDTV over Ultra-Wideband (UWB) connections, says Baratta. And every device from your TV to your toaster would be controlled via a third network based on Freescale's ZigBee standard, a low-power wireless technology that transmits small bits of data over short distances.
Eventually, "you'll walk into your house and iTunes will automatically update the song list on your Wi-Fi-enabled media player," says Beau Beck, vice president of business development for Airgo Networks, a California-based company that pioneered the multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) technology used in today's fast Wi-Fi networks. "When you park the minivan in the garage, it will start downloading the latest episode of Squirrel Boy to your car's DVR."
Several roadblocks exist. First, two UWB technologies are locked in combat: the Wi-Media Alliance's Wireless USB and Freescale's UWB. Plus, the 802.11n standard remains in flux, with a second draft not due before January. Makers are already churning out draft-n devices, but these products may not be compatible with other draft-n gear or the final standard. Some good news: The Wi-Fi Alliance says it will begin certifying draft-n products by mid-2007; certification will guarantee a degree of interoperability between devices.
Some consumer electronics firms may opt for power-line networks that use a home's existing wiring to move data and to control devices--but here, too, several standards are duking it out (read more about the battle). Still others may look to FireWire cable for moving sound and pictures between boxes, or to Bluetooth for controlling gear.
Also needed: an easy way to manage media files across disparate devices, says Al Delattre, a managing director for the consulting firm Accenture. "It's easy enough to move music files from a computer to an iPod or your home stereo, but it's much harder to manage them across cell phones, memory sticks, or other devices."
Solutions are beginning to appear, though. For example, SimpleDevices' SimpleCenter software enables you to view content stored on any networked device and play it back on any other compatible networked device, Fuchs says. For instance, you could take a photo with a Wi-Fi phone and display it on your TV via a set-top box, or use a universal remote to beam an MP3 from your computer to your stereo. At press time SimpleCenter worked with Nevo remotes, Philips Streamium devices, and Nokia N80 phones, but Fuchs says it will eventually work with any devices that follow the guidelines established by the Digital Living Network Alliance. The DLNA, though fairly new, counts among its members all the major consumer electronics companies and many high-tech firms as well. Fuchs expects a raft of DLNA devices to appear next year.
The digital still camera succumbed at the age of 37 after a long illness. It is survived by the digital camcorder, which can take moving pictures or still ones with equal ease, and the cell phone camera, once used primarily by obnoxious people at concerts. No funeral services are scheduled.
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