“Everything is going digital,” said Louis J. Burns, Co-General Manager, Desktop Platforms Group at Intel speaking at Connections, The Digital Home Conference & Showcase, in San Jose. It is clear that digital media has already become the preferred format or music and photos. The same is happening with home video and broadcast entertainment. Home networking is the second global trend revolutionizing the PC and electronics industries, said Burns, and these trends clearly converge. The hottest new product bridging these megatrends is the digital media adapter, an 802.11 appliance that allows conventional TVs and stereos to access media on a home PC. HP already has a digital media adapter on the market. Linksys is expected to release one such appliance priced at under $200. Intel is also working with Dell, Sony, Samsung, Philips, Microsoft and others on such media adapters. Similar wireless capabilities are coming to home theater systems, TV and even DVD players. Burns demonstrated a Windows Home Media PC connected to a home stereo, a plasma screen TV, and a tablet PC. The Media PC functioned as a PVR and media server, delivering locally stored and Internet-based digital photos, music and video to multiple displays at once. However, while demonstrating live, streaming TV over the WiFi network, one of the tablet PC displays froze up.
- The Connections conference is presented by Parks Associates and the Consumer Electronics Associations.
