Future Trends In Home Computing

James Bell writes: "I just read an interesting article over here that talked about future trends in home computing and what is and isn't driving the home computer market. I thought it was interesting that the author said that more people where adding DVD players and surround sound speakers to their home computer in hopes of makeing it their new home theater. I think a lot of people are bringing their computer to the home theater in the family or media room and converging it that way."

Comments

Comprimise

[vought]

"Many people" may be bringing their computers into the living space to use as media players, but that doesn't mean that they are well-suited to that task.

Remotes? An optional, kludgy addition to a computer.

Sound quality? I'd rather not use stereo miniplug -> RCA jacks for sound, thanks. But that's what's on the majority of PCs.

Video quality? Acceptable, I'm sure, but what about the aforementioned remote control of all thos nifty features?

Stick with components - replace or upgrade pieces as needed - just like with your PC.

Not very insightful

[Rupert]

I stopped reading when the author started talking wbout integrating the telephone with a home computer. I know a number of people who tried this years ago, but all are now using standalone answering machines or telco answering services. It seems to me that the reliability of PCs has actually gone down since then. I can't imagine changing something that just works, to something that often doesn't, for some nebulous benefit of integration.

Re:Not very insightful

[JoeShmoe]

I know what you are talking about. Compaq Presario computer came with the same kind of stripped down answering machine software. I never met anyone who actually used it.

But the idea isn't a bad one. I personally think it is a great idea. Answering machines are a pain in the ass to program, have the crappiest recording quality, store abismally short messages (unless you want to go back to the 80's and get tape) and are pretty darn insecure (two digit security codes? C'mon, that takes under an hour to wardial).

Here's why it's never caught on:

1) Most family types don't want to leave their computers on. We power users and techies are used to having everything running 24/7. At most we'll put our monitors to sleep. We either don't care about power savings or we have an overriding need to be able to access the box without some silly remote power-on device. But this is not how Mom/Dad/Grandma/Grandpa view a computer. They turn the darn thing on and off a hundred times in the day. So the idea of leaving it on just to answer the phones is a contradicting idea to them.

2) There's never been a home operating system that could stay up long enough for the function to work. Cheap 95/98/ME OS plus cheap voicemail software plus cheap winmodem means the only messages you get are written on a bright blue screen. But now there is XP, which is at least a passing attempt at a stable platform. Now if they just get some software to run as a service (IE, sitting there quietly in the system tray where it is unlikely to be closed) then perhaps home users will see the value in it.

I like it because the next step is to merge in VoIP services or videoconferencing or other power features. If we can get a large base of people using to thinking of their computers as telephony devices we can hopefully open a market for some real digital phone services.

Not to mention, it gets people adjusted to the idea of having a home server, which I think every home needs. If you leave it on all the time for answer machine functions it isn't a stretch to add other funtions like media/music server or security/webcam monitor or light/appliance controller.

- JoeShmoe

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FILTH

[LazyDawg]

The trend in home computing for the past ten years has been and will continue to be away from the WIMP interface and towards the FILTH interface.

The desktop metaphor of Windows, Icons, Menus and Programs was nice for quite some time, and does have some advantages over the console (sometimes,) but it still left too much of the work to the user.

Forms, Images, Links, Text and Hypermedia interfaces let you treat the system you're handling like a web page. These are already all around us, in web pages, some authoring tools, etc. Rather than worrying about menus full of cryptic commands and window after window that you have to cycle through, imagine navigating the OS or filesystem as if it were a web site, perhaps with a WYSIWYG text editor so people can once again "turn it on and write."

The majority of users have a hard time cycling windows, understanding the difference between closing an application and quitting it, etc. They also tend to only want web, email and word processing. Games and specialty applications can come later, but you won't see them running in a window floating around above the FILTH much.

Re:FILTH

[PCM2]

The majority of users have a hard time ... understanding the difference between closing an application and quitting it

And they're not alone. What, pray tell, would that difference be?

Well I know that Mac OS X, for one, has this awesome feature where you can close every single window of the foremost application (say, for example, the application called System Preferences) and it keeps running until you explicitly quit it with a Command-Q. It's another Apple first -- they've managed to completely separate the functions of quitting an application and closing it. No more worries about accidentally quitting out of System Preference there! And god forbid you can't keep a TextEdit process running at all times...

Re:FILTH

[Graff]

Well I know that Mac OS X, for one, has this awesome feature where you can close every single window of the foremost application (say, for example, the application called System Preferences) and it keeps running until you explicitly quit it with a Command-Q.

First of all, this is not new with MacOS X. This has been true of just about any application on a Mac, except the occasional few which buck the trend or have a need to quit when no windows are open.

Second, it really doesn't matter if you have none or a dozen applications sitting in the background on MacOS X. The operating system only assigns processor time to those applications actually performing work, and it pages out the memory used by idle programs if the memory is needed elsewhere. The net effect is that the idle processes have virtually no effect on taking up system resources, so who cares if they are still running?

Third, the paradigm of the MacOS is not document-centered, it is application-centered. This can be a very good thing when you are working with multiple documents, as only one instance of a program needs to be opened for multiple documents. This results in less memory being used, more efficient use of processor time, less chance of clashes over just which instance controls a particular file or service. Also, just because you close a window it does not mean that you are finished working with the program. There are many times when I'll close a window, then create another to work on a new document. If I had to re-run the program every time I wanted to do this I would waste a lot of time waiting for the program to start up.

Lastly, in the MacOS it is up to the programmer to determine if his program should quit when there are no more open windows. The developer should keep track of how many open windows there are and if none are open, either keep the application running or quit. There are some applications which do this, but it is decided on a case-by-case basis - as it should be.

Most home theater installers are clueless...

[S. Allen]

...about computer technology. When I was re-doing a basement as a home theater, just about every installer/dealer that I spoke to was either completely ignorant of the state of computer technology and/or dismissed it outright. The stuff you buy in AV stores is pretty much identical to the stuff you bought 15 years ago. Control: IR! Where's the serial port or LAN hookup? Modularity? Zip or proprietary. C'mon.

And yet no decent cases...

[Rob Parkhill]

You would think that with the interest of using a PC as a home theatre component that there would be a lot more choice in the market for a decent looking PC case!

I mean seriously, there is maybe 2 PC cases on the market that will take standard PC compnents and looks like it actually belongs in your A/V cabinet. And these cases tend to be in the $250+ range, which is nuts for just a case.

A PC w/ an HDTV tuner card, optical sound output, a DVD drive, a software line doubler/tripler/quadrupler, and a fast network connection (and gobs of sound-deadening material of course!)is a great thing to have in your home theatre, but it sure sticks out like a sore thumb!

I doubt it...

[cavemanf16]

In addition to the ever-increasing demands of the operating system, computers are attaining a whole new purpose as complete home entertainment systems. If one invests in a large, crisp monitor and high quality speakers, they can experience unrivaled clarity from DVDs and video games. All modern computers, when equipped with a DVD drive and decoder, should be able to play a DVD without skipping frames, or jerkiness. In addition to DVDs, many new computers now come with video cards that allow TV signals to be played on the monitor. Some even include Radio tuners! Thus, users may eliminate the need for a separate DVD player, TV, and/or Radio simply by buying a computer! Also, the advent of file-sharing services such as Napster heralded the beginning of the end for the stand-alone CD player. I now play all of my music on my computer, as it has better sound fidelity than any CD player I own. Computers are also becoming the preferred gaming medium of the 21st century. Microsoft?s new Xbox appears to be a standard videogame console, but is actually just a regular computer built from mostly off-the-shelf components, albeit modified.

Ok, the article was looking pretty pathetic, but then I got to the above paragraph. HA! is all I have to say. This guy has been living in a box, and has obviously NOT tried to accomplish such a feat! I have. Here's my observations:

1. DVD's only work on the computer. The reason for this is because even if you have a dual ouput video card, you MUST have digital rights management equipment on your TV or other input source to view it on the TV, otherwise, legally made DVD software for the computer won't output the DVD image to your TV. Pretty ultra-retarded caveat if you ask me. Obviously, not only are they trying to limit my ability to 'copy' the DVD, I'm apparently not even allowed to 'copy' the image to a source other than my computer's monitor, if I don't have the latest and greatest digital rights management equipment!! How ridiculous.
2. Napster is dead. DEAD! The RIAA effectively killed it, and now they're trying to kill it's siblings like Kazaa and Gnutella. Listening to my own self-built 'mp3 radio' is increasingly more difficult if you're 'obeying all the rules.'
3. mp3 /= better than CD!!! Duh! The reason I go and buy CD's at the store, is because while easy to use, mp3's are not the original source. It's a lossy format, but much better than cassette tapes for longevity's sake.

In conclusion, I think the person who wrote this article is a drone, and has very little real world experience with the obstacles to creating the in home entertainment utopia described in this article. Somebody needs to do some clue-stick bludgeoning before this guy gets around to describing how "Using a cell phone in the car has never been easier!"

Expensive Experiment

[ConsigliereDea]

All of the integration is nice except where non-techies are in the home. How many people have small children or spouses that aren't tech savy? I would hate to have my telephone, home theater, or anything else connected only to have it crashed by someone trying to figure out how to dial the phone.

A Cost Effective Alternative

[sabinm]

Acutally, my pc(s) have turned into a cost effective solution of getting expensive media equipment. For instance, I've got an 900mhz athlon proc on a 10x dvd player that serves as my linux box. We set up our monitor in our living room and I have the boxen hidden in a small entertainment center. MP3's are loaded into the XMMS and then played on my stereo system. That the whole setup cost me less than 300 USD (without the monitor. the monitor I already owned. ) Funny thing is, I tried this first on my windows box. didn't work. DVD kept stalling and couldn't produce frames fast enough. After a recompile on my Linux box, it was great.

What i'd really like is some info on a good streaming media format to utilize this "home theater anywhre in my home (i'm already networked)

Get Real, this isn't news, it's olds!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's 3 reasons this has never caught on and never will: You have to integrate corporations' goals and consumers' goals before you can have an integrated product on the mass-market.

Your average consumer
1 - will never try to outpace the integration of their technology ("I don't need to pay $1500 for an HDTV when this $300 model will work just fine -- there's never anything on, anyway..."),
2 - will not integrate existing technology in a non-established manner ("why would I pay $100 for a computer phone when this $50 answering machine will do just fine?"), and
3 - will never integrate technology in a way which impairs implicit functionality of the technology ("I spent more on my GeForce3 than I did on my television and you want me to... plug it in to my television? That thing that's all curvy with too few pixels and a high-pitched whine? Yeah right... how 'bout I just buy this $100 DVD player and call it good?")

The telephone may be replaced by a dedicated Data I/O Server in especially smart homes -- note the pre-integration: No Consumer Effort Required! -- of the future. But you'll have to get a 200+ disc DVD (or whatever's big in the future) changer on that Smart Home Server before your home theatre components get reduced.

But don't expect this any time soon -- the AT&T broadband network is kinda clogged up with all of those Ex-ite@home refugees and Verizon is waiting for all of their competition to go bankrupt before they deploy their DSL network.