Heard on the Net

News about People and Companies influencing The Broadband Home

CES 2004: The Future Is Here

At CES it's getting harder and harder to separate the PC and consumer electronics worlds and the manufacturers who participate in them. With Microsoft and Intel talking about watches, telephones, cameras and TV screens, more processing, storage and networking are appearing in increasing numbers of devices. Last year, we heard promises that PCs and home networks would soon be connected with audio and video entertainment. This year, we saw lots of products that customers can buy now, with many more coming soon. We'll need a new vocabulary to name some of these new devices.

The Year of the Digital Media Adapter

The long heralded marriage of the PC and the TV is on the horizon; products enabling a cozy relationship are here today. Digital Media Adapters (DMAs) and their relatives are now undergoing a wave of experimentation and innovation to find the features, functions and pricing for devices that bridge the PC and home entertainment. Standards are on the horizon. While confusing today, winners will emerge; this category has a bright future.

Connected by Design -- Our Broadband Odyssey

When we agreed to act as broadband architects for the Home by Design showhouse, our goal was to demonstrate the ideas we write about and get more hands-on experience in the realities of implementing broadband infrastructure, home networking and a wide variety of interesting and useful applications on a host of products that can be bought today. We packed lots of experience into a short time and share some of what we did and learned from it in this abbreviated version of "our broadband odyssey".

Wireless Video Networking -- Update on Bermai and ViXS

With growth of flat screens and HDTV on the upswing, the quest for wireless video networking has taken on greater importance. The ideal is to be able to create home networks that carry multiple channels of high quality video plus other data and voice traffic wirelessly, not just within rooms but around the home. At CES we got an update on Bermai and ViXS, two companies that are trying to satisfy these wireless video networking needs.

Making Life Simple -- An Interview With Motive

We interviewed Kenny Van Zant, EVP Consumer BU, at Motive to try to get a better grasp of the complex maze of companies providing "service management". We learned that this area touches consumers, communications service providers, hardware and software technology companies and cuts across people, technology and processes. Motive's goal--and that of many others in this field--is one we can all support: to make life simpler for the consumer and more profitable for the service provider.

Your Voice -- Readers' Comments

Several readers wrote us nice notes of encouragement.