Douglas L Ross: Home Networking Technology

PC to TV Blackboxes

Fri, 22 Aug 2003 15:50:43 GMT

Hauppauge [HAUP; Nasdaq] and others are making these devices that the NYT's Mcmanus describe as "bridging the gap" between the PC and the TV enabling consumers to display "media content" that resides on PCs. Curiously, there is no word on the Hauppague website about the MediaMVP product that Mcmanus references in his article [From PC to TV Screen, a Stream of Multimedia. Your PC is brimming with great photos, MP3's and videos. But your family and friends are glued to the television. By Neil Mcmanus. New York Times: Technology] and no indication of its price or feature set.

Among other things, Hauppaauge makes a 350 Meg PC/DVR card that sells for $200.

Ultrawideband

Mon, 11 Aug 2003 21:11:27 GMT

It looks like Samsung is convinced that the standard for UWB proposed by the Multiband OFDM Alliance [http://www.multibandofdm.org/] is likely to win the standards race, so they are trying to get jump on the industry with commercial products. What markets they will go after first should be interesting, but they apparently aren't saying yet.

Samsung to team on ultrawideband. The consumer-electronics company pairs with chipmaker Staccato Communications to develop products using ultrawideband, a technology that's 100 times faster than Bluetooth. [CNET News.com]

SBC WiFi Deal With Wayport

Wed, 06 Aug 2003 16:52:00 GMT

Reacting to Verizon's previous wifi announcements, SBC is now getting into the act.

SBC, Wayport sign hot spot deal. The telecommunications giant becomes the latest major company to ink an agreement that will let its customers use Wayport's 650 Wi-Fi hot spots across the nation. [CNET News.com]

Sony Plugs TV Into Notebooks

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 20:03:06 GMT

Sony plugs TV into Vaio notebooks. The Japanese company looks to boost its PC fortunes with a notebook that lets people pause and record live TV for future playback and another that packs Centrino wireless technology. [CNET News.com]

Telecom Industry Launches DSLHome Initiative

Thu, 05 Jun 2003 17:15:08 GMT

DSL Forum launched a new initiative at Supercom to challenge the cable industry for dominance of the Home Network. It's called "DSLHome" and is described in there press release as follows:

"DSLHome has two components: technical innovation and support, as well as market awareness and promotion. This two-tiered approach in tandem with DSL Forum's drive toward fully interoperable equipment will create a real broadband DSL mass market with low consumer prices and simple setup of high-speed broadband powered home networks. As part of this program, the DSL Forum has initiated new technical work to address some key areas:

LAN side DSL customer premise equipment (CPE) configuration specifications
Dual port router requirements
WAN-side DSL CPE management specifications
Interface & System configuration for ADSL on customer premises
Privacy and Protection Security

In addition to this technical work, the DSL Forum will be launching programs to improve users’ knowledge of DSL powered home networks, and equip these users to make educated home network decisions and broadband choices. The first outcome of this effort is a pair of home networking user guides, currently under development and scheduled to be released in 4Q03. "

Sony's Streaming IP TV Set

Fri, 04 Apr 2003 19:43:37 GMT

Sony TV would grab streams from the Net. The company is developing a plasma screen TV set that's intended to tune in streaming video from home networks and the Internet as easily as regular TV programs, sources say. [CNET News.com]

New Stuff At CeBIT

Fri, 21 Mar 2003 18:32:49 GMT

InforWorld article with an interesting list of the new stuff at CeBIT.

Gadgets galore at CeBIT 2003. Division between computing, consumer electronics continues to narrow [InfoWorld: Top News]

It includes a blurb on WiFi Video:

"At first glance, BenQ's WM1000 Wireless Media Adapter looked like a typical Wi-Fi access point. But looks can be deceiving. The device is designed to stream DVD-quality MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group)4 video and MP3 music over an 802.11b wireless LAN connection, and can stream video from a PC to a television. In addition to receiving video streamed from a PC, the WM1000 can handle input from a DVD player or cable television, he said. The WM1000 will begin shipping next quarter, the company said, and pricing was not immediately available. The company, based in Taipei , will initially release the product in Asia before rolling it out to other regions. The company did not give a timeframe for worldwide rollout. "

BBC Report on Sony / Philips Home Network Push

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 21:16:17 GMT

Sony, Philips push home networks. Sony and Philips aim to bring MP3s and digital video to the living room with new networked home entertainment products. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

Business Week On WiFi

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:50:55 GMT

Business Week reports on something like a stampeed by major companies to jump on the WiFi bandwagon.

Convergence In The Home

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 15:42:23 GMT

Fortune's Peter Lewis takes another shot at the failure of "convergence" concluding basically that its a solution in search of a problem.

Cisco Acquires Lyncsys

Thu, 20 Mar 2003 14:10:34 GMT

Cisco acquired Lyncsys [for $500 million in stock]. Lyncsys is the largest player in the high-growth market for consumer/SOHO networking equipment, a market which Cisco expects to grow "from $3.7 billion in 2002 to $7.5 billion in 2006 worldwide."

Motorola's "Connected Home" Vision At CeBit

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 14:43:03 GMT

Here's Moto's press release on the "connected home" stuff they are showing at CeBit: http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail/0,1958,2441_2000_23,00.html

Here's some press coverage of that: http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20939.html

UCentric's New In-Home Media Distribution Patent

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 14:17:42 GMT

Ucentric was awarded US Patent No. 6,526,581 in February 2003. The patent is related to the distribution of media from multiple sources outside the home and across any number of in-home networks. Here's a copy of their news release: http://www.ucentric.com/index.php?news/releases/38

Spectrum Auctions or Spectrum Commons

Wed, 05 Mar 2003 14:59:46 GMT

Spectrum allocation draws intense debate [InfoWorld: Top News]

Tablet PCs

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 18:55:43 GMT

Planet PDA magazine says Tablet PCs will "revive the PC market?" http://www.planetpdamag.com/content/030403rt.htm

Apple Standardizing on 802.11g Wireless Networking

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 14:22:45 GMT

Wireless Speed Demon Hits Homes. The new souped-up wireless home networks work at lightning speeds. But can the average user's network handle the blazing increase? [Wired News]

Ultra Wide Ban (UWB)

Mon, 17 Feb 2003 21:16:16 GMT

Time Domain (http://www.timedomain.com) and the other UWB folks won this round at the FCC and would seem now to have the regulatory cover to begin commercial depolyment of UWB technology.

Time Domain is also pushing this "Wimedia Alliance" ( http://www.wimedia.org/about.asp ) whose purpose is to promote UWB as the best solution:

"To promote wireless multimedia connectivity and interoperability between devices in a personal area network."

Geeks Everywhere Unite...This Is The Place For Really Cool Stuff

Wed, 12 Feb 2003 17:43:59 GMT

Today, we discovered a really cool place to go for thousands of electronic gadgets that connect stuff in your home.

Recipe for a Linux 802.11b Home Network

Mon, 10 Feb 2003 19:20:52 GMT

An interesting article (03/06/2001) by Schuyler Erle on the O'Reilly Network about 802.11b home networking and Linux.