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Jean-Louis Gassée Column

The Web Device of Choice at Home February 7, 2001 This is not exactly a new topic -- discussion of it began even before the Internet of researchers and students became the Web. Personal computers, with their protean capabilities, were used as tools to connect to sources of information, entertainment, and transactions. They were also important to building bulletin-board systems, BBS, and, now Web servers. As with any tool, though, the PC's general-purpose nature exacts penalties in cost, complexity, and reliability. This led to debate over generality vs. fitting a particular purpose. In a way, the discussion of non-PC devices, started with Dr. Nicholas Negroponte's idea of digital convergence. That is, with a modicum of oversimplification, a) everything will be digital and, b) everything will converge in the TV set. "Everything digital" means information and entertainment will be digitized, packetized, and compressed; therefore, it will be storable and transportable. The TV set of the future was seen as sporting oodles of processing power and storage. Ergo, all forms of knowledge, art, commerce, and mud wrestling must converge towards the TV set in the family room. We know what happened to that idea. Parts of it were and still are profoundly true. We haven't found a way to digitize wisdom, yet, but we see how "everything" has gone digital and how "everything" is on the Web. If not literally true, the previous statements make practical sense, they sound right, and they have practical consequences of a large magnitude. As for the TV set, that part hasn't fared too well. Yes, we have interactive TV, WebTV, and set-top boxes. But none of that resonates in the way the first part, the "everything digital and on the Web" part does. The TV screen wasn't meant for things other than TV content, and we haven't found ways to make either one fit the other, because that's hard to do when Web content and the VGA screen, dimensions, resolution, and phosphors have such an intimate relationship. There's also the psychology of the TV set experience, what some call the lean-back vs. lean-forward state of mind. Others ask whether e-mail is meant to be read in the privacy of your family room. More recently, the game console has been seen as the best candidate for on-line access in the home. I disagree -- for some of the same reasons that apply to the TV tube and Web content. But other technical factors are involved as well. Web content is a little too easy a phrase. The "everything digital" notion tempts one to think that everything can be easily translated back into a form humans can understand or experience. This is an easy thought, but a complicated reality. In fact, Web content takes many bizarre shapes and formats, and each requires a decoding engine -- Real, Flash, PDF, QuickTime, Windows Media, to name but very few. These exist for the most part in the x86 realm and would have to be rewritten and painfully optimized again for other processors in order to provide meaningful rendition of Web content. Come to think of it, this might be the reason why Microsoft chose an x86 processor for its very own "Pay Station," -- sorry, xBox. Even with their resources, rewriting or coercing others into rewriting these decoders for another processor wasn't an option. That's why, for the time being, for our Home Audio Reference Platform, for wireless Web tablets, for the eVilla and similar devices, for a genuine Web experience on something nimbler and friendlier than a PC, we like the x86 architecture and the PC clone organ bank, software organs included.

Past Columns: March 7, 2001 Intemperance Makes the Suit Look Bad February 7, 2001 The Web Device of Choice at Home January 17, 2001 Transfer of Power December 6, 2000 One Step Closer November 15, 2000 Thoughts on Comdex 2000 November 1, 2000 Watching the Pendulum October 4, 2000 Plus çà change... September 6, 2000 Connected Appliances: A Field Report August 16, 2000 Sub-PC vs. Appliances July 12, 2000 The Victim Microsoft June 7, 2000 The Power of Words May 31, 2000 The First Be Shareholders Meeting May 24, 2000 Intellectual Property and Internet Appliances May 17, 2000 Spreading the Virus May 10, 2000 Numbers and Feedback May 3, 2000 Manufacturing Consent

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