And it’s a very pretty one at that. Tap together your ruby slippers (inbuilt watch included) and take a walk down the yellow brick road with Ty Pendlebury.
August 24, 1995. Windows 95 is released with a level of publicity not seen from a computing product since the Macintosh was introduced at the 1984 Superbowl. Win95 was the first real step towards a true convergence of medias, and helped popularise the much-maligned term 'multimedia'.
Multimedia, or convergence as it's also known, is the combination of computers and telecommunication devices into a user-controlled medium. Ever since the invention of the transistor, electronic devices have been appearing in almost everything -- from beds with clock-radios built in, to, well, pens with clock-radios built in.
The world of the electronic Swiss Army Knife is here. Why have a gadget that only does one thing, when with a device like the new Sony CLIÉ PDA you can take pictures, do your taxes, listen to MP3s and write emails?
Many convergent technologies up till this point seem to suffer from the 'jack-of-all-trades, master of none' syndrome. Sure, you can buy a fridge nowadays that connects to the internet -- but why would you want to? It becomes a matter of quality versus convenience. In most cases, a device designed to do a singular task will perform it much better than one designed to do several. Where does this leave the PC?
The evolution of the consoleThe PC and multimedia owe a huge debt not only to television, but also to the humble gaming console. It all began in the May of 1972, and though the Atari overshadows its importance, the Magnavox Odyssey Home Entertainment System was the world's first gaming console. It allowed you to play video games at home six years before Space Invaders had even been conceived of.
The unit didn't have a CPU or memory, but was based on an analog system of discrete logic circuits. Similar to today's consoles, it used cartridges to store games: only these carts contained daughterboards, which altered the circuitry of the Odyssey. Stickers placed on the television delineated the playing area.
ABOVE: Bill Gates with his latest invention: 'smart' alarm clocks, fridge magnets, wrist computers and key chains.
After the Odyssey, came Home-Pong, the Atari, the Vic 20, the Commodore 64, and the Amiga. All were increasingly complex multimedia devices designed to be connected to your television, and to be easy-to-use. The Atari was the last device of its kind, as PCs began to take off due to their modular, non-proprietary nature. The computer/TV combination gave way at last to the pure gaming console.
And right now, the console market is booming, with relative newcomer Sony, and its PlayStation 2 decimating the opposition before it. Long term player Nintendo holds the lead over newest entrant Microsoft, with the GameCube outselling the Xbox -- in Japan at least. Nintendo has been able to fend off attacks in its core market from less experienced contenders due to its insistence on creating a games machine rather than an all-in-one entertainment system. Xbox might be fun, but how many PC users would want one?
Sony currently offers the Linux for PlayStation 2 kit. At $499, it's claimed by Sony to allow you to 'utilise the PlayStation®2 console as a fully-functional desktop computer'. It includes an Ethernet adaptor; 40GB HDD; USB keyboard and mouse and a 'Monitor Cable Adaptor'. Meanwhile, the Xbox has also been (unofficially) hacked to allow users to run Linux on it.
Consoles have come full circle: they began as home entertainment systems, became computers in the 80s, went back to simple games consoles, and are once more becoming computers and gaming consoles.
'Refrigerator, this is Washing Machine. Do you copy? Over.'Home automation has been a dream for many people, but until recently, not very achievable for those without bank balances in the googles. Almost every electronics manufacturer is currently pushing its own brand of 'home networking', which will allow your toaster to speak with your stereo and so on.
ABOVE: Windows XP Media Center Edition uses a simplified interface enabling it to be used on a television.
The most infamous example of this strategy at work is LG's Internet refrigerator; the GR-D267DTU. It's a poorly spec'd machine with a 300MHz CPU; 128MB of RAM; 17GB hard drive; 15.1in LCD touch-screen; as well as a built-in Webcam; microphone and speakers. But for $15,000, you'd want a Cray supercomputer built into Walt Disney's personal cryogenic unit! Apart from the occasional kitchen teleconference, it doesn't do very much on its own. It's designed to act as a central hub for connecting LG's other devices: microwaves, air-conditioners, and washing machines. It seems even the little man in the fridge has finally lost his job to progress.
The trend for automating inanimate objects continues, with Bill Gates announcing 'smart' devices at November's Comdex show. Thanks to our old pal Billy, we can now surf the Internet with our pens, and check sporting results with our fridge magnets!
Microsoft's Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) is designed to enhance the capabilities of the object rather than create an all-in-one device. As such, it goes against the current convergence trend. SPOT comprises a receiver (presumably using an RF-based protocol such as Bluetooth), and a centralised server, which services an array of gadgets with Web-based information like sports scores and Greenwich Mean Time.
Microsoft is expected to make further announcements about the technology as you read this.
ABOVE: Inventor Thomas Edison, with one of the first electronic convergence devices: the Telescribe.
In other parts of the house, the future of entertainment seems to be going hard disk drive, with products like TIVO's Digital Video Recorder and Imerge's MP3-based Soundserver. With DVD recorders becoming cheaper by the day, the HDD video recorder is the only real competitor. The two formats have similar features: 'time-shifting', the ability to record while watching an earlier part of the program; search functions; and the ability to record in a hi-res format -- unlike VCR. The main difference between the formats being the portability of the media, and the fact that you can edit programs recorded on a hard disk drive.
If you have a spare $40,000+ to throw around for a hard disk music server, then you can't go past the Linn Knekt Kivor. It looks suspiciously like a PC in hi-fi clothing, with serial and USB ports, as well as a monitor connector. Sadly, these are for technician-use only, but no doubt millionaire hackers (a contradiction in terms?) could get t
Issue: 133 | February, 2012