June 13, 2003 — CNETAsia
At the CONNECTIONS™ home-networking conference, I found the elegantly simple Harmony Remote from a Canadian company called Intrigue Technologies.  Right across the exhibit floor, I got a look at three different devices from Universal Electronics, including a remote application called Nevo that runs on Pocket PCs and on the ViewSonic Smart Display.

From the article "Get us out of remote-control hell!" by Patrick Houston.

June 9, 2003 — ZDNet/AnchorDesk
In my house (as in many others, I suspect), the PC sits on one side of the room, the home theater on the other. Though they're separated by 15 feet of Berber carpeting, that might as well be 15,000 miles of Pacific Ocean.

I'd like to integrate these two systems, to see photos from the PC on the big TV, and to hear MP3 files through the booming 100-watt, 5.1-channel stereo, not on my tinny PC speakers. But doing so is way harder than it should be.

I can't just move the PC next to the TV and hook up the two. That's not the way it works in my house. The kids do their homework on the PC. My wife checks her e-mail on it. I edit digital photos. These aren't tasks you want to do on a monitor the size of a highway billboard. And placing a little monitor next to the big TV would run afoul of my wife's home-decorating sensibilities. So would stringing unsightly cable across the room.

With all that in mind, I attended this week's CONNECTIONS™ home-networking conference in San Jose, Calif. At the show, I found some faint glimmers of hope that I could create a real home network, one that connects all my electronics.

From the article "The path to pain-free home networking," by Patrick Houston.
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May 9, 2003 — Converge! News Digest
Return rates for some home networking products are over 30%, a level that retailers will not continue to support, according to panel members at last week’s CONNECTIONS™: The Digital Home Conference and Showcase in San Jose. Market experience proves that if networked consumer electronic devices are not “rock solid,” consumers will return them. Consumers want distributed entertainment in the home, but they demand simplicity, no interruptions and no reboots. It may require a shift in the industry’s mentality before “networking” really extends into home entertainment.

Dave Kummer, Senior Vice President Of Engineering and Systems at EchoStar, said that the reliability and ease-of-use hurdle for home networking gear is even higher for service providers who have an ongoing relationship with their customers than it is for retailers and system companies making a one-time sale. EchoStar’s goal is to provide more services throughout the house to achieve higher revenues and have a “stickier” customer. Networked set-top boxes will fully enable house-wide video on demand (VOD) and personal video recorder (PVR) services. EchoStar is looking for long-term networking solutions that can have a lengthy technological and reliability life in the home once installed.

Steve Craddock, Sr. Vice President at Comcast, shares the objective of offering more services. Comcast believes that the key is to help consumers manage complexity and make their home entertainment experiences simpler. Comcast is seeking home networking solutions that are much more intelligent than the typical Internet-sharing networks on the market today.

A media storage server must exist in the home, according to Vincent Izzo, Director of Advanced Home Services over Broadband at Motorola. Some say that device will be a PC, but Motorola believes that a broadband-enabled set-top box is a better solution. No matter what the system is, Izzo argues that the technology must be completely transparent to the user. The network cannot require any new wiring. Wireless will play a key role for handheld and remote devices, but the “heavy lifting” of video and audio media will be done by coaxial wiring that is already installed where TVs are in most homes.

Ladd Wardani, Vice President of Business Development at Entropic strongly supported the view that coaxial wiring provides the best solution for distribution of digital media in the home. He said that speeds of this network must be high. Current video streams can have peak rates of 15Mbps and HDTV will be far higher. To accommodate multiple simultaneous streams in the home, Entropic is developing 200 Mbps home networking solutions.

On the subject of digital rights management (DRM), the panelists felt that there are currently so many technologies and proposals on the table that it will take a long time before they settle down and there is a clear solution. In the mean time, home networks that share digital media will be rolled out anyway. Craddock hopes to see a rights system in which each home is a “trusted domain” in which media can move about between devices freely. Restrictions should come in only outside of that home domain.

Educating consumers is also a major challenge. These products and services require a shift in thinking and behavior, which will take time and effort. Trials by Comcast and EchoStar indicate that creative ways of introducing the concepts and opportunities for free trials and experimentation are needed before people will embrace these new digital entertainment possibilities in the home.

From Volume 10, Issue 88 of the Converge! News Digest

May 8, 2003 — Digital 5 Press Release
Digital 5, Inc. announced today that the Digital 5 Netplay consumer electronics networking technology was demonstrated by Intel Corporation and NVIDIA Corporation in two separate industry keynote speeches this week. On Wednesday of this week, Louis J. Burns, Vice President and Co-General Manager, Desktop Platforms Group, Intel Corporation, provided the opening keynote at the Parks Associates CONNECTIONS™ conference focused on Any Device, Any Time in the Digital Home. During this keynote, a Netplay-powered Networked DVD player from GoVideo was utilized to play video content from a PC over a wireless home network.

.... Later today, Mike Harris, the Digital 5 CTO, will be on a panel at the Parks Associates CONNECTIONS™ conference entitled Going Inside the Box: Developing Network-capable Multimedia Platforms. During this discussion, Mr. Harris will discuss the challenges and strategies for delivering low cost/high performance connected consumer electronics devices.

From the press release "Digital 5's Netplay Technology Demonstrated by Industry Leaders in Two Industry Keynotes."

May 7, 2003 — ExtremeTech
Down in Silicon Valley, Parks Associates annual CONNECTIONS show opened Wednesday night, with a keynote from Intel, and a host of new computing devices designed to enable the connected home. We saw a few that really turned our heads, from complete PC-based media furnaces to DVD players with wireless connectivity.

The good news: most of these devices will be out in the next few months, bringing the complete home media network even closer to reality.

So lets start with an interesting device that brings media into the living room for a fraction of the Media Center PC's price.

.... A startup company called Niveus Media launched its ONEbox Media Center at CONNECTIONS on Wednesday. Built around a VIA Mini-ITX M10000 Motherboard with a 1 GHz processor, they are taking direct aim at both Media Center PCs, and TiVo-style PVRs.

From the article "VIA-Based ONEbox Media Center PC Debuts," by Jim Louderback.
Click here to view entire article.

March 6, 2003 — e-inSITE
For the seventh consecutive year, the Net-atHome™ Trip2003 (www.net-athome.com/trip03), will attend CONNECTIONS™ 2003: The Digital Home Conference and Showcase as part of their study trip. Under the auspices of Homega Research, a division of Sigma Consultants, this study trip provides international executives from multiple high-tech sectors with a comprehensive overview of the connected-home markets in North America. CONNECTIONS™ 2003, produced by Parks Associates in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association, will be held on May 7-9, 2003, at the Fairmont in San Jose. It is the largest international executive conference for digital home technologies.

"Homega Research brings a strong international presence to CONNECTIONS™ through the Net-atHome™ Trip 2003," said Tricia Parks, President of Parks Associates. "We are excited that Homega Research is again organizing this trip and look forward to interacting and sharing perspectives with this group of European and Asian attendees."

From the article "Parks Associates/ Homega Research to Host Group of International Executives at CONNECTIONS as Part of the Net-atHome Trip2003."
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January 30, 2003 — EE Times
Parks Associates and the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) have announced the agenda for their upcoming CONNECTIONS™ 2003 executive conference and industry show, held May 7-9, 2003 at the Fairmont San Jose in Northern California.

CONNECTIONS™: The Digital Home Conference and Showcase is a fast-growing international executive forum dedicated to digital home technologies including broadband-related services, residential gateways, home networks, digital entertainment and home management solutions.

"CONNECTIONS™ has always been about innovation in terms of delivering information and providing a unique networking and information forum for today's technology leaders," said Tricia Parks, president of Parks Associates. "Our 2003 conference is no different, as we will focus specifically on five knowledge areas expected to have immediate impact on the growth of this industry. We anticipate that attendees and sponsors alike will leave this year's show with a new perspective on this exciting market."

From the article "CONNECTIONS™ -- A Look at Home Networking's Near Future; 'The Digital Home Conference and Showcase' Focuses on Entertainment, Wireless Connectivity, Home Management and Innovations."
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