The Digital Home (No Myth... Hopefully) part 2

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For years we’ve been lulled to sleep with dreams of “Ultra” technology like the Concept Refrigerator than is so smart it tells you when your running low on Milk or Cheese, not only that, but also it could actually order the products for you. Finally, Robust and sexy technology that makes Tomorrowland look like a hallucination of some weird fascist cartoonist who shall remain nameless.

Alas, the closest anyone has actually gotten to this is, the one or two fridges with built in TV’s (not sure about you, but in my opinion that is a long way away from my Safeway.com fridge). The promises of this awe-inspiring tech have been just that, promises. Thinly veiled pornography for the inner geek, en masse.

For over a decade now Microsoft and selected partners have been trying to make these concepts and dreams come true. The majority of earlier results have had relatively poor outcomes. Heck, I even own a computer named a “Digital Living System,” which does nothing in the way to digitize any of my living, if you don’t count giving me a digital headache in another room.

However, this time they seem to have gotten the hint and forged some real alliances. HP and their MediaSmart Server for example (so secretive they blanked out information on it, during the Keynote Web-cast), numerous other offerings and of course the Microsoft Xbox 360.

The MediaSmart Server and the Xbox seem to be the two devices that your new home is built around in the new world according to Garp… err, Bill. Not only will your Xbox controller be able to control your computer, but also navigate through many Microsoft services like the growing number of Windows Live sites.

If Bill and his brethren want to really drive creation and get consumers blood pumping, he needs to take a lesson from (of all places) Apple and Steve Jobs. Last Year at Macworld, Jobs made the statement that Apple would have Intel processors up and running in all their computing offerings in 12 months, they did it in about 7.

Now I’m not so naive to think that the Windows camp can start a revolution in a little over half a year, but if Microsoft can at least BEGIN to deliver something truly amazing in that time. This year’s trip to Sin City would have paid for itself.

Don’t just listen to me, check it out for yourself at the address below, and tell me what you think.

http://www.microsoft.com/winme/0701/29031/ces.asx

Or watch Jobs deliver his (I still say his delivery smokes Gates')

http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/j47d52oo/event/

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