I always hear people like Bill Gates talk about how the home computer, the internet and your TV...?

Question

will be an interconnected sort of "all-in-one" thing for your house but why hasn't really caught on yet? They've been saying it for more than 5 years now.

Oops. I left out "it" in between "hasn't" and "really" LOL

Answer 1

This is called "convergence". Many companies are working on it, but since it is a brand-new way of doing things, no one knows exactly what will or won't work. There are standards issues, issues about what consumers may or may not buy, etc. All will be solved eventually, but it is a long and hard road. For now, it is more hype and hope than reality, and has been for years now, like you say.

The future: Imagine your home with a variety of inputs - cable wires, telephone, radio and TV signals on antennas - all feeding into one central storage place, which can then be replayed on any device in your house - your main living room TV, the computer screen in the den, your portable video device, the screens in the car, etc. This is the logical destination for consumer electronics technology today.

Right now: We are not there yet. Our homes have several inputs, but they all go to separate storage devices (the VCR, computer hard disc, maybe a DVR) which only display on specific devices - the computer or the TV mostly. Right now, it is very hard for me to take video I've downloaded off of the Internet and watch it on my TV for instance. Or to watch a show from cable on my PC or iPod.

What's changing: devices like Apple TV are starting to bridge the gap. It lets you watch video stored on your computer on your TV, using your house's computer network to transfer the data. Many devices are on the market that try to be the "hub" for all of this - Microsoft's Media Center PCs and the Sony PlayStation 3 come to mind.

No one's found the magic formula yet. It will be fun to see how this plays out. I for one can't wait - life will be easier.

Answer 2

it's all a bunch of crap honestly. you know how to converge all this stuff? buy a tv tuner for your computer. voila. everything through the same screen. you can either watch tv in a window on your computer, or blow it up full screen. the nice thing about a tv tuner is some of them allow you to save to your hard drive, using your computer as a tivo-like device. you can also burn to dvd if you have a dvd burner & program. elgato makes the eyetv which looks pretty good. another company makes something called a Slingbox. google is your friend (err i mean, yahoo.. yeah..)

the REAL issue here is the music & film companies are so worried about privacy they don't want this to happen & often block content. this is why the computer companies are having a hard time converging everything into a cohesive unit. i also think they want to be careful & not develop something that they'll get sued over (which will benefit their competition.)

Answer 3

Bill Gates is boring to listen to. I keep expecting words of wisdom coming in from him but I struggle to keep awake when he talks.