Will You Be Living the WiFi High Life?

[Andy Sjostrom]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.msnbc.com/news/980210.asp?vts=101420031538&cp1=1' target='_blank'>http://www.msnbc.com/news/980210.as...420031538&cp1=1</a><br /><br /></div>MSNBC runs an interesting article titled: <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/news/980210.asp?vts=101420031538&cp1=1">"Living the WiFi high life"</a>. It's a wireless network 101 if you feel that you need some overview orientation and futuristic inspiration! Personally, I am much more connected using WiFi with my Pocket PC 2003s than before. The new Connection Manager and built-in WiFi detection support makes it so much easier.<br /><br />"It's 2006, after dark on a December day. You pause before pulling your car out of the company parking lot, flip open your PDA and tell it to pull up your home's profile. YOU'VE BEEN MEANING to reset the heat. You say: "Family room floor: 72 degrees by 4:30 p.m.; master bedroom: 70 degrees by 10 p.m." Then, you do a virtual-check on dinner. Yes! The chops you marinated and chilled this morning soon will be baking at 350 degrees. Your home server already turned on the porch light at 5 p.m. and reminded your spouse to stop at the cleaners and cut off the cartoons at 5:15, switching the TV to the school's Internet channel so that your kids should be - hopefully - doing their homework by now."

[ctmagnus]

Integration is good, basing the integration on a pda :rock on dude!: !

[Sheynk]

and then MSBlast 2.0 comes along and set your chops to 500 degrees MUAHHAHA

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Integration is cool, just as long as it does not overcomplicate things

[T-Will]

and then MSBlast 2.0 comes along and set your chops to 500 degrees MUAHHAHA

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Integration is cool, just as long as it does not overcomplicate things

...or sets your family room thermostat to 500 degrees!!! :shocked!:

[szamot]

Right!?..all this in 3 years....dream on. I'd like it to be true but we all know what the reality of the situation is/will be.

[JustinGTP]

You never know, the last 100 years have been the most productive for us and techonlogy is coming in at a forever fast rate.

"Anything is possible, there are just degrees of difficulties"


-Justin :D

[freitasm]

Really?

These scenarios are exactly like the ones Ericsson and Nokia touted as the "3G" future: use your mobile to do this and that with voice activated commands. And they had this four years ago. Anyone seen these short movies with this guy waking up in the morning in the hotel with the beautiful female voice coming out of his mobile phone:

- Good morning John, you have a meeting at 10am. Do you want me to ask for a cab?
- Yes, and please confirm my return flight for after the meeting.
- Please wait a second - done
- And can you complete the check out and pay using my Amex # stored in the eletronic wallet?
- Done - I've moved the movie charges to your personal Amex.
- Thanks

Just the same thing with another networking technology. But they forget that Voice Activated is needed, a faster processor for this to work will be in demand, a really usable X.10 network at home. And what about remote connections? Ah, of course all homes will need a firewall.

It's all just more market hype. :evil:

[ctmagnus]

OT:

You never know, the last 100 years have been the most productive for us and techonlogy is coming in at a forever fast rate.

-Justin :D

And in the last 100 years, the Earth's population has tripled. 8O ;)

I see a corrolation. Do you? (just mho.)

techonlogy (from the quote)

That's sounds like electronic stuff for your nose :D

[maximus]

What really nice is, when you can just connect a 'mechanic chef' to your house's wifi.

In the morning, when reading newspaper, you can just click your PPC and ask the chef to make bacon n egg sandwiches, one for breakast, one to go. Two cups of frappucino, one for now, one to go.

During lunch, you buy a 'international gourmet cooking' CF card, so the mechanic chef can increase her cooking skills. Mechanic Chefs MUST have CF slot !

When you are 30 minutes away from home, ask the chef to cook a nice dinner consists of 300 grams tenderloin steak, salad, french fries, corn n crab soup, and several sausages to go with the soup.

And you can schedule your meal for a month ahead ... using scheduler on your PPC ...

When the fridge is almost empty, the chef automatically strolls to your preprogrammed supermarket ... buy the stuffs that you need ...

And of course the chef also do your laundry, clean your house, tidy your bed, etc. etc. .... the dream of a single male currently living alone behind enemy line *sigh*

[jgrnt1]

I think the problem with this is the size of the market. Until it is absolutely idiot proof and requires no, as in zero, computer knowledge to run, the market for it will be very small. We (PPC Thoughts visitors) are not average consumers. I would love to be able to walk into my house, say, "Living room lights, 72 degrees, Miles Davis, random play," and have everything work. Someday, I'm sure I will. But it will be something I have to piece together, or a hardware/software solution that requires lots of tweaking and maintenance. I won't mind this, but the average consumer would hate it and not buy it. The average consumer cannot even program his or her VCR.

My best friend bought a home theater-in-a-box. Everything was color coded and labeled. Each lead of every speaker wire was even a different color, which matched the connections on the back of the unit and the speakers. I had to set it up for him because he couldn't figure it out.

I built a media server PC for my home theater system -- small form factor, 80GB hard drive, digital audio out, S-video out to my HDTV, Musicmatch Jukebox and a wirelss Gyration Ultramouse/keyboard combo. I've got 30GB of mp3's on it. Step 1) Turn on the PC. It turns on the HDTV and sets it to the correct input. Step 2) Turn on the receiver and set it to CD. Step 3) The PC boots and brings up MMJB. Pick up the mouse, scroll through the list of music and pick what you want to play. Step 4) Click the play button......My wife hated it (and she is fairly computer literate). She was almost in tears, because I took away the CD jukebox. I had to hook it back up to the system and run the PC through the receiver's auxilliary input.

Stuff like this will sell only when the average person does not notice the technology behind it. I think we are a long way from that day.

[Sheynk]

I agree...the day we see this technology is the day the CUBS learn how to play baseball

im not a baseball fan....but this is just terrible.... Chicago used to be awesome...now our sport teams suck....except hokey

[Gremmie]

I'm not sure if I want WiFi running the household. I'll be standing there with my device looking at the thermostat wondering "Well, my PDA settings says it sees it, but when I open the program, it says there is no appliance found." I love WiFi for networking and such, but I always keep a long CAT5 cable around for the days that WiFi doesn't like to play along.

[Jason Dunn]

Stuff like this will sell only when the average person does not notice the technology behind it. I think we are a long way from that day.

Exactly, and very well said! Geeks care about the technology that drives things, regular people just care about it working properly. We're 10+ years away from computing that is this reliable and simple.

[Thinkingmandavid]

I agree, I care about it working properly,but most of the time it isnt that way. An example of that is my sony viao laptop. I have had it a year and a half and have sent it for servicing 4 times!!!!!!!!!! If you arent into technology, it can be so frustrating that you dont want it anymore. They are always trying to get ahead that they never 'perfect' what they have on the market. Hence the reason why microsoft is always offering patches.

[szamot]

I built a media server PC for my home theater system -- small form factor, 80GB hard drive, digital audio out, S-video out to my HDTV, Musicmatch Jukebox and a wirelss Gyration Ultramouse/keyboard combo. I've got 30GB of mp3's on it. Step 1) Turn on the PC. It turns on the HDTV and sets it to the correct input. Step 2) Turn on the receiver and set it to CD. Step 3) The PC boots and brings up MMJB. Pick up the mouse, scroll through the list of music and pick what you want to play. Step 4) Click the play button......My wife hated it (and she is fairly computer literate). She was almost in tears, because I took away the CD jukebox. I had to hook it back up to the system and run the PC through the receiver's auxilliary input.

Stuff like this will sell only when the average person does not notice the technology behind it. I think we are a long way from that day.

Introduce your wife to the Audrey - while it does not provide a HiFi sound quality it is easy to use, and when it does not work you simply unplug it and plug it back in. Start the MP3 player and off you go. Did I mention you can still find a new one for less than $100.00


Http://stoneraft.com/junk/audrey1s.jpg

[Jer]

Several hotels have already implemented similar systems into their hotel rooms. They run off of a remote control and control lightning, temp, etc. They're stable and reliable, therefore not on Winblows, but the technology is there. Tie that system into an internet connection...

[JustinGTP]

The Audrey was rated badly and isnt that popular, I watched a show and review about it and it was bad news :(

[jgrnt1]

szamot,

Thanks for the Audrey tip, but it wouldn't work for me. I'm a music nut (almost, but not quite, an audilphile snob); hence the digital out from my media server. I spent a lot of money on my home theater speakers. All my mp3's are high bitrate. I still have a turntable and my original discwasher, circa 1977. I use Bose 141's as my PC speakers.

Then again, my wife is happy listening to cassettes on a $30 boom box.

[szamot]

szamot,

Thanks for the Audrey tip, but it wouldn't work for me. I'm a music nut (almost, but not quite, an audilphile snob); hence the digital out from my media server. I spent a lot of money on my home theater speakers. All my mp3's are high bitrate. I still have a turntable and my original discwasher, circa 1977. I use Bose 141's as my PC speakers.

Then again, my wife is happy listening to cassettes on a $30 boom box.

I still have my Denon DAT DTR2000 player, and Mirage speakers and Sonic Frontiers tube amp, but for the kitchen counter Audrey is what the doctor ordered, not only does it serve up background music but also email and web access call display etc.. A lot of fun in a small box.

[tomtiguy]

They are always trying to get ahead that they never 'perfect' what they have on the market. Hence the reason why microsoft is always offering patches.

Windows is not trying to get ahead. They are ahead. They have virtually no competition. They can't convert Mac lovers so they might as well not try ... oh, wait, they don't. They need not better anything. Answer me this: what happens if they don't?