Intel looks home - Broadband Content

Cable World, Jan 1, 2001 by Richard Cole

Send streaming video from your computer to your television. Or music files from your stereo to a personal computer or an MP3 player. That movie in the DVD player can be watched on your PC monitor in the next room. Call from work and use your telephone to turn on the microwave.

All made possible by a single box.

Home networking is Intel's vision of the future, and Gerhard Parker, EVP and GM of Intel's New Business Group, says that future could be arriving soon -- possibly even early this year.

The Silicon Valley chip giant rolled out a demo of a networking box at last month's Streaming Media West show in San Jose, Calif. But Intel is coy about what role the company might play in developing or marketing a home networking appliance.

"There's a lot of people kind of sniffing around the space," is all Intel spokesman Bill Calder would say.

Whatever boxes do eventually appear will have ready-made software support through Windows' new Millenium operating system.

The box Intel displayed was equipped with Universal Plug and Play. Any compatible device plugged in by cable, phone line or Ethernet connection instantly announces itself to the network and then configures itself.