After years of introducing a confounding array of features that put consumers through the blinking 12:00 syndrome, makers of high-tech gadgetry are operating under a new premise this year: Less is more.
As evidenced by last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, TVs are wider, flatter and thinner, while camcorders and digital cameras are shrinking so much that they are nearly microscopic.
But the most striking feature of the countless products hitting the market this year goes well beyond cosmetics. What Microsoft Corp., Pioneer Corp., Panasonic, TiVo Inc., RealNetworks Inc. and many other companies hope to do is appeal to consumers with the prospect that the new gizmos will bring order to lives wearied by multitasking and techno clutter.
For people who are running out of drawer space for their camcorder, digital camera, radio and microrecorder, there is a palm-size device by Panasonic that performs all four functions.
For people who don’t have enough room in their pockets or purses for their cell phones and their electronic organizers, there is a device by Samsung Electronics Co. that does both and plays music videos.
For those who are daunted by the effort to connect their TV, cable or satellite system, DVD and CD players as well as their VCR (and not to mention programming them), there are systems offered by Pioneer, Moxi, TiVo and others to control everything. Some of those systems also provide Internet access and digitally store, catalog and sort music, photos and home videos.
And for those too busy to keep up with their house, Microsoft and OnStar are offering systems to monitor and regulate the heating and air-conditioning, lights, security system and other mechanics from a single source at home or from the car. In OnStar’s system, a driver can get a message that the garage door was left open. Through a simple voice command in the car, the person can close the garage door from miles away.
So instead of having to organize and manage an array of incompatible devices and systems, these new, integrated technologies are designed to organize and manage you.
“Consumers are saying, `I’ve got a busy life. I don’t want to be overloaded with a lot of options I don’t understand,'” said Ted Malone, director of product marketing for TiVo, the television service that among other things allows consumers to pause live TV and program their TV sets to record shows for future viewing.
Last week, the company announced a partnership with RealNetworks that will allow customers to copy, categorize and arrange their CD collections through the service. “Consumers are demanding smart tools to help them manage their lives,” Malone said.
The digital difference
The stage for the spate of integrated products was set by the tremendous acceptance of digital technology, which makes the innovations possible.
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, the DVD is the fastest-growing consumer electronics product of all time. Despite the recession, sales of DVD players last year reached 13 million, a 53 percent increase. Sales of digital televisions rose 65 percent between August 2000 to August 2001. The association projects sales of digital TVs will climb to 10.5 million in 2006, up from 1.4 million in 2001.
By the end of this year, experts believe that sales of digital cameras will reach 7 million, a 30 percent increase.
Moreover, experts predict that sales of products linking TVs with the Internet will increase to $5 billion in 2005 from $100 million in 2000.
“Digital technology allows consumers to store more information, manipulate it in a more useful fashion and to take the content with them wherever they go,” said Tim McNamara, spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association.
“In the near future, you’ll see technology that is better, smaller and more portable,” he said. “We’ll see more wireless and need fewer and fewer wires to connect things.”
Improving the home theater
A plethora of companies have emerged this year with products aimed at organizing the home theater–often a jumble of wires, boxes and incompatible music and video systems.
Pioneer, Microsoft and a new company called Moxi Digital Inc., established by former Apple Computer Inc. scientist and WebTV Networks founder Steve Perlman, each are offering systems that would consolidate all electronic entertainment functions into a single unit. The unit allows users to copy into the system 1,500 CDs and thousands of digital photos and home videos for easy cataloging and sorting.
During demonstrations last week, company representatives showed how consumers can conduct modern slide-show presentations on their TV screens and PCs, accompanied by their favorite songs culled from that same system. The unit also will allow them to edit their family vacations and other videos, cutting away the boring parts.
Using wireless speakers, multifunctional TVs, PCs and Ethernet connections, consumers can turn their entire house into an entertainment center.
“Surveys show that 70 percent of people want access to music in every room of the house,” said Jeremy Toeman, co-founder of Mediabolic Inc., which is providing the software for Pioneer’s Digital Library product.
“This will give you entertainment anywhere, anytime,” Toeman said. “It’s very consumer oriented–it’s not too futurey.”
Although tech experts believe consumers will embrace the entertainment products, they’re not so sure about some of the innovations related to the PC and physical plant of the house.
Freeing the PC
Microsoft, along with such partners as Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp. and Samsung, is developing a flat, one-piece computer monitor that can be carried from room to room as easily as a magazine. Officials working on the product, code-named Mira, hope the monitor can liberate the PC, like the cordless phone liberated calling.
“We want to bring the PC in a natural setting,” said Aubrey Edwards, director of Microsoft’s embedded and appliance platforms group. “You don’t live in your office.”
The company is developing another product–which could go on the market this year or early next year–that would further expand the innovations in multimedia integration. TVs would be equipped to receive e-mail and phone calls. And consumers would be able to use their phones from work or elsewhere to program their TVs to record their favorite programs.
Microsoft’s most ambitious effort, though, involves management of a house’s physical plant. Microsoft this year plans to introduce a home management system called Icebox, operated by a PC monitor attached to a cupboard in the kitchen.
Besides sending e-mail, the monitor can receive TV and radio broadcasts and, in conjunction with cameras installed throughout the house, can be used to check on children. The system can be set to turn on lights, the TV and the heat at a certain time and raise and lower window shades, as well as alerting family members about a refrigerator door left open or appointments.
“One of the chores my teenage son is tasked with is to take out the trash Wednesday mornings at 6,” said Dan Quigley, chief executive of Premise Systems Inc., which provides the software for the product.
“The system will send him a reminder e-mail the night before and a message to his pager,” Quigley said. “If he doesn’t make it out of bed, he’ll get a computer-synthesized voice over the speakers saying, `Richard, you need to take out the trash.’ If he still doesn’t move, the system will turn on the lights and the music in his room and call his cell phone to wake him up.”
Too much for comfort?
But at what point will consumers feel overloaded and overwhelmed, that too much control and connectedness are not so good after all?
Officials at OnStar, a security service that uses global positioning system and voice-activated wireless technology to link drivers of certain General Motors vehicles with a 24-hour help desk, are embarking on a four-month pilot project to find out.
They want to learn whether consumers would embrace a home security system that would allow users–while at work or in the car–to set their thermostats, monitor security, turn lights on or off, lock or unlock front doors, raise or close garage doors and more.
“In the aftermath of Sept. 11, we think there might be some interest. But we don’t pretend to know for certain that this will be well-received,” said Tony Berra, president of Internet Home Alliance, the non-profit company set up by OnStar to run the home security program.
“We want to know from customers how much value does this provide you?” he said. “Do you use this? How much money would you be willing to pay?”
