Personal Tech: Getting PCs ready for the family room

It would appear that Intel has finally gotten the point that so many other hardware companies continue to miss. There is a ripe market out there largely ignored by the PC industry. While they claim that moves are being made to include the family, to date Apple and Intel seem to be the only ones who truly ‘get it’ right now.

Nobody wants a ragged piece of living-room furniture, much less clumsy and ugly electronics. So computer makers have had trouble selling noisy and tall PCs with their complicated software as the backbone for a home entertainment center. In response, Intel last week said it is working to give computers some of the sheen and simplicity of a DVD player.

Start with the on-off switch. Few consumers have the patience to wait for Microsoft Windows to boot up when they just want to hear a favorite song or watch a scene from a movie. In a presentation to a technical conference, Intel—which supplies chips for most of the world’s personal computers—demonstrated a media PC that turns on and off instantly. Other new features include software that can play the dozens of digital video formats out there and “multicore” chips that can keep playing the movie even if another program crashes that was, say, simultaneously sending music to a stereo in the next room. Intel is selling the chips and concepts to PC makers, which are expected to release models early next year, some in small boxes that resemble DVD players. [Read the rest]