Connecting the home networking dots

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TiVo boxes access and distribute content such as music files and digital photos stored on the hard drives of computers, streaming them to television sets or stereos via wired or wireless home networks.

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Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, sold by Hewlett-Packard and others, positions PC at the center of the home network. Sales have picked up but are still relatively modest.

Those PCs add a second interface for accessing content such as music, photos and DVDs via remote controls. Media PC owners can also watch TV and record programs to the PC's hard drive using digital video-recording features similar to TiVo's.

Intel and Microsoft have also begun efforts to jump-start the development of a host of new devices that connect to home networks and share multimedia files with PCs. Ultimately, some of these new devices will be able to play back television shows, the companies have said.

Video games have become a growing influence in the installation of home networks. Both Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PlayStation 2 have built-in Ethernet ports for connecting to the Internet to play online games. Doing so can be as simple as extending a cable from a router, but many gamers opt for Wi-Fi setups to extend an Internet connection from one room to the next.

Microsoft, which has signed up more than 1.4 million subscribers for its Xbox Live online game service, is promoting deeper connections with Xbox "Extender Kits" that hook up the game console to a PC running Windows XP Media Center, turning the Xbox into a conduit for displaying photos, videos and other media content stored on the PC.

Thinking big
Other companies, such as Intel, have been working on a larger approach to integrating networking technology into homes.

Recently, Intel made health one of five areas it will focus on in coming years. The Digital Health Group will develop products and explore business opportunities for Intel architecture products in health care research, diagnostics and productivity, as well as personal health care. The division is part of an effort first conceived of in 1999.

Intel researchers surveyed consumers asking what they wanted from their digital homes. Many respondents said easier access to digital entertainment, but a significant number asked for something more useful and potentially more challenging.

The company started projects and trials in 2002, using home networking technology to aid in the early detection of mental illness, such as Alzheimer's disease, in the elderly. The company is also working to help caregivers more closely monitor the health of seniors.

"I joke that we started with digital entertainment and we ended up with dementia," said Eric Dishman, director of proactive health research at Intel. "There's more to networking than broadband and video on demand."

Intel has been using several different types of networking technologies, including sensors, wireless and wired, in its health care projects.

Networking is hard
The challenge is getting the different networks to work together and in such a way that is easy for non-technical people to understand.

Stone, the Web designer, said he's experienced high demand for his networking knowledge. He's set up wired and wireless networks for family members and even agreed to share his broadband connection with a neighbor across the street in exchange for beer.

"There's more to networking than broadband and video on demand."

--Eric Dishman,
Intel

More recently, he's been tinkering with sharing multimedia files over his network, mostly accessing his digital music files on his PC with his TiVo digital video recorder using Home Media Option.

Unfortunately, he said, he believes many of these advanced home networking applications are still too complex for most people.

"That's the problem with much of this stuff," Stone said. "In theory, everything should work together, but nothing works seamlessly."

Home Networking - not ready for prime time

There have to be 100,000's of Larry's across the country, I am one of them. I have 2 neighbors right now I am helping on home networking add that to the other 5 over the last 2 yrs.

They all end up saying, "how is the typical home owner supposed to do this?" these are college educated upper middle class folks - they could shell out the $100/hr for computer fix it van to come out but they have heard it is simple and have gotten stuck. As we all know it is not plug a phone into a jack and go type of world. They all hear about WI-FI and think that should be simple - and find out yeaks - how come I am getting 3 wi-fi networks in my house when I only have 1.

Been a long time since I used Mac's - back then they seemed to have figured out plug-n-play networks. If it is still true then I would love to tell people - buy a MAC, dump AOL-DSL and your set. But that is not what it should take (still dump AOL-DSL however - a proprietary snake-pit).

And of course what makes it more interesting now after Christmas are the kids that want to do internet gaming on X-box or PS-2. I thought all these teenagers were supposed to be computer geeks?

I dont have a solution, just facts that you still need someone to setup a home network and it should not take a $100/hr tech person - it should be $200 and then I would quite my day job! HA!

That's a pretty big market...

A billion wireless routers shipped last year? At that rate every
person on the planet will have one in another five years. What
are we going to do with them all? Or is there some hyping going
on here?

networking NOT on windows...

just buy a few macs, they network just fine with no problems at
all. i don't see what all the fuss is about :-D Ok ok, I do. I tried
to network my xp laptop to my xp desktop a year ago and it was
impossible, never worked right. Now with my ibook and
powermac, I haven't had a problem yet. Just setup a WDS
throughout my whole house, networked my printer and even
have a network based KVM piece of free-ware that...all in about
30 min. try that on xp.

Same here

I use an Apple AirPort Extreme base station to access a pinter
and broadband Internet anywhere in my home from my iBook
G4. As soon as I can afford it I'll put an AirPort Express behind
my entertainment centre to stream music direct to the Hi-Fi
from iTunes. Also on my wish list:
A Blue Tooth phone so that I only need to update my Address
Book once.
And a WiFi enabled PDA to get e-mails on the road from
hotspots.

I'm also pondering a Mac mini as a kind of D.I.Y. Media Centre
device, but that's beyond the scope of the average user.

The most tedious part was torturing my PC into joining the
network. Now I have everything I need on the iBook I never
power up the PC anymore. It'd be put to greater as a Linux file
server, if only I had somewhere to put it where I wouln't hear it's
incessent fan noise.

[catchall]

ya right

Right, 2 clicks on the PC is ugly and complex. 2 clicks on the Mac is intuitive.
Making a home network with Windows boxes is easy, kids. Right click what you want to share, choose 'sharing'. A wizard walks you right through it.
That having been said, regardless of what machine you build you home network out of, folks need to understand what they are sharing and to who. That little wireless router will be happy to share your files, as well as your connection, with your neighbors.