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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Salah Mohamed who wrote (88836)	1/12/2001 6:53:33 PM
From: hlpinout	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Pull 'Strings!' Get Your PC to 'Talk' to Other Things David Coursey, Executive Editor, AnchorDesk It is always a challenge getting different sides to talk to one another, Democrats and Republicans, men and women, or home computers and appliances. Computers and appliances? Sure! Your television, computer, stereo, even your fridge and microwave, all have things to say to one another -- just no way to do it. What they need is a common language to communicate with each other and their human commanders. They also need a way to share resources, so that one device can do work for another when called upon -- a computer might, for example, process video and send it to a portable device whose processor lacks the horsepower to do the work by itself. At the Consumer Electronics Show the other day I ran into a company that's building just such a world. BeComm is a Seattle company where ex-Microsoft exec Edward Balassanian and a team of 25 (mostly) engineers are working on connecting various information appliances and computers together. The way they do this is with software called Strings, the individual components of which are called Beads. OK, it's cute, but it's an apt metaphor for software that uses only the individual functions it needs to get a particular job done, maybe even using a different machine. At CES, BeComm was showing Strings running on a Compaq iPAQ handheld. The Compaq was running full motion video. Strings provided the video player for the iPAQ and managed the wireless connection to a nearby PC, which was doing the heavy-duty work of processing the video. As part of a deal with Intel, Strings is also already being used to off-load processing from similar small devices onto Intel-based desktops and notebooks. In this way a tiny computer could ask the Intel-box to do work it couldn't manage on its own. How's it work? Strings provides communications and user interface elements that can run on a variety of devices. The device uses only the Beads it needs -- in this case, to just play the video on the handheld. Balassanian offered some other examples of how Strings is being used: To watch a TV program on a black-and-white PDA, the software would take a stream of digital television from a set-top box, remove the color, reformat the picture and then transmit it to the PDA. BeComm's office telephones are already controlled by Strings technology, handling call routing to desks, homes and cell phones as required. It also provides a link connecting the voice mail and email systems, allowing workers to listen to text messages as well. When Balassanian calls home, Strings lets him connect to his television and listen to live audio. Balassanian expects String-based products to be on store shelves later this year. Users won't necessarily recognize his company's contributions to the devices, but they will open a new dimension to home entertainment and computing. There are some limitations, however. Strings requires a 32-bit processor to run, which will keep it out of low-end devices and home appliances (as opposed to information appliances or entertainment devices) for now. There's also competition in this market, both from Microsoft and Sun, whose touted Jini technology does some, but not all, of what Strings is supposed to do. There's no way for me to say who will win these battles and the many more yet to come. But BeComm has definitely pulled some "Strings" in getting us on the road to the "Smart Home" of the future. Talkback: Post your comment here Sounds great, but will it reall... - Ken Davis But who wants to watch a bottle... - Mike Perry