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In Praise of Dumb Gadgets

At this year's CES, an obsessive focus on smart gadgets that do everything obscured an equally important trend: dumb gadgets that stream everything.

Michael Stroud
01.26.05

Most of us came away from CES with a massive case of PC-itis—the obsessive notion that the more computing power and media you cram into ever-more-personal devices, the cooler and more groundbreaking the product. So we didn't fully digest the meaning of a countervailing development at the show: the growing ability of even relatively dumb gadgets like mobile phones and PDAs to access music, videos, images, and other media stored somewhere else.

Why is this important? Because if those devices and services are offered to consumers at a reasonable price, they could spell big trouble for manufacturers whose business plans revolve around building the smartest devices with the biggest hard drives or the most flash memory.

If I can access live television, video, and my entire music and photo collection from my home PC, using my Nokia or iPAQ, do I really need to invest an extra $499 in an iRiver or Creative Labs portable media center? For that matter, do I even need an iPod?

This ain't science fiction, folks. Those are exactly the capabilities that Orb Networks demonstrated with its "personal media portal" at CES. If you have a Windows Media Center PC at home, you can download the service for $9.99 a month (or $79.99 a year) from www.orb.com, and access your content from virtually any device that has an internet connection and a web browser. The company says its service will work on Windows XP computers within the next few months.

Palo Alto-based GlooLabs Inc. has developed a similar software solution. Standing on the show floor, CEO David Arfin used GlooNet and Pocket Tunes Deluxe software to stream the Bee Gees' "Disco Inferno" at 30 kps from his home PC through his Treo 600 speakers. Tinny, yes. But how do you think it would sound with some Bose headphones over the 200 kps to 400 kps 3G network Cingular plans to roll out later in the year?

"You don't have to have new hardware and fancy new software" to access a home music, photo, or video collection, Arfin says. "You have it in your pocket right now. The core notion is that you need to be able to build your own personal extranet."

Why stop with accessing your favorite content from your home PC? You can now stream content from commercial servers to your favorite mobile device. For mobile phones, there's TV content from Verizon or Sprint. (See last week's column, "Here Comes the TV Phone.") Since December, Sprint has offered six channels of Music Choice music, music videos, and artist interviews; and in Europe, the Sony StreamMan service lets consumers stream their favorite hits.

As WiFi-equipped phones and PDAs become standard in the next year or so, don't be surprised if you see people listening to their favorite songs from on-demand services like Rhapsody while sipping a latte at Starbucks.

You get the idea. Why pay thousands of dollars to fill up a 40-gigabyte hard drive with songs when you can just stream them for a few extra bucks a month added to your cell phone or internet bill? Keep in mind, too, that mobile phone companies and telcos, as I've mentioned previously, are eager for new revenue streams to replace lost voice revenues. Streaming content is a no-brainer.

Granted, there are people who willingly pay through the nose to own the coolest devices, possess their own content, and take it with them everywhere. (If you've read this far, you're probably one of them. So am I, so help me).

But unlike you and me, most people don't care whether their devices are smart or dumb. They don't care whether their content streams or resides in their hard drives. They just want their music, video, and pictures—instantly and inexpensively. They like MP3 players with big hard drives and lots of flash memory; but they'll spring just as quickly for streaming media, too.

Which is why—since none of us knows how this digital media thing is really going to shake out—you're going to see mobile phones with monster hard drives and MP3 players with wireless capabilities in the months ahead. It's enough to make you bipolar.

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