Tech Talk: Home Entertainment Systems
Thursday, May 19, 2005
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Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates today ended some of the mystery surrounding the next release of the market dominating productivity software package Microsoft Office. The current version, known as Office 2003, is nearly two years old. Gates today told people attending his ninth annual CEO summit they will begin testing the next version late this summer, and expect the product to be released at the end of next year.
Easier collaboration for workgroups within companies and between companies over secure Internet connections will be a goal of the next version of Office. A reminder that you have to be careful of the collaboration and group editing functions of products like Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. The Defense Department recently released a report on the killing of an Italian diplomat in Iraq with some parts blacked out. Reporters discovered they could remove the edits, exposing information like the rules of engagement, which the military wanted to keep secret. Make sure you clean up your documents before you release them.
There are many so-called "media hubs" on the market, all designed to bring entertainment from media server computers to any room in the house. I`ve had problems with every one I`ve tried until I met the Sonos digital music system. The $500 wireless zone player contains its own amplifier. All you need to add are speakers. The $400 wireless controller has a color screen and scroll wheel and can manage any number of players in groups or individually.
"It basically pulls the music off of your computer and passes it wirelessly to all the different rooms in your house and allows you to control it wirelessly, too. So you don`t have to point this at anything. You can just actually, you know, sit back in your bed and turn on music for the night, or you can sit in the living room and turn on music in the whole house without having anything more than just this little handheld controller," said Thomas Cullen, co-founder, Sonos.
The Sonos system is not cheap, but it is less expensive than the wired whole-house entertainment systems installed in high end homes.
Note: this appeared on Nightly Business Report broadcast on May 19, 2005.
