Neomeme

At the turn of the 21st century, Internet Appliances, crippled computers to be used exclusively for web surfing were all the rage. They were supposed to appeal to women and old people and bring ubiquitous computing into the kitchen and the living room. Internet appliances failed miserably, because nobody wanted an underpowered computer that could only function for one single task. The market for these machines was composed of geeks, hackers, and early adopters, people who were much more likely to buy a full PC anyway, and, as computers became cheaper and more powerful, the concept of the appliance died a quiet death.

But now, in 2006, the appliance is making a comeback. In fact, appliance computers have stealthily installed themselves in millions of homes, hiding under TVs. I am talking, of course, about game consoles. Think about it- a modern game console like the Xbox 360 PS3 or Wii is a crippled computer, adapted for a single purpose- playing games. It has a hard drive, processor, memory, is Internet-connected, etc. The difference from the appliances of old, of course, is that game consoles have a killer app- the games. Any old computer can browse the Internet, but only Xbox 360 can play Gears of War. The game console, unlike a PC, remains crippled by design, and severely limited in its potential. Nonetheless, it does one task, and does it well.

I think the universal acceptance of the game console is a sign that we are moving towards more and more appliance-based computing. In the near future, each home will have a central server that routes data and has common shared drives, and a swarm of specialized appliance devices. The list of appliance computers is already quite large

• Internet tablets
• Media Center Extenders
• Media streamers like Slingbox
• Linux-powered routers, particularly those running open firmware like OpenWRT
• Cell phones
• Thin clients

All of these devices combined will eventually mean that, for the average consumer, a computer is no longer required. Why install Firefox when you can go online on any TV in your home with your Wii? Why struggle with Windows Media Center when your Tivo can record all of your shows with little to no effort on your part? Technology is coming full circle, back to the age of mainframes and dumb terminals. The televisions and cell phones we already have will become monitors in an always-on, always acessible network of media. The future is a lot closer than you think.