New Products Demonstrate PC as Home Hub

A remote control for the PC and a “smart” display with built-in wireless connectivity to a PC are among the products that Microsoft hopes will turn the PC into a hub for entertainment and communication. Displayed during Chief Software Architect Bill Gates’s keynote speech at the Jan. 2002 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the products are still in the preproduction stages. Nonetheless, they point to future opportunities for hardware manufacturers that support Microsoft’s vision of the connected home.

Freestyle and Mira Demonstrated

Freestyle is the code name for a new PC remote control and an accompanying software update to Windows XP. The update will deliver a new Windows interface designed to be usable from up to 10 feet away on a standard PC monitor (or PC-connected TV screen). Microsoft believes it will be most useful for digital media applications, such as listening to music or watching video with the Windows Media Player, viewing digital images with others, or watching TV shows with the addition of a TV tuner card. Freestyle is the first product announced by the eHome division, which was created in Feb. 2001 to extend PC-based entertainment and communications applications to other devices in the home. OEMs Hewlett-Packard, NEC, and Samsung have announced they will support Freestyle, although Microsoft has not announced whether the OEMs will be building the remote control units, or simply offering them with new PCs.