Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!ucbvax!ANDREW.CMU.EDU!ww0n+ From: ww0n+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU (Walter Lloyd Wimer III) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: ToasterNet (was: Computers In Disguise Aim For Wide Acceptance) Message-ID: Date: 6 Sep 90 21:59:11 GMT References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 95 I thought people might find this interesting. . . . ToasterNet may be closer than we think. Walt Wimer Networking and Communications Carnegie Mellon University ---------- Forwarded message begins here ---------- Return-path: Filename: 26e64ee3 Corporation: CCI T ZE T.VDO Industry: CPR CMT Government: Flags: P N J SequenceNum: 1809060536 Message-ID: From: DowJones@andrew To: bb+dow-jones@andrew Subject: Computers In Disguise Aim For Wide Acceptance Date: Thu, 6 Sep 90 06:45:32 -0400 (EDT) Lawrence Weiss, one of Citicorp's top technology executives, works at a desk surrounded by 14 boxes of "Underoos," kids' underwear cleverly packaged to look like superhero costumes. Weiss created Underoos in an earlier job and keeps them nearby as a reminder of the marketing principle behind them: The best new products are variations on comfortable old products. Today he is applying that lesson to a lumpy beige gadget that resembles an ordinary telephone. Citicorp is gambling it will catch on as a bank-at-home device better than an earlier system that let customers dial up their accounts via personal computer. This same philosophy is behind a cornucopia of products sneaking computing power into the home in the guise of more familiar devices. Other projects in the works use embedded computer technology to let people trade stocks on a Nintendo Co. game machine, receive written messages on an American Telephone & Telegraph Co. telephone, search databases of articles and listings on a television set and program household appliances with a television's remote control. Products such as these are crashing onto the turf of the personal-computer industry, which has long promised to make the PC as ubiquitous as a telephone or a TV. Right now, the PC industry is wooing the home market more aggressivel- y than ever, led by lavish new products from International Business Machines Corp. and Tandy Corp. These and other companies paint pictures of every household using a computer to send messages, read news, play games, bank and shop. PC makers scoff at the idea that simpler household gadgets could ever do these jobs. But so far home computers have shaped up as a narrow market. Only about a quarter of all American households have PCs. Most use their computers for limited, utilitarian tasks, such as writing or doing leftover office work. Now, instead of home computers becoming household items, household items are turning into home computers. "People said there were going to be two or three computers in every home like there are two or three telephones," says A.C. Markkula, an Apple Computer Inc. founder and present vice chairman. "They're right, but the physical implementation isn't what they had in mind. Instead of having three things that look like PCs, people will have many pieces of equipment that are in essence PC technology but are buried in refrigerator doors, and lighting systems, and VCRs and TVs and CD players and telephones." Markkula has founded a new Silicon Valley company called Echelon Corp., which is working on ways to link all the hidden microchips in a home or commercial building into one communications and control network. Echelon won't say more about its products until it unveils them later this year. Right now the most promising buried PCs are showing up inside telephones. In a Citicorp pilot program, about 400 customers already are using the home-banking phone, which has a little screen, a hidden keyboard and microchips that let it handle all manner of banking tasks. The bank says it wants to ship hundreds of thousands more of the phones over the next few years, though it won't dislose a specific timetable. The unit lets a user transfer funds, buy certificates of deposit and send anyone a check. Eventually, the bank plans to let customers check stock quotes and trade securities. AT&T is working on a rival product dubbed SmartPhone, which it is promoting as the standard telephone of the future. SmartPhone, slated for a 1992 introduction, has a small screen and built-in software for adding customized programs. For instance, AT&T says, a customer could set the phone so that pressing one button would place an order for his usual pizza, or his usual seats at a baseball game.