A proposal for a unified digital platform

The evolution of home entertainment and computing mirrors an increasingly digital and networked lifestyle of the new millennium. From digital direct broadcast satellite (DBS) to digital cable to digital TV (DTV) to digital personal video recorder (PVR), the living room is going digital. The home PC is also morphing into a multimedia machine that can do more interesting things such as gaming, photo and video editing and playback. Then there are information appliances for everything on the Internet, from Web surfing to online shopping to travel planning. The digital platform is a technical proposal for a new architecture for home entertainment and computing. It is motivated by the fact that today's consumer electronics (CE) appliances are simple, reliable, but less flexible and extensible. On the other hand, the PC is extremely flexible and extensible because of its open architecture, but more complex and less reliable. The design of the digital platform is also influenced by the emergence of hypermedia content.