vickers2 - Refresher - "But the components are beautiful in another way: Plug them into a high-speed Internet connection, such as what Comcast or Verizon offers, and they can instantly establish a secure pathway to a corporation's main computers, called servers."
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The next generation of digital appliances interests Hollywood
By Michael Pollick
Tom Orr's going Hollywood.
Orr is a Sarasota inventor who patented a stackable set of computer components that avoids the need for lots of cables. He has been trying to turn this concept into a paying business proposition for six years.
Trouble was, he was trying to talk sense to computer equipment makers, who have a vested interest in the way components are plugged together in a rectangular metal box we call a personal computer.
It's a box whose form has changed very little since it was introduced 22 years ago by IBM.
Through a fortuitous chain of connections and affiliations, Orr's NextBend now appears to be finding its way into the hearts of people who have a real problem -- movie makers and television show producers.
They are dying to deliver movies and other forms of entertainment straight to the living room, and the technology is starting to reach the point where it is practical.
But they are understandably concerned about hackers and freeloaders, who could conceivably swamp the Internet with free copies of full-length movies.
"No provider wants to put his stuff out there otherwise, especially in a full-blown high-definition format," said Orr in a recent interview at his south Sarasota home.
NextBend has formed a cooperative venture with a leader in security software, Wave Systems.
Together, they may have a real solution -- a hacker-proof digital gateway that looks good next to the big-screen TV and is almost as easy to use.
"We don't even call it a computer anymore," said Orr, who is between a fall trip to Hollywood and another one for January. "It's a digital appliance."
'Trusted computing'
Sitting in Orr's living room, Mark Hewitt, a programming whiz who joined Orr in the NextBend business two years ago, has his feet up on the coffee table as he waves a wireless mouse through the air.
He is demonstrating the electronic innards that soon will be stuffed into the basic Internet gateway module of the NextBend system.
The pile is ugly, with lots of wires and boxes, and it looks even uglier because it is sitting next to the mocked-up model of what NextBend has in mind -- a sleek stack of components with only a power line and a communications cable coming out the bottom.
But the components are beautiful in another way: Plug them into a high-speed Internet connection, such as what Comcast or Verizon offers, and they can instantly establish a secure pathway to a corporation's main computers, called servers.
In this particular demonstration, Hewitt is watching Howard Dean TV and Model TV that he has slurped up over the Internet in high-definition color.
The picture is on a 42-inch plasma TV screen and it's as smooth as a baby's bottom.
Life began to get better for Orr and Hewitt in November 2002 at the big computer convention called Comdex, held in Las Vegas.
That show gained them two important new allies, the Nasdaq-listed Wave Systems and a Hollywood producer named David Pritchard.
The NextBend founders had already decided that they needed to make their prototype do something useful, like connect to the Internet. But they thought it would take many months and more money than they had.
Meanwhile, Wave and its Wavexpress subsidiary were exhibiting at the same show. The company is a leader in "trusted computing," the building of software and applications that include a high level of built-in security.
In the past, Wave's clients have been governmental and corporate, but now the company has started inching into the consumer market.
Wavexpress's system -- called "Embassy" -- combines a microchip and software to create a nearly hacker-proof digital receptacle, perfect for the digital appliance NextBend has in mind -- functionally a cross between a personal computer and a cable TV setup box.
Embassy has already gained the seal of approval from the "Trusted Computing Group," a bunch of heavy hitters including IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, Philips and Nokia. Wave is trying to create a hack-free environment for Web-based transactions such as movie distribution and sales, while cutting themselves in for a piece of the action.
Meanwhile, the company already is making entertainment waves with its TV Tonic software. It's the system that presidential candidate Howard Dean is using to create his own television network, now beaming broadcast-quality video programming into people's homes through the Internet.
TV Tonic turns any modern computer into a private video recorder.
A user leaves the computer on at night. It grabs the programs that have been subscribed to, such as Dean TV, and the next morning they are ready to view.
Wave is working on a remote control with its own little screen, too.
"At Comdex last year, it came to us that we had two pieces that went together very well," said Michael Sprague, chief technology officer of Wavexpress. "We have expected for a while that the PC functionality would eventually migrate to the living room. NextBend was the first to show us a really strong solution for that."
Now Wave and NextBend are working together to get the gateway module into prototype form.
Enter Mr. Hollywood
NextBend is holding out the promise of a digital appliance that looks good next to the wide-screen television in the living room, and that can run itself, without the homeowner having to worry about hackers or error messages.
Now, if only somebody would show up who could help them twist a few arms in Hollywood.
Three months ago, after hearing NextBend's pitch because of a separate deal in which he is involved, David Pritchard nominated himself to become one of NextBend's unpaid advisers.
Pritchard is a producer whose credits include episodes of "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill."
"I'm helping them develop strategic relations with the studios and networks, the content providers. They are the content providers. There is nobody else," Pritchard said.
In a telephone interview between meetings in New York, he rattled off the bare bones of what he has accomplished thus far on NextBend's behalf, without revealing the names of those involved. He arranged meetings with three major Hollywood studios "from both the content and the technology and distribution side."
"Two of them expressed real deep interest. One of them quite honestly didn't get it, and that is going to happen," Pritchard said.
The next step: Get those wiry innards that Hewitt has strung together packed into a NextBend module, and take it back to Hollywood.
"The studio guys we talked to said: 'If you can do what you say you can do, that is the Holy Grail.'"
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