Group Seeks To Simplify Home Networking

The Digital Home Working Group will not create new technologies but instead issue guidelines.

"Consumers have been asking for this ability to simply capture all that digital information and share it, use it and enjoy it on the devices they want to," said Louis Burns, general manager of Intel Corp.'s Desktop Platform Group.

Incompatible software and hardware, frequently the handmaiden of competition, has stymied such efforts in the past.

The new group ambitiously expects to issue guidelines by the end of the year and release products by late 2004. Organizers say compliant products will sport a logo indicating they meet the group's guidelines for interoperability.

Unlike many standards-setting bodies, participating companies span a range of industries. Along with chip-maker Intel, the companies include Sony Corp., Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp., Gateway Inc., Nokia Corp. and others.

Organizers see the guidelines, based on existing standards such as Wi-Fi for wireless networking, HTTP for content distribution and others, affecting PCs, TVs, printers, stereos, set-top boxes, mobile phones, handheld computers, DVD players and more.

Eventually, the group plans to involve other industries, such as automobiles.

The group also plans to tackle digital rights management, which movie studios, music labels and other content providers are promoting to protect against piracy.

A major headache for consumers has been that such protections in one particular type of device such as a computer aren't supported on other devices.