We take the ability to pour water into a cup for granted. Similarly, we're taking images, music, and video for granted. We treat this content like a liquid, pouring it around our homes via wired and wireless networks.
We're tapping the water mains—broadband networks—to get our share of the content. We carry it in containers like memory cards, homemade CDs or DVDs, MP3 players, PDAs, and laptops. And this trend is only accelerating as networks run faster and larger amounts of storage get shoehorned into ever smaller products.
Already, 1-in. micro disk drives from Seagate Technology, Hitachi Global Storage Technology, and Cornice can pack anywhere from 4 to 8 Gbytes of information. By the late third quarter of this year, drives with even higher capacities probably will be unveiled. Slightly larger 1.8-in. drives now offer up to about 60 Gbytes. Even higher densities loom on the horizon as drive vendors transition to perpendicular recording technology.
Flash-based memory cards already feature 1- and 2-Gbyte capacities. As the new 4- and 8-Gbit flash memory chips come off the production lines from Samsung, Toshiba, and other companies, cards will brandish even higher capacities. Gradually, these solid-state alternatives will replace the lower-density microdrive-based solutions.
FASTER SPEEDS Driving the need for more storage are today's lightning-speed Internet connections. Cable and ADSL modems allow us to download gigabytes of data in a few hours. For now, the water mains—the copper between homes and the central office—are showing their age in most locales. But over time, those connections will accelerate further as higher-speed xDSL modems, WiMAX wireless systems, Fiber to the Home (FTTH), and passive optical networks (PONs) become available, ultimately increasing the volume of data Internet service providers deliver to your door.
Once at the door, it takes faster gateways to increase the data flow into the home. The proposed higher data rates of 45 to 100 Mbits/s will enable multiple channels of streaming high-definition video to reach the home. But to pipe it around, today's 802.11b data rates of up to 10 Mbits/s must give way to speeds of 54 and 108 Mbits/s (802.11a, g, respectively) and possibly even 1 Gbit/s within the home, or perhaps just within a room using either wired Gigabit Ethernet links or short-distance Ultra-Wideband (UWB) transceivers.
That will radically change current download and media management scenarios. The hours to download a video today may turn into tens of minutes, while the minute or so to download an audio file will occur in the blink of an eye. The shorter download times will translate into more content transfers because it will be easy to pull together collections of audio and video to suit the moment.
Such heaping amounts of content will eventually put a strain on storage systems in the home. In response, multihundred-gigabyte drives will appear inside home media centers. Even terabyte-capacity, RAID-based network storage arrays will be common within the next five years.
Of course, many security issues arise when downloading content from various music and movie sites, as well as from the many peer-to-peer share sites. The entire issue of digital rights management (DRM) could fill volumes, and there are many aspects—both pro and con—to the many approaches. Studios and content creators want to protect their material and charge fees for viewing or listening. Users, of course, want unrestrained access to content and are mostly unwilling to pay for it.
Newer services such as iTunes from Apple Computer Inc., Rhapsody from RealNetworks, and others offer music tracks for less than a dollar as well as monthly subscription plans, giving consumers a legal avenue to build up their music collections. However, existing copy-protection approaches still have problems. Most users aren't really sure how to deal with DRM when they save files to their disk and then move the files to memory cards or portable players. This could become a particularly sticky wicket in trying to achieve a truly fluid media environment.
Microsoft's plan to get through the goo revolves around a certification program called PlayForSure. By precertifying the player hardware and the online digital music and video stores, users are guaranteed that the protected content will play on the devices on the certified list. A PlayForSure logo and categories for content are defined. When the download site displays the logo, users can be assured that the content will play on a certified player.
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