Digital home: Understand Intel’s vision for the digital home. This document provides you with key information to build product roadmaps. Get the details you need to start developing for the future digital home—where ease-of-use, mobility, and functionality play big roles in the consumer experience.

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Intel’s vision for the digital home consists of interoperable devices that enable consumers to easily acquire, share, and enjoy a wealth of digital content within and outside of the home. During the last few years, the industry has made great strides toward achieving this vision. The communications infrastructure to the home and within the home has grown rapidly: over 150 million households worldwide now have broadband access to the internet and over 40 million have home networks. Standards such as the 802.11 standard have become established and are providing new connectivity options for consumers. By 2008, the number of public hotspots worldwide will grow to about 250,000. Content protection technologies have been developed to support innovative business models and are enabling content owners to confidently convert more and more content into digital formats. In 2004 alone, the available music catalog doubled from 500 thousand songs to over one million songs.

The opportunity for digital applications and content lies in the untapped potential before us. By 2010, 85 percent of U.S. households will have a mobile phone, 53% will own a laptop, 37 percent will use DVR to gain control over television and 35 percent will take music and audio programming on the go with an MP3 player. Broadband access to the internet will more then double this decade to reach 71 million households as DSL, cable, and WIMAX fight for shares. Home networking is poised to accelerate as DSL and cable providers offer wireless home networks to lock in their broadband customers. The digital home is still in an early stage, with vast potential for growth.

The next hurdle to achieving the digital home vision is simple and seamless access to content at anytime, from anywhere, on any device. Making the 2006 digital home vision a reality requires a transparent infrastructure that frees users from concerns about where digital content is stored, how it is delivered, or the format used.

Intel is working with the industry to create an intelligent, interoperable computing environment in which information and content can be simply and seamlessly accessed throughout the home and on the go. Achieving this level of transparency requires continued business and technical innovation. Intel SSPR 2006 focuses on these key themes:

• Seamless access to and sharing of information and content across multiple PC’s, consumer electronics, and portable devices in the home.
• Seamless access to, and portability of, content while on the go.
• Innovative business models to support the evolving needs of the anytime, anywhere model.

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