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CNN Saturday Morning News
Steve Kruschen Discusses the Latest High-Tech Toys
Aired March 23, 2002 - 08:50 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Not long ago -- as a matter of fact, about an hour ago -- we showed you some cool products. One of them literally sucked. It was a vacuum cleaner. Anyway...
STEVE KRUSCHEN, "MR. GADGET": You like doing that, don't you?
O'BRIEN: Yes, I know, I...
KRUSCHEN: You live for lines like that.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: He loves, yes, he lives -- corny puns to, you know, throwing you off. Steve Kruschen...
O'BRIEN: Hey, I know the drill.
Steve Kruschen is back. You can call him Mr. Gadget, if you like. Nice to see you again, sir.
KRUSCHEN: Yes.
O'BRIEN: You've got some good stuff.
KRUSCHEN: Yes. I've got some more good stuff. This is a conceptual product that's coming some time later in the year from Compaq. Now, let me set this up for you.
O'BRIEN: Wait a minute. What does conceptual mean...
PHILLIPS: I hear...
O'BRIEN: That means it won't work?
KRUSCHEN: Well, in other words, that means it works in the lab and it works, I've seen it, but the finished product isn't quite ready.
O'BRIEN: OK.
KRUSCHEN: So we're going to introduce the technology just because I'm really excited about it. And this is the home entertainment web from Compaq. And here's how it all works. You get a box like this, we'll call it a thin client, if you will. You'll buy this for either $299 or $499. It depends on whether it's got a hard drive in it. And you bring in all of your digital content, your digital stills, you know, your vacation photos and that kind of stuff. You can bring in video clips from your vacation videos and you can also bring in all your musical content.
PHILLIPS: I'm hearing music. Is that coming from that?
KRUSCHEN: It's, yes, we've got a little music going here.
PHILLIPS: Oh, OK.
KRUSCHEN: And then what you do is you say well, I want to be able to see this all over the house. I want to be able to get to it easily and I don't want to have to fool around. Let me turn this down a little bit here. So -- you with me so far?
O'BRIEN: Yes, I really like it.
PHILLIPS: Wait, I'm kind of confused.
KRUSCHEN: Oh...
PHILLIPS: I'm kind of confused.
KRUSCHEN: All right, go ahead. So look on the screen here.
PHILLIPS: OK.
KRUSCHEN: We see we've got music, juke box.
PHILLIPS: Right.
KRUSCHEN: We've got photo albums. We've got video clips.
PHILLIPS: Video clips.
KRUSCHEN: And we've got Internet content. That means you got it on the Internet. So here's one simple interface and you say well, all of my content is brought in, now I want to see it. And you'll be able to see it anywhere in the house on any TV or on any computer that networked either wirelessly or wired. Everybody's got, you know, if you've got more than one computer...
O'BRIEN: So do you, so you need a wireless network on top of that or does it serve as the wireless network?
KRUSCHEN: Well, it is part of the wireless network.
O'BRIEN: OK.
KRUSCHEN: Most people, let's say you already have a wireless network or a wired network, in other words, Ethernet, which is very common today. So you have all your content but, again, you want to see it anywhere in the house and you want to do it in an easy way.
O'BRIEN: But I guess what's really interesting about this is not only can you grab it off of any computer in the house, you can grab it off your television set. KRUSCHEN: That's right.
O'BRIEN: That's pretty nice.
KRUSCHEN: So I'm going to use the remote and go into -- there we go. And watch. And this is a...
O'BRIEN: Can multiple users be accessing that same drive at the same time?
KRUSCHEN: That's right. Now, we've got music underneath. OK, keep it a little low. And this is my slide show.
PHILLIPS: That's a slide show.
KRUSCHEN: These are my own pictures and you see my kids and my wife and my dog and my trip to London.
O'BRIEN: Wow.
KRUSCHEN: There's my son and our aunt and my daughter and my wife. I can give you the whole tour.
PHILLIPS: Oh.
O'BRIEN: Wow. Wow.
KRUSCHEN: And you see? And you have all the music playing so you can choose whatever music you want from your content that you already have.
O'BRIEN: Wow.
KRUSCHEN: This is the home entertainment web coming soon from Compaq.
O'BRIEN: I like this.
PHILLIPS: That is really neat.
O'BRIEN: And you could do that on your TV as easily as your computer?
KRUSCHEN: And it hooks into your audio/video system as well, all integrated. This is going to be very big and very cool.
O'BRIEN: Wow.
O'BRIEN: Wow.
KRUSCHEN: I like it and I think you will...
PHILLIPS: Imagine it on a big screen TV.
KRUSCHEN: Yes.
O'BRIEN: But meanwhile, I can't get my wireless network to work in my house. I don't know what it is.
KRUSCHEN: Well, I'll talk to you about that later.
O'BRIEN: Yes. Thanks.
KRUSCHEN: But this is, now, speaking of wireless...
O'BRIEN: Is this a good one?
KRUSCHEN: This is a good one. This is new from Belkin and what, the reason I have chosen it is because they've really dropped the bottom out of the price and made it real easy. So we've got to start with, you've got either a cable modem or a DSL modem, right?
O'BRIEN: Right.
KRUSCHEN: For high speed.
O'BRIEN: Sure.
KRUSCHEN: That's really the reason you get it. And you've got more than one computer and you don't want the kids fighting over the line.
O'BRIEN: Right.
KRUSCHEN: So you might network it with a product like this from Belkin. This is the wireless router. And, yes, it's wireless. But if you look around...
PHILLIPS: Four different hookups.
KRUSCHEN: Yes, you can also plug in for wired.
O'BRIEN: That's just a little hub.
KRUSCHEN: It's a router and the advantage to having a router -- and this is about $200 -- the advantage to having a router is you have something called a firewall. The hardware, it's a hardware firewall. In other words, you can't get into, I couldn't get into your computer from the outside. This protects me. You don't need software to do it. The hardware takes care of it. You're protected. So you start with this.
But you say well, gosh, now I've got all these computers. If you've got a desktop computer, then you need one of these to hook up to the USB connector. That puts your wireless here. They've got another product that's a PC card that goes in a notebook computer like this.
O'BRIEN: And is this really plug and play? Does it really work?
KRUSCHEN: The interface...
O'BRIEN: I'm asking because I have problems setting these things up. KRUSCHEN: Well, I've got to tell you, I've done this many, many times. Some are more difficult than others, for reasons unknown to me. It's a Windows kind of thing. But this can work with, they say it's a primarily a Windows product. This can work with Macs, as well, as most of them will. And, again, it's inexpensive. Belkin is, you know, they make lots of accessories that people know and love and have used for years. There's a couple of main stores. You can get it at CompUSA and Office Max, I know, carries all the Belkin products. So that's where you'll want to look.
O'BRIEN: All right, we're running out of time, Steven, so just quickly, you've got this remote here.
PHILLIPS: Is this next hour?
KRUSCHEN: Well, we're going to -- this is next hour.
O'BRIEN: Oh, OK.
PHILLIPS: OK. Give us a little tease.
KRUSCHEN: This is, the tease is this, for all the guys and for all the ladies who want a remote that's literally one remote...
O'BRIEN: It hooks up with that thing?
KRUSCHEN: It hooks up -- I guess it could, yes. It hooks up with all of your equipment and one button access. There's nothing else ever been like it. You're going to want to watch for this.
PHILLIPS: But we have one of these. We got like one, I want to say Radio Shack or Home Depot...
KRUSCHEN: You don't...
PHILLIPS: ... we plug...
KRUSCHEN: You don't have one of these, trust me.
PHILLIPS: OK.
O'BRIEN: Can it open your garage door?
KRUSCHEN: No, it won't do your garage door.
O'BRIEN: All right, just checking.
KRUSCHEN: This is the harmony remote. You're going to want to (UNINTELLIGIBLE).
PHILLIPS: What's that, Miles, I hear for a second?
KRUSCHEN: One button.
O'BRIEN: All right, Steve, I'm sorry to jump the gun there, but I am excited about this one. KRUSCHEN: Yes.
O'BRIEN: All right, we'll, we're going to check in with him next hour.
KRUSCHEN: Right, with some more.
PHILLIPS: Thanks so much.
O'BRIEN: And now we're going to take a break.
PHILLIPS: All right, we'll be right back.
O'BRIEN: See you in a bit.
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