$55,000 Makeover For Your PC

If you feel that the bulky PC messes up the look of your room, think again.
Custom-made desks that carefully and, of course, artistically, conceal your
high-end PC can instead turn it into an attractive centerpiece. Washington-based
Truvia, which specializes in building high-end PCs into handcrafted furniture,
is offering everything from simple Amish and Shaker cabinets to ornate Louis XV
creations for a comfortable lifestyle for your PC-but at a hefty tag of
$55,000.

John Wojewidka, a veteran of the custom PC business, started Truvia in
response to growing demand for PCs that didn't look like PCs. He felt that
people don't want only the technology itself to be the centerpiece of their
living environment and there was a need for a systematic approach to custom-made
desks that can carefully conceal a high-end PC. He predicts that the Truvia
approach will appeal particularly to design-savvy women: "They'll buy
something like an iMac and put it inside a handmade Amish cabinet. When they're
not working on it, they don't want to see it." This approach has
attracted interest from companies such as Microsoft that are looking to
popularize PCs as living room objects.

Truvia
PCs also have been designed for a life cycle that is more than the typical
two-year replacement cycle of the PC business. With all wood, there might be
serious concerns about heat management. The company claims that all ventilation
concerns have been factored into the design. It only burns your pockets.

Ubiquitous Computing

Starting this March, users can operate their Windows-based home or office
computers using a mobile phone, thanks to Toshiba. Developed in collaboration
with service and content providers, this software, called 'Ubiquitous Viewer,'
bridges the gap between mobile phones and PCs. It marks a major step toward an
age of ubiquitous connectivity, when people will have total freedom in choosing
where, when and how they access computers.

Though its details are sketchy, this first remote-access software allows
users to read and modify files in the MS Office suite, besides accessing e-mail,
Internet browser and other PC applications via their mobile phones.

In developing the Ubiquitous Viewer, Toshiba developed a mobile phone menu to
facilitate remote access and use of the PC, and applied advanced data
compression technology to support rapid data transfer between the PC and mobile
phone. Secure data transfers are achieved by a secure socket layer (SSL)
encryption and by the use of a one-time password for opening the link between
the mobile phone and PC.

Ubiquitous Viewer will debut in CDMA1X mobile phones from KDDI's, and
Toshiba plans to extend its application to other carriers in the near future in
Japan and overseas. The move to offer flat rate fee for mobile phone services
means that mobile phone service subscribers will have access to unlimited packet
service and higher bandwidth. This is likely to boost the use of this
remote-access software.

Jasmine Kaur in New
Delhi