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Switched On: When hardware startups zagged
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. In 2008, a year in which some of the most-used American political buzzwords were "change" and "maverick", many technology companies bucked conventional wisdom. With rising penetration across a broad range of mainstream consumer technology categories, it has become more difficult than ever to compete in the device space if you're not bringing something different to the party. The year did not start out auspiciously for those going against the grain, as CES 2008 brought news of Warner Brothers' decision to exclusively support Blu-ray as opposed to underdog HD DVD. The move set off a swift collapse of the HD-DVD partnership and Toshiba officially threw in the towel a few months later. Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Steve Jobs used part of what is slated to go down as his final Macworld Expo keynote to announce something that wasn't very surprising -- shifting the focus of Apple TV from a PC-centric content shifter to a broadband video store. But two open-source efforts have stepped in to shake up the home video space – Boxee, which can run on Apple TV hardware, and NeurosLink, the open-source hardware developer's foray into a set-top box optimized for streaming video from the Internet. Neuros currently has a list of bounties posted, offering dollars for developers who can bridge gaps in its software's functionality.
