I had the pleasure of visiting a friend of mine a few days ago who happens to be a supreme music and technology geek like myself. We spent hours talking about MP3, physical modeling, and other such topics, and then I took a quick stop by his apartment. What I saw, or more to the point, what I DIDN'T see opened my eyes to a new style of living that seems to be taking shape.

His living room was bare with the exception of a couch, a comfortable master chair, and a projector. This was no ordinary projector like you would have seen in high school, this was a high-class LCD projector used usually by businesses for presentations and such. There was a bare white wall with no artwork and a speaker on each side. He had no noticable CD collection, though I knew he was a music fanatic. I had to ask him, "what the heck is going on here?".

He reached around the wall into the other room and turned on his computer, and it all made sense. The projector warmed up and it's screen filled the wall. He proceeded to show me a movie he had recently rented. He put it in his computer's DVD player (which also doubled as his CD-ROM), fiddled with the mouse that was sitting on the arm of the couch (the new-school remote control), and the movie began playing in as much quality as you could expect - but larger than any TV - much more like a movie!

The trick was that his computer was now acting as his entertainment system! All of his CD's were transferred to his internal hard drive via MP3 (hundreds of them, in fact) so he had instant access to any CD at any time. His CD/DVD player played movies. His TV tuner was a card installed in his computer, so television and cable was just the same. His computer audio output was hooked up to his amp and speakers, which sounded wonderful. No clutter, no wires, no components. Simplicity at it's best.

This is the beginning of the computer revolution taking over domestically. It won't be long before this same computer could control your refrigerator, stove, security system, lights, etc. This was the first time, however, that I had seen it completely encompass an entertainment system. The new chic? Maybe.