The Universal Content Delivery Platform

The Dream
In my quest to become completely portable, I've oft fantasized about what my ideal computing, communications, and entertainment platforms would be like. They must encompass both my business and personal needs, be free of any dependencies on proprietary platforms or services, and be as portable as I am. Hopefully, some day the rest of the world will share my dream and we'll see these fantasies brought to reality. Today, lets talk about my vision for a "Universal Content Delivery Platform".

In the physical world, there are essentially four major types of content: audio, video, images, and text. Content can be delivered either live, or after the fact, and it may be published to a general audience, sent directly to specific recipients, or exist in the form of a dialog. Content may be something as grand as an award winning motion picture, or as simple as a text chat between me and my wife. My dream platform would take all of this into account and all content could be transmitted or received by the user through any of a number of different devices. For instance, when sitting at my desk, I could be sending and receiving content with my trusty rusty laptop. If I'm in the car or plane, I may use the console embedded in the dashboard or the seat in front of me. If I'm on foot, I could use my hand held device or the nearest public kiosk. If I'm on the couch in the living room, I would of course want my content on the big-screen.

The Content Portal
A content presentation device does me little good without a system for organizing all the world's content and filtering out the junk I'm not interested in. Because individual devices aren't suited to this task, content must be organized and filtered through a central content portal. The content portal is a two-way gateway, enabling me to receive content produced by others, and to transmit content that I have produced. The content portal is always on, always watching for new content that I am interested in, always serving the content I have produced. In order to accomplish this lofty goal, all content portals must speak the same language and provide a few necessary functions.

My portal will give me a globally unique address. This address is how other people find me, send me content, and find content I've published. People I trust will add my address to their contact lists and will be able to see my presense information. I'll be able to use my address to log into any 3rd party applications, and those applications will be able to contact my portal to make sure I am who I claim to be, and I'll be able to provide sensitive information to those applications through my portal, rather than having it stored on the application's server.

My portal will give me an Inbox and archive everything I've ever sent or received. My portal will process and filter all received content before delivering it to me. This will keep out unwanted junk such as spam and viruses. It'll also block real time communications requests from people I don't want to hear from, and prevent me from being bombarded by requests when I'm busy. If I don't want to, or can't respond to a real-time request, my portal will take a message and put it in my Inbox. My portal will manage my subscriptions. It will look for and retrieve any new broadcast content I want such as news and entertainment, then deliver these to me through my Inbox. My portal will make sure content is delivered in a format my device supports and a language I can read.

My portal will manage my address book. I will add my contacts addresses, and my portal will do the rest. Information my contacts want me to see will be instantly updated in my address book. I'll be able to see content published by my contacts just by looking at their entry in my address book. I'll be able to see my contacts' presence in my address book, and request a real-time conversation, or send a message. I'll be able to see a complete archive of content sent to and received from the contact from within the address book.

The Device
Whichever device I might be using, while I'm in front of it, I will be able to access all of my content. Whether it's a big-screen display intended for video playback, or a handheld device intended for real time voice conversations, all devices will need the same basic functionality.

My device will be wirelessly connected, whereever I am. Worldwide acceptance of a wireless data standard will enable my device to go online from anywhere I am. Where wireless connectivity is not available, hardline "kiosk" devices will often be available. Specialized, non-portable devices, may also take advantage of a hardline, especially to enable fast retrieval of high-bandwidth content. When I can't be connected, or don't want to be connected, my contacts will be able to leave me a message, and new content will still be received by my portal.

My device will be able to play back high resolution video and multi-channel audio. My device will be able to record audio and video, and take pictures. Every device is potentially an entertainment device or a communications device, so in order to enable this, devices will be powerful enough to scale large format content to a small display (or visa versa).

My device will be secure, requiring me to log in to connect to my portal. Obviously, security is a must, and all connections will be encrypted. Devices can lock after a certain period of time, allowing only pop-up notifications and incoming real-time communications requests to be accepted without a password. Untrusted devices can be automatically locked out by the portal, while trusted devices can be allowed to remain online indefinately. The portal can scan devices for spyware and malware before allowing a connection.

My device will cache content for rapid retrieval. Any content can be stored in a cache file on the device. This is useful for high-bandwidth content such as video. No master copies of any data are kept on the device. The portal is the authoritative copy.

My device will have a familiar interface, and be in my language. Devices will download UI skins from the portal and display an interface that the user is familiar with in his language. All devices will have the same widescreen aspect ratio, and the UI will be scalable, making it fit as well on a small handheld device as on a large display.

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If you share my dream of a connected future, or if you have ideas of your own, please let me know by leaving a comment.