Telepocalypse

Happy endings

Via Corante comes news that Comcast cable are creating their own set top box. This is interesting because it continues an ongoing trend. Imagine you’re the network operator or some other middleman in danger of disintermediation. You don’t care about being cut out of the picture if you also control the end points of the network. Think subsidized Analog Telephone Adapters locked into Vonage service. iPods locked into iTunes. Cellphones locked to their network operator. Even PCs locked into trusted computing architectures.