The marriage of the home computer to the multimedia world of the Web, and the dawning of the digital television age mean that we are going to see some very strange unicorns and chimera and sphinxes before the market decides on the appropriate hybrid for the home. Sony Corp has spent the last nine months sounding out about how much more fireside-friendly its first personal computers are going to be, and in a week or two, we should see Toshiba Corp’s idea of what a home entertainment device that computes should look like. US PC Week hears that Toshiba America Information Systems Inc plans to introduce an Infinia line of home computers with built-in television, radio and telephone capability in consumer electronics grey. They will also have a touch-screen, CD-ROM drive, and remote control that operates the entertainment functions but doubles as a cordless mouse – all for a take-home price of $1,700, so we do not see them showing up chez Bart Simpson.
