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MIDs provide portable power
 

SAN FRANCISCO — They're called mobile Internet devices (MIDs in industry parlance), and tech experts are giving them a whole lot of attention.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini compares the importance and potential of mobile Internet devices to nothing less than the advent of television.

Manufacturers, including PC makers Lenovo and Asus and electronics companies Toshiba and Samsung, have shown off prototypes that take pictures, make phone calls, play movies and music and browse the Internet.

Other companies are waiting in the wings.

"It's an area we're watching very closely," said Scott Lingren, director of product group marketing at Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Inc.

If they live up to their promise, mobile Internet devices will let you do some of what you can do with a laptop: browse the Web, send e-mails, work on office documents and edit photos. They'll let you do what you can do with an iPod or other media player, only with a bigger screen. And they'll let you take pictures and make phone calls, like you can with a camera phone today.

Gadget overload

Do most consumers need or even really want such a device when they already have so many other ways to do the same things?

At this point, probably not, said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at tech consulting firm Jupiter Research Inc.

Consumers are unwilling to carry around yet another gadget in addition to their cellphones, laptops, music players and other electronics gear, he said, adding that MIDs simply don't replace those devices.

Meanwhile, the latest versions of full-fledged mobile Internet devices are still very expensive - $700 to $2,000 or more - for most consumers.

And then there's the lack of a good infrastructure to make them work well, at least in the United States.

Cellphone service isn't really good enough, WiFi wireless Internet service is too spotty and long-promised WiMax wide-area wireless networks are still a long way off.

"It's definitely an unproven category that hasn't hit mainstream ... but that doesn't keep vendors from trying," Gartenberg said.

Intel's marketing push

Nobody is trying harder than Intel. In its never-ending search for new markets, the world's biggest semiconductor company is launching a major push to make mobile Internet devices mainstream that could rival its ubiquitous Centrino wireless computing and Intel Inside campaigns.

The company is investing billions in factories to make new mobile Internet processors specifically for such devices.

It is one of the biggest backers of the WiMax technology, which promises to deliver seamless high-speed broadband Internet service wirelessly across cities and other areas.

Intel is branching out into other areas, too. A few weeks ago, the chipmaker introduced what it claims is the world's smallest solid-state hard drive, designed specifically for small devices such as hand-held computers, phones and other gadgets that can be used to connect to the Internet on the go.

An Internet 'snack'

Intel's push to "put the Internet in your pocket" is aimed at delivering information from the Internet to consumers that they can't get with today's cellphones or without logging on with a laptop, said Anand Chandrasekher, general manager of Intel's ultra-mobility group.

Users of a new sort of mobile Internet device could watch live snippets of a TV show while waiting for a doctor's appointment, for instance, or finish PowerPoint presentations and e-mail them to their bosses.

Consumers could get news and other information at any time or any place, or instantly send videos to friends from their visit to a tourist attraction or nightspot.

"A lot of people want (an Internet) snack, a little snippet of information here and there, and then they want to put it back into their pocket," Chandrasekher said. "The demand is quite large."

Of course, making computers smaller and more connected has been an industry trend for decades.

After the desktop came the laptop, then the portable, then the ultra-mobile and now the mobile Internet device.

Apple's iPhone kicked off the latest industry push.

Though it is expensive and has limitations, Apple's marketing magic made the iPhone the must-have gadget of 2007 and paved the way for the next generation of mobile Internet devices.

"IPhone is a great product, but it's an early product," Chandrasekher said. "We see it as providing taillights for the rest of the industry."

If iPhone's high price - about $400, plus a monthly service fee of $60 to $100 - puts it off-limits to most consumers, the even higher price of next-generation mobile Internet devices will make them even more off-limits to most.

"They've got to be sub-$500 for consumers to buy them," said Tim Bajarin, president of tech industry consulting firm Creative Strategies.

 
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