DLNA and why it's a big deal.

DLNA stands for Digital Living Network Alliance. The DLNA is a cross industry organization that seeks to create a network of compatible devices that allow consumers to share digital content between PC's, consumer electronics products, and mobile devices. Sounds a bit esoteric, right?

Well this weird acronym hit me right between the eyes when I installed my Playstation PS3. After spending some time on games and Blueray movies (yes, this game system is very underrated...it is quite good) I decided to figure out what the heck a media server is.

That's when I stumbled upon the fact that I could hook up my PS3 to my PC simply by installing Windows Media Player 11 and configuring it to share the media on my PC. The PS3 has wireless connectivity to my home network. This now allows me to serve up pictures, videos, and music from PC to my family room television. Thanks to DLNA the effort involved in getting this to work was on the scale of starting my car in the morning. I browsed through all the various pictures that are stored on my PC on my large screen TV.

One minor issue was that Apple in its abhorrence of all things open does not support DLNA for its iPod or iTunes products. Alas I couldn't unlock all the music stored on my iPod and play it on my TV. But actually there was a solution - I simply converted all my iTunes .m4a files to .mp3 and reconfigured iTunes to store music in the future as .mp3 so I could future mass conversions. Voila! All my music now played on my TV.

However that really got me to thinking on my drive home. As usual I decided to plug in my iPod so I could enjoy my own songs when it struck me. Wouldn't it be great if I could have my car stereo simply link to my home PC for my music as easily as my PS3 did? Well of course it was easy for my PS3 because it's on a wireless home network. But how soon before we have wireless everywhere? It will be game-changing.

Imaging streaming music from your home PC to your car. Or even better, what if Apple gets a clue before Google owns the world and decides to host your music for you. All your favorite iTunes and CD tracks hosted as a service that you can access from anywhere (PC, PS3, car) anywhere in the world.

And to think it all started with serving up some pics to my TV that were hosted on my PC.

Stephen Knight book - "Creator and Trader"

I recently read Stephen Knight's "Creator and Trader", which is the story behind his UK mortgage company Private Label, which eventually became part of GMAC-RFC's International Business Group.

In the book Stephen describes how the UK mortgage has matured through the years mainly due to the role of intermediaries, which are called "Packagers", and via technology. Stephen is a huge proponent of utilizing technology to improve the mortgage lending process. GMAC-RFC UK was one of the first lenders to utilize an automated decisioning engine, based on the AssetWise service built by GMAC-RFC in the US. However he took it to another level by combining the power of AVM's (automated valuation models) to give customers a binding offer at the point of sale.

This still is a revolutionary concept for many firms and there is still much debate in the US regarding the use of AVM's as part of mortgage products. AVM's are basically means of automating the home appraisal process. They are similar in concept to the consumer site Zillow. By not requiring a human appraiser to do a "drive-by" of the home to determine it's value the mortgage process can be accelerated.

Some argue that AVM's are not as effective or accurate as manual appraisals. This can be true if there are not a lot of comparable homes in the vicinity which have recent sales data. However manual apparaisals, much like manual underwriting, is also fraught with issues. Many home valuations in the Pocono resort communities near Philadelphia were wildly out of wack due to shady appraisal practices and outright fraud.

Stephen is also quite a character. He is kind of a British Angelo Mozilo, with a better sense of humor and a worse tan. In his book he relates the story of walking through Countrywide's offices which had a lot of rubber floors and commenting that the last time he saw that much rubber was at one of Godfrey Blight's parties. Apparently Angelo wasn't amused but I found the remark brilliant (hopefully the folks at BofA improve the sense of humor out there in Calabasas).

I only met Stephen once when I was visiting the UK and only for one meeting. However, I spent some time with Barry Searle one of his three key team members. Barry is quite a guy in his own right - although he has some strange notion that Fulham has a great soccer (football) team.

Stephen and Barry are now starting up a new firm called Checkmate Mortgages. I wish them all the best.