In the past year, Grubb has set up a Web-enabled piano with a streaming MIDI Java applet that plays Mozart, controlled from a browser on the dashboard of a car. The lights dim and the audience is now looking at a living room with appliances fed by a cable modem. Chambers shows how the temperature, lights, and window blinds can be controlled remotely. He turns the TV on and makes a phone call. A piano and violin play a duet.
Chambers relishes the enthusiastic reception that the demos have received.
In April 1998, he and Grubb captivated US Vice President Al Gore, the Russian Foreign Minister, a Who's Who of Silicon Valley CEOs, and other dignitaries as they showed a fetus in utero moving in an ultrasound image networked to a PC's Web browser. He's entertaining and he has a lot of passion. But, according to Grubb, it was only in the last couple of years that Chambers realized how demos could make a difference. It really fires up audience enthusiasm to show something real. People who attended the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will remember that John Chambers showed them a grand piano connected to the Internet.