New FireWire digital audio interface from Texas Instruments called the iceLynx that lets you hook up a PC with a Firewire port to stereo equipment that has a co-axial S/P-DIF connection:
The Firewire S/P-DIF converter allows Dolby Digital and PCM audio to be transferred from a network of IEEE-1394 devices (which may include laptops and desktop PCs) to the S/P-DIF connection commonly found on today s home audio equipment. This allows music and gaming enthusiasts to play back popular stereo and multi-channel 5.1 computer music files, such as MP3, AAC, and WMA, through their home cinema systems from their PCs.
Now this is getting a little technical, even for Gizmodo, but basically what’s going on is that Firewire is a big part of the future of digital audio. All sorts of stereo equipment makers are starting to incorporate FireWire as the standard for pristine digital audio connections between components, replacing all those messy analog cables with one single Firewire cable. The iceLynx lets you add PCs to the mix, since a lot of Dolby Digital equipped home theater equipment still has S/P-DIF ports rather than FireWire ports.
