Some are installing stripped-down computers that prevent users from loading their own games, screen savers or other personal touches.

Many believe that "security appliances" - extremely stripped-down computers with security software that sit between another computer and its Internet connection - may eventually hit the consumer market.

LG Technologies, for example, showed plasma televisions with built-in hard drives for recording programs, like a TiVo (which is itself a stripped-down computer).

That's why some of the world's biggest computer companies have recently unveiled machines that do nothing but the Internet: stripped-down computers they call Internet appliances.

Like the network computer desktops of old, the Mail Station is a stripped-down computer with a simplified operating system.

Despite consumers' earlier indifference toward stripped-down computers mainly intended for Internet access, Sony today begins selling its own offering, eVilla.

Underneath the plastic facade, however, lies a very stripped-down computer.

Under that plan, stripped-down personal computers were to function as terminals for software resources stored on remote computer servers.

He said Compaq was "very aggressively" looking at a new product category that would consist of a low-cost, stripped-down computer to be used primarily in tapping into the Internet.

Over the last decade, AlphaSmart has built a following for its stripped-down computers in schools.