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Remember "Content is king"? Back during the dot-com bubble, it was a theory -- well, it was a slogan, which was as close as anyone came to thoughtful analysis in those Web-crazed days -- that the best content would be the key to online success. It wasn't true, of course; I can testify that content providers went just as bust as other new-economy collapses.

But the phrase popped back into my head last week at a press reception for hardware firms previewing their holiday wares (yes, it's early, but the drugstores have Halloween candy out and earlier in the week at Costco I saw Christmas trees). Or I should say a new version of it did: Judging from their newest products, hardware vendors are betting that content is crack -- that downloaded material is so addictive you can't live without it, will jump for the tiniest dose, want it all the time in every room of your house, even when you're not at your PC.

The biggest example is HP -- which, for example, believes you're so eager to fetch and print content from the Web that you'd like to skip the step of logging onto your PC. The Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web ($399) is an inkjet printer/copier/scanner/fax whose 4.3-inch touch screen serves as a menu of printable content from HP partners such as USA Today, Weathernews Inc., Google Maps, Coupons.com, Fandango.com (movie tickets), Nickelodeon (kids' activity pages), and so forth.

And "in every room of your house"? Welcome to HP's DreamScreens -- 10- and 13-inch "connected screens" designed to bring social media and Web information to your nightstand and kitchen counter, respectively.

Now, the idea of an information kiosk -- and of PC makers dreaming of putting products into the kitchen -- is so established than when I said "kitchen counter" you probably thought "nettop." You're going too far. Nettops and netbooks are PCs based on the premise that the Internet is enough, that the needs of many a user can be met with merely e-mail, Web browsing, and Web apps or at most lightweight local apps rather than powerful computing platforms.

But HP's $249 and $299 appliances aren't PCs; they're pumped-up digital picture frames. They have no keyboards or Web browsers or e-mail clients. The DreamScreens are based on the premise that a subset of the Internet is enough, that users will be content with content from a few preselected parts of the Web -- Pandora and other Internet radio, friends' status updates on Facebook, and a weather forecast, plus a media player for photos and music streamed from a home PC or stored in the screen's 2GB of memory.

Take Facebook. An HP product manager proudly showed me the DreamScreens' custom-made Facebook interface, which looks a lot like the site's mobile phone interface; if you're wondering what your friends are up to, you can get a list of their updates or postings quicker than you can on a PC. But as for the other half of the fun of Facebook -- posting your own items, telling your friends what you're up to -- you can't. In the manager's phrase, the DreamScreen is strictly for "consumption of content" rather than its creation. The Internet is interactive, but HP's product is a one-way pipeline.

Something similar is true of the TouchSmart Web. It's tempting to say you can't get anything from HP's snazzy WiFi printer that you can't already get from your PC's Web browser, though it isn't strictly true -- HP has some exclusive deals with content providers like DreamWorks for stuff like kids' coloring pages and puzzles with Kung Fu Panda characters. But what's undeniable is that HP's betting you're so hooked on Web information that you'll pay twice the going rate for a multifunction printer so you can get a newsletter of your favorite RSS feeds plus your daily Sudoku.

I like content as much as the next guy, but this is ridiculous. When I have a craving for Facebook, there's a PC on my desk. I have a printer in my office and a clock radio on my nightstand; I don't need ones with stickers saying "Now With Web!"

Unfortunately, it may be too late to stop the trend: It seems even HDTV makers think that, while you're looking at their product, you're pining for your PC. At the vendor reception, a Samsung rep told me that the company's 8000 Series LED TV can show content from Flickr and video-on-demand services and has the Yahoo Widget Engine.