The Happy TiVo Security Dongle

Matt points to TiVo's survey on possible TiVoToGo features. I'm sure I'm not the only one who really dislikes the idea of having a security dongle. Happy yellow and orange designs or no... it's still a hassle or, at best, something to lose or forget. I just imagine getting excited about catching up with a season of West Wing on a long, cross-country flight only to find I left the dongle plugged into my machine in the office at home.

It's not just the dreadful thought of 5 hours of in-flight radio and SkyWay magazine that make me wish for something better. Even if companies can't survive the legal issues of, god forbid, using an open format that lets consumers use any number of existing tools to do almost everything TiVo implies it may do in its survey, one would hope that TiVo could find a way to make the experience a little less cumbersome. At a minimum, shouldn't we expect TiVo to provide an experience equal to that of (and I know it has its problems, too) iTunes? At least with iTunes, I don't have to worry about losing my dongle.