This week at the Consumer Electronics Show there are hundreds of companies touting new gadgets that are “revolutionary” “innovative” “at the cutting edge” and “totally cool”.  I will leave the descriptions of all these to the mainstream media as they already excessively cover this convention.  Instead I will give you some view on the larger trends that are clear.

Connectivity

We are rapidly moving to total connectedness. Whether you are in the office, in the home, on the road, or anywhere in the world you can be connected to information, data and billions of people.    Bill Gates spoke of the fact that the home is soon going to be completely connected.  Computers, televisions, phones, everything in the home will be connected.  Ed Zander, Chairman of Motorola spoke about the home as being a hub of “seamless technology” and that mobile devices provide “seamless mobility” wherever we are in the world.  Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia speaks of “a world where everyone can be connected” and of “mobility, interconnectivity, community and convenience” 

Compare how much more connected you are now than you were 10 years ago. That is how much more you will be connected in 3-5 years than you are today.  How we use that connectivity is up to us and is the human variable in the equation.  Technology is providing us with connectivity that twenty years ago was only imagined in science fiction and in the minds of a few visionary futurists.

Availability

We are moving toward a world where practically every type of …

The other day Tivo announced that it had created software to allow Internet Video on Television. The expected convergence of video, TV and the Internet is now in full force. As I wrote in an earlier post about Apple’s announcement of iTV, everything is converging onto the big flat screen in the living room. Channel surfing between ESPN, CNN, YouTube and iFilm while sitting on your living room couch will soon be an experience for many. So the reality of convergence, something spoken about as being in the future for the last ten years, is now upon us.

This development is just another example of disintermediation. The networks used to control what we saw on TV. They were joined by cable networks. Then we got the remote control in our hands and we controlled the viewing. Now, with Internet video coming to our living room we are in complete control of what we watch regardless of source. This also points to the continuing flow of economic power and control to the individual. We are not only choosing what we watch but also when and where we watch. We can use Tivo to watch our favorite shows whenever we want. We can download video to hand held devices to watch when and where we want. We can use Sling Box to watch programs even when we are half way around the world. We now live in …

Steve Jobs made the expected announcement that Apple would market the iTV , the gadget that will link the Apple computer in the den to the television set in the living room. Most of the reporting on this announcement was around the coming wave of downloading movies onto the computer and then transferring them to the television set for viewing. The analogy was made to the music business and the iPod and iTunes, as in “Jobs has done it again”. All true.

Yes the early and partial disintermediation of the theatrical distribution system for movies has begun. Yes, Jobs is out in front as he was in downloadable music. Yes he started with one studio and others would follow after the holiday season. Yes the price for the iTV is affordable. This is all good, particularly because of the expected ‘ease of use’ of Apple products. To me however, this announcement was about something else: the breaking down of the barrier between the television experience and the computer experience. That is where the transformation will be.

Ten years ago was the beginning of all the talk about ‘convergence’. This generally meant the convergence of the television set and the personal computer. People spoke of it as an eventuality, and that it would happen soon. Efforts such as WebTV came along, but were too soon and didn’t have the fundamentals down as far as the television side of the equation was concerned. Even …