Russ has an interesting post (thanks Rod) along the lines of “why doesn’t all this stuff work together”. About the only thing the IT and communications industry seem to have collaborated on are the connecting cables and network standards (I know there is more, but, really….).

“…That’s really what we didn’t see at this year’s CES. We saw more boxes, and more services and more DRM (.gvi? Are you fucking kidding me?), but nothing to ease the actual problems associated with home media for consumers.”

Damn right! I buy a new modem, that doesn’t work with my DSL modem. My lovely Apple monitor won’t work with the wife’s Dell. It works with my Sony. I must have about nine operating systems for things that matter in my house. I’m scared to go near the stereo system – that took on a life of it’s own long ago. And now the fireplace guy says the fireplace comes on all by itself because the “logic in the controller box is corrupted”. For heavens sake!

The company that makes this simple, really simple, will win. Apple did it with the iPod (I can’t tell you how many days I spent on getting my ‘Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox” to sync with Windows…). With any luck, they’ll do it in the living room next. We don’t need another massive Plasma TV thing… we need simplicity.