The Digital Home: German Style

We've set up shop in Berlin this week for our CONNECTIONS Europe Summit on Friday, and a visit to the IFA show over the weekend. According to a few articles in The New York Times this week, a big focus of IFA will be the "connected living room." This should be a continuation of the themes we heard at CES in January, as major consumer electronics manufacturers made a variety of connected device announcements. Another Times article indicates that the home server market may take on a decidedly CE flavor, as LG Electronics announced a network-attached storage device that can automatically back up pictures, files and home movies onto a central disk storage server to be accessed by all of the home PCs. Smartphones are also expected to be on display, and Sony - which has the largest booth here - is expected to have a major presence. We're intrigued by a whole area set aside for white goods/appliances. I wonder if we'll see any new renditions of the Internet-connected refrigerator?