3 Technologies from CES Will 2011 be the Year of the Connected Home?

CES was a great experience! The energy of the show felt entirely upbeat and positive, full of optimism for this New Year and the new technologies that will literally dominate our lives.

With such an abundance of amazing technological innovation happening all around us, I find it hard to believe that anyone can not be absolutely thrilled about the direction we are moving! So with that, I’d like to present a few of the technologies that I feel are going to be major influencers around our homes this year.

Windows Media Center and Windows Embedded

There was a ton of activity and buzz around what Microsoft has been doing with Windows Media Center in conjunction with Windows Embedded. Windows Embedded makes a lot of sense, especially when you take into account that Windows Embedded Standard 7 now incorporatesWindows Media Center into the mix. What this allows for is the ability for developers to build “a variety of smart, connected, and service-oriented advanced commercial or consumer devices.”

Gesture Technology (i.e. Xbox 360 Kinect)

Gesture Technology (also known as Natural Interaction because there are no controllers being held like the Wii and now PS3 have) could turn out to have a very big presence this year with all of the excitement around its potential uses, and most importantly, loads of development happening behind the scenes. We are talking about not just interacting with your TV, but also with your PC, and even eventually things around the home (like lighting) by using just your hand movements and voice. Trust me, this thing even out-does the clapper!

While this technology is very new, many people are recognizing the capabilities that lie outside of the gaming industry and touch upon the connected home and beyond. It’s going to be thrilling watching this ground-breaking new field grow!

The Connected Home

One thing is for sure: the idea of the “Connected Home” is still very real to a lot of people and more importantly, to a lot of manufacturers. We have only touched the tip of the iceberg, in my opinion, of where these new technologies can take our home entertainment experience. There are far too many fresh technologies coming out of CES that are geared toward creating or enhancing the Connected Home...

So while the Connected Home has been a topic of discussion for many years, there has also been innovation accompanying it along this journey. New technologies of today replace the new technologies of years past-innovation is always a forward motion path. Like all technology that sticks around for awhile, there comes a time that it will hit critical mass. You can see this trend in any technology we take for granted today, from the telephone to the TV to the cell phone. They are all examples of technologies that took years to catch on, but then suddenly, reached a point where everyone wanted it in their home.
This truly can be the Year of the Connected Home, but it will take a major push from people with louder voices than me to help people understand its meaning and benefits.

--- Content submitted from Home Toys ---

Grand Theft Auto IV: Discuss

Depending on the news source, Grand Theft Auto IV is either the greatest thing to ever happen to gaming, or the surest sign yet that the world is already doomed. The reality is something in between: GTA is entertainment software that provides a lot of enjoyable gameplay and will hopefully make players think about the world we all live in. It will also help move a lot of game consoles for Microsoft and Sony; for a long time to come.


First of all, GTA is a game for people who already understand that it is not acceptable to drive 115 MPH down the wrong side of the street in Manhattan with a machine gun hanging out the window, finger firmly on trigger. The Grand Theft Auto series has always danced on a razor’s edge and helps illustrate how carefully constructed modern life is and how most of the population automatically obeys the really important rules. The latest installment of the franchise is fun, insightful, sickening, violent, thoughtful, clever, frustrating, and just a little scary. It should be a little unsettling that anyone with a gun or vehicle can unfurl the fabric of modern society. It should raise the hair on your neck that anyone with a little willpower or the right acquaintance can obtain the tools of wanton destruction. Welcome to western society, please obey the rules.

Second of all, the boring stuff. Grand Theft Auto IV, with a rumored budget of $100 million and a team of more than 150 developers is the largest video game project to-date. More than 6 million copies were pre-ordered across the PS3 and Xbox 360. Estimates from various sources place initial weekly sales at 6-8 million copies and year end 2008 sales above 11 million. It is already the fastest selling game in the UK, and the franchise has sold in excess of 70 million copies worldwide since its initial 1997 release. The game also helped publisher, Take2 Interactive, resist a hostile takeover bid valued at over $2 billion from rival Electronic Arts.

Third of all, the controversy. Does GTA beget homicidal maniacs? Does the game celebrate ultra-violence or deride it? Does the fact that you have to press buttons and waggle little sticks make game interactions more violent that the latest horror film gore fest or crime spree movie where the body counts include everyone in the credits? Should the developers have included better controls for drive-by shooting? All good questions and all will remain contested. The developer, Rockstar North, certainly thrives on controversy and is known for outspoken commentary and perhaps clueless management. Regardless, they make popular games and know how to stoke a fire to boost sales and ensure their products remain in the spotlight.

There is one sure thing however: GTA is now a part of popular culture. As has gone on for centuries now, stories and media stay with us and are constantly consumed, re-imagined, and passed on: Beowulf, Shakespeare, Hitchcock, The Godfather, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Superman, Gone With the Wind, Playboy, James Bond, Halo, etc, etc, etc. Grand Theft Auto is a permanent fixture of society now. The more is cried out over the game, the more popular it will become. The more players push it up as the ‘best game ever’, the more it will be torn down and criticized. Besides, history repeats itself and the tired cliché is still correct: from Comic Books to Elvis, from Doom back to theater with the first female actresses; there will always be something terrible to stand up for or protest. Accept it, everything will be ok.