Wednesday, January 5, 2011

186,282 miles per second

The 2011 Consumer Electrics Association trade show will be opening in Las Vagas tomorrow. The pace of technological change will speed up some as media and tech. companies witness the future of entertainment. In a recent article in the NY Times it was reported that Intel and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), the two leading micro-chip manufactures, are changing their focus when designing their processors. Yesterday used to be about processor speed, while tomorrow is about integrating graphics into their products.

What does this mean? Computers designed with the newer processors, Intel's i3, i5, and i7 chips for example, will be able to process video much faster than the computer you bought last year. Some computers in the store today like the Toshiba Portege have a Push To TV button on the keypad. This enables you to broadcast, by wifi, what you are viewing on your computer to your flatscreen, internet friendly, television.

The last piece of the puzzle though is a website that broadcasts television. Over the Christmas break I had a discussion with my brother about this very subject. He is an international airline pilot for a major carrier, lives in Florida, and is an insane NY Giants fan. This poses a problem though. How does he watch Giant games in Florida or, for that matter, anywhere in the world? The answer is a website that broadcasts television ATDHE.net. You don't have to have the latest AMD or Intel processor to view the site, but it would probably be impractical. Just think of downloading information during the modem days of the internet- the byte rate was extremely slow before broadband and other technological advancements. Which of the major brands- Apple, Google, or Netflix- will offer Television over the internet now the future of entertainment is practically upon us? How you experience entertainment will change at the speed of light, or 186,282 miles per second, pot watchers excluded.

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