Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Sitting next to me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I don't remember how to do this anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. While I was gone for
Speaker 1: a week and we skipped a week of recording. But
Speaker 1: they don't know that. Well now, well they do, now
Speaker 1: they do now. We record really far in advance, which
Speaker 1: is probably why when you guys listen to some of
Speaker 1: these podcasts where we have predictions things like that that
Speaker 1: are very timely at the time that we record them,
Speaker 1: they're not so timely by the time they come out.
Speaker 1: That's why. Yep. And one of these days somebody's gonna
Speaker 1: make a giant collider that anyway. Anyway, So we're actually
Speaker 1: gonna talk about something that is pretty timely, and it's
Speaker 1: something that we've chatted about in previous episodes as well. Right,
Speaker 1: it's actually my favorite word, right, convergence. So We've used
Speaker 1: this word a lot in the past, and uh, we
Speaker 1: had a few people right and say, exactly what do
Speaker 1: you mean by this? Can you give some examples? What's
Speaker 1: the deal with this whole convergence thing? And of course
Speaker 1: the word convergence has very has several meanings, but from
Speaker 1: a technological standpoint, in general, what it means is that
Speaker 1: you have multiple gadgets or devices in different form factors
Speaker 1: that begin to do the same sort of tasks, so
Speaker 1: that eventually they all begin to evolve into a more
Speaker 1: unified form factor. And there are a lot of different,
Speaker 1: uh examples that we can give. Yeah, when did you
Speaker 1: have a particular place to start? Or should I just
Speaker 1: throw one out? You can throw one out if you like.
Speaker 1: I've got I mean, I know the most obvious one
Speaker 1: in my mind, but go ahead. Okay, Well, um, let's
Speaker 1: go back in time a little bit then, me be
Speaker 1: you know, back when you had a video game console
Speaker 1: and something that played movies. They were both attached to
Speaker 1: your TV. That's a good example, very good example. Yes,
Speaker 1: So you had let's say, either a laser disc player
Speaker 1: or a VCR exactly, and you would use that to
Speaker 1: watch recorded shows and then you would wanna hit a
Speaker 1: little switch on the back of your TV so you
Speaker 1: can switch it over to your kick ass and play
Speaker 1: a little uh you know, berserk or or if you're
Speaker 1: unlucky like me, et and Adventure Adventure Pitfall, Pitfall best
Speaker 1: game for hands Down, River Raid second best game anyway.
Speaker 1: So let's say that you wanted to do all that, well,
Speaker 1: you needed to have two different devices hooked up to
Speaker 1: that television, probably possibly some sort of converter box to
Speaker 1: switch between the two. Um these days not so much.
Speaker 1: You've got calm souls out there that are also media
Speaker 1: systems of some sort. So whether it's a device like
Speaker 1: the Xbox that can also play DVDs or even download
Speaker 1: movies off the interwebs and onto the hard drive, or
Speaker 1: the p S three, which is also a Blu ray player,
Speaker 1: you have these devices that can both play games and
Speaker 1: display movies. Um. So that's a that's an example of convergence.
Speaker 1: It was two different technologies that eventually molded into one.
Speaker 1: Uh yep, And I was I was about to make
Speaker 1: a crack about the Wei. I am a dedicated we owner,
Speaker 1: so it's not a slam. I'm just I'm just teasing.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, oh, yeah, like the we can't
Speaker 1: and I went, wait, no, it's you know, got an
Speaker 1: Internet browser on it and you can download games on it.
Speaker 1: So it is converging even though it doesn't have a
Speaker 1: DVD or but now it's converging more with say a
Speaker 1: computer than um that necessarily a media player. But then
Speaker 1: convergence has convergence, right, And essentially all these consoles are
Speaker 1: just not just but all these consoles are Arey's specialized
Speaker 1: computers realized when when you get down to it, Um,
Speaker 1: they're not quite the same as a desktop or laptop,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's a computer nonetheless. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: and even back in the day, back when you had
Speaker 1: two separate machines, you might say, well, well, Jonathan and Chris,
Speaker 1: where was the where was the evolution of this? You know,
Speaker 1: how did this eventually come about? You might argue that, say,
Speaker 1: the old um, the old media players weren't really much
Speaker 1: of a game system except for the fact that I
Speaker 1: actually did have some games that used the VHS uh format.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know what I'm talking about, kind of like
Speaker 1: the choose your own adventure type stuff that the murder
Speaker 1: mysteries and things like that. Well, that was the deal
Speaker 1: was that it was there were people who were seeing this,
Speaker 1: this as an opportunity to create an interactive experience with
Speaker 1: the audience, and they saw it as you know, hitting
Speaker 1: a market that was not getting touched. And I think
Speaker 1: it was you know, I thought thought leaders like that,
Speaker 1: who I'm sure most of them failed because I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it was a clunky interface, But it was it
Speaker 1: was thought like that that lead to convergence of these
Speaker 1: two different technologies because people said, hey, you know what,
Speaker 1: they don't Your average consumer doesn't want that much clutter
Speaker 1: and would like to have a device that can multitask
Speaker 1: so that you don't have to have an entertainment system
Speaker 1: that holds fourteen different set top boxes. Although I know
Speaker 1: someone who has probably that mini um right next to
Speaker 1: his enormous television um. So that's a good example. The
Speaker 1: example that always comes to my mind, it's the it's
Speaker 1: just one that I see all the time. It's the
Speaker 1: personal computer and the cell phone. They are getting closer
Speaker 1: and closer together now in the United States. It's only
Speaker 1: been the last couple of years that we've really seen
Speaker 1: this explode. Before that, it was pretty much just in
Speaker 1: the realm of the enterprise user, so businessmen businesswomen who
Speaker 1: were pretty high up in their company wouldn't need to
Speaker 1: have some sort of handheld device that would keep them
Speaker 1: connected all the time. At first, they were they were
Speaker 1: p d as, they didn't necessarily have a phone in them,
Speaker 1: so they were kind of like little handheld computers with
Speaker 1: limited functionality. And then you eventually got to more and
Speaker 1: more powerful cell phones that began to have some of
Speaker 1: the p d A functionality. And now we've gotten the
Speaker 1: point where the smartphones that we see out on the
Speaker 1: market today have more functionality than a PDA ever had,
Speaker 1: to the point where they really like small handheld computers. Um,
Speaker 1: they're not, you know, not as versatile as a computer.
Speaker 1: They don't have all the different bells and whistles that
Speaker 1: computers have, but they're much more powerful than the standard
Speaker 1: cell phone, like a candy bar flip flip phone. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's they're much more powerful than that. And uh, at
Speaker 1: the same time, you're seeing laptops getting smaller and smaller
Speaker 1: into the netbook range where the features are starting to
Speaker 1: get yeah, kind of cut down to to the bare
Speaker 1: base x because so much of the the processing power
Speaker 1: and storage capacities is shifting to the cloud. You've got
Speaker 1: computers that are starting to look more and more like
Speaker 1: cell phones. I mean, they're smaller, they're not as powerful
Speaker 1: as the classic computer. UM and some of them even
Speaker 1: have cellular UH modems so that you can hook up
Speaker 1: to a data a data line on a three G
Speaker 1: network and use that instead of WiFi. True, or you
Speaker 1: could UM if you have access to something like UM
Speaker 1: the Verizon myi Fi, the little portable network device. You're
Speaker 1: using the cell network to power your to act as
Speaker 1: a connection to that network and to provide WiFi access
Speaker 1: to your computer, or maybe a y max modem that
Speaker 1: you could plug in and that would let you travel
Speaker 1: and access to network. And you know, you could start
Speaker 1: Skype up or some other chat program to converse using
Speaker 1: your computer over the wireless network. Right, use voice over
Speaker 1: Internet protoc hall and now you're you're making phone calls
Speaker 1: over your computer or you're using your smartphone to you know,
Speaker 1: check on weather and and Internet. I mean, it's this
Speaker 1: is what we're talking about. We're talking about convergence. Now,
Speaker 1: is the smartphone or the netbook the ultimate form factor
Speaker 1: that this this particular kind of device is going to
Speaker 1: take We don't know. It may be that these two
Speaker 1: devices never fully converge into one, but the way that
Speaker 1: the way things are going, I would not be surprised
Speaker 1: if we had a handheld device that probably probably would
Speaker 1: have to look more like a phone than a computer,
Speaker 1: just to keep the phone functionality, uh, easy to use
Speaker 1: without having to have a separate headset or something like that.
Speaker 1: That's just a guess, though I could be totally wrong.
Speaker 1: It might turn out that this Mac tablet that's been
Speaker 1: rumored forever and is still in the rumor stage, no
Speaker 1: one's announced it. We we're recording this shortly after w
Speaker 1: w d C, and of course, uh, some of us
Speaker 1: were disappointed to see that there was no mention of
Speaker 1: this Mac tablet that's been the rumors for for a
Speaker 1: year now, really, or a Mac netbook for that matter.
Speaker 1: A lot of people were sad about that. Well, except
Speaker 1: that they've Apple has been pretty forthright about saying they
Speaker 1: will not do anything that's in the netbook form. Factor,
Speaker 1: that doesn't prevent people from hoping that they're a lying
Speaker 1: that's true, that's true. We can always hope that they're
Speaker 1: being a little duplicitus. Although the tablet makes sense because
Speaker 1: it would come out to be about the same price
Speaker 1: level as a netbook, so they could compete within the price,
Speaker 1: but it would be a different form factor. But that
Speaker 1: Mac tablet could in theory be the first step to
Speaker 1: a unified device that finally really bridges the gap between
Speaker 1: the phone and the computer. Or it could just be
Speaker 1: another little side step that doesn't ever go anywhere. That's
Speaker 1: the thing. You can't really predict these things. True, true,
Speaker 1: But you know, I was thinking about it as we
Speaker 1: were doing some research, and I don't know that convergence
Speaker 1: is necessarily limited to the electronics world, I mean as
Speaker 1: the actual physic electronic devices. She started thinking about Facebook,
Speaker 1: and I thought, well, you know, it's a social networking site,
Speaker 1: but it's also become increasingly a platform for things like
Speaker 1: games and uh so, I mean, convergence is is more
Speaker 1: than you know. It looks like people are trying to
Speaker 1: find other ways to tie in products and services together
Speaker 1: all in one. And sticking with the Facebook example, you
Speaker 1: could also argue that Facebook resembles Twitter quite a bit
Speaker 1: now now that after the after Facebook underwent it's most
Speaker 1: recent um cosmetic change, the news feed is a lot
Speaker 1: like a Twitter feed, particularly if you are like me,
Speaker 1: and you start to hide all the quizzes that pop
Speaker 1: up because I hate them. People. If you befriend me
Speaker 1: on Facebook, be prepared for me to complain if you
Speaker 1: if you take lots and lots of quizzes, especially if
Speaker 1: you take seven or eight in an hour, because I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hide all of them and then I'm going to
Speaker 1: complain about it because yeah, you really will, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I really yeah. If you look at my Facebook status
Speaker 1: is you know, you'll see like every few days and
Speaker 1: I'll make another snide remark about these quizzes. Um. But
Speaker 1: it is very much like Twitter. Then you have Google,
Speaker 1: which now search engine andy, uh, phone platform and a
Speaker 1: payment platform. And you know there's Google Docs, there's Google
Speaker 1: I Am yeah. Google Wave. Actually, we wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about Google Wave a little bit. It's it's early for
Speaker 1: us to talk about it. We do not have access
Speaker 1: to Google Wave as of the recording of this podcast,
Speaker 1: although we're changed trying to change that as soon as
Speaker 1: we possibly can, because it's cool but uh but not cool.
Speaker 1: C U I l it's cool c O O l um.
Speaker 1: But Google Wave. That's a joke for all you search
Speaker 1: engine fans out there. Google Google wave is is pretty
Speaker 1: nifty looking. I mean, it is again an example of convergence.
Speaker 1: In this case, we're talking about the service convergence, like
Speaker 1: like Chris was saying, right, Um, it's designed to be
Speaker 1: sort of a combination of email and I AM and
Speaker 1: collaborative documents like Google Docs, because you can actually rather
Speaker 1: than sending an email message back and forth and threading
Speaker 1: them together like uh Gmail does, it would actually let
Speaker 1: you edit uh the one message going back and forth
Speaker 1: at the same time, which is pretty weird. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, I actually watched the demo, and the
Speaker 1: demo was very impressive. At one point they had at
Speaker 1: least four people all working on the same threaded conversation
Speaker 1: at the same time, and you could actually see the
Speaker 1: updates live there. It's it's not one of those things
Speaker 1: we have to refresh the page or wait for it
Speaker 1: to refresh. It's actually updating in real time, and so
Speaker 1: you see and every every person's uh changes are are
Speaker 1: a slightly different color, and you can see the person's
Speaker 1: name next to the cursor as they're making the change,
Speaker 1: so you know who is doing what at the time.
Speaker 1: And you can even do things like share pictures and
Speaker 1: videos and that sort of thing and link them all together. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's it's really pretty phenomenal what they've built so far.
Speaker 1: And even more than that, Uh, the whole purpose of
Speaker 1: the demo wasn't to say, hey, look at this cool
Speaker 1: thing that we built. It was more to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we built this platform. We want developers to come out
Speaker 1: here and and build applications that that use this platform
Speaker 1: as its foundation and make it even more useful, which
Speaker 1: is a great idea and uh, I honestly can't wait
Speaker 1: to see what happens. It looks to me like it
Speaker 1: could revolutionize really search and conversations and collaboration. It's just uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's too early to really make any big predictions.
Speaker 1: And of course it may never come out of beta.
Speaker 1: But Google, Yah, it's coming out though. Gmails coming out
Speaker 1: of beta. Uh huh it is, okay, I believe you
Speaker 1: all right. So what basically we're talking about then, is
Speaker 1: that all of our electronics will gradually merge into one device,
Speaker 1: and on that one device will be using one service
Speaker 1: that it involves all of our gaming and work and
Speaker 1: communications and everything all of our needs in one place. Well,
Speaker 1: in theory, that would be the ultimate convergence. I don't
Speaker 1: think we'll ever quite get there, but you know, as
Speaker 1: another example, televisions and computers are slowly converging. We we've
Speaker 1: seen at CES, We've seen internet ready television's for a
Speaker 1: couple of years. Now, um there's they still have very
Speaker 1: very low impact in the market. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: hardly any services that that offer Internet TV, and they're
Speaker 1: hardly any televisions that actually can take advantage of it.
Speaker 1: But eventually, if this takes hold, we will have televisions
Speaker 1: where you can you essentially have the DVR incorporated in there.
Speaker 1: You have this is essentially like Hulu and YouTube incorporated
Speaker 1: in there, so that you suddenly have this enormous wealth
Speaker 1: of of content that you can you can access just
Speaker 1: using your television. And not only that, they there are
Speaker 1: a lot of services out there, including Yahoo, that have
Speaker 1: worked out ways to put widgets on your TV and
Speaker 1: you'd be able to access uh you know those plus
Speaker 1: services like Twitter and probably Facebook and my Space and
Speaker 1: all the other social networking sites so that you get
Speaker 1: access those via your TV. So you you know, have
Speaker 1: your big screen and be able to Internet and watch
Speaker 1: TV and everything else to your heart's content. So you
Speaker 1: never have to get up off the couch or if
Speaker 1: you have one of those cool touch screen TVs, you
Speaker 1: get up off the couch to play some weird games.
Speaker 1: Oh and then there's that. Yeah, so that's the low
Speaker 1: down on convergence. We again, we're when we're using that term,
Speaker 1: we're really just talking about the tendency for all these
Speaker 1: different technologies to kind of hone in on the same
Speaker 1: sort of user experience. Um, they just come at it
Speaker 1: from different angles, and ultimately we may end up with
Speaker 1: a single form factor or it may turn out that
Speaker 1: no single form factor dominates it. Really, it's all very chancey,
Speaker 1: there's no easy way to predict it. Granted, now, if
Speaker 1: if Apple comes out with the killer device, they're they're
Speaker 1: they're just dominating that handheld device market. I mean when
Speaker 1: you go to the iPod in the iPhone in the
Speaker 1: United States anyway, they have such a strong presence. I
Speaker 1: could easily see a killer Apple device dominating and then
Speaker 1: no one ever rests it away from them. Um. I
Speaker 1: don't know that that will happen, but but it wouldn't
Speaker 1: surprise me. Yeah, I think that they at least will
Speaker 1: try eventually. Um, but I think there are plenty of
Speaker 1: other people who would like shot at it too, so,
Speaker 1: you know, and it may be one of those things
Speaker 1: where it's just not a one size fits all world,
Speaker 1: you know. And there are other things to consider as well,
Speaker 1: like like Apple, even though they have a killer device,
Speaker 1: you may wonder why I don't own an iPhone, and
Speaker 1: it would be because I'm not an a T and
Speaker 1: T customer. So there are considerations like that. If you
Speaker 1: have a device that is married to a particular service
Speaker 1: provider and there are people who are not customers of
Speaker 1: that service provider, that could be enough to prevent a
Speaker 1: one you know, one device to rule them all and
Speaker 1: one device to bind them I'm not going to do
Speaker 1: the rest of home, but yeah, that might be enough
Speaker 1: to to prevent that from ever really happening. So, but
Speaker 1: the tendency to go toward that that single form factor
Speaker 1: that's always going to be there, I think. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so is the curmudgeon factor for people who just absolutely
Speaker 1: do not want one device to rule them all. Right, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and and here we can take a quick moment to
Speaker 1: talk about one of the downsides to to convergence and
Speaker 1: getting all of your gadgets into one form factor, which
Speaker 1: of course, is you don't have the luxury of redundancy.
Speaker 1: That This is what I would call the the toilet factor.
Speaker 1: The toilet factor explained. So if you, you know, take
Speaker 1: your one device into the bathroom break and you drop
Speaker 1: it into the toilet, all of your stuff is lost forever, right,
Speaker 1: All your music, all your contacts, all your documents. Of course,
Speaker 1: if you're storing stuff on the cloud, then theoretically you'll
Speaker 1: be able to access at least some of it again
Speaker 1: once you get a new device. But yeah, that is
Speaker 1: the danger of having all of your your utilities and
Speaker 1: features and everything piled into one device is if you
Speaker 1: lose it or break it, or it's stolen or whatever,
Speaker 1: if you no longer have access to it, you've lost everything.
Speaker 1: You haven't just lost you know, your music collection or whatever. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's another argument against convergence and and why
Speaker 1: you'll you'll see some gadget lovers will have five or
Speaker 1: six gadgets and they wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 1: Then have people like me, and I'm like, get it
Speaker 1: down to the bare minimum so I don't have to carry,
Speaker 1: you know, four different kinds of devices and four different
Speaker 1: kinds of chargers just so I can you know get
Speaker 1: by Well, you know, I kind of thought you liked
Speaker 1: that sort of Batman utility belt. Look, well, if I
Speaker 1: had a utility belt, sure, a bandalier, A bandalier would
Speaker 1: also be cool. I would not turn down a bandalier.
Speaker 1: But um, right now, all I have is at my
Speaker 1: little messenger bag where they all clank together and it
Speaker 1: just gets heavier and heavier as I add gadgets. And
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's that's quickly becoming not cool. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: they scratch each other up right. Also, yes, I do
Speaker 1: have a scratch on my smartphone now, which makes me sad.
Speaker 1: I'm very sorry to hear that. All right, are we are?
Speaker 1: Are we done? I don't have anything else to converge
Speaker 1: into our discussion. Well then I guess that takes us
Speaker 1: straight to listener me baton none the hatches. Alright, So
Speaker 1: here's a listener mail from Steve from Sydney, Australia, and
Speaker 1: I am not going to do the accent. Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: just a simple little question that I was pondering and
Speaker 1: wondered if you had an opinion. Should a film still
Speaker 1: be called a film if it is recorded digitally? Many
Speaker 1: thanks Steve. So this is just an opinion question. What
Speaker 1: do you think? Um? I Well, my first reaction to
Speaker 1: that is, I'm sorry the email is cutting out of me. Um,
Speaker 1: because that's a really good question. Here's here's here's my
Speaker 1: my take on it. Um. While you may not technically
Speaker 1: call it film, uh in the sense that it's not
Speaker 1: actually you know, images on the film, I think the
Speaker 1: term film is so entrenched that it's all right to
Speaker 1: call it that. I mean, just like you wouldn't call
Speaker 1: you not every copy er is a xerox machine, right,
Speaker 1: but exactly exactly, But you still have people who say, like,
Speaker 1: I need to make a zerox of this. They don't
Speaker 1: say I need to make a copy or I need
Speaker 1: to go to the copier. I mean they might now
Speaker 1: same thing with band aids or jello. I mean, these
Speaker 1: are all trademark names that technically only apply to one
Speaker 1: specific thing, but people use it across the board. I
Speaker 1: think film is pretty much the same way. It doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter that it's not on the medium and known
Speaker 1: as film. So you don't think people just call them
Speaker 1: movies movies or motion pictures or moving pictures or talkies,
Speaker 1: or that their shadow show that goes on when I
Speaker 1: go into the theater box. Um. Shadow Show, by the way,
Speaker 1: is an excellent horror novel. Uh the Uh yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't. I would not get uppity with
Speaker 1: someone who referred to a movie as a film, even
Speaker 1: if it were recorded and projected digitally. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: whole thumb versus finger thing. Yeah, yeah, I mean people,
Speaker 1: I've heard people correct me when I've said, you know,
Speaker 1: called things you know, CDs, albums and you know, an
Speaker 1: album of music is, in my opinion anyway, an album,
Speaker 1: regardless of what format has recorded on also a record.
Speaker 1: It's a record, you know. You can have a written
Speaker 1: record of something. Is it recorded exactly? Version of music? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, just because it's on a CD doesn't mean
Speaker 1: it's not a record or an album. You wouldn't call
Speaker 1: it final. I wouldn't call it an LP. But in
Speaker 1: this case, yeah, I probably wouldn't call it a film.
Speaker 1: But then again, I usually call the movies anyway, so
Speaker 1: it may just be my personal semantics. So Steve, go
Speaker 1: ahead and call it a film. And if your friends
Speaker 1: laugh at you for calling it film when it's recorded digitally,
Speaker 1: get new friends. So say the experts, at tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: All right, Well that about revs, don't you? Don't you?
Speaker 1: This is what I do. I just I just recycle
Speaker 1: through friends on a regular basis. I just when I
Speaker 1: just side something and they don't agree with me, I
Speaker 1: got more people out there and find I'm leaving, all right,
Speaker 1: See what Josh and chuckerd up to? Um? All right, guys,
Speaker 1: Well I hope you enjoyed this episode of tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: Remember you can find out all sorts of interesting information
Speaker 1: about technology, gadgets, computers, all that kind of thing at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com. And we will talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Does it how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: And be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog.
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