Excerpts from a News.com interview:
Convergence doesn’t happen until you have everything in a digital form that the consumer can easily use on all the different devices. So, if we look at the three types of media of greatest importance–we look at photos, we look at music and we look at video–the move toward giving people digital flexibility on them is pretty incredible on every one of them. It’s been discussed for a long, long time. And now, it’s really happening.
Some of the building blocks have surprised me on how quickly they’ve come along. Certainly, the pervasiveness of broadband and Wi-Fi, along with the improvement of screens and disks, have helped us a great deal. So, the Media Center concept–we got the timing on that one really right–that’s gone super well.
[The future will] be a personal computer that’s connected to the TV. When you think about the TV, you think about the big screen from which many people can sit at a distance and watch movies and shows–it’s perfect for that. And yet behind that, in order to navigate your guide or record things on to your hard disk so you can get them when you want or so that you can choose different photos that you want to see from different trips or other things, you want to have the full power of the PC.
Even as convergence is happening in the US, there are some interesting possibilities that will open up in India as always-on connections start becoming available at reasonable price points. The need is for affordable access devices along with innovative applications and content.
