bookofjoe in USA Today today

So I was just going through today's papers, and lo and behold, there I am, in Kevin Maney's Technology column in USA Today.

Amazing: of all the blogs out there (Technorati's tracking over 5.8 million currently), Kevin picks mine out as a poster child. He writes:

"These days any schmoe can publish a blog or put up a web site."

I'm down wit dat: after all, my mom used to call me "Joe Schmoe from Kokomo."

But I digress.

Here's his next paragraph:

"That's given all kinds of people a new way to say something. Thousands of people, for example, can regularly tune into the thoughts of Book of Joe, who bills himself as the world's only blogging anesthesiologist."

Sweet.

Here's the column in its entirety:

Tech show expects video to flourish on Net the way words have

Most people come to the Consumer Electronics Show looking for cool new products.

Wandering the floor of the show, which ended Sunday, it's certainly impressive to see high-definition TVs that would take up a wall — in Versailles.

Or a pink Hummer filled with beer-keg-size speakers that could vibrate the aluminum siding off every house it passes.

But there's more here than a gizmo bacchanal — more than just products being pitched by athletic young women who, while working the booths, also seem to be testing new fabrics to see how far they can stretch.

CES is a good place to find some pretty cool ideas about bigger trends that will unfold in coming years.

One trend, for instance, means that individuals will no doubt make and post amateur TV shows as easily and regularly as people now post blogs.

Another suggests that you should clear a spot in your living room for a big honkin' console like the TV-record player-speakers combo your parents had in the 1970s.

The third leads to the prediction that Microsoft's Windows will eventually really DO windows.

Let's take those one at a time:


• The deconstruction of entertainment.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, TiVo CEO Mike Ramsay and a number of visionaries here say that homes in coming years will have faster Internet connections and some kind of media machine that has nearly infinite disk storage and can feed video to big plasma screens.

In that world, an increasing amount of what we think of as TV will be delivered over the Internet.

Either you'll see a live stream of video, or you'll download a movie or show to a hard disk to watch later.

One long-predicted result is that TV will become more like the Web: You'll find what you want to see when you want to see it, and the choices will explode.

Video "channels" will be as numerous as Web sites and will cater to ever-smaller niches.

The Squirrel Hunting Channel.

The Ned Beatty Movie Channel.

As Gates points out, that will have a profound effect on how video gets created.

It's exactly what the Internet did to publishing.

Before the Internet, to reach a big audience you had to own printing presses and a distribution system.

These days, any schmoe can publish a blog or put up a Web site.

That's given all kinds of people a new way to say something.

Thousands of people, for example, can regularly tune into the thoughts of Book of Joe, who bills himself as the world's only blogging anesthesiologist.

Imagine that happening to TV.

A suburban woman gets a handheld digital video camera and editing software and creates a version of Desperate Housewives about her own cul-de-sac, posting it for an audience around the world.

A high school could post football games so alumni anywhere could watch. Everything that has happened to words and photos the past 10 years will happen to video in the next 10.

"It's going to open up creativity — the same kind we've seen on the Internet, but for TV," Gates says.

Some products that would help make that happen were introduced at CES.

One company, Serious Magic, unveiled software called Vlog It that creates video blogs — which it's calling "vlogs."

As the software gets better, maybe users will be able to make full-length movies, or "cinema blogs."

We could call those "clogs."

Similarly, the trend of allowing anyone to create media is happening to music.

An example was unveiled at CES: UmixIt, which is being hawked by Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler.

It lets artists release songs with every sound — vocals, guitar, bass, etc. — on a separate track. Fans can then alter the mix, or even take out, say, Tyler's vocal and insert their own.


• Ahead to the past.

A number of tech companies are introducing technology that removes a problem that technology created in the first place.

Like, anyone who has digital cable knows that there's a several-second delay every time you change the channel.

Before digital cable, you clicked and the next channel came on instantly.

"That (delay) drives me insane," talk show host Conan O'Brien said at CES.

"You can change the channel, go make a sandwich, and come back and it's still not there."

Phone company SBC and Microsoft showed technology that gets rid of the delay.

During an on-stage presentation, it got big cheers.

Then there's the problem created by plasma TVs, surround-sound systems, TiVo devices and other video technology: Most anyone who tries to make it all work together will either lose his mind or grow violent.

Guitar-maker Gibson thinks it has a solution, borrowed from the Carter era.

Gibson is building the whole video enchilada into a single cabinet the size of a dresser.

Out this summer, it will cost $10,900.

"Yeah, it is a lot like those old consoles," says Gibson CEO Henry Juszkiewicz.

"We're excited about it."


• Microsoft's next target.

Thursday, Gates roamed the vast CES floor. Deep into one corner, past the humongous, flashy booths of Samsung, DirecTV, Motorola and other tech giants, Gates found the bathroom-size booth of iRobot, maker of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner.

He stayed for quite a while, asking questions about iRobot's products, including the PackBot, which is helping soldiers in Iraq search buildings and look for bombs.

He seemed intrigued that iRobot has sold 1 million Roombas and that future home 'bots will do other housework.

Gates didn't say what was on his mind, but the folks at iRobot's booth put the equation together: a freshly emerging segment of home robotics plus computer-driven products that don't use Microsoft products equal a market Gates will someday want to target.

Since these 'bots run on artificial intelligence, maybe we'll see Windows AI.

"If I were Bill Gates, I'd be looking at it that way," says iRobot CEO Colin Angle.

"Though I can't imagine having to boot a Roomba up."