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CES 2013

This past week was a big week for the tech industry, with the holding of the Consumer Electronics Show 2013. Recent years have been a bit 'meh', but this year really had some interesting tech show up. In particular the theme seemed to be changes coming to our living room TV's.

Much of what we saw this year revolved around ways to get entertainment to our TV's with set top boxes that tie into other services, or all new TV technology like 4k (Ultra High Defenition). Personally, I'm less excited about UHD, since I just bought a new TV, and am quite happy with it. Plus, I don't think we have the internet bandwidth for UHD content yet.

The really cool advances are less technological for me, but structural. One of the things I love about internet delivered entertainment, is the ability to control what you watch a LOT more than the old days of flipping cable channels. I love the idea of discovering a new show, downloading an entire season and devouring it as quickly as I choose to. Or the notion of season passes, where, the morning after a show "airs" I get an email that my latest episode is ready for me whenever (and on whatever device) I want to watch it. This type of flexibility in how I consume my entertainment is what I'm looking for, and honestly I think it brings us back around to the "old days", when entertainment meant picking up a good book.

In many ways, books are the ultimate in flexible entertainment. You purchase a book (or even an e-book), and it's available for you to start reading whenever you want. You can read a little bit, or stay up way too late devouring page after page of a gripping story. You can take a book (or even an e-book) with you, and read it in different places, on the way to work, or on your lunch break, or in bed. This is the type of flexibility I'm looking for in my media.

We got another small taste of this at CES this year with the emphasis on new TV's, lots of tablets for watching entertainment, and devices like the Qube. Or even with press releases about new ways to get digital copies of DVD's and new service coming to AppleTVs. I'm looking forward to more changes in store in the coming year.

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