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Some readers objected to my blog post a few weeks ago that forecast the end of printed books by 2016 http://bit.ly/dcI6UC , protesting that bound books will never go away entirely. That may be true, but if print edition books survive, it won’t be anywhere near the scale of today’s print business. I stand by my prediction.Last week Amazon announced that Continue Reading

Wait! Before you rush out to Best Buy to replace your still-kinda-new high-def flat-screen TV with a not-quite-ready-for-primetime 3DTV, take a moment to consider what comes next: holographic TV viewing. Should you hold out and wait?Researchers at Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology are preparing for a public demonstration of Continue Reading

During my speech at the NAB convention in April, I expressed my view that the future of TV is empathically not “TV Everywhere”,  referring to the cross-platform concept promoted by major Cable MSOs  which is 1/3 hype, 1/3 bombast, and 1/3 fantasy.

At a time when margins are tight and disruption occurs on a daily basis, business leaders are under pressure to discover the “next big thing”, such as a breakthrough product that will redefine a category or create an entirely new niche to dominate.  A new process that will save time and money.  A radical efficiency that will restore fat margins.

Here we are, in low foothills of the second century of electronic media, and already the slogan “All media will be social media” has evolved from a rallying cry into a humdrum truism. But social media remains elusive and rather hard to define, primarily because human social interaction is so complex, varying by context and by situation, and also because of the rapid evolution of social software. Even though it is fairly obvious that two-way conversations will become an embedded feature of every media object, many media companies have struggled to find the best path towards integrating social features into their content offerings.No company’s travails have been more widely publicized and studied than Continue Reading

I agreed to participate at the Humanity+ summit this weekend at Harvard University despite the fact that it required me to duck out early from my 25th Reunion at Williams College. Why?I am fundamentally convinced that the Humanity+ movement represents the single biggest Continue Reading

This week HP announced a significant breakthrough:   devices that use a new chip design called the “memristor” that supplants the transistor-based designs of current semiconductors.

Lately, speculation about the future of television has been dominated by news of 3D TV sets. But another aspect of television has been quietly evolving with less fanfare: TV sets that connect directly to the Internet. This trend is potentially much more disruptive than the introduction of 3D displays.Now a secret joint effort by Google, Intel and Sony to enter this field in partnership has been revealed. It will bring Google’s Android operating system and Chrome browser to TVs and set top boxes. Continue Reading

The big debate this weekend in my home had nothing to do with movies or directors even though it’s Oscar season. Instead, we speculated about the future of the book.Specifically, i bet my dinner companions an unreasonable amount on the following proposition: within five years, publishers would be unable to afford to print hard bound editions of most new books. And so, they would choose not to publish them at all in the traditional form. Hundreds of years of print history will come to an end. Continue Reading

Will HTML5 make Adobe Flash irrelevant? Maybe someday but not soon.
There’s been a lot of speculative chatter lately about HTML5 as a replacement for Adobe Flash, fueled by Steve Jobs’ dark pronouncements during the splashy launch of the iPad. And recent reports about HTML5 video experiments by YouTube and Vimeo added to the brouhaha. Continue Reading