CES 2009

We’re hearing it again and again from many TV manufacturers. TVs are becoming the center of our home entertainment beyond broadcast TV, cable or satellite. Networked TVs that can download content from the internet and can show photos, play videos and music from the computers on your home network. All of the TV manufacturers from LG, to Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic, Sony and Samsung were announcing their partnerships with different content providers. Yahoo widgets were omnipresent. These mini applications—widgets—let you get local weather, news, sports, stock tickers and more. As widgets you can choose the type of stocks you want to follow or put in other customizable information. Yahoo widgets are open source which means that software developers can let their imaginations run wild and we’ll all benefit from what they dream up.

Along with showing photos from your own collections on your home computers, Samsung TVs can connect to online sources like Flickr. On Flickr you can retrieve photos from your friends and family to bring home a slideshow of your loved ones memories. And it’s as easy as going into a menu and typically it appears right there on your big screen where you want it. Samsung calls it the “Seamless Experience.” Connectivity has arrived!