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Although many manufacturers claim their products are revolutionary, the truth is that most audio/video components are fairly generic. DVD players, surround receivers, and even speakers tend to be interchangeable parts of your system. It's rare - very rare - that a truly unique product comes along, one that radically departs from the norm.

Football season's over, but you'd never know it from the legions of gamers who've made EA's Madden NFL a year-round obsession. [A shorter version of this interview was printed in the May issue.]

I was born in New York and moved to Connecticut when I was 5, but I visited the city often over the next 20 years. The visits have slowed since I've lived far from the northeast US, so every time I come back, the milling throng of multicultural humanity crowding the sidewalks continues to surprise and amaze me. And on April 28, they all decided to crowd into the Hilton Hotel.

My first surprise on arrival at the Hilton Hotel on 6th Avenue in New York City for this year's Home Entertainment show (running through Sunday, May 1) was the widescreen Philips LCD flat panel television in my room. Many of the rooms at the Hilton have apparently been equipped with these sets. It was no surprise that the set was adjusted for a "full" widescreen display, thus rendering all images in "fat" mode, but the set did allow me to adjust the aspect ratio. Still, the picture was in need of further adjustment, which the display, typical of hotel sets, did not provide. Not that it mattered much; the source was standard definition. Oh well, one step at a time. Equipping a major New York hotel with flat panels is still a coup for Philips, who wasn't at the show, but in one real—and important—sense, they were.