The future

I tend to think up of a lot of futuristic things that I believe will either happen, or are just pretty cool. Most the time it's pretty science fiction. I actually just heard on Kramp and Adler that some old retired NFL famous guys are talking about changes that could make the NFL better and one was a chip in the football and some lights that made it glow a certain color if it crosses the first down or touchdown. Which reminds me a lot of a thought I had way back in the dorms about how hard it is for a judge in tennis to actually call a ball out of bounds or in. I figure they should have pressure sensitive tiling or courts that glow when hit, so its actually a lot of the same concept as the football thing. In the end I basically want to take all human error and judgement from the Umpire/ref job, which can be pretty stressful, and often determines games.

But yeah, I digress. The thing I wanted to talk to with you now is about the new Xbox live experience. Micro$oft is onto something with this.(or they had it to begin with) Now I have been considering getting a computer next to the tv. An HTPC as it were. This would primarily be used to download movies, or transfer over the network, so that we can watch downloads and online episodes on the big screen instead of huddling around the computer. So I was fooling around in the new xbox live, loving how easy it was to navigate, when I found the xbox Media Center link. I knew this existed before but never really looked into it. It ended up being perfect, we quickly connected to a local PC, browsed our battlestar galactica collection and it started streaming full screen over the network, quality was great too. So then I keep looking around, and wuddya know, Netflix is on there too. So if I ever feel like not being a pirate, and paying a mere $8.95 a month, I can stream unlimited HD movies directly to my TV.

So, that was just to fill you in on where I am at with the xbox. It is opening windows, that frankly, my nerdier friends probably already knew about. M'bad. The Sci-fi future inventions part that I want to talk about is the possibilities a Device such as this could hold. Lets not call it a gaming console. Let's call it a Multimedia Portal(or something fancy like that). It could very well resemble a xbox. But it would be exactly what I think my Tivo/Dvr should be, and more.

Purchasing and recording shows/movies go straight to the hard drive as easy to share files. You can share these, or home videos and pictures with friends and family on your friends list. You can connect with them and text/talk/video chat. It would basically be a social network on steroids, like Facebook combined with Xbox Live. If you wanted to make some free long distance calls over the internet and your relatives and family had this device it would be very simple. Grandparents could video conference from half way around the world and see their grandchild take his first steps. (picture these cisco commercials you've been seeing).

So this isn't really an invention so much as it is a melding of technologies that are separated right now. Social Network, Communication (Video/voice/text), DVR, TV, Internet. I guess if google or xbox pushed something like this I would see it being pretty groundbreaking, if they got it right. The same way we see cell phone taking the responsibility of all our mobile devices.

There is probably a entrepreneur opportunity in here somewhere, I just don't have the motivation or capital to pursue it. I'll leave being rich to people like bill gates.

Listening to: The Grudge by Tool