It was with great trepidation and concern that I bought an HD DVD add-on for my Xbox 360 last year. I was well aware of what lay ahead with two different formats (Blu-ray and HD DVD) competing for the entire high-definition video market. I also knew that it would make me a certified "early adopter" and prone to doubt and worry over the purchase and investment I had made. What I didn't expect is how dirty and shameless the debate would become among consumers.

Now, at the core of this HD format "war" are two corporations, Microsoft and Sony. Each has a large stake in their respective format—Microsoft has invested financially in HD DVD, Sony almost single-handedly built Blu-ray—and could stand to control a good-sized portion of the optical disk media industry, not only with home video sales, but also in music sales and computer hardware and software markets. Separately, the two formats would split those markets and have to co-exist, but history has shown that mainstream consumers don't want multiple technologies that can essentially do the same exact thing. So, for the average consumer, one technology will almost always be enough, and therein lies the need to compete and "win" for these two camps.

Since the release of iTunes 4.9, I've really gotten into podcasting, probably more than I ever expected to. It's hard to believe, but I've hardly used my iPod for music in the last few weeks. After the iTunes update, I subsequently checked out Podcast Alley, Podcast Pickle and Odeo. Of these, Odeo has probably had the most buzz surrounding it, and while it's a combination of a website and application, I still don't think it quite lives up to the full experience of iTunes.

That's not to say iTunes hasn't had it's own share of trouble, with feeds being delayed and missing and just generally feeling a little half-assed. But as I think Adam Curry mentioned recently, Apple is a major player trying to get in near the ground floor, which most giant companies don't risk doing. Remember when Microsoft underestimated the web browser market and they had to play catch-up for three versions of Internet Explorer? With Apple being the catalyst themselves for "pod"casting, how could they sit back and not jump on the wagon? I can forgive them for the setbacks.

With the company's name in the news almost constantly for the last few months, you'd think things are going well, but some of the news I've been reading is giving me a bad feeling.

The lion's share

Probably the biggest news in the last couple of weeks has been Sony's acquisition of MGM to the amount of $3 billion. Sound like a good deal right? But Sony already has it's own production studios, including Columbia Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics and Screen Gems. While MGM hasn't exactly been on fire in quite a while now, they've got an enormous catalog of classic films. This is what Sony is expecting to take to the bank as it releases these thousands of titles on home video.

Here's something that I actually found a while back, but failed to really make anything of it. Suffice it to say that I can't remember what I originally had in mind.

But check it out, it's very cool. It basically amounts to webpages in the third dimension, made possible with wireless networks, handheld devices and GPS technology. It's a revolutionary theory of networking, if those behind it could get it to work.

My only question is as to how this would work in multi-level environments, where one location would have the same GPS coordinates as another directly below it. In buildings, how would you distinguish a message in front of the elevator on the first floor from one directly above it on the second floor?

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Last night, PBS aired one of the most encompassing and forthcoming programs about the evolution of mankind and technology, Beyond Human.

Delving into the practical applications of cybernetic devices and appendages, the first episode of Beyond Human looks at the technology and years of research that makes such innovations possible. Also featured are real-life case studies in which handicapped individuals are given, or re-introduced to, senses that were long considered out of reach. An elderly woman is given a sense of hearing, a skiing accident victim is given the capacity to walk again, a man is outfitted with new surgically-implanted retinal devices, restoring a limited amount of sight. Also shown are the real world efforts of research teams to conceive the ultimate wearable/integrated computing devices.