What is convergence?

they don't know that. Well now, well they do, now they do now. We record really far in advance, which is probably why when you guys listen to some of these podcasts where we have predictions things like that that are very timely at the time that we record them, they're not so timely by the time they come out. That's why. Yep. And one of these days somebody's gonna make a giant collider that anyway. Anyway, So we're actually gonna talk about something that is pretty timely, and it's

something that we've chatted about in previous episodes as well. Right, it's actually my favorite word, right, convergence. So We've used this word a lot in the past, and uh, we had a few people right and say, exactly what do you mean by this? Can you give some examples? What's

the deal with this whole convergence thing? And of course the word convergence has very has several meanings, but from a technological standpoint, in general, what it means is that you have multiple gadgets or devices in different form factors that begin to do the same sort of tasks, so that eventually they all begin to evolve into a more unified form factor. And there are a lot of different, uh examples that we can give. Yeah, when did you have a particular place to start? Or should I just

throw one out? You can throw one out if you like. I've got I mean, I know the most obvious one in my mind, but go ahead. Okay, Well, um, let's go back in time a little bit then, me be you know, back when you had a video game console and something that played movies. They were both attached to

your TV. That's a good example, very good example. Yes, So you had let's say, either a laser disc player or a VCR exactly, and you would use that to watch recorded shows and then you would wanna hit a little switch on the back of your TV so you can switch it over to your kick ass and play a little uh you know, berserk or or if you're unlucky like me, et and Adventure Adventure Pitfall, Pitfall best game for hands Down, River Raid second best game anyway.

So let's say that you wanted to do all that, well, you needed to have two different devices hooked up to that television, probably possibly some sort of converter box to switch between the two. Um these days not so much. You've got calm souls out there that are also media

systems of some sort. So whether it's a device like the Xbox that can also play DVDs or even download movies off the interwebs and onto the hard drive, or the p S three, which is also a Blu ray player, you have these devices that can both play games and display movies. Um. So that's a that's an example of convergence. It was two different technologies that eventually molded into one. Uh yep, And I was I was about to make a crack about the Wei. I am a dedicated we owner,

so it's not a slam. I'm just I'm just teasing. I was gonna say, oh, yeah, like the we can't and I went, wait, no, it's you know, got an Internet browser on it and you can download games on it. So it is converging even though it doesn't have a DVD or but now it's converging more with say a

computer than um that necessarily a media player. But then convergence has convergence, right, And essentially all these consoles are just not just but all these consoles are Arey's specialized computers realized when when you get down to it, Um, they're not quite the same as a desktop or laptop, but you know, it's a computer nonetheless. So yeah, I mean, and even back in the day, back when you had two separate machines, you might say, well, well, Jonathan and Chris,

where was the where was the evolution of this? You know, how did this eventually come about? You might argue that, say, the old um, the old media players weren't really much of a game system except for the fact that I actually did have some games that used the VHS uh format. Yeah you know what I'm talking about, kind of like the choose your own adventure type stuff that the murder

mysteries and things like that. Well, that was the deal was that it was there were people who were seeing this, this as an opportunity to create an interactive experience with the audience, and they saw it as you know, hitting

a market that was not getting touched. And I think it was you know, I thought thought leaders like that, who I'm sure most of them failed because I mean, it's it was a clunky interface, But it was it was thought like that that lead to convergence of these two different technologies because people said, hey, you know what, they don't Your average consumer doesn't want that much clutter and would like to have a device that can multitask so that you don't have to have an entertainment system

that holds fourteen different set top boxes. Although I know someone who has probably that mini um right next to his enormous television um. So that's a good example. The example that always comes to my mind, it's the it's just one that I see all the time. It's the personal computer and the cell phone. They are getting closer and closer together now in the United States. It's only been the last couple of years that we've really seen

this explode. Before that, it was pretty much just in the realm of the enterprise user, so businessmen businesswomen who were pretty high up in their company wouldn't need to have some sort of handheld device that would keep them connected all the time. At first, they were they were p d as, they didn't necessarily have a phone in them, so they were kind of like little handheld computers with

limited functionality. And then you eventually got to more and more powerful cell phones that began to have some of the p d A functionality. And now we've gotten the point where the smartphones that we see out on the market today have more functionality than a PDA ever had, to the point where they really like small handheld computers. Um, they're not, you know, not as versatile as a computer.

They don't have all the different bells and whistles that computers have, but they're much more powerful than the standard cell phone, like a candy bar flip flip phone. I mean, it's they're much more powerful than that. And uh, at the same time, you're seeing laptops getting smaller and smaller into the netbook range where the features are starting to get yeah, kind of cut down to to the bare base x because so much of the the processing power

and storage capacities is shifting to the cloud. You've got computers that are starting to look more and more like cell phones. I mean, they're smaller, they're not as powerful as the classic computer. UM and some of them even have cellular UH modems so that you can hook up to a data a data line on a three G network and use that instead of WiFi. True, or you could UM if you have access to something like UM

the Verizon myi Fi, the little portable network device. You're using the cell network to power your to act as a connection to that network and to provide WiFi access to your computer, or maybe a y max modem that you could plug in and that would let you travel and access to network. And you know, you could start Skype up or some other chat program to converse using

your computer over the wireless network. Right, use voice over Internet protoc hall and now you're you're making phone calls over your computer or you're using your smartphone to you know, check on weather and and Internet. I mean, it's this is what we're talking about. We're talking about convergence. Now, is the smartphone or the netbook the ultimate form factor that this this particular kind of device is going to

take We don't know. It may be that these two devices never fully converge into one, but the way that the way things are going, I would not be surprised if we had a handheld device that probably probably would have to look more like a phone than a computer, just to keep the phone functionality, uh, easy to use without having to have a separate headset or something like that. That's just a guess, though I could be totally wrong.

It might turn out that this Mac tablet that's been rumored forever and is still in the rumor stage, no one's announced it. We we're recording this shortly after w w d C, and of course, uh, some of us were disappointed to see that there was no mention of this Mac tablet that's been the rumors for for a year now, really, or a Mac netbook for that matter. A lot of people were sad about that. Well, except that they've Apple has been pretty forthright about saying they

will not do anything that's in the netbook form. Factor, that doesn't prevent people from hoping that they're a lying that's true, that's true. We can always hope that they're being a little duplicitus. Although the tablet makes sense because it would come out to be about the same price level as a netbook, so they could compete within the price,

but it would be a different form factor. But that Mac tablet could in theory be the first step to a unified device that finally really bridges the gap between the phone and the computer. Or it could just be another little side step that doesn't ever go anywhere. That's the thing. You can't really predict these things. True, true, But you know, I was thinking about it as we were doing some research, and I don't know that convergence is necessarily limited to the electronics world, I mean as

the actual physic electronic devices. She started thinking about Facebook, and I thought, well, you know, it's a social networking site, but it's also become increasingly a platform for things like games and uh so, I mean, convergence is is more than you know. It looks like people are trying to find other ways to tie in products and services together

all in one. And sticking with the Facebook example, you could also argue that Facebook resembles Twitter quite a bit now now that after the after Facebook underwent it's most recent um cosmetic change, the news feed is a lot like a Twitter feed, particularly if you are like me, and you start to hide all the quizzes that pop

up because I hate them. People. If you befriend me on Facebook, be prepared for me to complain if you if you take lots and lots of quizzes, especially if you take seven or eight in an hour, because I'm gonna hide all of them and then I'm going to complain about it because yeah, you really will, Yeah, yeah, I really yeah. If you look at my Facebook status is you know, you'll see like every few days and I'll make another snide remark about these quizzes. Um. But

it is very much like Twitter. Then you have Google, which now search engine andy, uh, phone platform and a payment platform. And you know there's Google Docs, there's Google I Am yeah. Google Wave. Actually, we wanted to talk about Google Wave a little bit. It's it's early for us to talk about it. We do not have access to Google Wave as of the recording of this podcast, although we're changed trying to change that as soon as we possibly can, because it's cool but uh but not cool.

C U I l it's cool c O O l um. But Google Wave. That's a joke for all you search engine fans out there. Google Google wave is is pretty nifty looking. I mean, it is again an example of convergence.

In this case, we're talking about the service convergence, like like Chris was saying, right, Um, it's designed to be sort of a combination of email and I AM and collaborative documents like Google Docs, because you can actually rather than sending an email message back and forth and threading them together like uh Gmail does, it would actually let you edit uh the one message going back and forth

at the same time, which is pretty weird. It's it's it's like, yeah, I actually watched the demo, and the demo was very impressive. At one point they had at least four people all working on the same threaded conversation at the same time, and you could actually see the updates live there. It's it's not one of those things we have to refresh the page or wait for it

to refresh. It's actually updating in real time, and so you see and every every person's uh changes are are a slightly different color, and you can see the person's name next to the cursor as they're making the change, so you know who is doing what at the time. And you can even do things like share pictures and videos and that sort of thing and link them all together. Uh. It's it's really pretty phenomenal what they've built so far.

And even more than that, Uh, the whole purpose of the demo wasn't to say, hey, look at this cool thing that we built. It was more to say, hey, we built this platform. We want developers to come out here and and build applications that that use this platform as its foundation and make it even more useful, which is a great idea and uh, I honestly can't wait to see what happens. It looks to me like it

could revolutionize really search and conversations and collaboration. It's just uh, it's it's too early to really make any big predictions. And of course it may never come out of beta. But Google, Yah, it's coming out though. Gmails coming out of beta. Uh huh it is, okay, I believe you

all right. So what basically we're talking about then, is that all of our electronics will gradually merge into one device, and on that one device will be using one service that it involves all of our gaming and work and communications and everything all of our needs in one place. Well, in theory, that would be the ultimate convergence. I don't think we'll ever quite get there, but you know, as

another example, televisions and computers are slowly converging. We we've seen at CES, We've seen internet ready television's for a couple of years. Now, um there's they still have very very low impact in the market. I mean, there are hardly any services that that offer Internet TV, and they're hardly any televisions that actually can take advantage of it. But eventually, if this takes hold, we will have televisions where you can you essentially have the DVR incorporated in there.

You have this is essentially like Hulu and YouTube incorporated in there, so that you suddenly have this enormous wealth of of content that you can you can access just using your television. And not only that, they there are a lot of services out there, including Yahoo, that have worked out ways to put widgets on your TV and you'd be able to access uh you know those plus services like Twitter and probably Facebook and my Space and all the other social networking sites so that you get

access those via your TV. So you you know, have your big screen and be able to Internet and watch TV and everything else to your heart's content. So you never have to get up off the couch or if you have one of those cool touch screen TVs, you get up off the couch to play some weird games. Oh and then there's that. Yeah, so that's the low

down on convergence. We again, we're when we're using that term, we're really just talking about the tendency for all these different technologies to kind of hone in on the same sort of user experience. Um, they just come at it from different angles, and ultimately we may end up with a single form factor or it may turn out that no single form factor dominates it. Really, it's all very chancey,

there's no easy way to predict it. Granted, now, if if Apple comes out with the killer device, they're they're they're just dominating that handheld device market. I mean when you go to the iPod in the iPhone in the United States anyway, they have such a strong presence. I could easily see a killer Apple device dominating and then no one ever rests it away from them. Um. I don't know that that will happen, but but it wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, I think that they at least will

try eventually. Um, but I think there are plenty of other people who would like shot at it too, so, you know, and it may be one of those things where it's just not a one size fits all world, you know. And there are other things to consider as well, like like Apple, even though they have a killer device, you may wonder why I don't own an iPhone, and it would be because I'm not an a T and

T customer. So there are considerations like that. If you have a device that is married to a particular service provider and there are people who are not customers of that service provider, that could be enough to prevent a one you know, one device to rule them all and one device to bind them I'm not going to do the rest of home, but yeah, that might be enough to to prevent that from ever really happening. So, but the tendency to go toward that that single form factor

that's always going to be there, I think. Yeah, and so is the curmudgeon factor for people who just absolutely do not want one device to rule them all. Right, yeah, well, and and here we can take a quick moment to talk about one of the downsides to to convergence and getting all of your gadgets into one form factor, which of course, is you don't have the luxury of redundancy. That This is what I would call the the toilet factor.

The toilet factor explained. So if you, you know, take your one device into the bathroom break and you drop it into the toilet, all of your stuff is lost forever, right, All your music, all your contacts, all your documents. Of course, if you're storing stuff on the cloud, then theoretically you'll be able to access at least some of it again

once you get a new device. But yeah, that is the danger of having all of your your utilities and features and everything piled into one device is if you lose it or break it, or it's stolen or whatever, if you no longer have access to it, you've lost everything.

You haven't just lost you know, your music collection or whatever. Um. So yeah, that's another argument against convergence and and why you'll you'll see some gadget lovers will have five or six gadgets and they wouldn't have it any other way. Then have people like me, and I'm like, get it down to the bare minimum so I don't have to carry, you know, four different kinds of devices and four different kinds of chargers just so I can you know get by Well, you know, I kind of thought you liked

that sort of Batman utility belt. Look, well, if I had a utility belt, sure, a bandalier, A bandalier would also be cool. I would not turn down a bandalier. But um, right now, all I have is at my little messenger bag where they all clank together and it just gets heavier and heavier as I add gadgets. And that's uh, that's that's quickly becoming not cool. Yeah, well they scratch each other up right. Also, yes, I do have a scratch on my smartphone now, which makes me sad.

I'm very sorry to hear that. All right, are we are? Are we done? I don't have anything else to converge into our discussion. Well then I guess that takes us straight to listener me baton none the hatches. Alright, So here's a listener mail from Steve from Sydney, Australia, and I am not going to do the accent. Hi, guys, just a simple little question that I was pondering and wondered if you had an opinion. Should a film still be called a film if it is recorded digitally? Many

thanks Steve. So this is just an opinion question. What do you think? Um? I Well, my first reaction to that is, I'm sorry the email is cutting out of me. Um, because that's a really good question. Here's here's here's my my take on it. Um. While you may not technically call it film, uh in the sense that it's not actually you know, images on the film, I think the term film is so entrenched that it's all right to

call it that. I mean, just like you wouldn't call you not every copy er is a xerox machine, right, but exactly exactly, But you still have people who say, like, I need to make a zerox of this. They don't say I need to make a copy or I need to go to the copier. I mean they might now same thing with band aids or jello. I mean, these are all trademark names that technically only apply to one specific thing, but people use it across the board. I

think film is pretty much the same way. It doesn't really matter that it's not on the medium and known as film. So you don't think people just call them movies movies or motion pictures or moving pictures or talkies, or that their shadow show that goes on when I go into the theater box. Um. Shadow Show, by the way, is an excellent horror novel. Uh the Uh yeah, I think, I mean I don't. I would not get uppity with someone who referred to a movie as a film, even

if it were recorded and projected digitally. Yeah, that's the whole thumb versus finger thing. Yeah, yeah, I mean people, I've heard people correct me when I've said, you know, called things you know, CDs, albums and you know, an album of music is, in my opinion anyway, an album, regardless of what format has recorded on also a record. It's a record, you know. You can have a written

record of something. Is it recorded exactly? Version of music? Yeah, you know, just because it's on a CD doesn't mean it's not a record or an album. You wouldn't call it final. I wouldn't call it an LP. But in this case, yeah, I probably wouldn't call it a film. But then again, I usually call the movies anyway, so it may just be my personal semantics. So Steve, go ahead and call it a film. And if your friends laugh at you for calling it film when it's recorded digitally,

get new friends. So say the experts, at tech Stuff. All right, Well that about revs, don't you? Don't you? This is what I do. I just I just recycle through friends on a regular basis. I just when I just side something and they don't agree with me, I got more people out there and find I'm leaving, all right, See what Josh and chuckerd up to? Um? All right, guys, Well I hope you enjoyed this episode of tech Stuff.

Remember you can find out all sorts of interesting information about technology, gadgets, computers, all that kind of thing at how stuff Works dot com. And we will talk to you again really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff Works dot com And be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog. Now on the house Stuff What's homepage brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you