EARLY CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW NEWS 2007

CONSUMER ELECTRONICS SHOW ROUND-UP OF EARLY NEWS....by Joyce Schwarz, blogging at www.hollywood2020.blogs.com. CES (Consumer Electronics Show) doesn't start for 6 days or so but already news is making headlines. Here's  quick recap of what we saw that may interest you and affect the new Hollywood.

IBM BACK AT CES:

IBM will spend tens of millions of dollars to create a 3,600-square-foot digital home according to a story on MarketWatch.com talking about IBM at the Consumer Electronic Show. The news reports say, IBM will highlight its work in semiconductors, innovations IBM researchers have developed and a game pavilion that will showcase all of the major game consoles. IBM will also have an area in its sprawling digital home that focuses on virtual communities on the Internet. There visitors can have discussions with IBM avatars, or virtual characters.According to the news reports: IBM has transformed from being a pure information technology company to becoming a technology company," said Norman Liang, business development executive at IBM. Liang said IBM wants consumer electronic companies to know it can act as a partner for them, thus its presence at CES. IBM also wants to get the message out to consumers that its technology is in many products that change the way people work and play

NEW DISNEY.COM -- launching at CES on January 8.....

After spending about a year on a redesign project, the Walt Disney Co. will unveil the new Disney.com on January 8 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to media reports. Big features of the new site will be social networking, chat and video clips, much like MySpace, but will incorporate parental controls for young Web surfers.

The redesign, supervised by Disney (NYSE: DIS) executive Paul Yanover, was a top priority for CEO Robert Iger, who told The Wall Street Journal that the Disney.com redesign was "the single most important companywide strategy Disney is currently implementing."

WHY DISNEY AND IBM POSTS? Why lump these two posts together. Because at Hollywood2020.blogs.com, Joyce Schwarz believes the future of the connected home and inter-connected multimidia (read content) is up for grabs. It is the new frontier of real estate. Not just one screen but all screens interconnecting together and operating separately. With a Home EPG (Electronic program guide) not really mentioned in advance by either of these companies. PC connects to TV connects to cell phone video connects to flat screens, connects to Barbie Dolls who have USB ports connects to public space TV connects to screens in your kids classroom and in your office or with you at Starbucks......it's the new Videopolis, we've been talking about for the past 12 years and what we've termed custom-tainment more than a decade ago.

In MULTIMEDIA: GATEWAY TO THE NEXT MILLENNIUM edited by Joyce Schwarz and Robert Aston....Joyce Schwarz coined the term custom-tainment....and today that prediction is coming true. Book is still available on Amazon.com and is being used in more than a dozen college classrooms. Originally published in 1995 by Harcourt Brace.Amazon.com: Books: Multimedia: Gateway to the Next Millennium