As digital television emerges as the home-entertainment medium of the new century, the convergence of audio/video broadcasting and the Internet is inevitable. After all, DTVs are nothing more than computers dedicated to A/V tasks; it seems a simple matter to include telecommunications capabilities as well. This convergence is made even easier with the increasing use of broadband cable modems, which access the Internet via the same infrastructure that brings television to roughly two-thirds of American homes.

Normally, UAV wouldn't pay much attention to the Electronic Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3, being held at the Los Angeles Convention Center, May 17-20, 2005. But at this year's show, there were some announcements that perked up my ears a bit: new game consoles from the Big Three (Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo), at least some of which will have high-def capabilities, making them much more interesting to home theater buffs.

It was a night like any other Hollywood premier: lavish parties, hundreds of fans crowding police barricades surrounding the theater, stars sauntering down the red carpet, paparazzi yelling at them: "Turn to the right! No, my right!" But few premiers feature Imperial Storm Troopers, Wookies, and Darth Vader himself working the crowd.

Focus Enhancements, one of the primary developers of ultra wideband (UWB) wireless networking technology, has successfully demonstrated the transmission of two HDTV datastreams through the walls of its Hillsboro, Oregon, facility. This is an important step toward enabling consumer products to wirelessly transmit multiple HD streams throughout the home using Focus Enhancements' UWB chipsets, which should become available later this year.