Like the rest of the Apple fanboys, its just been Macworld, and I'm in love. The object of my infatuation? The Apple Macbook Air. Insanely small, shiny svelte and glistening with the usual Apple lust factor.
Actually, I was originally meant to be in Vegas this week for CES, but cancelled at the last minute. I can't say that I'm sorry. There seems to have been two themes at CES this year. Bigger screens and BluRay clubbing HD-DVD to death. Yawn.
Manufacturers forget that time and again consumers will happily trade resolution and quality for convenience and flexibility. Hence cassette tapes over high fidelity vinyl records, MP3 over CDs, and increasingly - web downloads over DVD. Take a closer look at the Macbook Air. There's no optical drive. The prediction is that audiences will increasingly stream or download wirelessly what they want to watch. Media companies should take note. By the time the studios have finished working out who's going to win the physical media format war, they may discover it was a Pyrrhic victory after all.
