'Convergence' in our homes

They're after our family rooms, you know. Our whole houses, in fact, not to mention our lives, since the convergence they keep talking about in all the coverage this week of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas is highly mobile, of course. There's all the competition among music providers for real estate on our cellphones and throughout our homes (see this in the New York Times). Then there's news that Google and Yahoo plan to move onto our TV screens, with music videos, news, weather, etc. (see this front-page Times piece). That would be scary for the good ol' TV networks, except that CBS reportedly plans to sell downloadable TV shows through Google. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em, must be the strategy, since Google and Yahoo will certainly sell advertising associated with their TV programming. The Times's team of reporters in Vegas describes how it all works. But all that wheeling and dealing for our ears and eyeballs is behind the scenes. In its "Best of CES Awards," CNET presents the finalists among all the gadgets on the actual show floor: several in every category, from camcorders to MP3 and portable video players to "Emerging Tech."