Convergence Blows Through Comdex

LAS VEGAS-Like a soft summer breeze, the spectre of digital consumer electronics blew gently through COMDEX/Fall '97 as the computer industry prepared for the start of a new era.

While there were batches of new palmtops, most notably those based on Microsoft Windows CE 2.0, heaps of new monitors, digital cameras and image editing software, in the back meeting rooms, DTV was in the air. Even on the show floor engineers were discussing how the computing industry and consumer electronics industry would live together in the digital TV era.

For a show supposedly about computers, there was a great deal of talk about digital TV and various recordable DVD formats, all of which may translate into consumer video.