´óÏó´«Ã½

Looking into the crystal ball

• Darren Waters
• 6 Jan 08, 03:52 GMT

The story of CES 2008 - even two days before the doors open officially - is not about which technology will reign supreme, or how many pixels a display has, or whichever format will come to dominate. It is about the integration of technology with services and content.

It's called the 360 degree experience. And it's essentially the ability to get content - be it music or films, or pictures, or text - and to share it, enjoy it, wherever and whenever.

Shawn Dubravac, an analyst with the Consumer Electronics Association, explained to me that no longer were technologies being released in isolation.

"We’re seeing device manufacturers, services providers and content creators working together to form alliances and joint ventures to make sure they get it right from day one," he said.

Some people might say, "about time too", because often it has been technology acting as a barrier to us over when we want to move content between devices, like a PC and MP3 player.

Dubravac believes that technologies like the PC and TV, and the set-top box, and your mobile phone are going to be much cosier than they have been in recent years.

He told me: "Consumers are increasingly taking digital media – even if it was originally in physical form like a CD or DVD - and they want to rip it on to a hard drive, or computer, or set-top box, so they have that content wherever they want, whenever they want it.

"One of the things driving the 360 degree experience is that consumers are increasingly vocalising what they want – the services, devices and content they want."

So is this the end of walled gardens, and dreaded vertical integration?

Not quite - the lock in for consumer may not be technology in the future, but it will certainly be service-related.

We may well have more flexibility to move our content around - but only between devices that are part of whichever service plan we have signed up for.

It is progress - but we are still some way off the truly seamless digital world.