I could handle one, please.

It's my standard gripe, but here we go.
Do they even pretend to care about the consumer anymore? New plugs?
I love gadgets. I love them all. But the RCA cable has been around for at least 60 years in an essentially unchanged form. Surely it's time to just bite the bullet and design a fiber optic spec that will be the be-all and end-all for the next 40 years or so. I'd be happy to pay a premium if it meant that I wouldn't have obsolescent cables within a year of purchase.
I was looking forward to buying a new receiver this year- since the bluray player requires it- but now I've got to wait for this. I'm sure there will be a new audio format for video too that means I'll have to buy the more expensive receiver...

Oh heck yes, I need this for my home theater...

Squeezebox/squeezecenter. I might also recommend the Squeezebox boom- that thing has great sound, and does all the things that its siblings do along with a snooze bar!

The squeezebox duet is sweet, but you're right, the price is just a bit higher than one would like. The regular squeezebox will meet most needs, of course, but that duet remote is sweet.

If you've got a media server already, it's a no-brainer. Plays flac, and can also be jiggered to work with itunes. 3 drops thus would be about $900, if you have the server, aka a PC you can keep on all the time.

Wife approved, since I've got it tweaked with 'superdatetime' to show time and weather when it's off. It is rather nifty. The scrolling sports scores were nice, but that had to go as it was NOT wife-approved.

I'd use it to keep track of my household inventory, and also to keep track of recipes. Very prolix, but, that's what I need.

My least favorite announcement was of changes to HDMI. Curse you, "progress!"

Does anybody else find it noisome at best that we have a changing spec on a consumer standard? How on earth are regular people supposed to not feel ripped off, when I, a fairly experienced computer/audio person, can't even keep track of the different sub-specs of the current standard? I realize things improve all the time, and digital advances mean the need for change, and even that forward-thinking a spec raises the price, but come on. Somebody should have sat down and planned out the full details for hdtv line transmissions 6 years, with all these details included. Why didn't they, for example, just start with some good ol' fashioned infinite bandwidth fiber optic cable? (I know, fragility. But, still.)

I realize I'm being a curmudgeon here, but, I got a blu-ray player as a present for Christmas. Now I have to upgrade my stereo since God forbid we actually transmit surround sound over anything but HDMI. My tube HD does have HDMI- but who knows if it'll work. Now I hear about new specs, which mean new receivers, and new flat panels, which means spending much larger sums to be future-proofed.

I realize that all these newer faster electronics gives us more exciting possibilities. Leaving the market to be totally driven by the obsessives, however, hurts the industry overall by making everybody else feel like they're being ripped off as soon as they get home and discover all the caveats. And it makes us want NOT to buy the newest toys.

Yeah, I'd like one.

I need something to replace the 115lb. tube hdtv...