The Speculist

Last week I enjoyed Thanksgiving with my family out of town. When I returned on Sunday evening I kicked back in my chair to catch Battlestar Galactica on the TiVo.

No dice. With all the Spongebob Squarepants and Jimmy Neutron being recorded, Battlestar Galactica had already rotated off.

My TiVo is a few years old, so the hard drive size is just not impressive anymore. That plus the fact that the DirecTV box that the TiVo is integrated into is not HDTV - but my TV is - is just aggravating enough to get me to finally upgrade. It's been a good system, but it's time to move onward and upward.

Wouldn't it be great, I thought, to have a DVR system where you would never have to delete a show? Feel like watching the Charlie Brown Christmas Special in July? Weird, but okay, search for it... ("I didn't TiVo it last year, but here it is from the year before") and press "play."

Integrated into all this would be all your your documents - text, pictures, camcorder videos - instantly ready and searchable.

Now, what if all this was portable?

Speaking at the FT World Communications Conference, Nikesh Arora, Google's VP of European operations, told delegates that, in the coming years, the plummeting price of storage and its increasing volume-to-size ratio will give iPods almost unlimited potential to hold music and video.

Arora said, by 2012, iPods could launch at similar prices to those on sale now and yet be capable of holding a whole year's worth of video releases. Around 10 years down the line that could be expanded, creating iPods that can hold all the music ever sold commercially.

He said: "In 12 years, why not an iPod that can carry any video ever produced?" The Google exec said tech is now pursuing a price volume game - searching for the price point at which content will take off for the mainstream.

Obviously this would be the DVD killer. People enjoy DVDs because of the high quality video and DVD extras that are available. What if you could purchase a DVD equivalent that resides on your iPod/DVR and never gets scratched or lost? Some studios - like Disney - would probably prefer a pay-per-view model. I'm sure those issues could be worked out too.

Add to this books, magazines, and video games (CD's are already fading) and we are talking about the end of all tangible media.

Good riddance to the clutter.