DVD

I was reading an old issue of Newsweek this morning and came across an article about the guy who is credited with foreseeing the tremendous advantage that Digital Video Discs (DVD) would accrue to the entertainment industry. He brought together (he gets much of the credit, though his brash and unpredictable behavior according to the article also has led to his firing at various jobs) the entertainment industry, computer companies and electronics retailers so that they could agree on a common format. Now DVD's have replaced video tapes in much of the world.

On a tangential note, Bill Gates according to this article predicts that DVD's will be extinct in a decade. The alternative: intelligent TV's that can download just about anything from the internet.