The Internet Will Become More Readily Available, Even to Those Who Aren't Tech Savvy

We'll remember 2008 as the year the Web jumps off the computer screen. Just as electricity powers our appliances, the Internet powers more and more devices; this is the year we stop seeing the Internet as something existing only on the computer screen.

Web videos will stream directly to our televisions. The Netflix Player by Roku and Popcorn Hour are just the first of many devices that will put Web videos on screens of all sizes, on your living room wall and in your pocket. Don't want another device? Watch streaming YouTube videos and view photos from Google's Picasa service on Panasonic's Viera PZ850 series of plasma TVs without a box or computer. Music services such as Pandora are creating devices that stream Internet audio to your home speakers without a PC.

The Chumby is a small, unique device that serves as an Internet alarm clock, updates you on the baseball scores, replays Letterman's top 10 list and brings you virtually any content with an RSS feed. Use Amazon's Kindle to read the latest bestselling book or catch up on blogs and online newspapers.

Surfing the Web on the newest smart phones, such as the iPhone, is getting easier. The Google phone, due out before the end of 2008, will speed these innovations along. More and more phones have GPS, and GPS devices are combining with web content. Not only can you find out how to get somewhere, you can look up the locations of restaurants or Wi-Fi hotspots located along your route.

With Onstar and other Internet car devices, you can make a phone call from your car, without a phone. Your car can send you an email if it's stolen or to help you find it if you can't remember where you parked. You can get email from your online calendar reminding you of an appointment, and soon your refrigerator may be able to email you when you're running low on milk.

With Skype and other VoIP services, you can have a conversation over the Internet, and even see the person on the other end. With the new generation of incredibly small laptops like the Asus Eee PC, Skype-enabled devices are more portable than ever. You could be looking up a recipe on the laptop you keep on your kitchen counter and be interrupted by your teenager Skyping you from school to get a ride home.

The line between TV and Internet is becoming increasingly blurry. Gaming devices bring interactive content to the family room's wide screen. There is a cooking show that's not on TV at all, just the Internet. I have tried to explain to my children how we only had 4 TV channels and no DVDs when I was a kid, but they don't really grasp how different TV was back then. Their children won't remember a time when there was a distinction between TV content and Web content, and they might not even understand the difference between a newspaper and a blog.