This is a picture of the gadgets that I carry around on a normal day. The Fujitsu P8110 Lifebook, the Creative VADO HD, the htc Desire Android, a 120GB iPod Classic, and Sony’s mp3 IC Recorder. There is of course substantial overlap between what these units can do. Three of them can record video, two of them can take photos, four of them can play music, two of them are 3G compliant etc. Still, due to their individual unique selling points and to battery life I feel that I need them all. Chris Stephenson wrote on his blog that “there’s a very compelling theory that at some point all our media will be accessed through a single black box.  a box that will deliver our TV, gaming, email, movies and web surfing all to one (or multiple) screens through a single access point. it’s very compelling because it sits so neatly with our concept of convergence; with the idea that technology will be developed (and indeed already exists) to deliver a range of content to our TV screen.  the much-anticipated PS3 not only does games, but does HD DVD and can wirelessly access the internet to boot.  Sony doing internet, Microsoft doing TV etc.  convergence right?”.

However, as Henry Jenkins states in Convergence Culture, there is no historic evidence that such a black box would function socially and culturally:

“I am seeing more and more black boxes.  There are my VCR, my digital cable box, my DVD player, my digital recorder, my sound system, and my two games systems, not to mention a huge mound of videotapes, DVDs and CDs, game cartridges and controllers, sitting atop, laying alongside, toppling over the edge of my television system”.