PLAYSTATION 3

First there was the Wii, then Microsoft's full-body-capturing Project Natal grabbed out imaginations. And now -- and not to be left out -- Sony's finalized plans to roll out their own motion-capture system.

Someday soon there'll be a chicken in every pot and a centralized media center in every home. Till then, we're stuck with what we've got; some companies are rising to the challenge. Golden Signals, which debuted DisplayShare this week, is one of the more innovative: its wireless TV-computer linkup utilizes your existing gaming console and router.

Install the $50 software and your computer begins creating a realtime video of every action occurring on the desktop. By simultaneously commanding the console (currently only Playstation 3, but a version that works with the Wii and Xbox 360 is expected by summer) to stream the video on TV, DisplayShare allows you to view anything you'd see on your computer on the big screen.

With nine processors and 234 million transistors, the Cell is the powerhouse of Sony's forthcoming PlayStation 3 console. The four-plus-gigahertz (depending on its application) chip calculates an unmatched 256 billion operations per second, making it 35 times as fast as the PS2's chip. The upshot: Characters react more realistically (like flinching when bullets whiz by). Next year Toshiba will offer an HDTV set that uses the chip to decode high-def signals.