By Peter Wolchak

Gadgets, toys and executive devices are hot and getting hotter. Gizmos are pouring onto the market at an increasing pace and—be honest— we love to buy them.

“We are all intrigued by new and different things. If I can do something more easily or in a different way I’m all over it,” said Michael Neujahr, national product trainer at Sony of Canada.

Neujahr points to VCRs. Hot entertainment devices only recently, they’re now eating the dust of DVD players. “With [a Bell] digital box you can record programs but you can also pause live TV. That goes way beyond what a VCR can do,” Neujahr said.

But today’s cool gadgets are just a taste of the coming banquet. “We’re going to see home servers: one point in your home where all your content enters. Cable/satellite channels, e-mail, playing a DVD, pay-per-view movies—it will all be distributed wirelessly throughout your home. You can see that today but it’s going to expand.”

It will expand into business offices in the form of converged devices (PDAs that are also cellphones, cellphones that are also cameras), into travel with tiny portable DVD players and cars that deliver customized media content, into everyday life with carryaround devices that move the Walkman music model to computing, and into the home with linked and computerized Flat-panel monitors and media devices, appliances that run themselves and home systems that regulate air temperature, lights and security devices.