LAS VEGAS - The hot items at the 37th Consumer Electronics Show,
which officially opened here yesterday, are not any particular gizmos
but "convergence" and "interconnectivity."

Spurred by the advance of broadband and ever-cheaper digital
storage, consumer electronics companies are actively pursuing ways of
linking the tools and toys that populate the contemporary home.

And leading the charge is software giant Microsoft Corp., which is
launching a constellation of products around a "Media Center PC," which
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates called "a centerpiece product for our
vision of what's going to go on in the home."

Gates, who gave a preevent keynote address Wednesday night, admitted
that "networked" appliances were frequently touted during the '90s.

"People got ahead of themselves - the companies' valuations, the way
they thought all the pieces would come together," he said. But now,
Gates added, "reality is driving the expectation."

Although the opening minutes of his speech sounded like echoes from
a Macintosh playbook - managing photos and combining them with music to
create audio-visual albums, like iPhoto, and overlaying work and
personal calendars and transferring items between them, like iCal -
Gates was able to demonstrate how devices within the home, guided by
Microsoft software and built by 45 manufacturers in eight countries -
are already working together seamlessly, with little user intervention
needed.

This year's show offers ample evidence that other companies are pursuing the same vision.

A5tek Corp., headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif., has been at work on
a home server of its own for four or five years, said its president,
Ted Y. Lee. His Home Infotainment platform gathers "personal, free, and
paid content" in one organized central location: photos and home
videos, but also TV, digital video recording, Internet radio and
television, movies, games, etc.

To Lee, convergence isn't a concept at all.

"It's already a reality. College kids are video conferencing, and IP
telephoning, etc., but for many others, it's all complicated. We just
made it so simple," he said.

The Shell Home Genie, which the international energy giant expects
to have on the market by March 1, is a plug-and-deploy "home management
system."

It allows users to monitor more than 40 appliances and functions,
including heating and cooling, from any Web connection anywhere, so
that it's possible to turn the lights on a few blocks from home, or set
a schedule for raising and lowering the temperature according to when
occupants are at home.

It works within the house too, of course, so a parent could monitor
a sleeping child, or keep an eye on the backyard via one of seven video
cameras the controller can handle.

Such cameras can activate by motion, and the system can be
programmed to send images by e-mail to wherever necessary. One style of
camera is called a "Hi mom": A child returning home from school only
needs to press a button, and his message, "Hi, Mom, I'm home but I'm
going to Billy's house," complete with video, could be sent to Mom at
work.

Such home monitors aren't new, but the user interface is vastly
improved and the installation of the additional elements is included in
the $800 base price. Even after buying enough thermostats, cameras, and
appliance controllers to fill every one of the controller's inputs, the
system would cost less than $2,700, and could be reinstalled in a new
home if the family moves.

Salton, a consumer goods company known for popcorn poppers and the
George Foreman Grill, was also showing networked devices that bring
computing into the kitchen and extend kitchen controls into the rest of
the house.

The company's "Beyond" microwave oven and breadmaker, for example,
promise to make cooking easier by employing scanning wands to read
universal product codes.

A hub that connects with the devices searches the Internet for the
cooking instructions related to each of the codes, so that instead of a
user having to read directions and, say, microwave on high for six
minutes and on low for three more, the machine will know to do it.

The hub, which could sit on a nightstand, can be programmed also to
hunt for sports scores and stock information and display them when the
homeowner awakens. It also plays CDs, and not only will it activate and
monitor the coffeemaker, it will tell the user if he or she forgot to
put in water the night before.

Salton's kitchen information appliance, the "Icebox," can play
video, CDs, and other media, or surf the Internet, and then fold up
underneath a cabinet when not in use, is available now, but the Beyond
products aren't due until March or April.

"Tonight's Menu Intelligent Ovens" are on a longer timeline, not
expected until Christmas. It both refrigerates and heats, so that a
dish deposited before work can be ready for dinner.

It, too, has a Web interface, and if you know you're getting home
early, a few keystrokes move up the starting time. It employs Windows
Media Center Extender software, meaning that Microsoft's Media Center
PC will be able to interact with it.

Ted Lee of A5tek said he dis agreed with Bill Gates on several
issues, but he had no quarrel with Gates's central belief in the
networked home. "We still believe in Bill Gates's vision, and we're
following it," Lee said.

Lee could easily have been speaking for the legions around him promoting their wares.