In the last few years, there are been exciting technologies in home entertainment: H264, Blu-ray, HDTV, USB3.0, etc. They all represent building steps to a richer experience in your living room, but unfortunately, unless you are very technology-savy, it is as meaningless as the next acronym. This is about to change because there are two technologies this year that will define "before" and "after" for even the most neophyte: 3DTV and live-gesture.

Once you've watched Avatar in a 3D movie theater, there is little doubt that you find your brand new LCD TV screen a little outdated. With the announcement of Blu-ray 3D disc and Panasonic's full-hd 3D camcorder, there is little doubt 3D is an exciting feature to see coming to your TV set.

Live-gesture is another technology that will mature this year. It uses a camera and gesture recognition instead of relying on a physical remote control. Microsoft announced Natal at CES for late 2010 and surely many other similar types of live-gesture technologies will soon follow from other vendors. So you should expect to see a built-in camera shipped with your next TV and never to search where the remote control is hidden again.

These holidays, no more trying to explain 1080i vs. 720p to your family, you'll get to point at a regular TV versus a 3DTV in the store. For fortylines solutions' contributors and everyone else working in technology, when someone asks you over dinner what you do for a living, you'll be able to answer: "That new TV in Bob's living room he is so much bragging about; I've been working on making that dream come true for the past 10 years." Happy New Year to all!