Sony announced the new version of the Clie, their Palm-based handheld. Among the improvements is support for the 'magic gate' memory stick format, and one of the stated features is the ability to download up to 160 minutes of video (presumably compressed to 320x320 resolution) onto a memory stick, and play it on the handheld.

A few people around the web have called this utterly useless (what, video business cards? Maybe store one movie?) but I think it's terriffic.

Think about the possible convergences. Imagine that Sony releases a new TiVo model that has a memory stick slot in the front. You can specify not only which shows you want to record, but which you'd like to download to the memorystick. It would do this automatically, and you grab the stick in the morning before you go to work, and you can watch the shows you missed while taking BART, the train, or your passive transportation of choice to work (or to a friends house, school bus, whatever).

Add a little vidcam (like the one built in to the Vaio Picturebook) and the proper software, and you can record videomail that will send the next time you dock. You could even do a little non-linear editing to make everything perfect. Nifty.