Walt Mossberg: Cell phones rule

I caught up with Walt Mossberg for a podcast prior to the Churchill Club event "Making a List: What's Hot and What's Not in Personal Technology," which Walt hosted with fellow Wall Street Journal columnist Kara Swisher.

Walt explains why the "device formerly known as the cell phone" is the hottest consumer product category, along with iPods and other products that are in the emerging class of small, human-scaled computers with growing sets of capabilities. Walt also gives his viewpoint on how Apple's Steve Jobs manages to keep the hits coming, the "Napsterization of television" and the rationale behind digital rights management.

You can also watch a video of Walt showing me his latest favorite

gear, including a tiny video player from Iriver, a hard disk-based camcorder, a phone with a 2-megapixel camera and optical zoom, the very cool Motorola Q handheld and a cordless VoIP phone.

I also got the scoop from Kara on some of her favorite gadgets, including a high-tech coffeemaker, an all-in-one rechargeable power source, antimicrobial toothbrushes and my favorite, a washable keyboard. Click here to watch the video.

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