Art Fewell previews the LightSpeaker Wireless Home Audio System Preview Sometime in the late 1980s, I had the old Super 8 movies taken when I was a kid transferred to videotape. Wow -- typing that line which includes both "Super 8" and "videotape" makes me feel old. Then, a few years ago I converted that videotape to a digital file so I could create a DVD. DVD? Really? Now that we're in 2012 are people even using DVDs anymore? But then again, that's kind of the point of this piece. When I was viewing that old footage of the home I grew up in (and where my mom still lives), I couldn't help think about how old-fashioned and dated everything looked. Certainly, seeing my now octogenarian mother as a younger woman contributed to that feeling, as well as how people were dressed in the fashions of the day. But I also noticed the technology -- the television with rabbit ear antennae, the phone with a dial instead of buttons, the radio in the kitchen with the big knob you turned to tune to your desired station, and the old hi-fi that played . . . wait for it . . . vinyl records. For you young whippersnappers, a hi-fi was a device that produced high-fidelity sound (hence "hi-fi") from analog sources such as the afore-mentioned vinyl records, and in some cases from broadcast radio as well. Big honkin' speakers were connected to these devices with ten to eighteen-gauge copper wire. Oh, and there was no remote control for any of these devices. That was a contributing factor to lower obesity rates back then -- you actually had to get up and walk over to a device to change a TV channel or what music you were listening to. This included going over to the phone to answer it -- no wireless or cell phones back then. So I started thinking about what will happen when my kids look back at videos shot when they were young. What about those images will look old-fashioned to them? Aside from our age and clothes, what will be different when they are adults and have their own children? And I realized that they would ask me one simple question -- "What's with all the wires?" Today, my home is in migration. No more Cat-5 connecting computers or USB cables connecting printers, but I do still have a stereo with wired speakers. The main phone line is digital with primarily wireless phones, but my second line which I use for the fax machine and as a back-up is still a POTS line running on copper. The data stream has clearly been eliminated as a source for cables and wires, and we're entering an era in which we are seeing the start of cables disappearing as sources of power as well. It's an interesting cycle -- older homes often have fewer power outlets and certainly none for any other type of cabling except a few strategically-placed copper POTS junction boxes (both my mother's home and that of my in-laws still have some hard-wired units; no RJ-11 jacks for them). Then, homes built within the last couple of decades added plenty of grounded power, some in-the-wall Cat-5 with RJ-45 jacks for data, and cabling with RCA jacks for your music system. Now, we'll start to see a shift back to fewer and fewer outlets needed as cables and wires disappear. So what does this have to do with mobile healthcare? Everything. First of all, walking around many healthcare provider organizations today elicits a similar response when we think of what things looked like even just a few years ago, starting with the data center. Data center? What data center? It's in the cloud. Then, we go to the doctor's exam room. Vital signs taken from a machine on a pole wirelessly transmit your data to the Electronic Health Record (EHR), and the provider team is tapping away on a tablet device. Document the healing of your wound? Digital camera with a Wi-Fi-enabled memory card, Smartphone, or the one built into your Mobile Clinical Appliance. My mother was recently hospitalized (she's fine now, thanks for asking) and even she -- who does not have a cell phone or use ATMs -- noticed all the wireless technology in use in her room. Bedside medication management occurred via a wireless handheld device, food service orders taken on a tablet, and the hospital knew where the nearest IV pump was and its decontamination status because of the Real-Time Location Services solution implemented. And what's the name of that robot making its way down the hall delivering supplies? Wires? Cables? We don't need no stinkin' cables! And I'm not finished yet -- stay tuned. Next up, health management tools and devices now available for use in your home. And the ones that I wish we could have.