In an interesting turn of events, a few companies such as Sony, Toshiba, and Samsung have banded together to sponsor an open source HD standard for connecting mobile devices such as cell phones and eBooks to televisions; a move that officially opens the door for portable devices to become a greater player in the larger world of media.

Devices such as Apples IPod have been serving this spectrum of the market for years, but the HD element is something new. As technology continues to evolve, it is quickly becoming obvious that new standards need to be developed to continue this upward trend. An open source option such as the one presented by this consortium is a great first step in building an infrastructure for future devices as they become available.

Its curious to note, however, that companies such as Toshiba and Sony have decided to put differences aside with this technology. In the case of the Blu-Ray DVD player vs the HD DVD player, both companies played the proprietary card. One wonders if these companies have learned a lesson from all the mess their proprietary wars created in the past.

Also, in this case, the key company missing from the consortium is Apple. Till this point, Apple has maintained a lot of elitism with its proprietary formats. With the world of mobile electronics getting increasingly more competitive it may be time for them to switch their thinking in this regard, especially since they don’t as of yet control the market for the viewing medium itself. Even Sony had to bow to this way of thinking eventually.