The press is abuzz with rumors of a new Apple tablet computer that supposedly will come out this year. Google announced its new Nexus One phone yesterday. And everyone with a television set in America probably saw the Droid ads over the holidays. These are the high-profile device announcements.
Buried among the news articles are announcements of other devices to come later this year. I read a news article about a Toshiba television coming this year that will convert 2D content to 3D content in real time on the fly. In addition to this striking feature, though, the television has a hard drive, and users can move video and image files on the TV's drive for later display. In other words, it has local storage.
The Toshiba television may not draw as much attention as the Apple iSlate, or whatever Apple may call the new tablet, or the Google devices, but it continues a trend that should keep eDiscovery professionals on their toes. Specifically, the proliferation of devices means yet more sources of potentially relevant electronically stored information (ESI).
I wrote in a previous post that Google's vision is to move all data into the cloud. We're not there yet, though. So in the meantime, we have more devices, with more local storage, to manage and check for potentially relevant ESI. Simple checklists of devices to look for and manage are becoming outdated. eDiscovery professionals need to keep up with news on consumer devices and implement controls over what devices personnel are permitted to use. They will need to be nimble in the face of what might be brisk demand for the new Apple tablet. Perhaps it won't live up to its hype, but if the Apple tablet fills a niche previously unaddressed by the hardware market, people will demand them, and enterprises will need to respond.
Stephen Wu
Partner, Cooke Kobrick & Wu LLP