It was everywhere at CES this year, and it will soon be everywhere in consumer homes.  We’ve been talking about over-the-top a lot this week, starting with the ETC panels on CES Day 1.  As Phil reported elsewhere, all of LG’s TV’s sold at major retailers from 32-inches up will include Internet connections with widgets and Skype capability.  The TVs will have streaming movies and TV programs from Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, and Divx (and more to come).

Vizio takes Net-connected TVs to the Hallway

Vizio, a market-share dynamo to reckon with, is building widgets and WIRELESS Internet connections into the majority of their TVs, and even took over a big chunk of the hallway in South Hall that everyone walks by to demonstrate their Net-connected TVs and the hugely compelling and simple out-of-the-box customer experience for connecting the TV to your wireless network (which happens for everyone the first time they turn the TV on – not just for the people that seek it out in some menu).

It becomes very clear at this year’s CES that Internet connections in CE devices are no longer going to be the exception.  By this time next year, it will be hard to find CE devices that aren’t shipping with Internet connections.