Several years back, I saw a parody of hoity-toity restaurant menus called, I believe, the Nouvelle-o-Matic. Take any number of ingredients, no matter how incongruous, mix and match with wild abandon, and ta-da!--you've got a masterpiece of haute cuisine. Might I suggest the Pastis-soaked medallions of fallow deer, served on a frisee of braised endive, accompanied by the terrine of pomegranate-infused tree ears? Or the seared ahi, vertically mounted on a puree of lobster and enoki sorbet, with a dollop of heirloom jackalope flake and a coulis of house-cured tapenade frappe?

Sadly, not everyone thinks this kind of ingredient roulette is a joke. A few weeks ago, at Comdex, the mammoth tech trade show held every year in Las Vegas, a spate of manufacturers unveiled their own everything-but-the-kitchen-sink creations. Their inspiration? A top-secret computer simulation called the Converge-o-Matic. Here's how it works. They collect a random sampling of incongruous consumer-electronics devices, slap them together in a single machine, craft a sales spiel, and pitch, pitch, pitch. How else could anyone have concocted the digital camera/MP3 player, the pen/camera (so James Bond, don't you think?), the DVD/cell phone, the MP3-playing robot, and the Espresso press/MP3 player/megapixel camera/cell phone/PIM/insulin pump…in silver or iridescent green. Okay, scratch that last item. But you get the idea.

Problem is, nobody really needs this stuff. And we need to convey that sentiment to the manufacturers who are dishing it out in the name of convergence. For those of you not familiar with the term, convergence--bringing together disparate technologies like computers, telephones, video, and TVs into one happy family--is a powerful idea. But only if the convergence takes users into account. The high-tech world, though, often fails to consider everyday users when building products. Consider personal computers. They were developed primarily by techies who never unconcerned with the minor detail of how their creations would be used. In fact, it wasn't until the 1979 introduction of VisiCalc, generally regarded as the first real electronic spreadsheet program, that a human being could come up with a practical reason to even buy a computer. Similarly, further PC developments have generally favored a simple piling on of features, regardless of need. The Converge-o-Matic rules.

Every once in a while, though, a convergence idea, or three, comes along that simply makes a lot of sense. Not surprisingly, all the convergence ideas I'm about to share with you employ some sort of wireless technology--wireless being the sliced bread of the new digital millennium. And they also take into account actual human behavior, conforming the technology to the consumer, instead of the other way around.

First up is the Anoto pen, which the CNET editors liked so much that we named it a finalist in the Best Vision of the Future category at the Comdex 2000 Best of Show Awards. Imagine a regular pen, with a tiny built-in camera. When you write, the device records your scribblings, and stores them in the pen's memory or sends the encrypted information wirelessly to your PC, your phone, or any other Bluetooth-enabled device. (Bluetooth is a slowly emerging standard for enabling wireless connectivity.) If you're the type who sits in meetings scrawling handwritten notes in a Mead lined notebook or Filofax, the Anoto is for you. Typical applications written for the pen could allow you to send email by checking a box at the bottom of the sheet of paper, to perform OCR on text entered within defined fields, or to transmit to-do and address updates to your PC-based calendar. The secret lies partly in the paper you'll need to use, which looks entirely conventional to the naked eye but, under magnification, contains a grid of tiny dots that allows the pen to calculate its position on the page. To make sure the right paper will be available, Anoto has partnered with most of the biggest paper manufacturers to create Anoto-ready versions of Post-It notes, widely used calendars, message pads, notepads, and so on. And did I mention that one of Anoto's partners is Mont Blanc? Expect some stylish pens come Q3 of 2001.

Idea two isn't quite as fresh as Anoto's, but is welcome nonetheless. Several companies are joining forces to enable wireless, secure payments, using the Internet, via a cell phone or other Bluetooth-enabled device. The typical demo these companies show (I saw one at Comdex) allows consumers to purchase a soda from an appropriately outfitted vending machine, using only a cell phone to punch in payments. Any thirsty soul who's had a not-quite-pristine dollar rejected by a soda machine can comprehend the appeal of such a device. Vendors, who can automatically jack up the price of soft drinks as the mercury inches up, or reduce costs when demand is low, are similarly intrigued. The mechanics of a creating a wireless-enabled vending machine are relatively straightforward. Establishing the payment standards and methods for secure transactions are not. At Comdex a Swedish firm by the name of Jalda (jalda.com) was pushing its proposed Internet transaction standard, which seems to have the backing of an impressive collection of vendors and payment and content providers. Most intriguing, a Jalda rep told me the company is close to launching a test in Berkeley, CA, using cell phones to deposit money into parking meters. Imagine never having to fish for quarters again.

Finally, I applaud the Ricoh RDC-i700, a stuffed-to-the-gills camera that, at first blush, sounds like one of the more harebrained examples of the Converge-o-Matic mentality. Indeed, "the world's first Internet-ready digital camera," a 3.34-megapixel model with a built-in Web browser, is ripe for ridicule. But when you realize that the camera can convert images into HTML and upload them wirelessly to your Web site, you suddenly appreciate the browser, which let's you check the photos you've just posted. You can also use the camera to send and receive images, movies, text, and voice memos via e-mail, and you can fax images directly from the camera as soon as you've taken them. Given the throngs of people who've purchased digital cameras in order to festoon their Web sites with pictures, pictures, and more pictures, I believe Ricoh is onto something. Now we just need to wait; the RDC-i700 isn't available just yet.

When it is, I'm gonna buy one right away and head over to my local restaurant for dinner. They've got a pate of citrus wasabi frogfish gills, hand-warmed in a vanilla truffle reduction and piled ziggurat-style atop a pallet of stale Saltines, that would look just dynamite on my Web site.