In a brief and trenchant article, Robert X. Cringely argues that last week “changed the world of high tech forever, though most of us still don’t know it.” He points to three events. First was the revelation that Microsoft’s new, high-powered xBox gaming system is actually a PC substitute that “will perform many functions that currently require a home computer. Not only will xBox 360 play video games, it will play music and movies, surf the web and probably even offer a non-PC platform for voice-over-IP.” Microsoft, in other words, is getting ready to compete with PC makers like Dell and HP, who just happen to be its biggest customers.

Second was the first test flight of Google’s extraordinarily ambitious Web Accelerator, a technology that radically speeds up the delivery of data over the Internet. (See also my previous post on Ajax.) “The technology required is so breathtaking and audacious,” writes Cringely, “that even a Microsoft or IBM wouldn’t dare to try it and certainly Yahoo won’t.” He continues, with rising excitement: “The Google Web Accelerator effectively turns every user into a thin client, whether they know it or not. Consider the obvious upshots of this. If Google adds power to its part of the Accelerator, you don’t have to add power to your end, meaning your old PC can last longer … At some point, Google might even offer its own hardware device, optimized for the Accelerator. At that point, you’ll buy your PC from Google, use Google as your ISP, surf an Internet that is really the Google cache, be fed ads and sold content from Google servers. It’s a GoogleWorld that requires no AOL, no Microsoft, no Intel, no HP or Dell – only Google, cable companies, telephone companies, users, and of course advertisers and web page producers.” Google, in other words, becomes the utility for home computing.

Third was the sudden appearance of downloadable, high-definition video at Apple’s iTunes store. At the moment, you can only buy a handful of music videos, but it seems clear that this is a precursor to something much bigger: The expansion of the iTunes store from music to movies. Cringely also notes a Slashdot post suggesting that Apple is building an Airport Express wireless unit that can stream video to your TV the way the current Airport Express streams music to your stereo. So you’ll download movies and other video onto the hard drive of, say, your Mac Mini, and then broadcast them through the air to your TVs, controlling it all with a little remote control.

To sum up: What you heard last week were the sounds of the PC Age shattering.