Technology I want from The Lost Room

I'm in the middle of watching The Lost Room, a really interesting mini-series that I'm not sure why I didn't watch when it was on the Sci-Fi Channel originally. I think it was the ads, which didn't give a hint of how cool this show was. Anyway, I picked it up on NetFlix after hearing a recommendation on a podcast (the Dharmalars), and I've finished watching disc one of the two-disc set (or four of the six hours).

I won't give too much away except that it features one of my recurring dream topics -- rooms that shouldn't be where they are (see also a book I left off my list of top books, House of Leaves, which is so good I almost don't want anyone else to read it so I have something all my own.)

At any rate, The Lost Room also features a quest for objects that have all kinds of weird properties (the show would have been way stronger if they had more time to deal with the objects and how people found their propeties, but they do an OK job of hitting the highlights. Examples of objects: A watch that boils eggs, a comb that stops time, a nail file that makes you take a nap, an umbrella that makes people recognize you, a pencil that creates pennies -- there are 100 of these objects, and they don't have time to go over each one). Some of those objects, and the show iteslf, have made me think of technology we really should have by now:

• Real On-Demand Movies ... ALL movies: The Lost Room comes as two DVDs. NetFlix sends you the first one, you return it, and they send the second. I'm going to have to wait till sometime later this week to see part 2. Although this is incredibly fast, whatever happened to "any media, any time?" It sucks that our "on demand" cable only has a few select shows. Even NetFlix has an on-demand streaming service, but only a few of their thousands of titles are online. At worst, it takes the same amount of time to digitize a DVD as it does to watch it, and you could make it far faster with devoted computers and hardware decoders. So, instead of NetFlix just slowly bringing their catalog online in random fashion, why not digitize the movie the second I put it in my queue, and a few hours later, I can start watching it? That's only slow for the first person to watch any particular title -- then everyone else can watch immediately. Start taking advantage of the "long tail" to start getting stuff online.
• The Everywhere Photograph: At one point in the show, they find a set of polaroid pictures -- one of which, when you hold it in the spot where The Lost Room should have been (although the spot in the real world where it should be is empty), you actually see what was there when the picture was taken -- but you can move the picture around to see the whole room, not just one angle, so it is more like a window than a picture. We should have this now -- why can't I take a Tablet PC, hold it up in any random spot, and using GPS + accelerometers + internet connection + camera get an overlay of data on top of the actual stuff I'm seeing? I know folks are working on this ... too slowly.
• Hyper-Rooms: I actually do want a room that fits behind any door, but this is probably beyond today's technology.

I'm sure there will be more as I finally get to see the second half of the show ...