The force at the center of the handset business, the maw poised to suck in a good portion of the industry, is convergence — the very phenomenon that has enabled incredible advances in system-on-chip integration, abetted by consumers’ taste for all-in-one gadgets.

The handset is rapidly consuming every other aspect of mobile consumer electronics: PDAs, cameras, GPS receivers, MP3 players, DVD players and game consoles. In the process, the SoC companies and intellectual-property (IP) providers that had planned to make a living in each of those areas will be drawn in — for the most part, to their doom.

[Via: David]

+ Oops, and I forgot to post a great little heads up from Monica. It’s a cool mixer program called AtomixMP3 v2.3.

AtomixMP3 is an MP3-mixing tool that lets you mix on a computer as you would with DJ turntables. With drag-and-drop functionality, the simulated turntables feature pitch control, crossfading, playlist functionality, and visual beat representation. AtomixMP3 also features a real-time, BPM-matching algorithm, and can perform automatic beat-matching in just one click. AtomixMP3 can be used live at a party or at home to record your own mixed CDs or broadcast your own Internet radio. It also features one-click, automatic, seamless loops, real scratch capability, audio CD and WMA compatibility, a completely skinnable interface, and many effects plug-ins.

A free trial is available for download at C|Net. - the multi soundcard feature is disabled for the trial.