The stereo speaker should go in that corner. But that would mean buying yet more wiring, running it along the floor and, perhaps, repositioning the stereo altogether so as to not run cords past, or over, a doorway.

There are solutions.

You love your big-screen TV and you love Internet videos. You'd like to see the Web videos on the TV and you'd rather not see wires coming into the set. Solutions are here and more are coming.

The issues of wiring are being answered - currently or in the foreseeable future - as companies roll out wireless gadgetry. This month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was a feast of new wireless products. Coupled with the existing products, it amounts to a full-scale movement away from the wads of wiring in the common household.

The less-wire movement

What follows is some of the basics - emphasis on some.

It gives an idea of how telephones, computers, televisions, music, transfer of photo images and so forth are being achieved with minimal wiring - emphasis on minimal.

Going "wireless" actually means going with less wire. It almost always involves something plugging into the wall at some point. After all, there must be a power source. Even the gadgets that operate without a cord, like your mobile phone, have to recharge.

A call to a competitor

The first mobile phones were in cars. A Motorola manager named Martin Cooper is credited with changing that.

On April 3, 1973, Cooper called Joel Engel at AT&T - calling the competition to gloat - from a cellular telephone while Cooper walked along the Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan.

The wireless revolution was officially on.

CTIA The Wireless Association, a trade group focused on phones, says the United States by June 2007 had 243 million wireless telephone subscribers. That's more than double the number in June 2000.

Those from younger generations, and cost-conscious older people, now question the need for the home telephone. They feel they must have a mobile phone, and they don't want to pay for two phone subscriptions.

Nearly 13 percent of U.S. households solely have wireless telephones, CTIA's 2007 survey showed. That's up from about 8 percent in 2005. Among developments:

• The iPhone from Apple made a splash in 2007. Apple sold the first million in 74 days and wants to sell 10 million by the end of 2008. The device, which costs $400, is a phone but also an Internet browser and an iPod video and music player. Microsoft chief executive Steve Balmer laughed at the price and doubted its business application, but demand persists. Notable with iPhone is a touch-controlled screen, operated with your finger pushing icons on the screen, for easy navigation into and out of programs.

• Motorola is taking a similar path. It announced the release, as early as this spring, of a phone/MP3 player capable of holding 500 songs, with iPhone-like touch controls. Also, Motorola's new Z10 will allow the making - and editing - of video without use of a computer. Neither has an announced price.

• Blackberries helped revolutionize text messaging with its complete keyboard. But who monitors your children's messages to guard against predators? On the safety front, Radar premiered in 2007. It is a $10 a month service that enables parents to monitor their children's text messages. Unlike Spyware, the person being monitored is made aware of the fact.

Photo uploading

Photos can be sent from the digital camera to the computer without a cord link. One way to do this is to purchase a $100 wireless card from Eye-Fi Inc. Through a cordless Wi-Fi connection, the photos can download with the press of a camera button. It works for Mac or PC and also can download images to a Web site. The product won Yahoo!'s Last Gadget Standing contest at the Consumer Electronics Show. The card holds 2 gigabytes of photos.

Game controllers

A sudden yank on an old video game controller can send the game console crashing to the floor. You just hope that losing all unsaved changes is the worst that happens. The systems also limit positioning of the gamer in the room to the reach of the cords.

The three major new game systems - Xbox 360, Wii and PlayStation III - come with cordless controllers. (There still are cords from the console to the wall and the console to the TV). Some games, like Guitar Hero, allow cordless controller connection with older systems. Among newer twists: TN Games has a game vest that, used with compatible games, delivers a tapping sensation to your torso when your game character gets shot or punched.

The computer

The portable laptops are an old story in the wireless movement.

There also are wireless keyboards and mice to reduce the desktop computer congestion.

Wireless often costs more. For instance, a new Apple keyboard using a USB port is $50, and the wireless version, using Bluetooth technology, is $80. The Apple Mighty Mouse runs $50 with a wire and $70 for wireless.

Some printers further reduce the wire mess by connecting wirelessly to the computer.

'Wireless television'

That high-definition television mounted on the wall looks so good on the commercial. At minimum, a wire needs to come from the TV to the wall.

Additionally, there is the connection from the TV to the cable box. And, you have to plug in the video game and the video player.

An industry group, which includes Intel and major TV makers, are collaborating on WirelessHD, a technology to enable a wireless link from cable box to television. It uses a radio frequency with limited range, so the neighbors don't get the cable feed.

Other partnerships are busy as well. Panasonic announced this month that it and SiBeam Inc. will bring wireless HDTV to market in 2008. It will enable cordless connection between the high-definition TV and other machines, such as the Blu-ray high-def video player.

The system also runs on a radio frequency that doesn't bleed out of the room.

PC Pro magazine reports that Philips is nearly ready to release a similar system, also using a limited-range radio band. It was expected to do so in 2007.

Among challenges is getting high-definition video - directly and without a tangle of cords - from the Internet onto that living room TV. Hewlett-Packard has systems using Wi-Fi, but the Wi-Fi technology is slower, prone to interruptions and requires image compression, which hurts quality, tech experts say.

The Net-based movie provider Netflix is working with TV maker LG Electronics to provide movies downloaded through the Internet to the high-definition television.

Unwired music

MP3 ports seem to be popping up everywhere. One company installed them in a bed, another in a refrigerator. Panasonic is putting ports in TVs for audio and video play through the tube. Place the iPod into the TV's iPod port and play.

The iPod, iPhone, Zune and other MP3/video players have made music collections and videos portable, while wireless speakers are making home music systems less cumbersome.

But how about decking out the entire house without stringing wire across rooms and through walls?

The EOS music system, released last year, provides the first wireless system for the whole house. It can bring digital music to up to five rooms with a base unit and four speakers. Each speaker can be up to 150 feet away from the base unit.

The base unit plugs into a wall. (Any wall. It's portable and requires no braces for support.) It has an iPod port. You can plug a CD player, satellite radio and turntable into the auxiliary port. The speakers still are plugged into wall outlets, but they don't have to be connected by wire to the base unit.

Price: $300 pays for a base unit and one speaker. Additional speakers cost extra; $750 pays for a base station and four speakers.