For added network safety, the Cloud Storage 4000 features the D-Link Surveillance Station App, which supports recording and playback of up to four IP cameras, such as D-Link's award-winning line-up of mydlink enabled cloud cameras.

ENGADGET: D-Link Cloud Storage 4000 NAS stores up 16TB, hooks up to your smartphone and tablet

As you'd expect, major breakthroughs are evolving around the Internet, whose IP traffic could grow fiftyfold by 2015.

FORBES: Why U.S. Stocks Stink

And the first rumblings of a rights-management system for controlling the sharing of physical things are appearing: The IP-hoarding firm Intellectual Ventures received a patent in October for a 3-D printer feature that blocks the creation of verboten objects.

FORBES: Inside Thingiverse, The Radically Open Website Powering The 3D Printing Movement