“This next year for us is probably even bigger (than 2005). This is the year that stuff like Office 12 and other things will come out and MediaCenter will become mainstream,” Gates said in a speech opening the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
In Gates’ vision, users files, photos, e-mails and the like will be stored on the Internet, making access to the information possible from all net-connected devices.
“We will have 80 pct of households connected by broadband by the end of this decade in the United States,” up from around 60 percent now.
Introducing a glimpse of Windows Vista, he commented that, “We will ship this by the end of the year,” and handed over to a Microsoft product manager who demoed some of the features including:
- A “Sidebar” program, similar to what Google and Yahoo already offer as Web downloads.
- Powerful graphics for better gaming
- A visual photo gallery which seamless views still and video
- Music search
The presentation was then handed over to Van Tofler of MTV’s new venture Urge. He said Urge covers MTV, VH1 and CMT and also 100s of Internet radio stations. Subscribers will be able to customize the service, he said. Finishing up he said “Take note — we are trying something new here.”
The service will also include editorial blogging built in to music channels.
To show off some of the specific features of the Urge service, Justin Timberlake, whose next album will be featured on Urge, appeared on stage briefly and joked that this is “artistry and technology”
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[…] Gadget blogs Engadget and Gizmodo are covering the first round of HD video players being announced at CES. Sony has announced their first Blu-ray player, with 50GB of storage capacity. Pioneer’s Blu-ray player will be coming in May. On the competing HD DVD side, during Bill Gates’ keynote, Microsoft announced its Xbox 360 will also be able to play HD movies through an external HD DVD add-on. And Toshiba’s HD DVD players have been announced to ship in March. Outside of the major HD disc formats, KiSS Technologies has a networked DVD player that is capable of high definition playback using newer video encoding formats including MPEG-4, DiVX HD and WMV HD. […]
- Posted by Gadget blogs: CES HD video player roundup - Reuters NewsblogsNow that Vista IS here, what has Bill to say? That he removed all the features so that he could get the OS out the door in time? I bet Bill Gates runs Ubuntu at home!
- Posted by What is Vista?