Bill Gates, CES 2007 and connected experiences
Rather than focus on any
ground-breaking technologies that often
headline his annual CES keynote, Gates took time back to reflect on the
'Digital Decade' thus far, noting that in 2006 nearly half of U.S homes
have multiple PCs, over 270 billion digital photographs were taken
worldwide, broadband saturation was at an all-time high, consumer-level
storage space has exploded and is now counted in terabytes, and the
emergence of high-definition TV that are capable of realising fantastic
fidelity with movies and gaming.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates
during his keynote speech at CES 2007
All this technology, Gates commented, needs to be harnessed in
connected experiences, whereby each digital technology isn't considered
in isolation but, rather, as a logical and creative extention from one
to the other. The conduit that offered these connected experiences was
Windows Vista, he said.
To this end, Justin Hutchison, group product manager of Windows Client,
highlighted some of Vista's impressive, never-before-seen features,
including the ability to restore previous versions of a document via a
process called Shadowcopy; useful if you've overwritten a file and need
to get the older information back.
[advert]Another impressive feature, and somewhat tying in with
connected
experiences Gates spoke about, was an Office 2007 hyperlink for a
physical address in Las Vegas that connected up to Windows Live and its
in-built Virtual Earth 3D technology. A demo showed the link
transformed into a 3D representation of the gambling capital, complete
with a road-level view, directions, and real-time traffic information.
Further Vista nuggets included an exposition of the easy-to-navigate
media library and in-built burning tool, similar to Nero 7's. Speaking
of Vista Ultimate and its downloadable Ultimate Extras components,
Microsoft's Groupshot software was showcased. Cleverly, it allows you
to take parts of two similar pictures and integrate them seamlessly
into one; handy if photographs haven't been composed correctly.
Further, Ultimate will include what's referred to as DreamScene,
whereby any background picture can be animated to a full-motion
desktop.
Microsoft Entertainment boss Robbie Bach was also keen to jump on the
connected experiences bandwagon. Bach explained how Vista will allow PC
users to share in the Xbox 360's Live network on a number of games,
opening up a whole new environment for the 200m or so PC folk who play
games regularly.
Bach also announced the introduction of IPTV (Internet Protocol
Television) for the Xbox 360. IPTV will offer a wide range of live
content being streamed to the console, completely configurable by the
user.
Gates further announced the Windows Home Server, designed as
simple-to-use software for centrally locating important files,
facilitating home gaming and being enabling easy connections to a bunch
of Microsoft devices. Microsoft has teamed up with HP and the latter
will be releasing a Windows Home Server-powered MediaSmart box later
this year.
Gates' vision, then, sees Vista take a central role in enabling users
to gain a better-connected digital experience with kind of hardware
that's now become pervasive.
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