Bill Gates CES 2007 Keynote

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Here I am, in Vegas all ready for CES and I get sick. Talk about bad timing It’s worse this morning, but nothing I can’t slug through, at least for today.

Yesterday was Bill Gates’ keynote for CES. We weren’t able to watch it live because we ended up getting wicked tickets for Le Reve at the Wynn Hotel (highly recommended btw). I watched the keynote on screencast afterwards and here’s a summary of the things I thought were hot. Do some web searches to get a verbatim summary of the rest of the keynote if you’re interested.

Windows Home Server: My buddy Lee is PM on this project and his team has been slugging away at this project for a little while now. It’s great to see the fruits of their labour get announced, and at CES no less! Basically it’s a product and software to allow home users to get automated backup, remote file access (accessing your file from “anywhere on the planet”) and even has custom software RAID so you don’t have to worry about RAID hardware. And of course, it sports complete connectivity to all PCs in your home including your XBOX 360. This computer is designed to be headless with no keyboard or mouse — designed to be administered from allowing it to be tucked away somewhere discrete in your home. This might actually end my search for a home RAID’d NAS. Lee, expect an email from me
- Check out on10.net for their 25 mins interview with CJ Sarretto of the Windows Home Serve team.
- Engadget coverage of a HP Windows Home Server box. Hot!
Xbox Live on Windows: This is freakin’ cool. Let’s get some cross platform gamign action with an Xbox 360 and your Windows Vista machine, and you can also your your Xbox 360 controller! Now all your guys (and gals) with those hardcore gaming rigs can get some Xbox live lovin’. Expect this in the Summer of 2007.
IPTV for Xbox: Get the benefits of IPTV through your Xbox like instant channel change, on-demand programming and HD+SDTV recording on yoru Xbox. For those that laughed when IPTV was discussed before due to cost and proliferation of hardware, laugh no more. IPTV comin’ straight at ya courtesy of Microsoft.
- Xbox 360 IPTV interface gallery courtesy of Engadget
Ford and Windows Automotive partnership: You’ve heard about advanced in-car computing for nearly a decade, but looks like it’s finally a reality. We announced a partnership with Ford with our Windows Automotive platform that will ship in over a dozen Ford models this year. What can you expect? How about bluetooth connectivity (for making/receiving calls through your car audio system), address book sync’ing, reading SMS messages and creating custom playlist from your portable media device. I could see some cool scenarios with the Zune appearing!