Gates CES Summary 2

This year, for the first time, I gave technology gifts not only to my friends who are very sophisticated, but to my friends who are not sophisticated, things like digital cameras, because I think they really are ready for prime time, music and photos, those experiences are changing permanently in a way that puts the user in control.

...Now, one thing that is very important here is by moving the Windows software in the PC up to use our Windows 2000 technology, which we'll be doing in the next release of Windows, we create a machine that you'll be leaving on 24 hours a day, a machine that can continue to service the different peripherals, the picture frames, the music playing devices, the different control things you have around the house, it will continually service those devices.

...So I'm talking about an extended PC, a PC that reaches out, talks to the set top box, for example, talks to the pocket PCs, talks to those different screens that are out there, the picture frames, that are out there, talks to your music type player devices, coordinates with other PCs that are in the home, so that you don't have to explicitly move that information around.

.....I'm going to go ahead and click on Northwinds Traders, and what I can do then is listen to this station, it's been kind of preprogrammed for me, or I can potentially buy some songs from this and download them into the local network so I can listen to them, or a third option it gives me to do is to create a custom station where I can take the music that I've got here, plus add some other things, and I'm going to add headlines, weather, and traffic.

.....We're also taking the interface and saying that we want to make this a device that you can actually read for long periods of time by having screens that are detachable, you can put in your lap, by having the right resolution, by having new font technology we call ClearType, those things will allow this device to be where you would look at a magazine, or where you would look at a long report.

.....At the same time we've been doing this, our music guys, the guys that run our digital media division, they've been working on the Universal Plug and Play technology, making it so that when I bring this device into the house it can talk to other devices, and it recognizes the other devices like the computer, and they can share certain applications and talk to each other.

.....One key point we want to make is that these consumer experiences, when they're put into digital form, they're not just more convenient, they really start to change in ways that we can expect, and I think for each one of these experiences, there will be things that happen -- now that the user is in control, now that it's digital -- that we don't expect.

.....And I think that everybody knows that Xbox has the hottest technology that exists in gaming today, but you don't need to listen to us. And, in fact, it's important to realize that the most important guys you can get excited about this technology are the guys who make the games, and they're some of the most enthusiastic people I've ever spoken to about Xbox technology.

Last update: 2/22/08; 2:02:01 PM.