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Exchange 2003, formerly known by the code name "Titanium," is the next version in the Exchange messaging and collaboration server line of products. Scheduled to be released in mid-2003, Exchange 2003 will provide many new features and enhancements to improve reliability, manageability, and security. Exchange 2003 will help increase information worker productivity while helping organizations reduce their total cost of ownership (TCO) in areas such as server and site consolidation. In addition, Exchange 2003 is the first version of Exchange designed to run on Windows .NET Server 2003.

You can now order it on CD for free delivery around January in the US here

View: Exchange Server 2003 Beta2 Website @ Microsoft
View: Exchange 2003 Beta2 Release Notes
News source: The inq.

This year's show focuses on the same patterns of electronic consumption. Instead of transistor radios, companies are expected to show car radios that receive broadcasts of digital music -- as well as television.

The portable storage seen in the audio cassette has morphed into many forms, including the Secure Digital card, the size of a U.S. quarter. Panasonic will announce a new one that holds a gigabyte of digital data -- roughly the same as a 90-minute analog cassette.

And TVs are still a hot item 36 years later, with several companies proffering flat-panels the size of a small garden patch that are digital cable-ready.

Analysts are agog over the forthcoming personal video player, or PVP, that chipmaker Intel and ReplayTV maker SONICblue are working on. Intel will show off several prototypes of the Walkman-sized PVP, with a 4-inch screen and storage for more than 10 hours of movies.

The Intel PVP won't be the first such device. France's Archos released its $399 Jukebox Multimedia, with a 1-inch screen, last year.

Analysts also admit pent-up reverence for the finally emerging wireless "smart displays" such as the ViewSonic airpanel and Philips iPronto. Both are the first of a slew of such products using touch-screen technology Microsoft announced at last year's CES, under the name Mira.

Instead of tethering computer users to a desk, smart displays allow folks to wander the house or office with a screen that links wirelessly with the computer.

At least two companies will offer systems for those who want live TV beamed to their cars, rather than just DVDs playing on their seat-back screens.

KVH Industries will unveil a car-mounted 4-inch-high disc antenna that pulls in satellite TV. The $2,000 antennas, already in use by the U.S. military, devote an array of tiny gyroscope-guided dish antennas to lock onto a satellite during the twists and turns of the road.

Sirius Satellite Radio also plans to demonstrate that a Sirius-configured Kenwood car stereo can receive satellite-beamed video alongside radio broadcasts.

A handful of cell phone and handheld computer makers will further blend the two devices. Hitachi and Samsung will introduce PDA phones with picture-messaging capabilities. Both can access higher-speed wireless networks to send e-mail and surf the 'Net. The Hitachi also integrates a keyboard.

Several analysts point to the emergence of a wider "digital lifestyle" which aims to steer folks back into their own homes, away from terrorists and foreign vacations.

The concept is boosted by converging home entertainment devices and software known collectively as "media gateways." The gateways bundle stray audio and video formats -- from MP3s to recorded TV shows to digital pictures -- to allow control them from a single device.

"There's a blending between the home PC and the home entertainment systems, your stereo and TV," said Forrester Research's Charles Golvin.

The gateways can take the shape of a PC-centric system, a set-top box, or a handheld computer imbued with software, like Scientia Technologies' Plexus, that can control everything from the TV to the swimming pool pump.

The show has also become the gadget industry's venue to persuade the U.S. government to see things its way.

A dozen members of Congress are expected, along with top officials from the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Commerce and Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell.

The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to introduce "Plug-in to Recycling," a campaign aimed at prodding Americans to stop tossing toxic electronic waste into the trash.

The EPA will announce "e-waste" recycling opportunities, with help from vendors, manufacturers and waste haulers, including Best Buy, Sony, Waste Management, Panasonic and Dell, the EPA said.

For federal officials without funds to fly to Las Vegas and stay in the Hilton -- the hallowed venue where Elvis Presley started his comeback in 1969 -- CES organizers will pay, said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association.

The industry finds itself struggling to compete with the entertainment industry's lobbying push to persuade Congress to block some technologies, especially those that allow digital recording of music and TV broadcasts.

"We're not Hollywood. Certainly we don't make the campaign contributions that the studios can," Shapiro said. "But (Congress) regulates these products. If they're going to regulate us they should see the industry up close and personal."