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Bill Gates : CES Coverage 2005

Posted by Mr magoo on 06 January 2005 - 03:24 · 57 comments & 5248 views

Bill Gates, like many years before, headed up the keynote for the Consumer Electronics Show 2005. Introduced with some light hearted comedy by TV presenter Conan O'Brian, Bill Gates keynote announced Microsoft's plans for the "digital lifestyle" in 2005.

Gates, starting 10 minutes late, announced that many new devices are joining the "PlaysForSure" program. The company perceives there being problems amongst consumers in that many are unsure as to what music / content plays on what devices. Microsoft hope that any concerns on these issues will be alleviated by this program. Gates described music somewhat vaguely as "going digital", and suggested the company was "pioneering" in the area. He showed off the iRiver device, and the Samsung PMC. The ability to view photos on PMC devices like the Samsung was touched on by Gates, who discussed Microsoft’s advances in the area. He’s hoping to make it simpler to transfer digital content like pictures onto your PC and demoed a camera (Nikon D2X) with new transfer technology, as well as in built wireless connectivity. Gate’s looked rather frustrated when attempting to demo slide show technology on MCE 2005; unfortunately, despite numerous attempts (and comic suggestions from O’Brian) the slideshow failed to work until later in the show. It became clear later that the bit had been setup to provide O’Brian / MS PR team with an opportunity to Photoshop some photos of Gates for comedy value; all in all the keynote had three major failures, which combined with a few minor problems made for quite funny watching..

Gates focused on “choice”, highlighting a commitment to letting people view content when they wanted, on whatever device they wanted. He described the centre piece for the drive as Windows Media Center Edition, and noted that1.4 million MCE devices were shipped in 2004. Products announced at CES included a MSN TV device, a DVD Recording device, new SPOT watches, IP-TV, and much more. Demoed was the MCE Extender for X-Box and MSN Remote Record (currently in beta, to be launched later this quarter). The DVD recorder was also demoed; the device records DVD’s and also has a TV tuner and a hard drive packaged together; the box is made by LG, and features a MCE-esque style layout, with a very simple functionality. This device is one of many new “integrated devices” that Microsoft is keen on launching with MCE 2005. It also became clear that the company is enthusiastic with High Definition (HD) TV devices, offering high quality content in the home. One of the presenters talked about voice, video and data coming through the same pipe to the home- a concept named "IP-TV", an exciting, high bandwidth (and perhaps futuristic) vision of content being offered in the years to come. Software was demoed showing a baseball game where users could control elements like angles viewed, made possible via IP-TV. The potentials did seem quite endless for the technology, with a demo being given on content being streamed from a MCE box onto a mobile phone, and a mobile phone interacting with the box, functioning as a big remote control. It’s re-assuring that Microsoft aren’t just focusing on delivering content to one device (MCE boxes) but much more; it’s also rather worrying that the company could be dominating in many more markets.

Gates also announced a partnership between Microsoft, music channel MTV, and Tivo. Microsoft's relationship with MTV is key for its push into the media centre market. The company badly needs media providers like MTV to create unique content to get users on the Windows Media platform. As part of the agreement, MTV (and its sub-sites) will begin streaming content using WMV 10. The announcement comes with the launch of MSN Video, offering content for download straight to media devices like the Creative Zen PMC. Microsoft will offer a membership based download service from the site, charging $19.99 per year for un-limited access to content offered online. "We've declared our vision of enabling digital entertainment anywhere, and today we are delivering three more solutions to make that possible," said Blair Westlake, VP of Media at Microsoft.

Tivo's recently launched "TiVoToGo" will be done in partership with Microsoft, allowing customers to transfer content recorded from TV onto their Windows PC. Content will be available from Microsoft partners like MTV, as well as CNBC, MSNBC, Fox Sports, Cookie Jar, Home and Garden TV, DIY Network, Food Network, Fine Living, iFilm, Want Media and Break TV. Content offered will be suitable for the range of "PlaysForSure" devices and will later be compatible with Smartphones and Pocket PCs that support video. Xbox news was limited to discussion about the products achievements over the past year, and he noted that the X-Box actually outsold the PS2. Gates highlighted Halo-2’s success, and said that there were 6.2m users playing the game. He noted a commitment to making it easier for developers to code games for the Xbox platform. Rumours that CES would see the launch of X-Box 2 were false; he touched on the fact that the next generation of Xbox would be taking advantage of much higher graphics power, which combined with HD-TV would produce much more enticing games.

All in all, Gates announced an impressive line up of new products at CES. Although MCE didn't really take off as well as it might have last year, the company hopes that 2005 will see far more interest in the product. Microsoft hopes to re-assert itself in areas where it perhaps lagged behind, and the offerings shown at this years CES are certain impressive enough to make a good start.

View: Microsoft

Appologies for first version - 4AM Press Conferences are not good fun.

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(6 replies) #1 Posted by Hurmoth on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:03: IPTV is going to be awesome!

#2 Posted by iczman on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:03: i wana see bsod!

#3 Posted by no-sweat on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:03: OMG ROLF LMFAO BSOD!!!!

(3 replies) #4 Posted by Steven on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:03: What a snooze fest..no longhorn info?

(1 reply) #5 Posted by profets003 on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:05: that was completely useless... really didnt show us anything we havent seen before

IPTV has potential, but i dont think the networks in place are even close to being able to handle stuff like that

(8 replies) #6 Posted by dp123 on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:08

Tom, why kill our fun "live" comments for this whitewashed piece of tripe.

QUOTE

All in all, Gates announced an impressive line up of new products at CES. Although MCE didn't really take off as well as it might have last year, the company hopes that 2005 will see far more interest in the product. Microsoft hopes to re-assert itself in areas where it perhaps lagged behind, and the offerings shown at this years CES are certain impressive enough to make a good start.

Was there anything new?

2005 is going to be another bad year for Media Centers.

Microsoft hopes, it hopes...

Impressive? They couldn't find the remote, it didn't work. They didn't have internet access. Demo boy was boring as hell. They blue screened an X-Box. Impressive indeed.

#6.1 Posted by [Fosters] on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:11: What is he talking about. Didn't they double the sales of MCE with-in two months of the launch of MCE 2005.
The remote did work later. Didn't you see the funny slideshows.

#6.2 Posted by ike on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:12: dude, you're really annoying. it looked like you were posting about every couple minutes in the other thread, you really need to calm down...

#6.3 Posted by dp123 on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:15

QUOTE

The remote did work later.

No, it didn't. Didn't you hear Conan go: "Oooh, it's workin'... Nope."

And Gates replying: "Nope."

ike, I don't give a sh!t. Fck off.

#6.4 Posted by pogz on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:17

QUOTE

Tom, why kill our fun "live" comments for this whitewashed piece of tripe.

probably to avoid having to delete all that spam you posted.

#6.5 Posted by dp123 on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:27: Spam? Like Conan, I was one of the few entertaining and interesting parts of that boring, steaming pile of ....

#6.6 Posted by SquareSoft0 on 06 Jan 2005 - 05:11

#6.7 Posted by NetRyder on 06 Jan 2005 - 05:59: LOL...dp123, I hope you enjoyed reading your own monologue while it lasted. Glad to see that the garbage was cleaned up.

#6.8 Posted by Mav Phoenix on 09 Jan 2005 - 02:39: dp123 = Mac lover so anything MS makes him cry rivers of Apple shaped tear drops.

(1 reply) #7 Posted by Weasel on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:08: So what were the "three major failures"? I thought that was going to be the premise for the review..

(7 replies) #8 Posted by Coolme on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:12: wow, 2 thoumbs up for Tom Graham. Who wrote this article and posted it just minutes after the CES ended.

here are the failure that I caught while watching the video
1. Delay before starting
2. Broken Remote
3. Internet not working (And using Firefo
4. Xbox out of memory (BSOD)
5. Choopy gameplay for demo racing game, after O’Brian crashed to a wall

check this out: pics of the slideshow

Last edited by 32155 on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:24

(3 replies) #9 Posted by GodsHand on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:36: Snipped

Last edited by 18091 on 06 Jan 2005 - 16:55

#10 Posted by webeagle12 on 06 Jan 2005 - 04:50: oh noes!! he w@s teh 10 min l@t3

#11 Posted by no-sweat on 06 Jan 2005 - 05:05: video is up - http://www.microsoft.com/athome/ces2005/default.mspx

(3 replies) #12 Posted by Zirus1701 on 06 Jan 2005 - 05:47: Is there a link where we can save the whole video?

#13 Posted by Mr magoo on 06 Jan 2005 - 10:28: Hi All- sorry it was a bit naff. I've updated it now, making it a bit clearer.

#14 Posted by The Grasshopper on 06 Jan 2005 - 11:45: bill gates as milhaus from the simpsons...HAHAHAHA

#15 Posted by Nelsinho on 06 Jan 2005 - 13:37: hmm, after damn buffering loads very slow I think all is amazing but maybe very expensive too to any person buy all equipment thought, still video with 54 minutes approximately hehe and some scene really hilarious LOL

(1 reply) #16 Posted by bingham. on 06 Jan 2005 - 22:19: link to vid please

(1 reply) #17 Posted by bangbang023 on 07 Jan 2005 - 01:28: I wonder if they will edit the video that they make available for download.

(3 replies) #18 Posted by Uxtheme Rafael on 07 Jan 2005 - 06:01: 2005_0105_ms_ces_300agility.wmv - Ripping now.

#19 Posted by Hills420 on 08 Jan 2005 - 16:21: I wonder if MS has BSOD on purpose? I have NEVER gotten one in WINXP...

#20 Posted by Hellgod on 09 Jan 2005 - 17:09: here is the video for the 4th time

please enjoy this at microsofts expence

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