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MS @ CES -- IPTV, Live Anywhere, VISTA, Zune
Bamelin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I didn't see a thread about this anywhere. Some interesting announcements were made regarding IPTV, Live Anywhere, VISTA and Zune, during the MS keynote at CES. I've included the transcript below:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/07/live-from-the-bill-gates-keynote/
The Live Anywhere stuff I find really interesting ... is this the beginning of Consolefying the PC, or PCFying the console?
Or perhaps integration between the two? I have to admit though seeing Uno played on the PC over Live was AWSOME.
And IPTV over my 360? *splooge*
Even if it is controlled by the cable companies (it will have to be), it still sounds awsome. That 120 gig drive can't come soon enough.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/07/live-from-the-bill-gates-keynote/
6:20 (PST) - The connection is spotty as hell, but Ryan and I are here at the Bill Gates keynote, which should be starting shortly. Stay tuned for updates -- at least barring a failure of our EV-DO lifeline.
6:22 - They're asking us to take our seats
6:25 - Over the PA: "Ladies and gentlemen, the keynote is beginning in five minutes."
6:33 - Eight minutes later: "Ladies and gentlemen, the keynote will begin in two minutes." See, even Microsoft's keynotes can't launch on time... We kid, we kid!
6:36 - Lights are dimming, looks like we're about to get going. It's starting. A visual history of CES is playing on the giant monitors next to the stage.
6:39 - Gary Shapiro, President of the CEA is on stage. He's giving the usual spiel about all the industry leaders who are speaking this year.
6:41 - "It is my great privilege to introduce Bill Gates as a featured speaker."
6:44 - They're showing highlights from past Gates keynotes - this is the 10th year he's spoken.
6:47 - Another video, this one showing hip young people using Microsoft technology. Zunes a-squirting!
6:49 - Bill Gates is walking out on stage. "Good evening, I've always loved coming back from Xmas to go right into the most manic environment ever. Are you going to keep giving the keynote, but not sure about after that, might be talking more about infectious diseases."
6:50 - "It's amazing to see the progress over the course of the year. The digital decade is truly happening. 65% of homes have digital cameras. More broadband penetration. 40% of homes have multiple computers."
Portable devices proliferating, growing part of the PC market, connections with WiFi and 3G, getting information wherever you go."
6:52 - "What are some the metrics we have here. Devices with high fidelity. Six megapixel cameras and up. high definition screens that make you drool. Now it connects up to high def cable, PC, games. All taking advantage of that capability. Network bandwidth has gone up. Processors opening memory capacity up to 64bit."
Graphics revolution let's us represent reality on screen. Seeing in games, VR, presentation richness that all these great devices deliver. It's really quite phenomenal. Storage space, people are talking terabytes, or even petabytes of storage."
6:53 - "We have amazing hardware, love walking the floor, who has the biggest LCD, the biggest hard disk. But we need to deliver on promise of digital decade. Delivering means more than just great hardware. CE defined as much broader industry."
6:55 - "An enviroment where people want to do things across multiple devices with many different people. Delivering on connected experiences, where people are productive, where they're mobile, playing games, that's key element that's missing. For Microsoft, it's a big big milestone, foundational products are moving into the marketplace. First of that is Vista, lots of hard work. Most important release of Windows ever, highest quality, we've ever done."
6:56 - "Vista and the PC continue to have a central role, all these devices have to work together. Vista is a big project, rather than talk about features, rather talk about what we've been through."
6:57 - "Process we've been through, Beta 2., out to 2 million people, RC out to 5 million, in depth went in and interviewed people in seven different countries. Biggest investment ever into a piece of software, by the far the most used piece of software, any improvements can save time and enable people to do amazing things."
With Office, new UI, connect up to Office Live services, richness improved by UI. Features users couldn't find, now they can find. New UI was a risk, but it's worked out, getting great feedback."
6:59 - "Live services, ability to share files, email, connect schedules, so can flow to yours or other devices. A lot of innovation to connect Windows up with those services. As we expand those things, building on that base, get most Windows PC users viewing as integral part of experience."
7:00 - "Great way to understand why we're so thrilled is to see demo. Justin Hutchinson coming to demo Vista". Justin's walking out.
"Thanks, Bill. Tonight giving you a glimpse of Windows Vista. Makes PC easier, safer, more fun. Vista, Office, and Windows Live will come together for connected experience."
He's demoing Vista search.
7:01 - Can search every Vista PC on home network. Shadowcopy - Can restore previous versions of documents with a couple of clicks.
7:03 - "Better than going back in time."
"Vista gives you a safety net"
Demoing new Office UI
7:04 - Now showing off Windows Live Search, with Virtual Earth 3D tech built into Vista. Can be used with Xbox 360 controller.
7:05 - You can fly around a la Google Earth. Can include real-time traffic info.
Demoing Vista Media Center.
7:07 - Sportslounge: "Developed by MSFT and Fox Sports. Watching live HD feed of football game. Getting real time scores for every program in channel lineup. Get real-time alerts about fave players and teams."
You can set Sportslounge up to follow all your fantasy sports teams.
7:09 - Demoing minimized media center video. Now we're on with photos. "In windows Vista the place to edit and organize all your photos is Photo Gallery." Clever, clever name. Demoing burn-to-DVD with DVD Maker (yet another witty moniker), themes etc.
7:10 - Windows Vista Ultimate - Flagship version
"Microsoft continues to download new features - Ultimate Extras. Groupshot, new feature which combines good features of two bad photos into one good photo". (Like if one person's eyes are closed in one pic or whatever.)
7:11 - "What else are people doing with photos. A new Ultimate Extra called Dreamscene, full motion desktops."
Any video can be set as desktop background. Justin walks off stage, Bill is back on.
7:13 - He's talking about Windows ecosystem: Certified for Windows Vista.
7:15 - Still talking about the "phenomenon around the Windows environment."
7:16 - Introducing new PC designs enabled by Vista. Touch screen: HP TouchSmart PC. Selecting photos to print, etc. Toshiba: Portege R400. Ability to have SideShow alert on side of machine and see info even when device is closed. Dock with UWB that doesn't even require you to plug in. Sony: Vaio TP1. Medion UMPC. "Spanning wider variety of design points, strength that comes from great hardware partners."
"These ones I've just shown you are timed for the Vista launch."
Video is playing about new Vista PCs
7:20 - Video just ended. "Speaking of great things our partners have done with us, talk about new space, we worked very closely with PC. Defining a Windows Home Server."
HP-style commercial playing, but it's Bill instead of Jay-Z or Mark Cuban
7:21 - Just showed a clip of Ballmer's "Developers! Developers!" speech as part of the commercial. Introducing HP Media SmartServer. Video ends
7:22 - Windows Home Server for homes with multiple PCs, Xboxs, want storage available at all times.
7:23 - Coming out 2nd half of this year. "Features: automated backup, connectivity to all PCs, Zune, Xbox, and remote connectivity, if you're somewhere else, can come in and get files in secure way. No complexity. If you want to grow capacity, just plug new storage in, lots of expandability, software automatically detects it. Can get terabytes of data on this device."
"We think it's a category that can explode in importance."
7:24 - Connected entertainment. Robbie Bach is coming out.
7:26 - Robbie is talking now about connected entertainment. "It has two parts, content: music, movies, games. We want people to get on whatever device they want. 2nd part is community. People want to share content, ideas, community entertainment and experiences. Bring those together. Combining software, hardware, and service to deliver connected entertainment. Talk about music, gaming, mobile phones."
7:27 - "A year ago Bill introduced URGE music service, creating platform for music around the globe. We did add a 2nd part in 2006 with introduction of Zune. Very exicted about what we've done. In our segment, we're already no, 2. On track to sell a million. Zune is off to a great start. Service to expand, improve software and hardware, community will grow. You'll see us in the leadership position in the years to come."
7:28 - "Mobile phones, some of the hottest selling phones in the market. Not just about phone calls, not just about email, it's about IM, movies, TV, music, connected entertainment on my phone., Think abotu Cingular Treo, Blackjack, Motorola Q.
In 2007 see that continue to grow. All of these things are why WinMo excels and why we outsell BlackBerry in the market. That's mobility"
7:30 - "Talk about gaming. Games for Vista is critical to our efforts in that area. PC and Windows is number one platform in the world. 200M peiople eveyr month play games on Windows PCs. Expand with Direct10. Making it easier to use. Games for Windows about hardcore gamers, also about casual gamers. This is a very broad ecosystem."
Showing video about PC gaming - Postal Service, 'From Such Great Heights" is playing in the background."
7:32 - Video ended. "Games for Windows is a growing market. But of course, while leading platform, our 2nd is Xbox 360. We've become the leader in this next gen. We've sold 10.4 million consoles in 37 countries."
7:33 - "This ecosystem is alive and growing. Games is what this is going to be about going forward, sold 2.7 million copies of Gears of War. 160 titles on platform, will double to 300 titles this year."
Showing a video of Halo 3
7:36 - Robbie's talking about Xbox Live now. 5 million members. "Want to take to whole new level, let's take Live experience to Windows." Demo of Xbox Live for Windows. Playing multiplayer Uno on Vista using Xbox 360 controller. UI customized for Vista.
Can play with friends whether they're on Vista PC or Xbox 360. Rolls out on Live service this summer. Three billion hours of gaming so far.
7:40 - TV and movies. "Big news is HD and how fast that is taking off. I wanna talk about four ways to get HD movies today on MSFT ecosystem. HD-DVD player add-on for Xbox 360. Perhaps bigger news is that HD-DVD format has been top selling format.
2nd way you can get that experience: on Media Center. 30M copies of Media Center worldwide. 3rd way is with Xbox Live Video, introduce in November, 1000 hours of content. Adding Lion's Gate to the mix for even more content."
7:42 - Demo of Xbox Live Video marketplace.
7:43 - "4th and final area, is what we call IPTV. In five markets with providers to roll out IPTV to consumers. Market will become major part of TV delivery ecosystem."
Doing demo of Microsoft IPTV system.
7:44 -IPTV running on an Xbox 360!
7:45 - Demo is running on Xbox, using Xbox dashboard to toggle between live TV and games.
"I want to point out that Xbox 360 allows partners to differentiate themselves. Available THIS year, by holiday 2007."
Robbie is wrapping up part about connected entertainment.
7:48 - Robbie walks off stage. Bill is back once more. "Our ambition is to give you connected experiences 24 hours a day. Whatever it is, we want you to have the info you're interested in. One area that demands special work: connecting to the car."
7:51 - Mark Fields from Ford is walking out on stage. Demoing Sync, fully integrated, voice activated system. Ford exclusive. Integrates all of your devices in the car. Address book automatically downloaded from your phone via Bluetooth."
7:52 - "Seamless hand-off of hands-free calls when you enter or exit vehicle. Text-to-speech for text messaging. Full entertainment platform, accepts nearly all portable music and all USB mass storage. Voice recognition lets you create custom playlists with voice command."
7:54 - "Sync would have originally been for luxury cars, going to be on a dozen Ford Motor Company models this year. Sync gives us the oppt. to improve appeal and capability and value of our products."
Mark Fields is leaving the stage. Gates: "Taking the time to look further out, how all of this will change in years ahead. Home in four or five years, as we get further out. Incredible breakthroughs that can make a big difference."
7:55 - "Hardware, combined with software, can create new experiences." He's talking about new version of Microsoft Connected Home of the Future. Doing demo right now.
7:57 - He's showing a kitchen of the future, which is honestly kind of hilarious.
7:59 - Bill's showing a bedroom wall display thing. You can switch the display, virtual wallpaper, aquarium, play Xbox, etc.
8:03 - Bill's wrapping up: "There are some fun challenges ahead. Excited for all of us to see the fulfillment of the digital decade. Thank you!"
That's all!
The Live Anywhere stuff I find really interesting ... is this the beginning of Consolefying the PC, or PCFying the console?
Or perhaps integration between the two? I have to admit though seeing Uno played on the PC over Live was AWSOME.
And IPTV over my 360? *splooge*
Even if it is controlled by the cable companies (it will have to be), it still sounds awsome. That 120 gig drive can't come soon enough.
Bamelin on
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Posts
Shadowcopy: Better than Time Machine! Huh?! Huh? [audience silence]
Home Media Server: Bill's been riding the 'digital home' thing for the past decade.
360: Finally, some interesting and worthwhile news.
@Bryceforvice on Twitter Facebook
You can get/buy it for Vista and play against 360 dudes with Live Anywhere.
live on windows is neat i guess. nothing terribly exciting since i'm sure it'll require vista.
@Bryceforvice on Twitter Facebook
This is what I'm saying ... as MS pushes it's Live Anywhere brand you're going to see cross platform (PC/360) games being pushed even harder ... already I'm starting to see more and more ads with people playing on a PC holding a 360 controller ... which is where my comments about "Consolfying the PC" came from.
I'm not saying "da PC is DOOMED", but I am starting to wonder where all this is going. I'd sure hate to see PC games limited in development so that they can be ported to the 360 in support of Live Anywhere.
@Bryceforvice on Twitter Facebook
i'm not sure even what i think as far as thats concerned either. wether or not there will be a charge.
Hmm I never even thought of that angle. If they charge for it, there is a part of me that feels it will flop ... and dramatically hurt "Games for Windows" sales that force people to be "Live Anywhere Gold" subscribers to take part in proper multiplayer.
What I think is more likely is that the days of subscription fees for Live is numbered.
Pretty soon the icemaker in my fridge will require a credit card to activate and charge me $0.10 everytime I want ice.
*shakes fist*
It's entirely possible Live Anywhere will be free on a PC but still cost over the 360. Who really knows how they plan to do it ....
The one thing I DO know though is that PC players will never pay for a subscription service. Never.
Edit: thats the only example i can think off right off the top of my head, i know there are more subscription based things on the net that people easily and willingly pay for.
It's just more worth it than for PC capabilities.
@Bryceforvice on Twitter Facebook
but in the end, honestly, live is very worth it.
edit:
http://on10.net/Blogs/tina/you-heard-it-people-carbon-is-real/
http://www.engadget.com/gallery/xbox-360-iptv-interface-gallery/126659/
^ The channel changing interface.. the small thumbnail is like a picture-in-picture of the channels you are browsing through.
^ Something really neat you wouldn't normally think of -- because, of course, you're still running it all on an Xbox360, you're still connected to LIVE, and so while you're watching TV, you can download games, receive invites, and all the rest of that stuff.
Slick.
I'M A TWITTER SHITTER
You're taking me out of context, although I suppose I was unclear. Let me rephrase:
The one thing I DO know though is that PC Players will never pay Live not in the numbers that I think MS is looking for.
360 players don't have a choice. While I really like Live and think it's great for the console, 360 owners really HAVE to buy Live if they want to play multiplayer games.
PC players have been used to having free MP included in all their titles and have other services like Xfire if they really want to build a "friends list". Hell MS Messenger/ICQ/AOL/Yahoo Messenger ... they all work great as a friends list too.
And what segment would that be? Media players that aren't an iPod?
Or a Sansa. Or a Zen. Or a ...
Reading as similar conversation on another board brought up someone saying they announced the #2 thing awhile ago. Can't verify it's true though.
And according to NPD, you would be wrong.
Despite the fact that the Zune was only #18 on Amazon's sales chart (it's #17 now)—behind 12 varieties of iPods—Microsoft's doing quite well this holiday season. Statistics released by NPD Group says that while the iPod is still number one, the Zune's leapfrogged everyone else and claimed 9% of sales and 13% of total dollar share. Impressive, until you compare it to the iPod's 63% of sales and 72.5% of dollar share.
Not nearly what the iPod sells, but apparently it has sold enough to have surpassed its other competition for the holidays.[/url]
And if it does happen, we won;t be seeing it for a long time... until they can roll out the 65nm chips as fast as they are cranking out the 90nm ones.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
@Bryceforvice on Twitter Facebook
Well shoot, really? I was totally waiting for an announcement before getting one, but now I'm not really sure whether I should wait. I imagine they wouldn't announce a price drop, however, so waiting can't all be bad now.
IPTV sounds really interesting, however. I don't have any sort of cable box right now, but if I had a game system that acted as an hd tuner as well, allowing me to watch some of the HD channels other than the OTA ones I currently get, I'd be willing to pay a subscription.
I wonder if that's how it would really work? We just got our first HDTV and we have a Dish Network DVR but it is an SD reciever. Their HD rec'r is expensive. I wonder if we should wait on upgrading to their HD service until we see what MS will have to offer.
I don't think it could have DVR capabilities though. Or could it?
Wii: 4521 1146 5179 1333 Pearl: 3394 4642 8367 HG: 1849 3913 3132
No, I expect we would have to pay. The difference is I already have an Xbox 360, whereas right now my Dish reciever is SD and I'm not paying for HD programming through Dish either. If the channels/price are comparable to what Dish is offering (depending on the functionality) it just might make more sense to go with IPTV. Which is why I might have to wait for more info.
Wii: 4521 1146 5179 1333 Pearl: 3394 4642 8367 HG: 1849 3913 3132
Because well I leapfrog between two regular internet connections. One being basically unlimited (can clock at around 100mbps) the other is a shitty 2mbps home line which can barely handle things like youtube.
Basically, should I haul my 360 to work all the time or will the slower speed be acceptable (note: I can use my 360 at work).
Im assuming the former.
Also, Pc gamers will never pay for something unless they absolutely have to. Live Anywhere will have to be free otherwise noone will use it. WoW is a poor analogy because that is a subscription service to a game. Live Anywhere is more akin to Steam than WoW.
If IPTV is somewhat near my expectations i will buy an xbox just for the tv.
source
I think that's pretty huge, especially when a ton of people on this board were saying that it was impossible and wasn't going to happen.
Gates' keynote wasn't too bad aside from the bombed joke. The dude who demoed the Live 3D street search thing? Ouch.
"And now you can fly through a 3D map of Los Angeles."
[audience silence]
"What, no clap?"
[audience silence]
"..."
[slow clap]