2008 Bill Gates CES Keynote

[Sean7512]

Well, it is now under way, and you can watch a live stream at

http://wm.istreamplanet.com/customers/ms/01062008_750.asx

So far, he seems very dull compared to Steve. They did do a funny little video on what he is going to do after retirement. Jay-Z was in the video, so maybe there is no music label :p Bill started talking about new ways of interacting with devices and specifically mentioned the iPhone as being "fantastic!"

I know this is a Mac site, but any technology person should find this interesting.

[bjett92]

He is really boring. Steve just makes you focus on his presentations and you just can't turn away from his keynotes. Bill's are just blah.

[twoodcc]

for some reason i can't hear anything

[Sean7512]

Very boring indeed....

First new announcement:
Disney, ABC, and MGM have all signed on to XBOX Live. What does this mean for iTunes?

I am surprised that Disney and ABC have signed up...

Edit:
XBOX 360 can now be used as a set-top box using Microsoft Mediaroom? and Apparently, Zune is "a great alternative to the iPod" yuck

[bjett92]

for some reason i can't hear anything

i had this problem at first too

quit quicktime and then reopen the site it worked for me

[twoodcc]

i had this problem at first too

quit quicktime and then reopen the site it worked for me

it wouldn't open in quicktime for me, but in VLC instead

[bjett92]

it wouldn't open in quicktime for me, but in VLC instead

maybe try quitting vlc and reopen it. when i went to it mine didn't open in vlc

[colinmack]

Watching it now...

A lot of new announcements that would compete in the Apple TV space - using an XBox as a set-top box, extensions of Microsoft Media Center being built into TVs by Samsung and Toshiba (think that was the companies mentioned). And...ouch...they commented that this space was not a "hobby" for Microsoft (he even used air quotes).

I certainly hope Apple improves their offering in this area (both in terms of content and functionality)...they are in a great position to build momentum, but they seem to be keeping it as more of a niche product.

[twoodcc]

maybe try quitting vlc and reopen it. when i went to it mine didn't open in vlc

i tried, but same thing. i tried to open it in quicktime, but it said "not a movie file" or whatever

[Sean7512]

i tried, but same thing. i tried to open it in quicktime, but it said "not a movie file" or whatever

Do you have the latest version of Flip4mac?

http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv_download.htm

[bjett92]

i tried, but same thing. i tried to open it in quicktime, but it said "not a movie file" or whatever

I'm not sure then. The video probably works for me because I have perian installed for quicktime.

[bjett92]

I couuld be wrong, but doesn't the iPhone outsell Windows Mobile? Here. (http://cultofmac.com/?p=1584) He said windows mobile is outselling the iphone.

[twoodcc]

Do you have the latest version of Flip4mac?

http://www.flip4mac.com/wmv_download.htm

no i don't

I'm not sure then. The video probably works for me because I have perian installed for quicktime.

well i installed perian, but still no luck

[Sean7512]

He just claimed that Windows Mobile phones outsell Blackberry and iPhone....interesting? I thought iPhone had surpassed Windows Mobile?

[twoodcc]

ok i installed flip4mac or whatever, and still no sound, but it does play in quicktime now

[Sean7512]

wow, that visual recognition software looks to be very powerful...any comments on that?

[MacNut]

Who's the guy sucking up in the blue sweater.

[bjett92]

wow, that visual recognition software looks to be very powerful...any comments on that?

Yes microsoft won't release it for 30 years. And when they do, it won't work like its supposed to. But it is a great concept.

[twoodcc]

well now all i see is "International CES On-Demand Available Shortly"

[Sean7512]

Please tell me that they didn't play guitar hero III up on stage?? lol

I guess thats it for Bill Gates, I think Intel's Otellini is next? Bill's wasn't too exciting. Just some direct competition to Apple TV.

It'll be interesting to see what Apple has up its sleeve to catch up with the XBOX 360's streaming capabilities.

twoodcc: I think Bill Gate's keynote is over, and someone else is up next. Not sure whether the next one is live or not, I'm waiting to see.

[jaw04005]

I've been watching the CES keynote live for years, and this is has to be dullest keynote ever.

Was there even a new product released? I mean at least last year there was a home server.

Wow.

[t0mat0]

It'll need a proper transcript of the keynote - but as mentioned there were some huge omissions, side steps of elephants in the room, and selective data ppicking going on in terms of Aple versus Microsoft.

E.g. Apple wasn't mentioned as having the number one mp3 player in the market/largest market shre - instead zune was said to be "very innovative".

e.g. Amount of mp3 player integration / phone integration in cars. From what i can gather the iPod is ahead of the zune, but the iPhone maybe a slow leader in terms of phone integration to stero in a car / gps

Apple TV got a side swipe - and if Apple can't pull some decent sweet tech, Microsoft might pull ahead with it's integratino to the Xbox/HDTV market (though how many computeres have media centre as an option on XP?)

Edit - ANyone notice how the bindings were the wrong way round for the snowboard? The Surface looks cool , but i'd be real happy if Apple beat Microsoft to market on touch screen / multi-touch tech...

Vista great for gaming? I heard the work around is open to get past Direct X incompatabilities with XP...

Anyway, Scoble's live Mogolus.com video stream from CES tonight and/or his qik.com/scobleizer in the next two days should be good fun to watch. So much happening on the RSS to cover CES. Will be nice to get a reading breather before MWSF!

Any word on the 08 08 08 olympics being accessible to non US people via MSN?

[Phil A.]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48b Safari/419.3)

the biggest problem with using the xbox as a media player is it's too damned noisy!

[jaw04005]

http://www.windowsitpro.com/windowspaulthurrott
http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ces08.asp


"With all due respect to the world's richest man, you've clearly worn out your welcome."

...

"Part of the problem is that Apple next week will unleash the 2008 rendition of its own tradeshow, Macworld. Despite being much smaller than CES, Macworld is far more influential and important because it features the most powerful consumer electronics company on earth, Apple, and its mesmerizing if mercurial CEO, Steve Jobs. If CES is serious about mattering again, it should already be in talks with Apple to get Jobs to keynote next year. My guess is that will never happen."

...

"And... that's about it. I'm sure we'll see more throughout the week. In the meantime, call me jaded if you must, but CES has lost something. My advice to the industry is simple: Move the show closer to the holidays and ensure that anything you're showing off will actually ship that year. Focus more on product and less on the nebulous vision stuff. And for crying out loud, start talking to Steve Jobs. That the most influential consumer electronics company in the world isn't at CES is a crime."


For once, I completely agree.

Also, Thurrott agrees the high definition disc wars are over.

"Late last week, Warner Bros. (and its New Line subsidiary) announced that they would drop support for HD DVD to focus on Blu-Ray exclusively. This announcement had a number of immediate ramifications: The HD DVD camp cancelled their CES press conference, HD DVD backer Toshiba slashed prices on its HD DVD notebook computers, and Microsoft scuttled plans for an HD DVD-based Xbox 360 console. Folks, the format wars are over: Blu-Ray has won."

[eric55lv]

that was really boring there just competing agast :apple:tv

[Sesshi]

When I hear his voice I think of Kermit. Gates is just not cut out to do keynotes and neither <shiver> is Ballmer. Both of them have the innate capability to turn something interesting into a snoozefest.

If you listen, Gates has many very interesting things to say but it's actually beyond the realm of ordinary people to consider. The purpose of keynotes is to get people excited and the MS head honchos manage to do the opposite. It's a little sad as a lot of their upcoming work actually has more substance than anything that Apple will manage.

[t0mat0]

When I hear his voice I think of Kermit.
..Gates is just not cut out to do keynotes ...Both of them have the innate capability to turn something interesting into a snoozefest.

If you listen, Gates has many very interesting things to say but it's actually beyond the realm of ordinary people to consider. The purpose of keynotes is to get people excited and the MS head honchos manage to do the opposite. It's a little sad as a lot of their upcoming work actually has more substance than anything that Apple will manage.

Seconded. He sounded more Kermit-like at the start though. I think there was ans is at the momemnt a whole shed load of "marketing speak". Integration, accessibility, connectivity etc. Words which can mean something useful,butare also bandied about glibly. As http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/ces08.asp shows - little of note, with some cheek (Apprently zune isn't even #2 in the mp3 player market as Sandisc is). Watching some of Scoble's shows live (qik.com/scobleizer) the marketers are full of it. Where's the average guy chillnig watching the football? Or the facebook/bebo use, or the iTunes use.
They're showing big ass HDTVs, with Vista machines, with simulated showrooms effectively.

One thing that might save it? Gates gets it as does Jobs - integration of simple other User interfaces - shake, wobble, move, touch, speak to etc with teh capability being baked into the OS. Windows mobiel 7 looks good, but darnned little buttons, i'll take a wireless fold out mat keyboard and a next gen iPhone.
WIth all the hype about car integration - Apple is going to burst onto Movies, HDTV entertainment, and accesibility (making products to hook up the Xbox, Playstaion to ) whicih then can feed the movies music pictures, OS, web browser to the tv/ monitor.

One othe rthing the MWSF will have that the Gates talk didn't really have is decent data - metrics of sales, product, and market share.