The one thing you need to know about CES: Getting from point to point in Las Vegas takes more time than you can imagine. Everything’s spread out, and the traffic is nightmarish. That, in a nutshell, is why I didn’t make it to Bill Gates’ keynote last night. Fortunately, Joe Wilcox watched the webcast and provided an excellent summary:
The longest single chunk of his keynote focused on Windows Vista. What bothered me: how little new there was in the Windows Vista demonstrations. I’m beginning to realize that there may not be much more new for Microsoft to reveal about Windows Vista.
Windows Media Center got about as long a demonstration as Windows Vista. … this is the first event where I saw Microsoft really show off the new Windows Vista Media Center user interface.
I found to be most interesting part of the Media Center demo: Windows Live Messenger and the concept of “activities” that are not necessarily related to people. The demonstration revealed how an automated TV advisor could make program recommendations, show TV previews and even remotely schedule recordings on a Media Center PC via instant messaging.
The Media Center demo also focused on high definition, whether HD DVD or HD content downloaded to the PC–all capabilities coming later this year.
Digital media, especially HDTV, is going to be the big story of 2006, a fact that was abundantly clear from a short walk around one press event last night. The biggest crowds were gathered around booths showing off digital video solutions and display hardware.
Update: Robert Scoble and Engadget did play-by-play coverage. Thomas Hawk notes that 6.5 million Media Center PCs have now been sold, with 5 million of those going out the door in the last year. The official Microsoft release is here.
Ed Bott 