Bink.nu has a funny article about tonight's Keynote where Gatesand Balmer played each other in boxing on the Xbox 360.

High Definition was part of the opening keynotes here at CES (not really a surprise). And in particular, the the combination of high-def content and Windows Center Edition.

As some may know, there are format wars brewing -- HD-DVD vs. BlueRay battle.  HD-DVD is the format Microsoft has blessed.

Microsoft wants to make Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) the central piece of home entertainment.

Using a Toshiba HD-DVD device with Windows Media Center, all kinds of information such as info on actors in a movie on the fly without leaving the movie.

Much was made of the "Interactivity Layer" of HD-DVD.  the Interactivity Layer allows things like putting talking heads doing commentary on the screen. A little creepy but kind of neat. But mostly creepy.

HD-DVD also allows for Hi-Def movies to be copied to a hard drive. Hence someone can buy a DVD, copy it to their hard drive on MCE so that the DVD can be put safely away.

MCE also will support cable cards and other high definition inputs so that users can record high definition content to their MCE PC.  Microsoft claims they've put a lot of work to work with cable and satellite content providers to make it easy for consumers to record high-def to a MCE PC (or to Xbox 360).

MCE is also designed to work easily with large libraries of albums. Which can be streamed to any PC in the house through extender capabilities.

WinCustomize.com was invited by Microsoft to participate in this year's Windows Vista lab series.  As a result, we have been able to get all kinds of interesting inside knowledge on what Microsoft has in mind with Windows Vista.

Tonight was the keynote address by Bill Gates and several Microsoft excecutives went over many interesting gadgets and software endeavors that we can expect to see this year.

Check out the articles for live coverage.

Tonight Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates presented the keynote address here at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.  WinCustomize.com is there in the press room blogging live from the event right now!

Windows Vista as well as gives a vision on how personal computing technology will go in the future.

During his demo, Mr. Gates was able to integrate his information and data seamlessly across a cell phone, tablet PC, and his desktop PC that was connected to a 40 inch monitor that divided the display into 3 work areas.

During the upcoming announcements, Microsoft showed up the new Windows Media Player which is a lot cleaner than previous versions.  The next Windows Vista explorer provides a host of useful features for modifying data such as being able to crop and do basic editing on images without having to load a graphics editing package.

Internet Explorer 7 was shown off with its Firefox-like tabs but with some very interesting twists.

Much of the push on Windows Vista so far has highlighted a cleaner, faster, more polished look combined with a heavily revamped plumbing underneath.  GDI and the myriad of vulnerable networking APIs are gone and replaced with a new architecture.

Those who were worried that Vista was just Windows XP with a new look have nothing to fear, it's a very definite change for better.

Keep an eye on the coverage in the Articles tab here on WinCustomize.com

Hard to believe that nearly 2 years have passed but it's almost time to have another one.

Last time it was WindowBlinds, IconPackgaer, and Winamp.

What 3 categories would you like this time? Which websites would you like to see participate?

Survived the trip to Las Vegas. I hate traveling. And being cramped in a seat for 4 hours is no fun.  To small too tight fitting to be comfortable with. Which brings me to a related issue - young overweight females should not wear tight fitting shirts that don't cover their bodies completely. It's yucky, gross, and just wrong.

As soon as we got to the hotel, ran into Steve and Marcel (Neowin admins) along with other friends from the community.  Went to the Vista lab with them and the others to get the latest goodies on Windows Vista.  A lot of it is under NDA but Microsoft certainly has an ambitious vision going on.

It's ironic but Microsoft has a mockup of IE7 that is clean and simple -- what people really want.  They use the mockup to display screenshots of web pages.  I wish they'd replace IE7's UI with that.

My cell phone died yesterday which really really stinks.  And the hotel I'm in has no internet access unbelievably.  Normally I'd just hook in my SprintPCS Samsung A800 multimedia phone to the laptop and voila.  But without that cell phone, I'm somewhat crippled.

I will try to find a way to get a better phone or some internet solution. After all I'm at CES.

Tomorrow I head out to CES.  I'm going not as a software developer but rather on behalf of WinCustomize.com.  In other words, as a member of the press (complete with press badge).

While there, we'll be meeting with Microsoft to hear about what they plan to do with Windows Vista in upcoming builds.  I also plan to cover a host of hardware and consumer electronics of various kinds.

But to add some spice -- tell me what you would like me to check out and I'll do my best to go and look at it and write it up here!

This week's PowerUser.TV talks about the year in Tech.  What were the top tech stories of this year and how will they affect things? Check it out and if you've got a Yahoo email account, be sure to subscribe to PowerUser.TV at podcasts.yahoo.com.

 

BTW..This Wednesday I'm flying out to Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show at Microsoft's behest to represent WinCustomize.com at a special Windows Vista briefing!  While there, Microsoft has asked us to do two PowerUser.tv podcasts from the Microsoft booth.  We will be interviewing Microsoft project managers during the show.

 

If you have any questions you'd like to ask, comment here and let us know and I'll see what we can do.

 

 

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Continuing our coverage of coolest and lamest stuff from last year, Wired has put up an article outlining the best and worst in the realm of gadgets from last year.  Not to be confused with CNET's gadget ideas article.  Enjoy!

Pundits are always making predictions. But they rarely get called on when they really blow it.  Wired has an article that takes some of them to task.

For example, many pundits thought 2005 would be the year Linux made its big breakthru. Remember Walmart selling $500 PCs? Windows may "suck" still in many respects but Linux on the desktop blows. Which is worse? You be the judge.