We got back late Wednesday night. Since getting back I'm still trying to catch up on my sleep. The hardest part has been getting a grasp on all the cool things we saw while there and we saw a lot. The first day was a whirlwind.
We arrived in Las Vegas the first day and headed to our home for the next three days. We arrived at Sams Town and we greeted by a very casual atmosphere. The staff made us fill right at home. After getting settled in and playing some of the machines we headed over to the Venetian Hotel and Casino.
Once there we got into the monster lines to get vouchers for that evenings Key Note Address from Bill Gates. The transcript and video can be seen here: Link. This was quite the show with awesome sound, video and live performers. After we received our vouchers we has some time to burn before the address would start. The Venetian is a very beautiful place. The ceilings in the lobby were just magnificent. Check out my mobile blog, there are some pictures of the ceilings on there. There are also a some other shots of the different attractions at the Venetian. The Gondola's looked really cool.
After roaming around for a while we finally got back in line for the key note. The lines were crazy. There was a real buzz in the room. We were excited to see the direction that Microsoft is taking. They are doing what they do best which is integration and ease of use. They are taking the Microsoft Live platform further with full integration within Microsoft Vista. They are also providing the ability for PC Gamers to interact with the XBOX 360 Gamers.
Mr. Gates and his co-presenters also demonstrated some of the cool features in the new Vista Operating System. The Ultimate versions additional features include loads of exclusive content. One of the things that will be very cool for sports fans is the "Sports Lounge". The Sports Lounge allows you to stream HD video and have current scores running across the top of the screen. Also, they had a Fantasy Sports feature so you can keep an eye on those players that are on your teams in real time. They also demonstrated some of the cool photo editing features. One of the demos was two pictures each had the same to subjects. One of the subjects had his eyes closed in one. So they cut out that section and dropped in the picture with subject number two looked better. Looked seamless, can't wait to play with that feature.
They also talked briefly about the Microsoft Home Server. This platform is going to be the centralized management system for our home networks. Allowing for easier backups and built in redundancy. The system is meant to be easy to use so you won't have to be a server expert to use it. We'll be keeping an eye on this one. You can guarantee we be talking about this one a lot as the release gets closer.
There's also a lot of buzz surrounding the new IPTV initiative from Microsoft. And it seems to be worthy of the buzz. They are talking of using the XBOX 360 for some of the IPTV services. The interface looked very nice and the features were cool. It seemed very similar to the Windows Media Center interface. As I get time I'll post some more information about IPTV.
Typically I keep my posts short and sweet. Obviously, this is not the case on this one. And if my fingers weren't cramping up I'd be posting more. The above is just the beginning of our first day of the trip to CES 2007. I'll be trying to post more stories along with some more pictures.
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