Just finished watching the CES keynote speech and demos from Bill Gates and MS supporting cast – via their live stream, as none of us at JAMM have made it to Vegas this year (maybe next year).

Some quick notes I took on things that seemed interesting:

• Stats – around 2 billion digital photos taken last year
• Lots of references to this being ‘The Digital Decade’
• Stats – 40% of US homes now have multiple PCs, and some ‘younger’ segment of the market spends more time on PCs than on TV watching
• Very nice Vista demos – I still haven’t got my laptop dual-booting, so a lot of this was new to me and *very* cool looking
• Like choosing a favorite video clip as a ‘Full Motion Desktop’ background and some of the very slick Vista Ultimate Extras (software add-ons) – or like …

•  Group Shot – photo manipulation and fixing applet that just looked superb – scenario was he’s not a great photographer – he’s taken two pics of his kids, but one of his kids has their eyes shut in each photo (not the same kid each time) – so in like 5 clicks the guy takes the ‘good part’ of Photo A with Kid Number 1 with eyes open, and the good part of Photo B where Kid Number 2 has their eyes open, and creates a new, better photo where everybody has their eyes open. Now I know you’ve been able to this for ages in Photoshop and similar apps – but this was seriously minimal clicks, Grandma could do it, type stuff.

• Also lots of cool Windows Live stuff – like using an X-Box 360 controller to cruise down Vegas streets via Live Search - to check out his best route to a venue tomorrow – zooming in and out and really making maximum use of the games controller
• Not a lot of talk about Zune – a quick mention from the head of MS Entertainment (and other stuff) division. But a pretty strong statement about initial targets being met and a promise that MS will be in a ‘leadership position’ in this area in the next few years.
• Some good Mobile Devices talk – and showy videos of UMPCs from Sony, OQO, Medion – as well as some shots of Treos, Blackjack, Dash and Q
• A mention that Windows Mobile is outselling Blackberry
• Lots about gaming – Windows gaming, X-Box gaming etc.
• Then lots on gaming, IPTV, HD, home servers etc all coming together
• Ford guy on stage for the announcement of the Ford-exclusive Sync system – which is a: voice command system – place and receive calls through audio system, receive text messages, access address book, text messages can be read aloud to you – ‘Full entertainment platform’ – accepts flash and zip drives, almost all music players
• Sync will be rolled out ‘quickly and affordably’ – available on a dozen vehicles this year – including Ford Focus
• Location Based Advertising was shown during the last segment – with ads popping up on your smartphone from a nearby restaurant, with coupon offers for you
• The ‘Let’s look beyond this year’ bits at the end from Bill – a quick tour round a sort of model home of a few years from now – with his house alerting him on his smartphone when a package is being delivered (and a digital signature sent to receive it), a bedroom with the massive collection of screens that can show off your customized content from various sources, and a kitchen that can be voice command driven – projecting images onto a large kitchen counter, recognizing a bag of flour using RFID and suggesting bread recipes, selecting from them via voice commands etc.

That’s what I got – just some very quick notes. It was actually a lot of fun to watch …

[tags]CES, keynote, Microsoft, Gates[/tags]