Luke Smith

I’m shattered, I stayed up like a good geek and watched Bill Gates CES (Consumer Electronics
Show) Keynote. The keynote being at 6:30pm Pacific time making it 2:30am my time.

A few cool things I can’t wait for from the keynote:

• Windows Ultimate Extras – well mainly just
  the one makes me go ‘ooo’ and I like things which make me go ‘ooo’. Windows DreamScene allows
  you to play a high-def video (mpeg or wmv) as your desktop background. During
  the keynote the background was a pretty high def image of a waterfall. Then the presenter
  enabled DreamScene and
  the background came to life with flowing water ’ooo’. It will probably look a
  bit poopy with your own videos as you will see the loop but Microsoft is shipping
  it with looping videos. Now it is kind of a bit pointless, but none the less don’t
  let that take anything away from the coolness. Watch the on10 video
  with info on all the Extras.
• Windows Home Server -
  This excites me more than the ‘ooo’ above, mainly because it has a very practical
  use. I’ve just ran out of storage on Goofy (my desktop pc) including the 260GB external
  HDD so I’m going to need more storage (I was going to build a file server with Server
  2003 but can’t afford it quite yet). Well Microsoft has the answer to home users who
  have more than one PC and wishes to easily manage all of their media (pictures, videos,
  music, files) allowing access over the internet via a friendly URL. As well as backing
  up your whole computer (thats every bit on the HDD). on10 video
  of WHS.
• IPTV coming to the Xbox360 – Record and watch TV on your Xbox360. Chat to friends
  while watching tv using Xbox Live, or record shows while your playing online. on10 video

Go watch the keynote.

Other cool things I’ve seen on engadget and gizmodo

• A HDTV
  that has a Windows Media Extender allowing you to extend Windows Media Center
  without another box in your living room. But you might as well get a Xbox360.
• My next phone? I love my HTC Universal and now it’s successor, HTC
  Omni is announced.

My bank balance is looking a little low for all the new stuff I want need.