Microsoft Links PC to TV, Stereo
Gates keynote at CES highlights familiar convergence, multimedia, portable consumer electronics.
Joris Evers, IDG News Service
LAS VEGAS -- Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates on Wednesday presented a host of consumer-oriented technologies at the Consumer Electronics Show here, but his keynote address touched on only one previously unannounced product.
Windows Media Center Extender, a technology that will wirelessly link computers running Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition with televisions, was the sole new product announcement from Microsoft in Gates' sixth year keynoting at CES.
Media Center PCs allow users to use a remote control to provide access via TV to photos, video, and music stored on their PC, as well as selected Internet services such as movie downloads. The Windows Media Center Extender removes the need to physically connect the TV to the PC or even have it in the same room.
Partners in Convergence
Although the extender is new for Microsoft, it is not a new idea. Sony and Hewlett-Packard introduced similar products last year and, earlier on Wednesday, Philips Electronics unveiled a flat-screen television, home theater system, and extender boxes that do much the same as Microsoft's Windows Media Extender.
Microsoft hardware partners including Gateway, Dell, and Samsung Electronics will sell the extenders, which should be on the market by year's end and will come in the shape of set-top boxes or built into televisions. The boxes should cost between $300 and $600, Microsoft officials say.
HP and Gateway will offer TVs that incorporate the technology, Gates said. One HP flat-screen TV with the extender built in was demonstrated on stage.
Microsoft will offer an Xbox Media Center Extender kit for its Xbox game console to connect to Media Center PCs. This kit, which will work much like the Xbox Music Mixer, is expected to sell for under $100, according to Microsoft.
Gates also demonstrated a Microsoft Portable Media Center, previously known as Media2Go. He announced that when the portable audio and video players ship later this year, Microsoft will update Windows Media Player with synchronization technology. Media2Go was renamed Portable Media Center last year and the device's release was pushed back by a year.
MSN and SPOT Updates
As expected, Gates also officially launched MSN Premium, client software for its MSN service designed for multi-user households with broadband access. This version provides firewall, antispam, antivirus, and enhanced e-mail and instant messaging options. Microsoft also offers a dressed-down version for single users called MSN Plus.
MSN Premium also includes a broad content offering. Gates, was joined on stage by TV personality Jay Leno, host of NBC's "The Tonight Show." NBC has agreed to deliver content for Microsoft's new MSN offering. Other content partners include the Discovery Channel, National Hockey League, Showtime, and AtomFilms, Microsoft said.
MSN Premium is priced on a subscription basis at $9.95 per month, Microsoft officials said. The MSN products succeed MSN 8 Internet Software and will be the first to be offered worldwide by Microsoft. However, Microsoft only launched English-language versions targeted at the U.S. market at CES.
Also expected was the announcement of watches with Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) and the MSN Direct service for those watches. SPOT uses a portion of FM broadcast radio networks to deliver snippets of information about weather, news, stock prices and sports scores to wristwatches equipped with the technology. Gates introduced SPOT watches at last year's CES keynote.
Future Tech
Toward the end of his presentation Gates invited a Microsoft researcher on stage who demonstrated a futuristic way of managing collections of photos and video clips on a PC. The software analyzes images and can display them by characteristics, such as images taken indoors or outdoors, and pictures that include faces or landscapes. This software won't actually be available to users for many years, Gates said.
Gates tied all the new products into Microsoft's "seamless computing" computing vision, whereby various devices work well together and information flows seamlessly form one device to another.
"The home is going digital," Gates said, adding software plays a key role in a fast moving world of flat-screen TVs, broadband Internet access and digital still and video cameras.
See PC World's ongoing CES coverage.
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