Microsoft
chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates has presented a
host of consumer-oriented technologies at the Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas.
The main product
announcement in Gate’s keynote address was Windows Media Centre
Extender, a technology that will wirelessly link computers running
Microsoft's Windows XP Media Centre Edition with televisions.
Media Centre 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 Centre
Extender removes the need to physically connect the TV to the PC or
even have it in the same room.
Although the
extender is new for Microsoft, it is not a new idea. Sony and
Hewlett-Packard introduced similar products last year and
Koninklijke Philips Electronics have also unveiled a flat-screen
television, home theatre system and extender boxes that do much the
same as Microsoft's Windows Media Extender.
Microsoft hardware
partners including Dell and Samsung Electronics will sell the
extenders, which should be on the market by the end of the year and
will come in the shape of set-top boxes or built into televisions.
The boxes should cost between $300 (£165) and $600.
Gates also
demonstrated a Microsoft Portable Media Centre, previously known as
Media2Go. He announced that when the portable audio and video
players become available later this year, Windows Media Player will
be updated with synchronisation technology. Media2Go was renamed
Portable Media Centre last year and release of the devices was
pushed back a year.
As expected, Gates
also officially launched MSN Premium, software designed for
multi-user households with broadband access that offers firewall,
antispam, antivirus and enhanced e-mail and instant messaging
options. Microsoft also offers a dressed down version for single
users called MSN Plus.
Towards the end of
his presentation Gates demonstrated a futuristic way of managing
collections of photos and video clips on a PC. The software
analyses images and can display them by characteristics, such as
images taken indoors or outdoors, and pictures that include faces
or landscapes. However, he added that this software will not be
available to users for many years.
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.
Joris Evers writes for IDG News Service