{"id":148601,"date":"2010-01-07T00:15:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T05:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11976697.post-7328201051350376317"},"modified":"2010-01-07T00:41:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-07T05:41:00","slug":"microsoft-keynote-%e2%80%93-a-little-mediacenter-a-little-xbox360-and-other-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/148601","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Keynote \u2013 a little MediaCenter, a little XBox360 and other Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you find the title to this post a little awkward, it\u2019s intentional.  It\u2019s very much the way I felt after watching the Microsoft Keynote address at CES via their livestream.  Here\u2019s some quick thoughts on the address:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MediaCenter<\/h4>\n

There was<\/em> a nearly 15-20 minute long demo of Microsoft MediaCenter \u2013 this is of course good since MC has been mostly ignored by Microsoft in these sorts of public addresses lately.  The exciting Ceton quad-CableCard tuner was part of that demo and yes it looked pretty good.  But in my opinion the demo was very awkward and did a pretty poor job of highlighting HTPC\u2019s and more specifically MediaCenter.  No sign of extenders, no peep about Windows Home Server as a MediaCenter server.  Pretty much nothing new beyond the Ceton product.  Perhaps more was planned since Steve Balmer mentioned that he wanted to show us the \u201cbig TV with the PC built in\u201d but couldn\u2019t because the power outage \u201cblew the tube.\u201d  I\u2019m glad they spent the time on MediaCenter, but I\u2019m pretty disappointed in how they did it and what they didn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n

MediaRoom<\/h4>\n

They did a quick demo of their IPTV MediaRoom product and announced MediaRoom 2.0 is available with AT&T Uverse compatibility.  I\u2019m not a fan of MediaRoom, but that\u2019s coming from a HTPC fan I guess.  <\/p>\n

\"Mediaroom<\/p>\n

In my opinion the nice thing they announced about MediaRoom is that the IPTV MediaRoom content will be accessible from MediaCenter \u2013 sort of like a MediaCenter on-demand product without needing a tuner \u2013 nice!  View Press Release<\/a><\/p>\n

Also demoed was he MediaRoom programming working on a mobile phone.<\/p>\n

Blio e-Book system<\/h4>\n

The Blio e-book system was demo\u2019d and looked pretty nice.  It\u2019s basically a free e-Book \u201csystem\u201d software that works on windows PCs.  Nothing Kindle-killing, but really pretty cool and the price (free) is right.  Blio is also interesting because it was started by futurist, \u201cRay Kurzweil.<\/p>\n

\"Blio\"<\/p>\n

More on Blio with a hands-on video at Engadget<\/a><\/p>\n

Blio\u2019s webage<\/a><\/p>\n

HP Touch Slate<\/h4>\n

Certainly not the device we had hoped for, but the HP Touch Slate (a table PC) with the Kindle software running on it.  It\u2019s multi-touch and looks pretty nice.  But it\u2019s simply a PC and not the Courier tablet everyone had rumored.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a very short promo video from HP that shows the slate off:<\/p>\n

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XBox 360 Support for AT&T UVerse<\/h4>\n

We learned that AT&T U-Verse subscribers will be able to use their XBox 360\u2019s as a set-top box.  They said this would be available later this year, but nothing on how much it might cost.<\/p>\n

XBox 360 Natal<\/h4>\n

The cool XBox 360 \u201cProject Natal\u201d has been slated for a Holiday 2010 release.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h4>\n

Overall although they did show off some really interesting products, the keynote didn\u2019t go well.  They started with a serious power outage, took a very long time to re-boot everything on the stage back up and then when they started some things noticeably didn\u2019t work.  There was definitely some great stuff being demoed at the keynote, but the presentation was most certainly underwhelming.<\/p>\n

Winners from the keynote:  XBox 360, AT&T UVerse, Ceton and HP<\/p>\n

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If you find the title to this post a little awkward, it\u2019s intentional.  It\u2019s very much the way I felt after watching the Microsoft Keynote address at CES via their livestream.  Here\u2019s some quick thoughts on the address:   MediaCenter There was a nearly 15-20 minute long demo of Microsoft MediaCenter \u2013 this is of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}