Posted on 01/04/2006 11:39:01 PM PST by HAL9000
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates took the wraps off its next-generation operating system known as Windows Vista on Wednesday, displaying features aimed at positioning the software giant as the entertainment hub for a future of digitally connected homes.Gates also downplayed the threat from Web search leader Google Inc. , saying in an interview that Microsoft faced a host of rivals ranging from IBM to Apple to Sony to Nokia in its bid to control the next generation of software.
The much anticipated upgrade to Microsoft's flagship operating system displayed a new interface with 3-D scrolling between different windows, which can appear translucent to allow users to see the information beneath.
During Gates' keynote speech to a packed audience at the Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft plugged a digital cable into a PC to watch and record high-definition video and filtered downloaded music by the dates of albums.
As broadband and high-definition content become more ubiquitous, Gates said the unifying factor will be software.
"The software is where the magic is. If you're going to have all this power be simple enough, appealing enough and cool enough, it's going to be because the software is right," Gates said in an interview with Reuters in advance of his address at the largest U.S. electronics show of the year.
Some of the elements of Vista featured in Gates' speech took aim at Microsoft's various competitors, such as Google Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. .
Microsoft unveiled a search function within Vista that cuts across the content within the PC and its network, aimed at not conceding search on the desktop or the Internet to Google.
"People tend to get overfocused on one of our competitors. We've always seen that," said Gates.
"The biggest company in the computer industry by far is IBM . They have the four times the employees that I have, way more revenues than I have. IBM has always been our biggest competitor. The press just doesn't like to write about IBM."
VISTA ON DECK
Vista, targeted for shipment in the second half of 2006, will include the next version of Windows Media Center that is fully compatible with high definition programming, and Internet Explorer that promises improved security protection.
The five-year gap between the expected launch of Vista and Microsoft's current operating system Windows XP is the longest-ever gap between major launches of its core Windows product, the company's cash cow that accounts for more than a quarter of its $40 billion in annual revenue.
Gates, Microsoft's co-founder and chief software architect, emphasized the consumer elements of Vista rather than the traditional focus on business clients.
"Microsoft needs to show all the 'eye candy' features that reside in Vista," said Goldman Sachs analyst Rick Sherlund, who said there is speculation that Google may offer a network-based computer terminal that relies on software delivered via the Web.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft also unveiled MTV Network's Urge Music Service, which will be built into Vista's new Windows Media Center and offer users instant access to 2 million songs and videos in MTV's library.
In a show of pizzazz usually reserved for Apple, Gates was joined on stage by pop idol Justin Timberlake to introduce the new service.
The enormous popularity of Apple's iPod portable music player has made the accompanying iTunes music and video service the defining entertainment media delivery service.
Microsoft said it will also work together with DIRECTV to enable the transfer of digital content among Windows PCs, DIRECTV devices and the Xbox 360 to allow customers to watch movies and programs they get on their TV and play them on a number of different devices.
The company also offered a demonstration of Flight Simulator 10 to display the better graphics capability within Vista for video games.
Don't know about that. Apple did ok taking FreeBSD and attaching their GUI to it. _nix may well be the future, but the REAL question is who will get it done. Right now the Open Source People are pretty innovative, but they don't speak a language that most computer users (this one included!) can understand.
They need to simplify instructions to such things as "type in THIS command (insert terminal command), click on THIS icon, etc. Going through Linux documentation can be a real nightmare to the average user.
_nix will not be ready for the average guy until the people who are writing it realise that the average guy DOESN'T CARE how something works, they just want to know in simple steps how to do it.
As i said above, Apple OSX is just about there.
BTW, this comes from a Linux user on a PC, and not a Mac owner.
No. We get the dreaded Kernel Panic instead. Granted, they are far more rare than BSOD's ever have been, but I'm told they do happen. (Just not to me) :-)
Full Disclosure: I was woken up in the middle of the night about 6 weeks ago. It was my HP printer vocalizing "RED ALERT! RED ALERT" with a siren-type sound howling as well. and apparently there was something akin to a general protection fault with the driver.
Never did go back to sleep, either -- sounded too viscerally like a fire alarm.
XP will last me a long long time. I have zero need for aeroglass and other Windows Vista eye candy. I understand that Apple is driving Microsoft to make Vista a more eye pleasing operating system. But count me out
I'm sorry, but that's the funniest thing I've seen in weeks!
Regarding the BSOD, did you know that with Vista, the BSOD is a thing of the past????
It is red now. LOL.
Great. I sweat blood and tears to write vanities, and no one notices. But I get attacked once by a trans-species computer virus and people are in stitches.
BTW, looked up your Freeper page. Glad to see someone used gopher to find things out. (I'm an ex-Minnesotan).
...and regarding ramen and others, which of the four do you think men and women are to each other (on the whole)?
Cheers!
...and regarding ramen and others, which of the four do you think men and women are to each other (on the whole)?
So, to get back at me by laughing at your misfortune, you hit be with a question that's going to get everyone mad at me? :-)
Seriesly tho, I'd have to say that in general men and women are Ramen in relation to each other. To quote my page: peace and communication is possible. I'd say "possible" because it would seem to be so, though we are more or less different species who look a the universe in entirely different ways. I'm not making any claims regarding the likelihood of the aformentioned peace and communication, just that it is possible.
O.K., really seriesly this time... On good days, and between specific individuals, I believe some men and women can actually relate to one another as Framling - "A human we recognize as part of our same species, yet from another world or planet." I believe this is best described by the "man/mars and woman/venus" concept that seems to have come into the popular culture.
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