A techie look at the future

MANILA, Philippines - How often have I heard it said that “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”? But this was not so in the case of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), where Microsoft gave the world a glimpse of what the seamless communications of the future look like.

 “2010 was a very, very exciting year for our company. We launched Windows Phone 7, Office 2010, and Kinect, and we introduced Internet Explorer 9 and Office 365. We saw great growth in our Bing and Azure Services. And with the amazing success of Windows 7, it’s truly been a year like no other,” Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer, Microsoft Corporation, proclaimed at the opening of CES in Las Vegas recently. “Tonight at CES, we want to share with you not only what we’ve done most recently, but a little bit of what’s coming next. We’re going to show you the impact of some of those technology bets through the lens of the three most important consumer devices, the TV for the Xbox, the Windows Phone, and the Windows PC.”

First Stop Xbox

Ballmer shows the audience his Avatar on Kinect. In the future we may be able to create our own avatars — who could attend conference calls for us.

When Microsoft launched the Xbox over a decade ago, it was known as a gaming device. But Microsoft has since moved the Xbox to a higher level by launching the Xbox Live, which allows people to be connected with their friends all the time, anytime. Xbox Live was also expanded to include music, TV, movies, Facebook, and much, much more.

“We launched Kinect for Xbox 360, opening the broad world of entertainment to the entire family,” added Ballmer. “With Kinect you are the controller, and there’s nothing else like it in the world. Xbox 360, Xbox Live, and Kinect have made 2010 the biggest year in Xbox history.”

Indeed, people were lining up at the booth of Microsoft in the Las Vegas Convention Center to get a chance to sample just what the Xbox and Kinect can do.

And, the best part is that all one had to do was speak to the Xbox, and Kinect was listening. After all, to select movie I wanted to see, I just had to say the title of the movie and it came out on the screen. It made me want to get one on the spot — but then I remembered I am no big TV watcher, so perhaps the movies weren’t for me.

But imagine, just speak — and bingo —the movie is on the TV. No controls or devices to hold. Fantastic sensors. It was almost like magic. 

And since we were in Las Vegas, it was a big news to the crowd gathered that Xbox Live has launched an exclusive partnership with ESPN. Sports lovers and die-hard ESPN fans, can now watch over 3,500 live and on-demand sporting events from ESPN3.com, plus highlights from ESPN.com.

Now, as viewers watch the game live, they can make picks and trash talk with friends across the world, not in e-mail, not in IM, not in text, but in my living room right on the TV screen, live sports plus social experiences happening only on Xbox Live.

“Everyone who is enjoying Kinect knows that today it listens to your voice, and tracks your body, but what about your facial expressions?” asks Ballmer. “As you can see, now Kinect can track features like your smile, your laugh, and even the raising of your eyebrows. Here’s just a little taste of what’s next on Kinect. We call it Avatar Kinect.”

Let The Fun Begin

The most fun part for me began when the Avatar Kinect was brought up on stage.

Sure, we are all familiar with creating our very own avatars. But, imagine an avatar that can do face recognition, body tracking, now even facial expressions on TV in the comfort of your living room.

That is just great. If we here at the Lifestyle Section had Avatar Kinect, we could actually have a staff meeting represented by our avatars­ — even if we were in different parts of the country or world. That would be just great.

This must explain why the Xbox Live has become such a big thing in the US. Matter of fact, The Xbox Live community continues to grow every day reaching a new milestone of 30 million Xbox Live members.

The statistics are daunting. A new member joins Xbox Live every two seconds. In addition, Kinect and Xbox Live have helped drive consumer demand for the Xbox itself. Xbox 360 has been the No 1 selling console every month for the last six months in the US. Sales for the Xbox 360 have reached an estimated 50 million units worldwide.

“As many of you know, we predicted that we would sell about five million of these Kinect sensors by the end of the holiday season,” said Ballmer. “We beat that forecast. In the first 60 days, we sold over eight million Kinect sensors worldwide. This has been the biggest holiday and the biggest year ever for Xbox.”

Microsoft has so much going for its Xbox that it sees that it will bring gaming to places no one has ever imagined. In short, Microsoft is looking to Xbox as becoming the hub of your living room.

“It is your gaming system, but it’s your movie, it’s your TV experience, it’s a TV show, and it’s your sporting event,” quipped Ballmer. “It’s your social interaction all delivered directly to the biggest screen in the house.”

Say Hello To Windows Phone 7

The second big thing for Microsoft is their Windows Phone 7. The company is so upbeat that they will be able to get everything that the Xbox Live can do on their Windows 7 phone. They have started to call their phone an Xbox on the go.

Let’s see what the Windows Phone 7 can do.

“Windows Phone 7 is dramatically different from other phones,” added Ballmer. “We approach the opportunity with a pretty fresh, and very unique perspective. We asked a couple of basic questions. First, could we help simplify the tasks that people use their phones for the most? And, second, if more applications are released, and if phones can do more than ever, can we still make them easy to use?”

I did get a chance to fiddle with the Windows Phone 7 at the Microsoft booth and I was actually pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to figure out how to get the phone working.

Let’s see. I started with taking a few shots on the phone. It was easy because even if the phone is locked, the camera will work. That’s a big deal, no need to make an extra move — its good especially if I want to take a shot at a moment’s notice.

Other features like uploading it on Facebook was OK. But, the phone I use does just as well.

I really liked how I was able to configure the Windows 7 phone to include in the screen the stuff that are most important to me. But, when it comes to my home screen I am a little bit Zen. So, I don’t really appreciate too much clutter.

The phone uses what they call Live Tiles.

And the tiles are really alive. The guy at the booth allowed me to see firsthand how a working unit really functions. He loaded his SIM card into the phone and I got to see how the folks on his Live Tiles list were changing their statuses on the dot. I also got to see how the weather would change later in the afternoon.

It was fun.

I was also given a tour of the games, apps and music on the phone. And, yes, there are over 5,500 new apps out on the market for Windows Phone 7.

But, the phone gamer in me was enthralled by the games in it. I liked playing Fruit Ninja and I could have played longer since the phone’s 3D graphics and its quick response to my hand movements were really cool. But, I had to stop to let the next man, yes it was a man, in line get a chance at the phone.

The Personal Computer

Yes, yes. There were so many PCs at the show that it is impossible to remember all of them. But there are a few that stood out. And, of course, we also listened to what the trends in PCs will be as we move into a new decade.

“A year ago at CES we talked about how excited we were with customers’ early reactions to Windows 7,” said Ballmer. “We had just launched, and all indications were that we had delivered a product that had hit the mark with customers. That really proves to be the case. Windows 7 PCs are the fastest-selling PCs in history, selling over seven copies a second, they now represent more than 20 percent of all the PCs connected to the Internet.”

Today we were told that there are over 20 million people are already using the IE9 beta. Also, that Windows Live was shipped to over 500 million people around the world.

Microsoft’s Mike Angiulo walked the crowd at the CES opening through the PCs of the future.

The first stop was the announcement that Intel has introduced its second generation of Core processors — codenamed Sandy Bridge. Intel combined a multicore CPU and GPU onto a single chip; the result is increased graphics performance.

“Here’s an example, this one is from Acer, and this is a dual-screen PC. So, you can see I have two 14-inch touch screens here,” said Angiulo. “And what’s neat is you not only have a lot of room for browsing, but I can take 10 fingers, put 10 fingers down on the screen, and immediately get a software keyboard that comes built-in.”

The Acer Iconia laptop has two 14-inch, multi-touch displays – one as a screen, and one where the laptop’s keyboard is traditionally located. Whether browsing the Web or working on Office documents, content flows seamlessly across upper and lower touch screens or, by placing 10 fingers on the lower multi-touch display, users can activate a touch-screen keyboard.

The Samsung PC7 sliding series was also a really cool gadget. The new tablet PC from Samsung will be launched in March.

Another Tablet PC to watch out for is from Asus, which has a full power Windows PC and has Core i5 processor. Best part is it comes with a wireless keyboard. So that’s another PC worth drooling over.

And these were just a few of the many PCs available for viewing and fiddling about in the CES convention.

Makes More Pixel Sense

Ballmer unveiled and demoed the new Microsoft Surface on stage, showing a thinner device that enables thin LCD screens to “see” without the use of cameras, using a program created in partnership with Samsung. The Samsung SUR40 incorporates a massive multi-touch experience, the ability to recognize fingers, hands, and objects.

“The first thing you notice is that the PC is thin. No longer is it a big box with the cameras inside. This is only four inches thin,” added Ballmer. “Inside here there’s a full-power Windows 7 PC. It’s got a dual-core CPU, and a GPU from AMD. Up top, this is the biggest piece of gorilla glass that has ever been bonded to an LCD ever.”

PixelSense is the new technology invented where there are infrared sensors all across this screen. Every single pixel is actually acting as a camera.”

Life is entering into a world of technology that is not just for the geeks, but also for the consumers who use gadgets daily. Microsoft Windows hopes to make its presence felt anywhere a consumer is; from the small screen to the big screen. Microsoft believes that Windows is in all that it takes to do that — gaming, TV, movies, music, productivity, social networking —  and many of today’s consumers are taking to Windows connections.