BostonPocketPC

Bill Gates was interviewed by Nic Fillingham of on10 aka Channel 10, the morning before his last keynote as Chief Architect at Microsoft. The interview takes place in the Windows Press Pavilion which closes its doors except by appointment only. The press and partner tent contains the latest hardware sporting the Windows Vista operating system as well as their Live services. We were privileged as we were last year to visit the tent before the keynote on Sunday.

Most of the equipment in the tent has been seen before by us at a Microsoft event in NYC, except for the new Media Center Extenders from D-Link, HP, Linksys and Samsung as well as the Moneual Imagine PC Media Center PC that was seen at CEDIA back in September 2007. Well, that and a few other things was what we were talking to the product managers about in the background of the interview. See honey, Eric Hicks and I were really at CES and yes I guess I do talk with my hands alot! :)

To watch the video in its entirety check it out here.

For more on10 CES videos head here:

Touring the Windows Vista Pavillion

Bill's Last Day: The CES Keynote video

Robbie Bach @ CES 2008

New MS Surface Apps at CES 2008

Games for Windows at CES 2008

TV Tonic at CES 2008

Gibson Guitars at CES 2008

Zune Social at CES 2008

Enjoy!

At a media lunch on Monday the folks at Yahoo discussed the futures of Yahoo, some new features and services and what grabbed our attention was the introduction of a New Mobile Home Page and Yahoo! Go 3.0. In a series of announcements Yahoo! announced its strategy to enable and serve billions of multiple users by providing services customers, developers, publishers, and advertisers see eye to eye on. 

There were 4 points that they focused on:

1. The developer and publisher allowing them to move their services to the mobile market quickly at a low cost, with little work to provide rich content to hundreds of different devices via the Yahoo! Mobile Developer Platform that allows for Yahoo's popular Widgets to be ported to the mobile platform.

2. Building core indispensable mobile services that can be customized for the individual user like weather, Flight Tracker, Yahoo Answers, and Wikipedia. By visiting beta.m.yahoo.com from select mobile phone browsers, consumers can experience an open and customizable home page where users can personalize their mobile experience like never before.

3. Yahoo plans to setting the gold standard for the best mobile Internet experience across the widest range of devices and wants to be the number one portal for mobile devices ahead of Windows Live and Google. They plan on doing this through its personalized home page which was kind of there in version 2.0, but it is much better in 3.0. They also wan t the make the UI easier and faster for the user to use and of course through the use of Mobile Widgets from what we saw is a winner we just hope that the developers of the popular desktop Widgets that we have come to love will be ported to mobile handsets.

4. Lastly they focused on advertising for publishers to the fast-growing mobile audience. They gotta make some money right?

To check it out you can either head to mobile.yahoo.com and you can text message how to download the latest Yahoo Mobile Go! 3.0 beta to your handset or go to punch in get.go.yahoo.com into your handset's browser.

Logitech - unveiled a few new products at CES unveiled, the first is the Harmony® One advanced universal remote control, marking a significant leap in the evolution of the best-selling line of Harmony remotes. Offering the same one-touch, activity-based control as other Harmony remotes, the Harmony One makes controlling home entertainment even easier with a full-color touch screen, an intuitive button layout and an exceptionally comfortable user-friendly design.

Logitech’s research from users and beta testers came up with a 2.2-inch color touch-screen that uses capacitive technology, which responds to tiny electrical charges from the fingertips. Capacitive touch-screen technology is more durable, compared to touch screens that respond to pressure. The color touch screen provides control of any home entertainment device with an infrared receiver, including digital video recorders, high-definition televisions and many household appliances. Logitech wanted to go with an intuitive interface, I know my kids always try to touch the display on my 890 and the small buttons on the 890 were complicated and hard to press. The buttons on the Harmony One also provide individual tactile feedback that makes sense and allows you to use the remote with out even looking at it. The Harmony One remote’s touch screen can also display icons of specified TV stations for quick access to favorite stations.

The product has received the CES 2008 Design and Engineering Award: Best of Innovations in Home-Entertainment Accessories.The latest Harmony remote with touch screen for $249 that takes a step up by removing the square similar buttons on the 890 and bringing a recognizable tactile feel to the buttons. The back of the remote control also sports a larger contact area where the previous models didn't quite fit correctly when first placed. There is also a small magnet to draw the remote into the correct charging position. However dropped from the 890 is RF radio support, the Harmony one only supports IR.

Key Features
• Full-color touch screen gives you easy, one-touch access to entertainment activities.
• Sculpted, backlit buttons are easy to find and allow you to navigate your home-entertainment – even in the dark.
• New design fits comfortably in your hand so you can relax and enjoy your home-entertainment.
• Rechargeable battery means you don’t have to worry about the replacing batteries.
• Replaces up to 15 remotes, reducing clutter in the living room.
• Online database of more than 225,000 devices from more than 5,000 manufacturers
• Smart State Technology® allows the remote to track the power state and input setting of the various components it controls. With this technology, Harmony remote users can effortlessly switch between watching home theater

Harmony also had their popular MX wireless remote gyro-based mouse and a very cool small keyboard for Windows Vista Media Center PCs for $149 called the Logitech diNovo Mini not can it be only used for Media center functions it can also be used as a keyboard and mouse with a cover to protect from accidental key presses in case it gets lost in your couch cushions with your loose change and car keys. The diNovo Mini keyboard features backlighting and an innovative ClickPad, which can be used as a touch pad to point, scroll and click or as a directional pad to navigate menus and make selections. The mini-keyboard uses Bluetooth® 2.0 wireless technology for use from the sofa or anywhere in the living room, the funny thing is that it is PS3 compatible,but not Xbox 360 compatible so you can't use it with your Xbox 360 as an extender. Since it is Bluetooth enabled it can also be used with portable phone handsets, MIDs, Ultra Mobile PCs and Tablet PCs too. :)

Key Features
• Palm-sized mini-keyboard allows people to enjoy all the functions of a full-size keyboard and pointing device in a form factor that fits in the hand.
• Integrated, dual-purpose ClickPad can be used as a touch pad to point, scroll, and click – or as a directional pad to navigate menus and make selections.
• Rechargeable Li-ion batteries last longer than alkaline – up to one month between charges.
• Bluetooth® wireless technology provides long-range wireless control from a range of up to 30 feet (10 meters).
• Backlighting makes text entry and media center navigation effortless, even in low light. Two backlighting modes – one for media center control and one for cursor control.
• Media-remote mode indicates that that the ClickPad is functioning as a D-pad for navigating media and the direction arrows and OK in the center of the pad are backlit in green.
• Cursor mode is best for browsing the Web and using PC applications. The perimeter of the ClickPad glows orange.
• Keyboard keys are always backlit in orange.

Many thoughts are going through my mind after returning from the CES in Las Vegas. But as Steven Hughes here at BostonPocketPC is recapping the show in a few words that says it all.

"Evolutionary but not Revolutionary"

With many things to see nothing was that exciting that would give the vibes. A Lot of the technology out there was put towards new and good uses.

For example:
- Live HD radio captioned for the hearing impaired.
- Live video conferencing for the hearing impaired. Maybe next year they will probably be joining together and the hearing impaired will be able to conference with anyone in any way and it won't be a handicap anymore.

With the technology out there that we always wanted, this was the show where the applications using these technologies were able to catch up before a new technology will replace it and everyone can go back to the drawing board

Sunday's Digital Life event at CES gave me a chance to meet with the folks at DisplayLink.   DisplayLink offers a device that allows you to connect your video monitor to your computer via USB.  They also have a device that enables your video monitor to be connected via wireless USB.  This opens the door to many useful applications like video monitor placement in recording studios.  Due to the quiet sound space needs of recording studios all the noisy equipment is stored in a equipment closet somewhere outside of the main work room.  Depending on the layout of the facilities this can become very expensive especially when it comes to video cables.  Instead of using costly cables to connect the monitor, keyboard and mouse you could connect all these devices via a USB hub.  I was told that standard USB cable lengths are supported and anything beyond that of the USB specifications would require powered hubs to regenerate the signal over longer runs.  Up to six DisplayLink units can be connected to one computer.  When connected DisplayLink will act as an additional display allowing you to drag whatever you need over to the new display just as if you had another video card installed.  DisplayLink also has a wireless USB docking station that will allow you to have a wireless presentation machine complete with audio, video and up to four USB connections.  DisplayLink is able to archive this by transmitting only changing video information, static objects (borders of programs, icons, etc) are only sent once and will only update when a change has taken place.    Coming soon will be a 7  inch screen that will have DisplayLink incorporated directly into the screen eliminating the outboard converting unit.  If you have this 7 inch display you could setup a digital  media frame that does more than just pictures.  This would also be handy for traveling as it would give you an additional display that's small enough to pack and big enough to use.  I was told that this is just the first of displays of this nature to hit the market, soon there will be larger sizes available.  Just imagine having a monitor where the only cables you need to connect are USB and power.  For custom home automation installations this could really allow installers to do some very impressive things.

I just wanted to extend a huge thank you to the folks at Podtech, Seagate, Microsoft and HP and any other sponsors of the Bloghaus we may have failed to mention. Valerie Cunningham and Mariam Scoble seemed to be there every night and even at different parts of the day to welcome to this oasis of bandwidth, food, drinks, and a place to work away from the convention center, betwee n meetings and events. It truly was a home away from home complete with audio and visual equipment for setting a mood and computers sponsored by HP showing off their latest hardware as well as a few Xbox 360s to do something after having spent brains on little sleep and too many hours awake. They even have a Flickr feed here of most of what went on. You can see Johan, Eric, and myself in a few shots. A lot of Video bloggers were using Qik to live stream shows like Robert Scoble.

The Bloghaus also served as a meeting place for many fellow bloggers and friends we have made over the years as well as home base to meet up after browsing the show floor, attending night events, a place for fast bandwidth, a studio to record, edit, and post up blogs and video.

The folks at Seagate also had a drawing for a Maxtor 160GB OneTouch 4 Mini, which Eric and I had each won and Johan is still hoping he won one on the last day. The drive came in handy for us to back up and share each others pictures and video recorded at CES.

Again we just want to thank the folks at Podtech and Seagate as well as the other sponsors- Microsoft and HP that put this together.

Video was shot and edited on the spot by some hard working people like the folks at GearLive.

Ian Dixon interviews Rob Bushway.

Josh from Windows Connected and Ed Bott talking to the folks at WeGotServed .

MikeTemporale eyeing the Fireproof hard drive from Safety 1st

(Left)Podtechs live update page of recently posted videos and some live streams (Right) Ed Bott being interviewed by Ian Dixon

(L) Eric catching up on email with many bloggers opening the haus. (Right) Ian Dixon and Chris Aarons catching up on all things Media Center.

(left)Seagate's current line minus the amazing Bluetooth Dave that will be coming later this year. (right) The back room set for doing video casts.

(left) Nick White and Valerie Cunningham (right) Josh from WindowsConnected talking with Ed Bott, guys from ActiveWin, and the folks from WeGotServed.

(left)Eric and I working (right)Ian Dixon and Mike Temporale sharing some news on his Tablet PC.

(Left)Me and Rob Bushway from GottabeMobile sharing what we saw at CES (Right)Johan and the bloggers watching Bill Gates last Keynote at CES.

The Bloghaus also provided us with a place to crash and catch a few winks for those that couldn't last waking up at 6AM and staying up until 3AM 5 days in a row. ;)

On the last night of CES I was in Las Vegas, Johan and I went to the Media Center Show and met up with various guests and contributors to the show. Our host of course was the infallible Ian Dixon. Thanks to Paul Heitlinger from S1Digital for sponsoring the room and then we split the cost of the food up evenly (actually using the calculator on Ian's HP Tablet PC) which was a very bountiful "all you can eat buffet" at the Paris Hotel Le Village Buffet. A good thing too because the line out the door to get in had an hour wait. After dining in Vegas for 5 days straight Johan and I could only put down one plateful of the rich food before we left to catch our plane home.

Here are a few shots of the night:

Our host Ian Dixon, making the most of his time and putting together a few interviews between bites. I did get to talk to him on the way to the buffet line and he has had a very good CES and plans on sharing it all with his listeners. So be sure to check out his updates on The Media Center Show.

At our table was Ted Singh of Embedded Automation and his lovely wife are on the right in the first picture on the left. To the right of Ted is Microsoft's David Bradley, Business Development Manager of the OEM Digital Home division. To the left of him if I remember correctly was Ben Smelley, Manager of Product Development & Quality Control for Velocity Micro, who told me about not only some of their new systems that were shown at CES including a notebook pc called the NoteMagix C90 Ultra, but also about their new NetMagix HQ HomeServer. We also nudged David about pushing for a Home Server/Media Center merge in one box. All we got was, "Yes we have been asked this alot and it is being looked into." The rest of the dinner conversation was about soccer another passion we all shared. To the left of Randy is Chris Morley of Omaura. I told him that the designs they have are some of the most impressive ones I have seen for Media Center. To the left of him is BPPC's own Johan Van Mierlo.

Closest on the right is Adam Fitch from One Voice. The blurry one on the left in picture on the right is Ed Bott from ZDNet. I think Ed and I ran into each other like 11 times during CES and at other events. He is still one of the rare few that really get it.(he is also in the left picture below a bit more clearly)

At the end of the table with the cool hair is Jessica Zahn of Microsoft, she is the one that has been very active in the community answering questions in several online chats as well as on the Green Button forums Ask the Media Center TV Team. However, she told us that she has just recently joined the Social and will be working with the Zune group and her duties will be transitioned to Liz Sanocki and Peter Denniston. We did have a quick conversation at the door when we were leaving and I would loved to ask her more, however the folks at the Green Button did and have some interesting news about DVD streaming being tested and looked into as a possibility. ;)

We didn't get a chance to talk with everyone since our time was limited and we had to catch a flight back home. I really wished we had stayed a little longer and maybe grabbed one of those tasty desserts we passed on the way back to the table. It was a good time and I look forward to hopefully doing something with these people next year. Great job Ian for putting this together last minute!

Well we actually got to ride on the phantom Blogger Bus while leaving the Blogger Party that we seemed to miss where the pick up was and where it was going to and from during CES and it was the last we saw of it. It was pretty nice, but I wish it was a bit more accessible or had some sort of online tracking so you knew where it was in real time. With all the tech on the bus I am sure it wouldn't have been hard to squeeze it in there.

The bus was a full wrapped tour bus with all the sponsors on the outside.

It even had alot of room including a gaming room complete with an Xbox 360 and a large flat screen TV complete with Direct TV, stereo receiver, etc. in the back of the bus.

They even had a Dell XPS system serving up Windows Vista Media Center all set up by Robert McLaws of Windows Now!

They also had a bathroom and sleeping quarters that Johan tried out.

The bus was actually pretty full of Bloggers like Grahm Skee, Jake Ludington, and Mike Temporale were already on board when we got their.

As well as a few others that I forget, sorry it has been a long couple of days.

Grahm and a gentleman(Michael Davidson) from Newsvines on the right.

The folks at PodTech have a video of their bus ride from California to Vegas here. Jason Dunn also has a write up of it here.

SanDisk had their Press Conference today and the nice thing they had mentioned that where they see the removable storage market going is mobile phones, not digital cameras like one would think and they are making some revolutionary changes in other areas as well. Our host and main presenter for the Press conference was SanDisk's CEO and Chairman, Eli Harari.

They talked about media changing from the day of the floppy disk to USB.

They showed off the new Cruzer Micro 8GB with automatic online backup in case you loose it.

They mentioned their SSD drives in 64GB and 72GB capacites as well as their  new onboard flash for motherboards called Vaulter on the mini PCIe interface, now this would be cool 64GB built into motherboard for the OS and a hard drive for other media, I have been waiting a long time for this. We talked to Ken Castle from SanDisk at Pepcom the night before and they are slowly working on 128GB SSD, but the price point for manufacturing isn't quite there yet so it may 6 months before we hear word of it going to manufacturing, but consumers won't see that until 2009. In the 2H of 2008 we will see 73GB SSD on the market and in new PCs.

They introduced the SanDisk 12 GB micro SD HC card for phones and cameras. It is know so easy to take everything you need with you.

They showed their growth and marketing in the mobile market

As well as storage cards designed for video.

They showed their 'Four Screens' strategy of covering media for television/video, digital players/music and video, phones-pictures,audio, and video, and computers- pictures video and audio.

They also showed their growth in Japan as the leader above Japanese made storage cards by Panasonic and Sony. Next they showed their growth in the EMEA market as well, where they are far above all other brands.

They next showed us where the current usage of flash memory storage is and where they see the future market share and growth for mobile storage going - mobile handsets.

They then closed with a Thank You as people grabbed goodie bags from the empty seats near them containing a 1GB player and presskit. Unfortunately ours were taken before we even sat down, but were able to get them in the end. We will post up a review of the 1GB Sansa Clip soon.

We briefly stopped by the Samsung booth at Pepcom and they had a plethora of phones to show us. Unfortunately nothing new on the Windows Mobile front besides the stateside phones of the BlackJack II and the Verizon SCH-i760 we saw last year, but this year it has a battery in it. We were hoping to see the new Samsung i780 a great review of it is here.

Here are some shots of the phones they had.

In talking to the Samsung people it was evident that they see more people using their phones as digital cameras and they have integrated several parts from their camera division into their phones.

The Serenata had a very nice design that included a slide out speaker designed with Bang & Olufsen; this was the first handset I have seen with an integrated high quality speaker and it sounded pretty good admist the noise of the event and it had the same unique Industrial design that Bang & Olufsen is known for, hopefully it won't have its high price as well. Samsung also had a some Bluetooth headsets made by Bang & Olufsen as well.

Now that these models seemed to marry the two technologies of camera and phone the best in a pocketable form factor that consumers have been wanting. I just wish they had a Windows Mobile phone with this camera technology. More info and pictures of the phones and devices that Samsung released at CES can be found here.