Focus on Instant Gratification at CES
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The focus of this year's Consumer Electronics Show has shifted from futuristic gadgets to instant consumer gratification, attendees say.
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CES 2005 Courts CE vendors with 'fanless' reference platform
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Focus on the consumer's everyday needs.
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Want tiny? Here's an eyepiece TV. Want big? There's a wall-size display. All video devices great and small hit the floor at CEATEC.
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Plus: Hot gadget preview at CES 2005 Awards. [News.com Extra]
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The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has become a challenging place to introduce new products.
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A second-generation "mylo" communicator device will be on display at CES this week.
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Best in consumer electronics displayed at CES Innovation Awards.
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CES 2005 Quality content coming to new format. Van Helsing too
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Microsoft founder and Chairman Bill Gates has been giving keynote speeches at Las Vegas conventions, including the Consumer Electronics Show and the now-defunct Comdex, for decades. Before his last&#160;CES keynote speech&#160;as a full-time company employee, he talked with IDG News Service Executive News Editor Marc Ferranti about his legacy as an innovator, the background behind some of the deals announced at CES this week, and directions for Microsoft.The following is an edited version of the interview:IDGNS: We&#39;ve been tracking your career for some 30 years. One bone of contention has been when people have said that Bill Gates is a business mastermind, but not really an innovator. Can you point out a couple of innovative things you&#39;re particularly proud of?Gates: In terms of what we&#39;re proud of, I think it&#39;s the personal computer that we&#39;re proud of. It was a crazy idea at the time, that we could take the microprocessor and create a software industry around it. There was no software industry. Computing was about big businesses, and what we did in 1975, with me dropping out of school, was to say that we could build an industry that was about empowering people. We could seek out partners to build the hardware. We&#39;d let anyone write software for the work we did, and everything we&#39;ve done, over these 30 years, has been about that vision of personal computing. We were first ones with that vision.And now we&#39;re tackling the new frontiers. We&#39;re bringing TV, we&#39;re bringing new educational experiences, health experiences, onto this device that empowers people in a new rich way. And so it&#39;s pretty broad, the PC industry and our innovations in it -- I don&#39;t think there&#39;s anything in the last 30 years that has had as much impact.IDGNS: In the consumer space, since we&#39;re at CES, can you point out some recent innovations Microsoft can leverage in the next couple of years.Gates: Well the dollars spent on games and Xbox in the U.S. is greater than Sony PS3 and Nintendo Wii combined. Really, that&#39;s because of the innovation in Xbox Live -- connecting people up, letting players find each other, matching them, getting video online. It&#39;s a real breakthrough way of thinking about even the future of TV.We&#39;ve got a million people using our Mediaroom, which is TV delivered over the Internet. Companies like AT&amp;T and 19 other phone companies around the world bet their future on this being the new video platform. And what that means is when you think about news, and you go and use Mediaroom news, you see the things that you care about, the ads are targeted at you.Look at what we&#39;ve done with Surface, directly touching and manipulating things -- that&#39;s gonna be a centerpiece.I can go on and on, there&#39;s so much that has to do with making it natural, bringing these things together and integrating them. We&#39;re the company that&#39;s doing the walk -- a lot of business focus but enough consumer focus that, from the biggest game phenomenon in the world to the biggest instant messaging thing, we have a lot of success that represents the innovation we&#39;re put into it.IDGNS: With increasing competition from abroad, innovation is of increasing importance to American companies. What&#39;s your thinking around the link between innovation and intellectual property?Gates: Well, we&#39;re a company that&#39;s based in the United States, but obviously we&#39;re drawing on engineering talent from all over the world. We&#39;ve got an unbelievable research group in China, we&#39;ve got an unbelievable research group in India, and we&#39;re delivering to consumers all over the world as well. And we file for intellectual property in all of these countries. They&#39;re all in different stages in terms of copyright, or patents, and it tends to be a pretty complicated area.Other countries look at what&#39;s going on in the United States and they say they&#39;d like their engineers to have those same opportunities, those same incentive systems, and so there really is a sense of progress in that. It&#39;s just one of the elements that make sure people are willing to take risks and keep the innovation in this industry the fastest of any industry in the world.IDGNS: You&#39;re going to be talking here about new partnerships for Microsoft&#39;s MSN, Xbox Live and Mediaroom IPTV services that will provide more content to drive Microsoft&#39;s consumer entertainment strategy. Can you talk about what you needed to do -- on the technology side and on the business side -- to make these deals happen?Gates: XBox Live is attracting virtually all the content people because of the volume we&#39;ve got there, and they see this group of very engaged users spending a lot of hours and finding new media in that environment, so that&#39;s made it easy for us. Our announcement with NBC on the Olympics is about our innovations in Silverlight, where you can view interactive content, multiple video streams, so it&#39;s really a perfect match for the Olympics where you have all this different content and yet different people care about different parts of it.IDGNS: As your consumer entertainment strategy comes to fruition, how will your business model change from what it has been in the past? Can you quantify goals for advertising-generated revenue?Gates: We&#39;ve seen good growth in our advertising revenue. That&#39;s an area where Google&#39;s the leader and we need to be very innovative to drive the scale. A huge partnership with Viacom is helping us with that. We&#39;ll be signing up more partners around the world. Taking the advertising platform to scale is very valuable for things like the search property we offer.We participate in a lot of business models. We have consumer software like games that you buy on a one-time basis. We have things that you can pay as a monthly fee, that we run up in our servers, as more of a service type model. We have some software we give away for free. And so, ads are coming in as a big, strong component but I don&#39;t see it replacing the others. We need all modalities to be strong.IDGNS: In your philanthropic work, you&#39;ve focused on fundamental health issues for the developing world. In the tech sector, there have been efforts such as the OLPC, and Microsoft&#39;s efforts to reduce prices in developing countries. But there&#39;s been criticism about these efforts. People have been saying, well, a $200 laptop isn&#39;t going to do a kid much good if he doesn&#39;t live to age five. With this in mind what do you think technology companies -- that need to make profits -- can do to spur development in emerging markets?Gates: Companies make their contribution by both giving some cash to broad areas but also by having their products in their area of expertise be tailored and donated to people who are poor. So in the case of Microsoft, we went and got involved in putting PCs in libraries. We went to Chile to put PCs in the libraries there, so by having a really robust machine connected to the Internet, going through the training, working with the government, getting all the pieces right -- we learned how to do that in the United States -- those projects were incredibly successful.So while I admit for my Foundation the top priority is health, Microsoft is about software. It&#39;s got a product, that&#39;s what the company knows. And that&#39;s where, in its activities around the world, its helping educators, it&#39;s helping kids who have curiosity, and I think that&#39;s fantastic for Microsoft to do that.I&#39;m taking the success that Microsoft had and putting tens of billions of that into the basic needs where breakthroughs can be made -- and there, we&#39;ll be using software. We&#39;ll be using mobile phones, we&#39;ll doing data gathering, so we&#39;ll be using software as a tool to do it. I wish every company was doing as much as Microsoft is to take their expertise and look into that developing world and see what role they can play . We&#39;ve had great impact, great success, and it helps us attract better employees. It makes our employees feel good because we were founded on the idea of empowerment. We&#39;re not just talking about it, we&#39;re out in over a hundred countries delivering it in a significant way.
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Paul Otellini presented at C.E.S. a vision of an always-on, always-connected experience for consumers.
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Suited executive by day, raving hipster by night? You might need one of these to facilitate the charade. From Crave, CNET's new gadgets blog.
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The Consumer Electronics Show is on in full force in Las Vegas. Here are just some of Wednesday's highlights from the giant gadget show.
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Uncovering tomorrow's industry leaders today.
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A round up of some of the  technologies on show at CES that are making the digital living room a reality.
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Gadgets have always taken center stage at the Consumer Electronics Show, but this year more than ever, even the coolest devices seem to be mere means to an end -- access to content and services whenever and wherever you want them.For years the underlying trend at CES, held in Las Vegas from Monday through Thursday, has been convergence, the increasing connection among communications, consumer electronics and computer industries. This year the stakes have been raised, with new mobile services, devices that connect to wireless broadband networks, and deals between content and entertainment companies and computer vendors.With the addition of Web 2.0 services and content into the traditional convergence mix, expect the term Convergence 2.0, which pops up occasionally, to be used more frequently in the future.The diverse array of gadgets and standards at the show can be a barrier to convergence, however. Industry executives acknowledge that despite -- or because of -- the various connectivity technologies on the market, making products work together is still a complicated and daunting task for consumers.As usual,&#160;Bill Gates set the tone with the initial CES keynote&#160;Sunday, although this year was the Microsoft co-founder&#39;s final appearance at the show. Gates and Microsoft Entertainment and Devices Division President Robbie Bach unveiled new partnerships for Microsoft&#39;s MSN, Xbox Live, and Mediaroom IPTV services.They also announced that NBC will use Silverlight technology for video playback and on-demand access to events. In addition, Microsoft is working with TNT, Showtime, and CNN to provide IPTV-based services, and announced deals with MGM and ABC to bring content to Xbox Live.&quot;XBox Live is attracting virtually all the content people because of the volume we&#39;ve got there and they see this group of very engaged users spending a lot of hours and finding new media in that environment,&quot; said&#160;Gates, in an exclusive interview&#160;with the IDG News Service. &quot;Our announcement with NBC on the Olympics is about our innovations in this Silverlight, where you can view interactive content, multiple video streams.&quot;Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang underscored&#160;the importance of mobile services in his Monday keynote, introducing a new look for the company&#39;s Go mobile Web interface, and new technology to let third-party developers build mobile widgets for the mobile platform.One sign that the concept of convergence has been juiced up: the head of the largest chip maker in the world spent most of his keynote time talking about future &quot;personalized&quot; Web experiences. &quot;Increasingly, computing and communications are coming together, bringing a new level of capability and intelligence to the Internet experience,&quot; said Intel CEO Paul Otellini in a Tuesday keynote. &quot;The personal Internet of tomorrow will serve you, delivering the information you want, when you want it, how you want, wherever you are.&quot;Otellini demonstrated the Canmore system-on-a-chip platform, due out in the second half of the year, which enables high-resolution imaging and broadcast TV for consumer electronics devices. The chip includes the Intel Architecture processor, and an audio-visual unit that supports 1080p high-resolution imaging and surround sound.Qualcomm, meanwhile showed off a prototype of what it called a Windows-mobile based &quot;pocketable&quot; computer running on its recently released 7201 chip. The screen, at 800 pixels wide, is designed to view Web sites designed for regular PCs, rather than versions altered for ultramobile PCs. Connectivity features include HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access), GPS (Global Positioning Service), Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.Small computing devices are often ultramobile PCs (UMPCs), a term marketed by Microsoft, but vendors use a variety of terms.Intel was showing off prototypes of UMPCs based on its upcoming Menlow chips. A Lenovo device was running Red Flag Linux OS, and sported a 4.8-inch touch screen as well as a camera. Other devices at the booth included small handheld PCs with touchscreens, from Toshiba and Clarion.For all the UMPC prototypes being showed here, though, industry insiders were quick to acknowledge that the market has not taken off as quickly as had been expected. One reason UMPC sales have not increased dramatically, at least in the U.S., is that wireless bandwidth for mobile devices up to now has been slow, they say.&quot;A true ultramobile experience is being able to put a device in a handbag, go have a picnic in the park, pull out your mobile device and easily surf the Web, said Alp Sezen, a sales director for Via Technologies based in Fremont, California. &quot;Right now, you can&#39;t get that experience.&quot;&quot;It will take a year or two for the mobile wireless experience to get better,&quot; he said. &quot;Wi-Max, and the opening up of Verizon&#39;s EV-DO network in the third quarter this year will help give a better experience for ultramobile users.&quot;Sprint Nextel and its hardware partners, meanwhile, said they are on track with WiMax plans for the second quarter. Nokia and Samsung officials said they will have devices that will operate with WiMax in the second quarter, and Motorola said it is working on a device that will operate over Sprint&#39;s EV-DO (Evolution-Data Optimized) cellular network, Wi-Fi and WiMax.For short-range wireless connectivity, devices incorporating the new 11n Wi-Fi standard were also on display. Netgear, for example, unveiled a two-radio 5GHz 802.11n for less than $130. The company also released an 11n router with five Gigabit Ethernet ports.One development that might end up making things easier for consumers puzzled by all vast array of gadgets and standards -- not all of which are interoperable -- was the decision by Warner Bros. to go with Blu-ray Disc, rather than HD DVD, for high-definition movies. The announcement, on the eve of the show, sparked thoughts that the high-definition format war may be over.Of course, Akio Ozaka, head of Toshiba America Consumer Products,&#160;put up a brave front&#160;at a news conference. But Philips Consumer Electronics also threw its full support behind Blu-ray, adding a Blu-ray DVD player, the BDP7200 DVD to its product lineup.(Additional reporting by Martyn Williams, Dan Nystedt, Elizabeth Montalbano, Agam Shah, and Nancy Gohring in Las Vegas.)&#160;
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I'm just back from the massive Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where last week more than 2,400 manufacturers showed off the latest gadgets and technologies that will hit computers and electronics stores over the next year.