Rival Google Inc. may be nipping at its heels, but Microsoft wasn't flashing any defeatist signs Wednesday as it showcased its latest plans to help make living in the digital world safer, easier and more fun.
In his 10th keynote to kick off the International Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates highlighted the Windows Vista program, a major operating system upgrade set for release later this year. He also discussed how Microsoft's Xbox game console and media-oriented software for PCs and electronics gadgets are aiming to help consumers connect more easily with each other, get more entertainment, and deliver more high-definition video.
With a patient look on his face, Bill Gates welcomed pop star Justin Timberlake to the stage Wednesday night during the his keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The singer was there, along with MTV Networks head Van Toffler, to tout the Urge music subscription service, soon to be released by MTV. Unlike any rival service, Urge is built directly into Microsoft's upcoming version of the Windows Media Player.
"When I release my new album this year...Urge and I will be doing some new and creative things," Timberlake said, joking that the Microsoft chairman would be joining him in a duet. "Urge offers a new way for artists like myself to specifically reach music fans with a ton of options."
Microsoft has some catching up to do.
It's not a phrase you hear every day. But whether it's Apple Computer's iTunes-iPod combo or Google's advertising engine, the software maker's top executives readily admit that they are coming from behind.
In a rare joint interview ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show here, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer outlined their plans to catch their rivals and discussed why it's Sony that will have to play catch-up in the video console wars.
Shortly before Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates gave the opening keynote address at the CES show Wednesday, IDG News Service Executive News Editor Marc Ferranti sat down with company Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer to explore how the software giant's new emphasis on Internet services, particularly via Windows Live, plays in the consumer market. Gates sat in and reviewed aspects of the company's Vista pitch to corporate IT.
Microsoft said at CES that it plans to offer an add-on drive for its Xbox 360 gaming console that employs the HD-DVD optical drive format.
The drive, expected later this year, will allow Xbox 360 owners to watch high-definition movies on HDTVs by playing them through the console, said Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division. No price or launch date was given for the product.
The Xbox 360, which Microsoft launched in late 2005, supports high-definition gaming. Later this year Sony is expected to launch its own high-definition gaming console, the PlayStation 3. The Sony console will be based around Blu-ray optical drive technology, which is a competitor to HD-DVD in the race to become the de facto replacement for high-definition DVD content.
Microsoft showed off the newest additions to its growing Smart Personal Objects Technology initiative at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas
this week, including an updated line of SPOT-enabled watches and a wireless weather forecasting center with an information link through MSN Direct.
Watchmaker Fossil said it will ship this spring the latest version of its Abacus-brand smart watches. The new watches will feature twice as much storage as before, improved battery life, and faster performance.
Microsoft has released a beta of its .NET port to Python. IronPython 1.0 Beta 1, which was released at the end of last week, is "well integrated" with the rest of the .Net programming framework and allows all .Net libraries to be "easily" accessed by Python programmers, according to Microsoft.
Microsoft's support for Python could help the software giant attract Unix developers to the Windows platform, as it is a commonly used scripting language on the Unix platform, according to Salim Fadhley, who develops Python programs for Unix.
Tallies kept by the U.S. government's computer security group show that Linux and Unix operating systems faced nearly three times the number of vulnerabilities in 2005 than did Microsoft's often-maligned Windows.
In the US-CERT year-end vulnerability summary, Linux/Unix accounted for a whopping 2,328 vulnerabilities, about 45 percent of the 5,198 total.
Windows, on the other hand, sported just 812 vulnerabilities during the year, said US-CERT, or 16 percent of the total.
Another 2,058 vulnerabilities affected more than one operating system.
Microsoft delivered the December CTP beta -- Build 5270 of Windows Vista -- on December 19, 2005. The company held a brief press conference with little fanfare. The list of new features it presented is, overall, not impressive. But when you sit down and use this build, what becomes immediately clear is that literally hundreds of little things about this version of Vista are much closer to final than in any previous build. And for the first time in about year, Microsoft is describing the OS's look and feel by the codename Aero a sign that the user-interface work is gelling. The personality of this product is beginning to emerge.
Palm's long-awaited Treo smartphone based on Microsoft's Windows mobile platform - the handheld maker's latest weapon to boost sales among business users - has arrived.
The Treo 700w, which will be available on the Verizon Wireless cellular service starting Thursday, also integrates access to Verizon's high-speed EV-DO data network.
While the original Treos - based on the Palm operating system - helped define the smartphone category, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Palm hopes the new Windows-based model will expand its reach into the lucrative market of corporate users.