ft.com/techblog

Las Vegas: Microsoft seemed to cross a line in the living room with last night’s keynote speech by Bill Gates on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show.
There was the product announcement of the home media server, which could sit anywhere in the house, but more interesting was the news that the Xbox 360 would be able to act like a set-top box and serve up IPTV by the end of this year.
Up to now, Microsoft has promoted Windows Media Center machines as the ones that best push its software as the provider of television in the living room. The Xbox has been an alternative device focused on gaming and devoid of PC-like capabilities such as the ability to browse the Web.
But maybe Microsoft has realised the vast majority do not want a PC sitting under their TV set
and a more fully-featured Xbox can do little damage to its PC ambitions there.
After all, the Xbox 360 is seen as a successful product with 10.4m consoles now sold and Xbox Live, with its 5m members, is "the largest social network on the TV", according to Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices division.
"I can play the best next generation games, download movies and TV shows, connect to my Windows PC and access my music and my photos, watch HD-DVDs, and now experience next generation TV programs with IPTV," the presenter enthused.

"This is everything I want, it’s all in one box, it’s all on Xbox 360."

With Vista three weeks from launch, the keynote focused on some little known features linked to the new operating system.
DreamScene drew gasps as a waterfall came to life on the desktop - a demonstration of the full-motion desktop wallpaper that can be created from any video. Group Shot also won applause. This allows users to easily merge two bad photos to create one good one.  The demo showed family pictures with children’s eyes closed in different shots that could be corrected to bring together the ones without this common flaw.  An eye-opening experience all round.

January 8th, 2007 in Games, Software | Permalink