What is an Xbox?
The Xbox is a next generation home gaming console which is currently being developed by the largest software company in the world, Microsoft Corporation.
Where's the official Xbox announcement press release?
You can find the Official Press Release issued on March 10th here, at the official Xbox site.
Which Microsoft department will be in charge?
Microsoft's Gaming Group will oversee much of the work. Ed Fries, newly appointed VP, will be in charge of controlling first-party software development. Robbie Bach, VP of the Home and Retail Division, and Rick Thompson are also a part of that team.
Thanks to NeoWin for the link
Call it air guitar meets computer keyboard. Two firms here at Comdex, Samsung and Senseboard, are showing off gizmos that attach to your hands and track your finger movements so you can type without a keyboard to input data into a personal digital assistant or other handheld device.
Both products are meant to meet the needs of mobile computer users struggling with cumbersome, tiny, or nonexistent keyboards. Senseboard plans to ship its Senseboard keyboardless keyboard early next year priced at about $150. The Samsung product, called Scurry, will be available first in Korea and is scheduled to go on sale in the U.S. in early 2003, priced at about $50.
Get your first look at the Microsoft Xbox, straight from the show floor at Comdex 2001. For complete coverage of the important products at the show and exclusive videos of all the keynotes, see our special report.
C|Net Video (high speed connection)
Today the Microsoft Xbox video game system rocks the continent with its arrival on store shelves at thousands of retailers across North America. With the best graphics and audio power of any gaming system, and a launch portfolio of games that has been heralded as more impressive than any in the history of the industry, Xbox kicks open the door to the most explosive, engrossing and intense games experiences on the planet.
"The future of gaming starts today, and it starts with Xbox," said Bill Gates, chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corp. "Xbox is a key part of our strategy to drive the digital entertainment revolution and deliver the future of interactive entertainment to the home. It's a great example of how Microsoft is innovating. But most important, it's incredibly cool."
More links: xBox site, 2nd xBox site
Microsoft released its Xbox video gaming console Thursday at midnight at a Toys 'R Us store in New York's Times Square. The Xbox, which features PC-like features such as a hard drive, 3D graphics chip, Ethernet connectivity, and Intel microprocessor, retails for $299. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates flew to New York for the launch and personally greeted fans waiting in line, some of whom had been there for almost 24 hours.
"The future of gaming starts today, and it starts with Xbox," said Gates. "Xbox is a key part of our strategy to drive the digital entertainment revolution and deliver the future of interactive entertainment to the home. It's a great example of how Microsoft is innovating. But most important, it's incredibly cool." So cool, in fact, that even Gates got into the act a bit earlier this week during a COMDEX keynote demo of the Xbox. Gates actually set up and turned on an Xbox, quipping, "maybe we should do that for the PC," as it booted in just seconds.
We invested some time yesterday on the Las Vegas Convention Center show floor at Comdex checking out some of the new products and technology. We weren't disappointed. From the new Archos hard-disk-based digital-music players to ArcSoft's amazing digital-media applications, Comdex Fall 2001 held many pleasant surprises. Samsung displayed some impressive plasma screens for both home entertainment and PC use. These screens, along with the company's LCD displays, are among the best we've seen. Now if only the prices of plasma displays would come down.
Advanced Micro Devices trotted out a new 1.2GHz Duron processor Thursday, its second value chip debut of the week. The chip is AMD's latest processor option for low-price desktop PCs. It comes closely after AMD's 1.1GHz Duron, which launched Oct. 1.
The 1.2GHz Duron matches rival Intel's recently introduced 1.2GHz Celeron in clock speed. However, AMD says its chip's performance outpaces both the 1.2GHz Celeron and certain low-end Intel Pentium 4 chips, when paired with DDR SDRAM (double data rate synchronous dynamic RAM) in a PC.
Compared to the Whistler client releases, which became known as Windows XP back in February, the Whistler Server beta has been relatively quiet for a long time. Whistler Server hit Beta 2 in late March alongside Windows XP, when Microsoft noted that the two product lines would then follow different development paths. In late April, Microsoft announced that the Whistler Server products would be marketed as Windows 2002 Server, though Group Vice President Jim Allchin remarked at the time that, "the fat lady hasn't sung yet." And he was right: After much debate, the company finally decided to rename the product Windows .NET Server, and Bill Gates made the announcement during his Tech Ed keynote in late June.
Microsoft on Wednesday added yet another way to recruit Windows users: A program to train students in high schools, vocational schools and two- and four-year colleges to work with the software maker's latest technology. Dubbed IT Academy, the program is billed as a way to prepare students for careers in high tech. While the program is expected to help schools train students for technology jobs, Microsoft also benefits by adding yet another tool in its recruitment arsenal. As it does with software developer programs, which offer tools and training for creating applications that run on Windows operating systems, Microsoft will be able to generate more interest in its products.
While consumers and businesses are just beginning to adopt the first wireless networking technology, tech companies are already fighting over its successor. At issue is the billion-dollar market for networking kits that connect laptops today, and printers or stereos tomorrow, and wirelessly link them to the Internet.
The wireless connections, first introduced to corporations and schools, have begun to take off in the past few years, spreading to coffee shops, airports and hotels across the country. With prices having dropped in the past year, wireless connections have begun to catch on in homes as well, which could lead to much wider adoption and greater profits for technology makers.