The line began forming eight hours before the doors of the temporary gaming arena opened inside the Universal City Walk mall. Soon, the queue stretched around a large retail store and into the parking lot. Among the more than 300 people in the human chain, some planned to skip work or school the next day. A few diehards brought pillows and wore backpacks with a change of clothing -- all for the first opportunity to experience Xbox before it hit stores.
Microsoft staged a pair of 48-hour, non-stop Xbox Unleashed events -- complete with blaring rock music, big-name DJs and free food -- earlier this month in Universal City, Calif. and in Midtown Manhattan to give gamers a preview of the company's new gaming system. Before the doors closed, more than 5,000 people went out of their way to try what many already consider the future of gaming.
Nobody wants to carry around a desktop computer. So the laptop was created. But there are times when a laptop is not appropriate or convenient, in a meeting, a classroom, or a courtroom. Laptops become cumbersome, if not impossible, to use effectively when away from a table or other surface on which they can rest. Keyboard tapping can be intrusive and the open-out clamshell screen can present a barrier to personal interaction.
The commissioner, Mario Monti, said he and other competition officials are studying the proposed landmark antitrust settlement Microsoft reached with the U.S. government and nine states to determine whether its provisions could apply to the European case.
But Monti told reporters at a press conference here that it's not clear whether any of the settlement's terms might appease European antitrust concerns. "It is definitely too early to state to what extent the settlement in the U.S. resolves the concerns in our statement of objections," Monti said.
After Bill Gates' keynote address Sunday evening, we attended a post-keynote reception for the Tablet PC. Representatives from several of the companies that are supporting this new PC form factor were on hand, including Acer, ATI Compaq, FIC, Fujitsu, Groove, Tatung, and ViewSonic. The Tablet PC is going to be huge, especially the "convertible" models that doubles as normal laptops and slabs. At Comdex, Microsoft usually hosts a reception where attendees can mingle with Gates, Steve Ballmer, and other upper-level executives, but this year the executives were nowhere to be found.
Wyse Technology, the top manufacturer of stripped-down computers known as "thin clients," is launching a terminal that will run the embedded version of Windows XP. But the thin-client lobby has moved away from the Java clients proposed six years ago, toward a closer relationship with Microsoft. "We are Microsoft's partner of the year," Yeo said. A total of 3.5 million thin clients will be sold in EMEA in 2005, according to predictions made by research firm IDC in June. Thin clients with embedded XP will typically pay for themselves in three to eight months, according to Gartner research quoted by Yeo.
Xerox announced at Comdex that its next version of it CentreWare software for remote management of printers will be developed on Microsoft's .Net standard, using tools from Microsoft's Visual Studio.Net, which will be launched next quarter. CentreWare Web allows users to manage any network printing device through a Web browser. The upcoming version will be able to alert system administrators or service technicians to a printer problem via a pager, e-mail or mobile phone.
In addition, Xerox previewed technology that will make it easier to send documents to printers or fax machines through mobile devices such as pagers or handheld computers. The technology, to be embedded into Xerox's next generation of mDoc wireless server software, compresses big document files into small icons that can be downloaded, viewed, customized and delivered without having to store the entire file on the mobile device, reducing network traffic.
Leading Industry Publication Recognizes Visual Studio .NET in PC Magazine Technical Excellence Awards at COMDEX Fall 2001 LAS VEGAS
Microsoft Corp. today announced it was honored for innovation in software at PC Magazine's 18th Annual Technical Excellence Awards presented at COMDEX Fall 2001 in Las Vegas. Visual Studio .NET, Microsoft's comprehensive tool for creating XML Web services and applications, was singled out in the development tools category for its technical superiority. The award represents yet another milestone on the road to the release of Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.
Ever since details about upcoming products from Palm and Handspring unexpectedly appeared on the FCC (news - web sites)'s Web site, the industry has been buzzing about PDAs with integrated wireless. Details about Microsoft's impending foray into the all-in-one communicator space had been a bit less forthcoming...until now.
Microsoft had previously announced plans for two lines of handheld/phone combos; one would primarily be a Pocket PC with phone functionality, while the other would be a phone with PDA functionality. Early prototypes of the latter, dubbed "Stinger," looked promising, but final products have yet to see the light of day.
With the overwhelming optimism of a man who's recently seen miracles happen--or at least made one heck of a good deal with federal prosecutors--Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect last night laid out his version of the future: a "digital decade" that could make the roaring '90s pale by comparison. During his opening keynote speech at Comdex Fall Sunday night, Gates predicted that improvements in productivity, led by information technology (much of it supplied or spawned by Microsoft) will help drive the economy out of recession and into renewed prosperity.
Cisco executives demonstrate the ways mobile computing will change people's lives with a networked automobile.
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