Hasta La Gadget!

Here at CES 2009 in Las Vegas, Steve Ballmer has kicked off his speech wearing Bill Gates’ old shoes. Was TechCrunch right about the speech’s contents? Update: Here’s video of the keynote:

Or, if you want the quick and dirty, here’s what unfurled in front of me, give or take a few guest presenters and some marketingspeak:

Ballmer comes out—my guess is he’s smiling. He talks about the wonderful world of consumer electronics. He mentions this company called Microsoft. He also mentions the tough economic times we’re all going to suffer through together. He will be optimistic, however.

He’s going to talk about Windows 7. First, he’ll announce the availability the Windows 7 Beta tomorrow for registered Microsoft beta peeps, January 9th for everybody else. He’ll run through a lot of stuff we’ve already seen on Win 7, like DeviceStage, Homegroup networking, “Play To…” and other coolness like the Win 7 touch interface.

On the Windows Live front, he’ll tell us that Windows Live Essentials is no longer in beta, and that you can now post photos on Facebook directly from Windows Live Photo Gallery, and save photos from Facebook directly to your Win gallery too. He’ll also say that Windows Live Search and Essentials toolbar is gonna boot Google from Dell computers in February. Meanwhile, Verizon Wireless is going to implement Windows Live on VZW feature phones. IE8 is not out of beta yet, but it’s coming.

For Windows Mobile, the big news, as presumed, will be full Adobe Flash support in the browser. (Sounds good to me, if only the browser was as good as, well, others.)

Ballmer is going to call Robbie Bach to the stage to talk about connected entertainment. Bach will start with some good Xbox stats—28 million worldwide, with 17 million active Windows Live members, and over a billion dollars spent on the service since inception.

Bach will introduce a number of sweet products:
• Windows Mobile app for managing Netflix queue
• Xbox Live community game builder called Kodu (already buzzed about)
• Windows Media Extender functionality in Toshiba products (announced earlier today)
• The latest edition of Ford Sync, which you can read about here
• Go back and forth on shows you didn’t pre-record using Microsoft Media Room Anytime (I wonder what the advertiser stipulations are on that)
• Already known games Halo Wars and Halo 3: Orbital Drop Shock Trooper
• Xbox Live Primetime game 1 Vs 100 live gameshow coming in spring

What, no love for Zune? Almost everything’s going according to plan so far, but stay tuned, because anything could happen. You know, come to think of it, Robbie Bach got to talk about a lot of the fun stuff. Is this the kickoff of the Ballmer Years? Or is it really the kickoff to the Bach Years? Steve would probably win at arm wrestling, but seeing the two of them on stage, I’m starting to think Bach could maybe take the bossman in a Cool Hand Luke-style a fist fight. [Full CES 2009 Coverage]

We’d never pegged the S740 as the kind of phone HTC would be looking to bring to the New World; it’s an oddball by modern Windows Mobile standards, shucking the touchy, feely trend for a traditional numeric keypad that reminds us of a simpler, more innocent time. Miracles can and do happen from time to time, though — and on that note we give you the S743, a dead ringer for the S740 that’s had its Euro-friendly 3G gutted and replaced with HSDPA 850 / 1900 for North American use. It’s got WinMo 6.1 Standard, a 2.4-inch QVGA display, and faceted styling inspired by the Touch Diamond, but the S743’s real claim to fame is its slide-out QWERTY keyboard for those moments when triple-tapping and predictive text just aren’t going to cut it. Look for this sucker to invade US retailers some time this quarter.

Filed under: Cellphones, CES, Handhelds

HTC not done with non-touchscreens yet, brings S743 to US market originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA X1 hasn’t been the easiest handset to procure here on US soil, despite being “available” since Black Friday. Still, we know hardcore HTC / SE fanatics have figured out a way to get their palms in touch with the X1a (or X1i for international users). You already heard our spill on the handset, but now we’re interested in finding out how you’d tweak things if given the all-important keys to the design lab. Would you keep everything the same and just add Android? Would you rework the keyboard? Swap out the touchscreen with a capacitive replacement? Make it available only in turquoise and lime? It’s a pretty safe bet that this isn’t the last Xx smartphone you’ll see from SE, so your thoughts on the matter may actually prove beneficial in time. And… go!

Filed under: Cellphones

How would you change Sony Ericsson’s XPERIA X1? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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