The Gates soft-shoe shuffle at CES kicks off the gadget show each year with the same forlorn regularity as a Windows blue screen of death. It's comforting to watch Bill climb up to the stage, but prepare yourselves, people: this can't go on for ever. Gates began his remarks by saying that next year's keynote may well be his last.
This year's keynote didn't hold too many surprises. There was the usual self-satisfied purring about what a long way we've all come, baby, in what Gates is now calling "the digital decade". There was also some quite staggeringly unhip video showing what were supposed to be hip and cool consumers using Microsoft products to have connected experiences.
These scenes had the realism, credibility and conviction of gonzo porn (where do they find these people?) and serve as a useful reminder that money can't buy cool, no matter how much it hunts for it. (Check out the keynote video if you don't believe us.)
Gates wants the Xbox 360 to act as a gateway to more than just games, and to make Windows-based computing the cornerstone of the digital living room of the future -- streaming IPTV through the 'box is another piece of the puzzle. Crave couldn't help noticing that over here in the UK BT Vision, the on-demand service quietly announced last year, is built using Microsoft IPTV technology. So will this mean that we'll be seeing BT's video-on-demand content on our 360s?