As mention before, If this came out now, in place of WinMob 6.1, it would be competitive-to-innovative. By 2009/10, we may be on to iPhone 3 or 4, and maybe even Palm Linux (no, really…)

This smacks of Zune 2, where MS raced to match features on an iPod generation which was already being outdated.

(And how terrible, if this is legit, that the screenshots get leaked over a year in advance — we didn’t see (and competitors couldn’t start to perform against) iPhone’s UI until Jobs pulled it from his pocket. If Gates had pulled this out tonight, as part of CES, as a shipping device, it would be game on. As it is, it’s game late).

What MS really should do is cancel both Zune and WinMob and Media Center rebrand under an umbrella that includes Xbox (i.e., steal a worthwhile play from Apple’s iPhone, iPod, iMac, iLife, etc. book) and a unified MarketPlace across all consumer devices. Top that off by wrangling a killer industrial designer (from consumer electronics, maybe even Asia) to create innovative hardware to go along with it, and then get seamless content from Media Center to Xbox to Zune to WinMob (which would link to Server/Business side as well).

That’s about the only thing that would lure me back to Microsoft — the unmatched breadth of their (thus far completely unintegrated or so poorly integrated they may as well be) offerings.

However, they can’t try to be Sony (with perplexing historic Apple envy). And they certainly can’t afford to try to be worse than Sony. Apple’s Steve Jobs has rightly said that (paraphrased) most companies can’t conceptualize consumer software much less write it. (Which Gates basically confirmed at D when he said he thought aspects that Jobs involved himself with were merely engineering problems — Jobs wanted flawless UE).

If they want to stay in consumer hardware, they need to step up (and consumer hardware needs the competition MS could provide).

Is this Windows Mobile 7? - Engadget

Not all the big news is coming out of CES today: thanks to Nathan Weinberg’s InsideMicrosoft blog, we were able to check out a purported internal document detailing the revolutionary new input methods planned for Windows Mobile 7 as well as a ton of supposed screenshots. If this information is, in fact, accurate, it looks like Redmond is planning at least three methods of interacting with the device aside from pressing the usual buttons. First, as you might expect, is multi-touch capability á la the iPhone or Microsoft’s own Surface, but it looks like WinMo 7 handsets will also be controllable via shaking and also rotation the device, and even at a distance by way of camera-based gesture recognition. Again, no guarantees that any of these features will be included in the final version or that any of this info or images are even legit, but as you can see from the rather large gallery below, the mounting evidence is extremely compelling. Specifically, you’ll definitely want to check out:

Selfishly, this is great news. Gimmee my Batman Begins, Matrix, West Wing, and Lord of the Rings in HD please. Now, bokay?

If, however, they got a huge payout the way Paramount/Dreamworks supposedly did from Microsoft/Toshiba to shaft Blu out of Transformers and the rest of their catalog, then this is just as much a heap…

Warner tries to curtail format war by ending HD DVD support

Calling the move a “response to consumer demand” necessary to avoid further confusion, Warner says that after May, it will no longer release HD DVD versions of its movies. “The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger,” said Warner Chairman and CEO Barry Meyer in a statement. “We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers.”

I originally envisioned being able to stream media through my PS3 onto my TV, but have been so disappointed with the (lack) of functionality (lack of codec support, no good way to stream from a USB HD or from iTunes or other juke-boxes except the dismally implemented media server model) that I’ve considered either installing Ubantu Linux on it or even getting a media computer.

This may not address all the issues, but it does seem like a step in the right direction…

DivX support coming to PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 support in the works

DivX has announced that the Sony PlayStation 3 will soon support the DivX video codec. We suspected as much when the PS3 2.0 firmware was released, as it includes the ability to detect both DivX and Xvid files. According to the DivX team, full support will arrive with a future software update. DivX CEO Kevin Hell said in a statement, “We are excited to work with Sony Computer Entertainment to bring DivX to PS3. Our technology will expand the multimedia functionality of PS3 by enabling users to enjoy access to the broad library of content in the DivX digital media format.”

While Fake Steve would probably tell the mediatard to rape the whirlwind, I’ll stick to “too little, too late”. The only thing worse, of course, is Toshiba’s group, which doesn’t even seem to have insight enough to lament.

Turn on the fiber and downloads will make this stuff obsolete anyway.

Sony CEO wants to go back in time, avert high-def format war

“It’s a difficult fight,” Stringer was quoted saying by the Associated Press, going so far as to describe the situation as a “stalemate.” He candidly indicated that the war mostly came down to bragging rights over who was winning, and said that the two camps could have collaborated better in the past to develop one format. Stringer even said that he wished he could go back in time to make that possible—is that the smell of regret floating in the air?

I’m still debating whether or not I’ll install Ubuntu on the PS3. It sounds good in theory, but I’m not sold on the practice. The below, however, proposes a *very* interesting machine. Sony seems to be increasingly miss the mark in terms of selling the PS3 (while the Xbox 360 blasts along with BioShock and Halo 3) so this gives them, at the very least, a second angle of attack. Of course, Sony parent (including the twits in Entertainment) would probably kill it on concept…

PS3Blog.net » Blog Archive » Wishlist: PS3 Linux Edition

Sony released the 80GB PS3 configuration which seems completely pointless, from a user perspective. How about they release a special Linux edition that people would actually want:More RAM This RAM would be used in Linux mode only and wouldn’t be used by games. A dedicated Linux edition should ship with at least 1GB. Ideally, this would be user upgradeable as well.Larger Hard Disk 60GB is fine for regular game use and most media use. However, even though the drive is very easily upgradeable, if you want separate PS3 and Linux partitions, a larger default drive is probably a good idea.Optical Disc Writing Ideally this would write Blu-Ray discs, but if it merely read Blu-Ray and wrote CD/DVD, that would be fine.Linux This should obviously come with Linux preinstalled or at least pre-bundled.