Cross-industry Microsoft news roundup from CES 2011
10 January 2011
CES attendees have a go at Kinect
Microsoft and its partners rolled out a number of new devices at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), ranging from several new Windows form factors, to a new Surface device, to new avatar capabilities on Xbox, to a new multi-touch mouse.
First up was several new Windows 7 PCs including a laptop, tablet and slate, which were showcased by CEO Steve Ballmer and Mike Angiulo (corporate vice president of Windows Planning, Hardware and PC Ecosystem) in Wednesday’s keynote. Products of note included the Acer ICONIA laptop, which has two 14-inch, multi-touch displays – one as a screen, and one where the laptop’s keyboard is traditionally located.
The Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series, coming in March looks like a multi-touch tablet but has a keyboard that slides out. A new ASUS Tablet PC will ship with a wireless keyboard, and is built for a small work area – such as an airplane or a small desk.
Ballmer demoed the new and thinner Microsoft Surface on stage at CES, which was created in partnership with Samsung and incorporates PixelSense technology. The Microsoft CEO introduced Avatar Kinect, which uses Kinect’s facial recognition technology to let a person not only control their avatar’s movements but also to project their expressions onto their avatar.
Other news from CES included the launch of the Microsoft Touch Mouse and news on Windows Phone 7 including a copy-and-paste feature, new devices from Sprint and Verizon and a new app from Flickr.
The technology company also announced that the next version of Windows will support System on a Chip architectures including ARM-based systems from partners NVIDIA, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, as well as x86 systems from Intel and AMD.
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