CES 2006

Big news at CES, there isn’t any so far. Sony said there would be no announcement at CES and mayhap they are not lying. They’ve done a couple of little speeches so far and breezed right over all the PS3 stuff. Interesting. Microsoft has had one of the more lively keynotes featuring Michael Dell and Justin Timberlake. Bill and his posse basically talked about there new viiv chip (rhymes with live), their new dual core, and of course how in the future everything will talk to everything and our lives will be easy.

I read the entire keynote and after having read it I actually felt stressed. Am I getting old or what? I would say the biggest news so far is the rumour that Google may be getting into the music and video business. Apparently deals have been reached with some major labels and networks. Furthermore HP has dumped the Ipod and there seems to be a general retreat from the PC side of things with respect to the Ipod for a variety of reasons.

“iTunes is exclusive. If you choose an iPod, then you also choose iTunes. Other services -- such as Napster -- are not compatible with the iPod. Through this proprietary arrangement, Apple has made filesharing nearly impossible. If you're hoping to share songs from one iPod to another (or to another computer), think again. Without some pretty complicated hacks or tricky file alterations, iPods are known to erase their contents if they perceive filesharing.”   -stuffguide

This whole deal of trying to make all this stuff proprietary is useless. It can’t and won’t last. Someone will figure it out soon and make a mint. Whoever doesn’t will go the way of Betamax.