To end the day’s CES on floor coverage, we now turn to both the last keynote of the evening and Microsoft’s last CES keynote after participating at the event for nearly 17 years. The keynote is expected to feature announcements regarding Windows 8 and Windows Phone as well as additional announcements related to the rest of Microsoft’s product family.
6:28: Seated and ready to go.
6:32 – Gary Shapiro onstage greeting attendees
6:36 – Going over the reasons for Microsoft’s exit from CES
6:37 – Ballmer takes the stage. Shapiro presents photo collage to Ballmer
6:39 – Autotuned Microsoft video montage. Thank god it wasn’t set to dubstep.
6:40 – Ryan Seacrest from American Idol onstage
6:41 – Looks like the keynote will take more of an interview slant
6:42 – Ballmer running down how the Metro user interface will tie together Microsoft hardware and software, with a bad Metro joke
6:43 – Ballmer dancing around Windows Phone’s lack of success and pointing towards its focus on people, pulls out Nokia Lumia 800.
6:46 – Derek Snyder, Sr. Product Manager of Windows Phone onstage
6:47 – Demos Windows Phone People Hub
6:49 – Demos Windows Phone’s Contact page with conversation logs and threads with images and real-time voice to text
6:52 – Demoing Bing Local Scout on second phone, with technical difficulties in displaying the demo
6:54 – Seacrest back on stage with Ballmer detailing hardware partnerships
6:55 – Ballmer confirms Nokia Lumia 710/800 for Canada and the 710 for T-Mobile while once again demoing Lumia 900 for AT&T. Also confirms unlocked Lumia 800 being sold via Microsoft Stores in the next few months
6:57 – HTC Titan 2 with LTE also confirmed and demoed. Now discussing Windows PCs
6:58 – 1.9 billion Windows PCs in use worldwide according to Ballmer, now discussing current Windows 7 hardware with a video montage of thin and light Windows 7 ultrabooks
7:02 – Chief Marketing Officer for Windows Tami Reller now onstage
7:03 – Now demoing the Windows 8 lockscreen with personalization down to customizing the password type with Picture Password and the new Start homescreen
7:05 – Now demoing Charms, program interconnects and Metro style apps that will take over the entire display.
7:06 – Eeiterates compatibility with both ARM and X86 by using reference prototype hardware running Tegra 3, now demoing Windows Store. Windows Store will open in late February according to Reller and available in 100 languages and 200 markets
7:11 – Demos Windows 8 touch gestures and universal search with semantic zoom
7:13 – Demos App Contract and Charms to share information between apps
7:14 – Demos Metro style Internet Explorer for full-screen browsing with gesture support
7:16 – Demos HTML 5 video with hardware graphics acceleration
7:17 – Next Milestone release in February
7:18 – Demos HP Envy 18 Spectra with an all glass design along with the Samsung Series 9
7:19 – Ryan and Ballmer back onstage
7:20 – “TweetChoir” onstage grabbing keynote reactions from Twitter
7:23 – Ballmer and Seacrest back onstage talking about Xbox
7:26 – Metro being demoed on Xbox 360 with Kinect
7:29 – Bing search being demoed with Kinect on Xbox 360
7:32 – News Corp and Comcast partnerships for content on Xbox along with Live TV later in the year
7:34 – Sesame Street TV being demoed as a two way experience with Kinect
7:39 – Ballmer and Seacrest back on stage now, Kinect on Windows officially launches February 1st
7:41 – Ballmer running down Ford Sync and Office 2010 milestones
7:44 – Ballmer touting 2012 as the year of Metro and Windows
7:45 – That’s a wrap, folks
Why is it their last?
As we previously reported, Microsoft has opted to withdraw from the keynote and show floor at future CES shows.
The inside track is that CEA apparently asked Microsoft to commit to a three-year deal for the same CES presence, at a higher price. Microsoft will maintain its large meeting room presence at future shows.