Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer positioned Windows 7 as an operating system that can drive new and innovative intersection , as the companionship tries to fend off competition from pad of paper computers based on software from Google and Apple .
“ Only the imagination limits what can be done with Windows PC today , ” Ballmer say in his speech at the startle of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas . “ you’re able to write on them , draw on them , fall them on the wall , touch them , use wireless keyboard , toy a plot and much , much more , ” he say .
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer plugged Windows 7 as an oxygen for all devices at the CES show in Vegas Wednesday .
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer plugged Windows 7 as an OS for all devices at the CES show in Vegas Wednesday.
Mike Angiulo , a Microsoft general manager , showed off several upcoming Windows 7 PC with unusual designs . One of them , from Acer , had two orotund touch - screens connected together like a notebook . Touching all 10 fingers on the bottom screen turned that concealment into a practical keyboard for typing .
He also showed a Samsung laptop with a screen that can slide closed over the top of the keyboard . When the equipment is close up the CRT screen faces out so it can be used as a tablet . And he show an Asus lozenge microcomputer that has a disjoined wireless keyboard and a particularly bright screen that he said is well-situated to view from almost any slant .
All the PCs were running Windows 7 and will be available in the next few calendar month , Ballmer said . “ They ’re on the leading edge of new devices that offer it all , ” he pronounce .
Microsoft is facing new threat from Apple with its popular iPad and from tablets based on Google ’s Android operating scheme . While Windows 7 is used on some tablets , those available have not captured the imaging like those from Microsoft ’s competitor .
Ballmer also tell the audience how the next variant of Windows , which has yet to be officially named , will be available for the Arm Saratoga chip computer architecture . Historically , Windows has been base on the x86 architecture used by Intel and AMD . Arm chips typically permit for better battery life and are used in machine like mobile phone and tablet .
transition Windows to Arm will be a major task , and to prove the piece of work is already afoot Angiulo showed some other Windows code melt on stripped - down branch - base computer hardware . He showed Windows run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon micro chip as well as a chip from Texas Instruments . “ This is Windows running natively on Arm , ” he said .
Angiulo also showed off a raw rendering of the Surface tabletop computer , which also tend Windows 7 . It represents the next generation of Surface and is base on raw technology . alternatively of using cameras underneath the screen , the raw Surface uses infrared sensors embedded in each pixel , he say . Essentially , it entail that every pixel acts as a camera that can read documents and gestures .
Samsung aid build the newfangled Surface , which is now just four inches dense rather of a groundwork deep like the old model . That mean it can be bulwark mounted or used as a kiosk as well as a table - top . It is compensate with strong Gorilla ice sturdy enough to withstand a beer bottle being dropped on it from 18 inches , he said .
The Royal Bank of Canada will be one of the first companies to habituate the new Surface computers in its banks .
Ballmer also harbinger a couple of new feature and updates coming to Xbox and Windows Phone 7 .
The technology behind Kinect will also be improving , Ballmer said . It will chase after more elaborate movements like a grinning and even the raising of brow . That will allow a new program called Avatar Kinect . The app , which will be available to Xbox Live Gold fellow member this spring , allow hoi polloi ride in their animation way and chat with booster in other localization , watching their avatars move on CRT screen as they speak to each other .
Microsoft now has 30 million Xbox Live appendage and a unexampled member join every two second , Ballmer said . He also read that the company has sold 8 million Kinect sensors . He phone the recent holiday season the biggest ever for Xbox .
Ballmer also talked up the launch of Windows Phone 7 . There are now more than 5,500 apps available for users of the telephone set and more than half of Windows Phone 7 users download a new app every solar day , he say .
Over the next few calendar month Microsoft will push out a series of update to users of the phones . The first will offer up them the ability to cut and glue school text , an omission that many people knock Microsoft for allow for out of the initial phone . Other updates will admit performance melioration when load and switch between apps , Ballmer said .
