WinHEC 2005: Day 2
by Derek Wilson & Jarred Walton on April 27, 2005 8:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
Auxiliary Displays
Another item we took a little closer look at on day 2 was the auxiliary display demonstration. The premise of the auxiliary display is to provide some amount of useful content to a user while his or her computer is powered down. With the auxiliary display being tied directly into power and Longhorn providing the capability for the display to access certain content on the system, we can have email clients, schedulers, and even media players running while the system is off.
Preliminary auxiliary display drivers have already been provided to IHVs by Microsoft, and we hope to see many different implementations come out of this idea. The major use Microsoft has in mind for this technology is in the lid of notebooks in order to deliver even faster access to mobile data. If Microsoft can eventually get the auxiliary display to access wireless network interface cards, they will be able to display whether or not a wireless access point is in range as well as the signal strength.
Some of the concept designs we saw were not as interesting as we would have liked. The few that looked intriguing combined Bluetooth devices and auxiliary display technology to produce kind of interactive remotes for the PC.
Our favorite idea built around the auxiliary display is as a diagnostic tool for the server environment. The auxiliary display isn't restricted to power off usage, and it can be used as a fast, lightweight interface to headless servers in a corporate environment. Monitoring the status of a system where the auxiliary display is built as a diagnostic tool could help make system administrators' lives easier. This is especially true in cases where systems have crashed/hardlocked and the admin needs to find out what went wrong. As auxiliary displays will be tied to the SMBus and will always be powered, system designers have the opportunity to add some excellent diagnostic and management tools to their products.
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JarredWalton - Saturday, April 30, 2005 - link
I don't know what people do that causes these supposed crashes all the time. It's not that XP *never* crashes, but it's so rare that I almost always look for hardware problems if it begins to occur frequently. (Well, that and checking drivers, spyware, etc.) I have applications crash as well, but you can't really blame MS for an application bug (unless they wrote the application, of course).NightCrawler - Friday, April 29, 2005 - link
Damn my TV crashed, maybe the blue screen could include a picture of Bill Gates.Anyways here are the steps to enjoying Longhorn:
1. Buy super fast hardware from newegg/zipzoomfly etc.
2. Install Windows 2010 {Longhorn}.
3. Install Crack provided by 12 year old chinese/russian super hacker.
4. Enjoy :)
JarredWalton - Thursday, April 28, 2005 - link
Bill Gates mentioned in the keynote that the cost for a tablet PC is now ~$100 more than that of a standard laptop, and they feel that was critical in getting increased adoption of tablet PCs. Certainly, MS gave no indication that they think tablets are going away, although they didn't say a whole lot about them becoming more popular.Windows CE is still a pretty major business for MS, but I think the focus at this WinHEC was on the launch of XP-64 and the work being done on Longhorn. CE 5.0 is used in many products, and I believe it is the renamed version of PocketPC, right? (I don't follow that market as much, so I may be way off.)
Cygni - Thursday, April 28, 2005 - link
These arent the things that really get the most coverage or press, but i was wondering if there was much or anything on display from the Tablet and PocketPC worlds? I know all the market people seem to think that PocketPC's are on the way out, but i still see a gigantic amount of potential not being tapped. Tablets too... they seem to be dropping off the market instead of growing.Any new stuffs about MS's stance at WinHEC or anything would be enjoyed on this end. Thanks.
Son of a N00b - Thursday, April 28, 2005 - link
i for one, while i can see the future do not like HTPC's, expecially when they are not the best quality (plz correct me if i am wrong, becuase i do not know much abot thme), but i like having a TV and a PC, having them run out of the same box at the same time though wouldnt be to bad, along with house controls, like air conditioning, lights, ect...now that would be cool, yet unpractical until twenty years from now....HTPC's INHO cannot really benefit yet...DerekWilson - Thursday, April 28, 2005 - link
Thanks Pete :-)Pete - Thursday, April 28, 2005 - link
I figure with this nitpick, both of you will be as *wary* of my posts as I'm *weary* of how weak Word's spellcheck is in this era of 2+GHz CPUs.Last paragraph, page two. ;)
Good read, and good points WRT DRM.
sprockkets - Thursday, April 28, 2005 - link
funny but using my new cheap $150 lite on dvd recorder I use the svideo in port and record 1080i shows and it looks good enought for me in 720x480. And using one with a built in hdd is much easier than using a computer to do the same thing, not to mention much smaller and cheaper. Yeah you can do more with a computer, but why have a 200w device doing what my lite on does with 36w?IP over TV? I can see it now. "Sorry, cannot connect to show LOST due to too many users."
"My MCE got hacked, and all the friends I had over saw porn come on the screen during the movie."
I think for these people it's a matter of not making money, it's just I want to release my show when I want where I want. On the consumer side, I want the right to have it now, as in I don't want to wait 8 months for you to release a movie onto personal formats.
oupei - Thursday, April 28, 2005 - link
#13 just like you could use win98 right now? I don't think xp will be an alternative for very long. Linux, on the other hand, might be...man, why does it have to be "home theater IN A BOX"? do you have to make a point to exclude real home theater systems?
Brian23 - Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - link
Don't forget that we can still use XP or Linux if these newfangled operating systems take away our rights.