Bill unveils the future: WinHEC
p2pnet.net News:- In the Gatesian vision of the future, everything is inter-related and inter-dependent. And it’s either owned by Microsoft, or depends on hardware and software it has a piece of.
Or put another way, Microsoft is helping computer makers build the PCs of tomorrow, says a clip from a Seattle Times story on the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Seattle this week when Gates will be release the latest “test” version of Longhorn to 2,800 computer hardware developers from 500 companies and 42 countries.
And he’ll announce 64-bit versions of Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003.
Computer sales are slowing, competition from Linux is growing, and the company needs to get the industry fired up about Longhorn as the software enters its homestretch, says the story. Therefore, most of the show is devoted to “helping” companies start building products “to go on sale alongside Longhorn in late 2006″.
Gates will also unveil an ultra-thin PC with a flash memory, no hard-drive, a 6 screen and weighing 1 to 2 pounds, says the Seattle Times. It supports a built-in camera and, like a cellphone, runs for a full day on a single battery charge.
“With Longhorn expectations pared down and the expected ship date now some time in December 2006, OEMs and partners still have time to get their Longhorn-compatible stuff in the pipeline, says Internet News.
But, “The Longhorn roadmap looks a lot different than it did at WinHEC 2004, when Gates and Windows head Jim Allchin said it would integrate a new storage and file system, WinFS, the 3-D graphics capabilities of Avalon and Indigo, the messaging infrastructure based on Web services,” says the post.
“WinFS will now be delivered separately, its development lagging behind that of the Longhorn client,” it states, adding:
“Microsoft engineers will explain how to design devices that follow its PlaysForSure protocols, how to incorporate Web services in mobile devices via .NET, the protocols for cell phone connectivity in Longhorn and, boldly, its wireless vision beyond Longhorn.”
Gates’ ‘Trusted Computing’ Palladium-cum-Next Generation Secure Computing Base, or NGSCB, dream, “once a key part of Longhorn, the next version of Windows,” is fading but not forgotten, says CNET News.
However, “Although the first piece of that is arriving in Longhorn, it’s only a thin sliver of what Microsoft has been working toward since describing its idea of ‘trusted Windows‘ a decade ago.”
Microsoft demonstrated a prototype of the technology two years ago, “but by that point there were already concerns that it could harm consumers or that it would give Microsoft too much leverage over businesses,” says the story.
For now, Microsoft will, “use the concepts of NGSCB to ensure that Windows-based machines start up without interference. The primary benefit of such an approach is that if a laptop is lost or stolen, the data can’t be accessed simply by booting the machine up using another operating system.”
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<------In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates ? / Dino Esposito------>
See:-
Seattle Times – Gates to offer up a peek at the future, April 25, 2005
Internet News – VWinHEC: Down to Business, April 22, 2005
CNET News – Microsoft: ‘Trusted Windows’ still coming, trust us, April 25, 2005
trusted Windows – Proprietary software – I, p2pnet, December 3, 2003
April 26th, 2005 at 12:27 am
sooo… let me get this straight.. the OS will be DRM’ed to crap and also will be fragmented in it’s release?
I get the feeling these filesystems (e.g. WINfs) are obviously designed specifically with the intent of preventing open source from even reading windows installed disks. =(
Can anyone say os X.4 tiger?
I have ADC membership and i’ll tell you that the OS is sweet.. you mac users are in for a real treat =).
April 26th, 2005 at 4:21 am
Yeah, and guess who’ll probly “own” the licenses for that drm stuff? Could make it hard to write your own software if you have to pay redmond for a license so that people will be able to run it… Once they’ve paid to be allowed to run it that is. Assuming MS actually decides to let you have one. Better not create a program that actually competes with an MS product.
I believe even current hardware (mainboard bios’s etc) has support for “palladium” or “palladium-like” functionality, but without os support, it’s not useable yet.
I can already see the day when:
“You’d like to open that company report you spent all day on yesterday? That’ll be $x.xx please. Don’t forget our “print in bulk” savings plans if you intend to print it out. If you plan to email it, please ensure you have sufficient viewing licenses for all the recipients. By the way, the license for that font you’ve used on page 4 is almost due for renewal, would you like to take care of that now as well?
Yes I do realise that document’s contents are your company’s IP, but the programs you are using to create, and view it are our IP.
Honestly those rumours about us being able to view and review everything created by our applications is ridiculous.
The constant traffic from those programs to our sites is just security updates and of course the DRM checking the validity of your licenses.
No we can’t refund the costs of that bandwidth, the EULA of all our products specifically mentions that.”
Am i being absurd and paranoid? Well they do insist you register your products online if at all possible. And now updates as well? The possibilities in the future are looking kind of bleak really.