CES 2006 Photo-Report

Microsoft wasn't showcasing an assortment of hardware in their booth, but we stopped by for a look around anyway, to catch a glimpse of what Gates and crew have been up to recently. Although not exactly hardware related, what Microsoft was showing off was very interesting nonetheless.

Microsoft dedicated portions of their large booth to different categories of product. In the "Games for Windows" section of their booth, Microsoft had one of Dell's Quad-SLI rigs setup with a couple of games running, and they were showing off a pre-release build of SiN: Episodes in the booth as well. It was good to see Microsoft showcasing a number of gaming technologies, and shows the company is still committed to promoting Windows as a gaming platform, even though the XBox 360 has been released.

Another large portion of the booth was dedicated to the upcoming Windows Media Player 11, as well as new versions of Office, and of course Windows Vista.  Windows Vista, the operating system formerly code-named Longhorn, was up and running on a number of systems. And throughout the show Microsoft was spotlighting different features of Vista, like Internet Explorer 7, for example, shown above in the final picture.

Intel had a very busy CES. The company was showing off their recently released dual-core Pentium D 900 series processors built on their new 65nm manufacturing process, as well as promoting the VIIV platform, and showcasing numerous notebooks based on the Centrino Duo platform. And let's not forget the new logo!  Just to clear things up, a "Centrino Duo" based notebook, is a equipped with a Core Duo Processor, a Mobile 945 Express Family chipset, and a PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection.  A Core Duo CPU is a dual-core Yonah processor, whereas Centrino Duo is the name given to the entire platform. Got it? There were a ton of notebooks on display in Intel's booth, from virtually every OEM.

Intel had a slew of VIIV compliant devices on display too, and a large portion of their booth was dedicated to promoting the VIIV brand. Just to reiterate, the VIIV brand is meant for compliant products equipped with an Intel dual-core CPU, a 945 or higher family chipset with Intel Accelerated Graphics, Intel Gigabit ethernet connectivity, and HD Audio support.  Digital Media and Entertainment was a major theme at virtually every booth at CES, so expect a ton of related products to debut throughout the year.

We also talked with Intel about their next-generation CPU architecture coming sometime in the second half of this year, but unfortunately, we cannot give you any specifics about our conversation. What we can say was that representatives from Intel seemed extremely confident in their upcoming architecture, and we are certainly looking forward to seeing what it can do.