Technofranki's blog

Microsoft held their press conference on Monday June 14, the day before E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) started.

It was not what I hoped for. They startet with showing trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops, Gears of War 3, Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Halo: Reach and Fable III. And the rest of the show was for their Project Natal, no renamed Kinect.

Kinect is a new pherepial for Xbox 360 which will let you use your body as a controller. It have multiple sensors registrating your movements. It can be described as a cross between Wii and the EyeToy. What they showed, Nintendo did years ago. To me it’s almost the samething, but in a new wrapping. You don’t use a controller, but your body. Under you can se some of the demoes showed at the press conference.

Kinect Sports gives you bowling, ping-pong, track & field, boxing, volleyball and soccer. Very much like Wii Sport.

Kinectimals is a pet simulator ala Nintendogs. 40 types of wild cats are available among lion, tiger, leopard, cheetah, black panther and bobcat cubs.

 With Your Shape Kinetc you can exercise.

They also introduced the new Xbox 360 “Slim”. A smaller Xbox with 250GB harddrive and built-in WiFi. The price is $299 and it’s available now.

Steve Ballmer and Robbie Bach from Microsoft held the opening keynote for CES 2010 (Consumer Electronics Show). Watch the whole keynote in the video bellow from Microsoft.com.

I’ve been watching most of the The History of Microsoft episodes. It’s very interesting to watch, but the series is now come to an end. The year is 1999.

1999 was the year Internet Explorer 5.0 got released. It’s amazing that it took a whole 10 year to get to version 8 of IE. We got Office 2000, which I still use and it works perfect for my needs. We also got Windows 98 Second Edition, I still have an old computer running on it. ’99 was also the year of The Matrix, one of the best movies ever made. It was also the first movie I bought on DVD.

If you haven’t watch all the episodes of The History of Microsoft, go to channel9.msdn.com and download them, it’s well worth a look.

[flashvideo height=260 width=460 file=http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/ch9/9/2/1/1/8/4/TheHistoryofMicrosoft1999_ch9.mp4 /]

This time, The History of Microsoft have come to 1993. Quote taken from the Channel9.net, where you also can find all the other episodes:

For Microsoft, 1993 is a stellar year as we introduce Microsoft Encarta, the first multimedia encyclopedia designed for a computer. The Microsoft BallPoint Mouse is launched into Space and Microsoft reports that the number of licensed users of Microsoft Windows now totals more than 25 million, making it the most popular graphical operating system in the world.

The new way to controll Xbox 360 is your body. With Project Natal you can play games and navigate the menus with your body. It will recognise your face and voice too. Pretty cool.

I will try to do a live blogging of the Microsoft Press Conference in Los Angeles. Watching it live online, and will try to write what I manage.

They start off with showing The Beatles Rock Band.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Star enter the stage.

John Sheapard, vise president of Microsoft enters.

Tony Hawk comes in showing an talking about a new skateboard controller for the new Tony Hawk Ride.

They playing Modern Warfare 2.

 They showing Final Fantasy XIII which will come to Xbox 360 sping 2010.

Epic showing Shadow Complex fow Xbox Live Arcade. It will launch this summer.

Joyride is a free game, you can share track with each other.

Splinter Cell: Conviction trailer, also demoing the game.

 Forza Motosport 3 trailer showing. It will have over 400 cars. The game also comes with an video-editor. Ships in October.

 Joe Staten enters showing Halo 3 ODST. September 22 worldwide. Bungie also announced Halo Reach for Fall 2010.

Remedy enters: Alan Wake. Demoing Alan Wake. Looks cool. Will be released in Spring 2010.

Music is coming to Xbox Live thourgh Last.FM. It will be free later this year worldwide for Gold Members.

They will update the Netflix on Xbox. Zune Video store: 1080p, viewed instantly, doubling available countries for the service.

Partnership withFacebook on 360. Nice, Facebook on Xbox 360. You will also be able to use Twitter on Xbox. It wil come this Fall.

Metal Gear Solid is coming to Xbox 360. They show the trailer for MGS – Rising.

 A new way to controll games – No Controller. Recognice 3d-movements, face recognition, voice recognition. It’s called Natal. 

Steven Spielberg enters.

Kudo Tsunoda, creative director of Project Natal, is showing demo on stage. Facerecognition logs you in. Full body motion detection. Use your hand to navigate the Dashboard. You can movie in 3D-space and the device will detect your movement. Full body tracking. Will also work with multiplayer.

Paint Party demo – You can paint just using you hands and say the colour you want to use.

Peter Molyneux from Lionhead shows a new demo using Natal. Interacting with a virtual character.

That’s it!

Later this year, Microsoft will release a new version of their Zune player, the Zune HD. Here are some fact about the new Zune HD taken from On10.net:

• HD radio
• HD video with the use of dockingstation
• OLED screen, widescreen 480×272
• multitouch capabilities
• Integrates with Xbox Live Marketplace

To play HD video you have to use a dockstation. That is plain stupid if you ask me. You should be able to just connect an HDMI cable from the Zune to a HDTV.

According to Joystiq.com, the combined Zune Marketplace and  Xbox Live Video Marketplace is coming to Europe, but no Zune HD yet. I do hope the we who lives in small countries also will be able to download videoes and not only big countries like United Kingdom and Germany.