Digital Camera News

Bill Gates Opens CES, Announces Windows Vista with Photo Options

Las Vegas, Nevada , January 8, 2007 – The 40th annual International CES opened yesterday with keynote speaker and Microsoft king Bill Gates. From the floors of Venetian Palazzo Ballroom, Microsoft Corp. announced a few new photo features on Windows Vista, the biggest system update Microsoft has to offer in years. Among the new options available with a Jan. 30 release are an improved Photo Gallery, a Group Shot feature that splices photos together, and the Dream Scene video wallpaper.

As Microsoft chairman, Time Magazine’s 2006 Person of the Year, and Harvard’s most reputable college dropout, Gates spoke to what he called the user’s "Connected Experience" across multiple media devices.   Windows Vista is "by far, the most important release…and the highest quality release ever," said Gates. 

With 65 percent of households owning digital cameras and 2 billion digital images taken last year, according to Gates, Windows Vista comes at an all-time high of consumer digital image production.  Windows Vista is updated for the 64-bit generation with a renovated user interface and new photo features. 

Among the system improvements is an enhanced Photo Gallery that organizes both still and video images.  Users can make custom DVDs with theme templates in DVD Maker and then search through the DVD with the new navigation tool, Flip 3D.

Users will also find more photo dedicated features on the flagship edition, Windows Vista Ultimate.  Group Shot in Ultimate allows users to splice multiple images together into one seamless image with just a few clips and crops. For example, as Microsoft product manager Justin Hutchinson demonstrated at the keynote address, a user could take multiple group photos and take the best individual portraits from the bunch and mesh them into one image.  "Group Shot didn’t fix these pictures, it created the picture I wish I had taken," said Hutchinson followed by audience applause. 

Even more impressive was the new Windows Vista Dream Scene that allows users to set videos as their desktop wallpaper.  Personalized wallpaper is nothing new, but with this Vista extra, users could utilize the movie mode from their point-and-shoot digital cameras and turn them into video backgrounds.

"Windows Vista is going to make it easier and safer and more fun than ever before," said Hutchinson.

The full CES Keynote is available at http://microsoftatces.com/Default.aspx.  PC users will be able to download the latest Windows Vista edition at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/ at the end of the month.  Windows Vista Ultimate will retail for $399 and the upgrade version will cost $259.