So it was Bill Gates, last CES keynote this year, as he will be stepping down from Microsoft with his full time role and spending a large chunk of his time with the Gates Foundation. Since this won't happen till this summer, there was a video which was made to highlight what his last day could be like and what he might do (it is pretty funny).

Anyways the keynote, highlighted a lot of advancements that we can see coming up within the next few years. A lot of it is conceptual, but is talking about how in the future, it will all be about your data being stored centrally and being accessed anywhere you go, by you and on multiple devices. For example, why should you have to load music from your computer onto your MP3 player, and then your cell phone and onto other computers. Why not have it in one place, make changes to it and allow all the other places to get it from that one place. Same goes with pictures. Windows Home Server, is one step in that direction with other technologies coming out soon to help with this.

Here are something's that were highlighted in the keynote:

• 100 Million Copies of Vista have been sold at retail
• Over 400 Million People use Windows Live Services, Live Search, Live Mail, Live Messenger, Live Spaces, Live Maps, and a whole lot more of Live Services.
• Surface is still a hot topic and being developed and looks awesome with new applications of that technology coming to users soon.
• NBC has chosen Microsoft to use the Silverlight technology to begin the "most ambitious and comprehensive broadband video coverage of any event ever." Hence NBC Olympics will have 3000 hours of live and on demand coverage of the Olympics.
• XBox Live the online gaming service and the on demand service, has more than 10 Million members.
• Zunes are now going out to Canada this Spring. The Zune Social Site is still in beta but with 1.5 Million users is expanding rapidly.
• Microsoft SYNC, which is currently partnered with Ford, which allows you to access all your devices in your car, so that you can use your voice to control devices like your MP3 Player and Cell Phone.
• They also showed some cool visualization stuff at the end, which we will see more of as research continues into it over the next year.

All in all it was an awesome and amazing keynote by Bill Gates. Its sad that it is his last one, but it was awesome. My favorite quote was when they were talking about Windows Live,

With Windows Live, Windows Vista, Windows Mobile, what's familiar is integrated and connected. What is achievable is redefined. ~ Mika Krammer

Hopefully one day I get to visit CES in person. What would be even better is if I could present there, but lets see, what happens.