CES 2008: Bill Gates Keynote speech - a bluffer's guide

If you'd have told me that today I'd be posting a picture of Matthew McConaughey playing personal trainer to Bill Gates, I wouldn't have believed you. But here it is! Apparently, when he steps down from the Microsoft later in the year, Gates will be filling his time rapping with Jay-Z, auditioning for Spielberg movies and persuading George Clooney to play him in a movie, as well as buffing up with Matt. All this stuff is from a skit played as part of Gates' final CES keynote speech, which I have to say was miles better than last year's subdued, celeb free offering. This time we had Slash playing Guitar Hero, interactive shopping surfaces that allow you to design your own, um, snowboards, and the news that BT are going to be letting us use an Xbox 360 as a BT vision set-top box. They're the first in the world to offer that service, so though we still won't be getting the Zune until later in the year (yup, it's going on sale outside the US!) we can beat everyone else in one respect...

As was to be expected, a final keynote for Bill Gates meant going out with a bang. Though there were no significant product announcements to wow us (no amazing windows mobile iPhone killers or HD DVD Xbox 360s, as some people predicted) we did see more of what we were introduced to last year...swish technology that will take up even more of our time with oohing and aaahing. It's all about home networks, sharing between devices and more Vista / Windows Live / Windows Media Center enhancements and gadgets.

Plenty of partnerships were announced. Along with the BT / Xbox 360 news, there'll also be online video content from NBC during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing powered by Microsoft's Silverlite runtime. Disney and ABC are going to be offering TV shows via the Xbox 360 (High School Musical, here we come) and the Ford / Microsoft partnership continues as Ford aim to ship 1 million cars with Microsoft Zune / mp3 software, dock and built-in controls.

Stay tuned for more... or check out our CES 2008 category for all the latest news.