Ah, the Bill Gates keynote. If you've never attended CES, this is the hot ticket the night before the show officially opens, packing out a huge theatre at the Hilton Hotel. His Billness comes on and outlines Microsoft's plans for the next year, and generally makes everyone feel special with his presence. It's not often that you get to stare at a billionaire's wrinkles at such close range.
This year Gates had some clean-up to do. Last year's keynote was embarrassing: pretty much every real Microsoft product demonstrated failed, and the company's discomfiture was compounded by the evening's host, Conan O'Brian, who mercilessly teased Gates as his demos crashed around his ears.
Gates clearly felt he needed to lay those ghosts to rest, so this year's event had no cheeky co-host, just the man himself. He got round the problem of demonstrating Microsoft products that didn't work by demonstrating things that aren't yet Microsoft products: some good old-fashioned vapourware, a sort of science-fiction demo of how the digital world might look in 2010.
Bill plodded gamely through a series of increasingly surreal demonstrations. These included a touch-sensitive screen for access digital media at home, with a map showing the whereabouts of everyone in your family. There was a vast three-panel office desk, perhaps the most convincing part of the demonstration: who doesn't like big screens? Finally there was a special table surface that allowed him to place his Windows mobile phone on it and create a virtual full screen and keyboard.
All of this was cool, and drew some murmurs of appreciation from the crowd, but there comes a point where the virtual product that creates a virtual environment just feels too, well, virtual.
At least, that was until the Vista demonstrations began. Vista is the next generation of Windows, due out some time this year, and it came across as an ageing groover trying to slip into the clothes of his younger, hipper friends. Like Firefox, Vista has tabbed browsing. Like Mac OS X, Vista has an animated tool bar. Like iPhoto, Vista allows you to scroll quickly through your digital media. And like Google Desktop, Vista lets you search your Windows desktop quickly and easily.
Gates announced a new online music service called Urge that will be launched in collaboration with MTV Networks. This bore an uncanny relationship to the iTunes Music Store and Napster, and allowed Bill to usher on Justin Timberlake, who charmed the audience with the energy, creativity, and grace which the evening had so far been lacking.
The evening ended with a Xbox boxing match between Gates and his professionally belligerent sidekick Steve Ballmer, in which Gates couldn't even be bothered to make half-convincing hand gestures that might allow the audience to believe they were really playing the game, instead of a pre-recorded demo. All jokey fun, but all strangely unconvincing.
Visit our CES 2006 Special Report for more coverage, including video of the Windows Vista and future technologies sections.
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