Live from D6: Windows and Guitar Solos

The
service is meant for a subset of people willing to pay to view sans
ads. It's an addition to the rental-purchase download options from
Amazon Unbox.

Is Amazon benefiting by providing an alternative to iTunes and Steve
Jobs? Bezos tries to sidestep the white knight image, talking instead
about how sensible owners want alternatives. So iTunes is going down,
Walt Mossberg asks? "No, that's not what I said."

Over at PC Mag.com,Lance Ulanoff covers the recent announcements made at the conferenceabout Windows 7, which will apparently ship as early as 2009. Asidefrom the date, the big news here is the inclusion of multi-touchfeatures. Ulanoff notes that Ballmer and Gates are set to unveil a"touchscreen that accepts multiple, simultaneous touches. The effect isquite reminiscent of what's possible with the world's most popular,commercially available gesture-based interface device: the iPhone."

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick is speaking at the conference here, with host Kara Swisher promising the keynote will wrap up with a star-studded demo of the next Guitar Hero.

Before that, though, Swisher and Kotick are discussing where gaming is now and where it is headed. Kotick noted that each of the current machines has broadened the notion of console gaming, each in its own way.

The PlayStation 3 has brought cinematic video quality to gaming, adding the opportunity to have emotional ties with the characters, he said. The Xbox 360 added deep online collaborative gaming abilities while the Wii's physical interface are also bringing in new and different groups of people into gaming.

Kotick also noted that the current models have succeeded in bringing Internet to the TV even after many other efforts, such as Media Center PCs have failed.