Video: Windows 7 Device Stage on Eee PC S101 running dual-core Atom

At WinHEC yesterday, Microsoft also announced early industry support of its Device Stage, advanced peripheral management scheme. So far, the list includes Brother, Epson, HP, Motorola, Nikon, Sansa, Canon, Sony and Nokia. This is more than just plug-and-pray kids, Device Stage is meant to provide users with customized device information and access to things like ring tones, direct management of ink cartridges and photo printing, or links to live customer service chat sessions -- just to name a few of the end user benefits. Microsoft demonstrated the new Windows 7 feature by attaching a Canon SD990 camera to an Eee PC S101 running a 1.6GHz "Atom dual-core chip" (the Atom 330, we presume) to upload a photo over Sierra Wireless' 3G data modem to Flickr, not Windows Live Photo Gallery... oops. See the full video after the break.

Update: Microsoft's PR folks just got in touch to let us know that the device demoed was not a dual-core Atom, but actually a single-core chip. Apparently the speaker misspoke when mentioning what kind of processor was being used.

[ya @ Nov 6th 2008 6:48AM]

that presenter is ghay. and so is windows

[Tom Robertson @ Nov 6th 2008 6:55AM]

Quit your complaining.

[Brian @ Nov 6th 2008 6:56AM]

Thanks for the input.

[Arash @ Nov 6th 2008 6:58AM]

Atom dual-core chip, but still no built-in 3G!

[cg0def @ Nov 6th 2008 8:25AM]

yeah my thoughts exactly ...

[obis666 @ Nov 6th 2008 6:59AM]

Welcome to 2006 Windows.

[joseph le brech @ Nov 6th 2008 7:01AM]

This new UI kinda reminds me of an old win3.1 Hewlett Packard replacement shell!!

[joseph le brech @ Nov 6th 2008 7:04AM]

sorry to reply to myself,

But also looks like the old style Gnome Panel and KDE 1.

[obis666 @ Nov 6th 2008 7:18AM]

thats what I'm screaming.

[PEZ @ Nov 6th 2008 7:09AM]

Dual core atom.. bring it on!

[Major4Play @ Nov 6th 2008 9:35AM]

NO single core with hyperthreading !

[max @ Nov 6th 2008 7:13AM]

when will the dual core atom netbooks release to the general market? Q1 '09? Q2 '09 ..?? ?? ?? anybody has any idea?

[Carl @ Nov 6th 2008 7:35AM]

It's probably not a dual core. A common mistake since it's Hyper Threading and shows up as two cores in windows.

[strider_mt2k @ Nov 6th 2008 7:41AM]

I'd be REALLY happy if Intel got a lower power chipset together at the same time.

[Bob @ Nov 6th 2008 7:47AM]

I've wondered why they haven't put 3G chips in these laptops yet... Makes no sense. The OQO (www.oqo.com) has an option to have an integrated Sprint or Verizon broadband card put in it and it's WAY smaller than these laptops, so there has to be enough room in these things. The thing with an after-market broadband card is it's always sticking out of a USB port somewhere, and that always gets in the way. Come on guys, it's not that hard to figure this out. To me the words "ultra portable PC" (UMPC) would tell me people want to take it everywhere, isn't it a given they would want data service everywhere? Anyway... Windows 7 looks like it's FLYING on that thing!

[Ryan @ Nov 6th 2008 8:12AM]

Oh yea Fred cause thats what everyone needs to see. Common tasks being done on a windows 7 machine that should have been streamlined/fixed and integrated like 10 f@ckin versions ago! Yea fred your right on the money about that one. While they are at it they should show everyone how easy it is get on the WORLD WIDE WEB using Windows 7 new "built in" web browser. "Windows 7...surf the information super highway!" What a joke...

[Justin Nolan @ Nov 6th 2008 8:57AM]

The Eee 901 has a mini pci-e header labeled "3g" inside. You just need to solder on the connector. There are also solder pads to attach the sim card slot. You can dremel a little slot under the battery for easy sim access. It takes a little bit of know-how (and a voided warranty), but the 901 is completely internal-3g ready. The assumption is they are saving these features for a future revision.

[Ryan @ Nov 6th 2008 7:56AM]

So THIS is what they demo for the new Windows experience?! Being able to plug in a Canon digital camera and download the photos from it?! Are you serious?! Haha I love the comment above that say welcome to 2006! haha Not surprised it got low ranked though lol. You guys can low rank me all you want but that was the shittiest demo I've ever seen! hahaha WOW look at the power of windows...you can easily download photos from your digital camera now with ease! HAHAHAHA Im soooo glad im an apple user!

[ipubs bastard child @ Nov 6th 2008 7:59AM]

dont worry, i'm not all that impressed either so far but hopefully it will be fleshed out before release.

[Kelmon @ Nov 6th 2008 8:06AM]

I rather think that this demonstration didn't really show anything new. The article talks about Device Stage but we really see nothing much about that. Certainly the demonstration of the picture download is unlikely to excite, simply because I can expect people to request that they be able to select which pictures are downloaded rather than everything.

[fred @ Nov 6th 2008 8:07AM]

Yeah, because it's a quick demo doing something that lots of people engage in to demonstrate Windows 7 running on a low-end netbook.

Did you even read the damn summary?

And yes you will get low-ranked because your reading comprehension sucks.

[Kelmon @ Nov 6th 2008 8:01AM]

So, if I understand this correctly, essentially we are looking at a Control Panel Device Manager that you would actually use in order to manage what your devices do, rather than simply enabling/disabling or loading new drivers? That's actually not a bad idea. It's certainly logical to have a place where you can see everything that is connected to your computer and be able to manage how it is that they do whatever it is that they do, rather than scattering them around the Control Panel itself.

[togarth @ Nov 6th 2008 8:16AM]

With "mobile data" costing £2.33 a meg in the UK! and " unlimited Internet" apparently meaning anything a mobile operator cares to conjure up.

I for one and not too sad, not to see 3g built into devices with the capacity to download large amounts of data, especially if there is no "failsafe to" Lan or WiFi settings.

IF mobile operators want (like Microsoft) to have access to their products and services built into every device at source, I feel they should make high bandwidth accounts at sensible rates available in advance.

[Mikeo @ Nov 6th 2008 8:29AM]

Like Apple? :D

*coughcoughcough*

3G/HSPDA isn't what I consider to be the second coming, though. It's nifty, but compared to WiMAX? It has virtually no time to shine.

WiMax trials in my country have started, and after conversion it's about 15 GBP for 1.2MB/s unlimited. We have cheaper airwaves but ripoff landlines (10 Pounds for 1MB/s DSL), it seeems.

[Justin @ Nov 6th 2008 8:58AM]

In the US, we pay approximately 15 Pounds for the same DSL. Wired should cost more than wireless but it won't, not when they can charge for convenience.

[Justin @ Nov 6th 2008 8:58AM]

In the US, we pay approximately 15 Pounds for the same DSL. Wired should cost more than wireless but it won't, not when they can charge for convenience.

[jakem @ Nov 6th 2008 9:28AM]

I'm in the UK and I get 5Gb for £7.50 per month on 3. They seem to offer the best deals when it comes to mobile data and their coverage is great. Sorry if I sound like a 3 salesman but I'm quite happy with them.

[f14tomdog2 @ Nov 6th 2008 11:14AM]

cough cough bag of hurt cough

[cg0def @ Nov 6th 2008 8:25AM]

so this demo is niceand it's great that they managed to run this on a netbook ( albeit a very highend netbook ) but why is MS plugging Flicker? Also since all netbooks have a very very bad video card and apparently 7 uses the gpu to offload some of the work wouldn't that cause a problem?
The UI does look good on a small screen though. Oh and MS please change the ginormous default icons for the official release.

Anyway I won't change my OS X for Windows 7 but I will change XP ...

[gm76 @ Nov 6th 2008 11:15AM]

You probably don't need a high-end netbook. I'm currently typing up and posting this reply with Windows 7 pre-beta running on an IBM Thinkpad X22 -- Pentium 3 800 MHz, 640 MB RAM.

Seems to run fine although I haven't ran any memory hog apps yet.

Windows Task Manager reports of the 638MB total physical memory, 196 MB of it is cached and 185 MB is available.

My only beef right now is not with Microsoft, but with ATI. They have no Vista (and most likely will have no Windows 7) drivers for this laptop's ATI Mobility Radeon 7000. :(

[Chuck @ Nov 6th 2008 8:35AM]

I remember the last major plug-n-play announcement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgriTO8UHvs

Oh the good old days

[Kelmon @ Nov 6th 2008 8:43AM]

I can't see the link from work (damned YouTube block), but can I assume that's the Bill Gates scanner demonstration that doesn't exactly go according to plan?

[Chuck @ Nov 6th 2008 4:41PM]

Yep.

[aldo @ Nov 6th 2008 9:00AM]

I need a dual core atom with something similar like ATI IGP 3300

[Clyde @ Nov 6th 2008 9:30AM]

You gotta love the "I'm a PC" sticker on the back of the netbook!

[Bishounen @ Nov 6th 2008 9:46AM]

I noticed that. Cute tie-in with the current marketing campaign. (I've always said, Microsoft may not be perfect, but they can market something like nobody else on earth!)

Was it just me, or did that netbook look like it had a glossy BROWN lid? If that's true, Ubuntu 8.10 or the upcoming 9.04 would look DEAD SEXY on that, what with the matching color schemes and all.

[Major4Play @ Nov 6th 2008 9:31AM]

Since Jerry Yang's decleration today of "Come and buy us" Windows Live may get plastered all over Flickr's home page very soon.

I've been using Win7 for about 4 days and I don't want to go back to Vista, its really very good, and very fast.

[Bishounen @ Nov 6th 2008 9:51AM]

Any word on whether they have toned down the invasive DRM in 7? Honestly, that's what's keeping me from using Vista (That, and the stupidly bloated size of Vista and the numerous other issues it's got.) I've been moving slowly to Ubuntu (from XP) for most of my tasks, but since I keep several machines anyway,. I'd like to have a Win one around, if only to keep my PC ecosystem variegated.

[shawnmos @ Nov 7th 2008 2:33AM]

Is it actually stable? Have they made any improvements to Media Center yet in this build?

[Zunavio @ Nov 6th 2008 9:51AM]

When will they give up the Ultimate, Home Premium, Home Basic & Starter

and start focusing on one single version of Windows 7.

[SDreamer @ Nov 6th 2008 11:22AM]

Wasn't the hole point of it running on the Eee to show how well it performs on a netbook? Not that you can upload pictures to flickr? >.>

[Kelly @ Nov 6th 2008 12:12PM]

Does that mean it will let me safely disconnect a hard drive instead of killing it with a delayed write failure?
dub assed windows.

[Joe Dombrowski @ Nov 7th 2008 9:45AM]

You mean like Vista already can?

[Conceyted @ Nov 6th 2008 12:26PM]

Looks/sounds like a misspeak to me. I don't think that s101 is any different from the current version.

[RC @ Nov 6th 2008 1:06PM]

The point about Flickr is that Windows Live Photo Gallery lets you do something like that from within the program and it's not all microsoft-ecosystem-centric. Flickr is the most popular photo site out there, and they want all it's users using Photo Gallery. Also, it's not like MS doesn't think Yahoo (Flickr's owner) is no good. They wanted to buy them, after all.

[dannyboy414 @ Nov 6th 2008 4:36PM]

I'll be getting one of these for sure if Atom 330 can handle photoshop.

[Weet @ Nov 6th 2008 7:00PM]

Fits on 16 GB. With room to spare!


Uh, wow?

[Nihility @ Nov 7th 2008 2:27AM]

64 bit vista can easily get to 22GB in the Windows directory on the system drive.
Though the 32 bit only uses 8 so "less than 16 gb" can be anywhere from "about time" to "meh".

[Sascha @ Nov 7th 2008 2:57AM]

this S101 never ever had and never ever will get a dualcore Atom 330.

[Fred @ Nov 7th 2008 4:44AM]

"to upload a photo over Sierra Wireless' 3G data modem to Flickr, not Windows Live Photo Gallery"

For God's sake, Thomas, try to be a bit informed before writing about something. Windows Live Photo Gallery is a desktop application, not an online photo hosting service, so they can't upload something 'to' WLPG. Secondly they -are- using Windows Live Photo Gallery to upload the stuff to Flickr, a feature that has been in there for over a year.