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Microsoft's Xbox was the last great CES reveal
CES was a different show 17 years ago. In 2001, the Best of Show award went to the DataPlay disc, a postage-stamp-size memory card that held up to 500MB of data. If you can't remember it, don't worry -- the company went out of business shortly thereafter as SD became the de facto standard. Microsoft was still the biggest tech company on the planet at that point -- Apple wouldn't release the original iPod for another nine months -- and each CES began with a keynote hosted by Bill Gates. The first 80 minutes of its 2001 keynote consisted of clunky tech that now, in some form or another, lives in Google Home or your smartphone. But then came the reveal of the original Xbox. It arrived with none of the fanfare we expect from modern tech presentations, but, unlike the Pocket PC voice-to-text demo that preceded it, the Xbox debut changed the company's future. For once, Microsoft was an underdog, going head-to-head against Sony, Nintendo and Sega for control of the living room. To help sell its vision, the company enlisted a veteran game developer with a penchant for flashy footwear and, of course, a pro wrestler. This is the story of that presentation, from the people who were there.
Sonic shoves Qflix DVD burners into more Dell desktops
We know you're struggling to believe your eyes, but those Qflix burners actually are still hanging around. For those who missed all the action last year, these devices enable users to download a DRM-laced film onto their PC and burn it onto a specially-keyed DVD for playback. In other words, you can forget about toasting flicks to that dusty stack of DVD-Rs you've got laying around from late '05. For whatever reason, Dell has seen fit to extend its partnership with Sonic Solutions by offering internal Qflix drives on the Studio XPS Desktop, Studio XPS 435, Studio Desktop and Studio Slim Desktop. The wild part? Its actually charging more for having you clean out its inventory.
DataPlay unveils CSS-friendly external DVD burner
Just a week after the DVD CCA approved an unexciting (and incredibly restrictive) download-to-burn scheme, DataPlay has unveiled what it calls the "world's first CSS-managed recording DVD burner." Of course, this isn't the first time we've heard about this type of setup, and as it turns out, DataPlay is actually "participating in the Qflix technology and IP licensing program." The aptly-named MovieWriter is an external USB 2.0 device that is "capable of writing CSS encrypted content for playback on standard DVD players," but alas, you'll be forced to pick up the presumably expensive CSS-MR pre-keyed recordable discs through Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden before any burning can take place. Currently, no pricetag is being listed, but we are told that the outfit is already planning an internal version for OEMs to integrate into pre-fabricated machines. [Warning: PDF read link]
