Live From CES: Steve Says Everything Is Going To Be Okay

At last night's keynote kickoff to CES, Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer took on the role of everyone's kindly uncle, reassuring us that while things might be a bit tough right now, we should buck up, because the world will always need innovative new stuff. Which is fair enough, but I think what really cheered the audience up was a performance by Australian troop Tripod, who sang a song with a tale of Xbox-widowhood that was all too familiar, ("Oh get ready get ready/Ready for loving tonight Baby/Before we get down to love/Before we get down/I just gotta finish this level..."). More substantively, Ballmer announced that the next version of Windows, Windows 7, would be available for beta downloads starting this Friday. The new interface looked slick enough in the demos, but as always the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, so I'm looking forward to seeing user reports following Friday's release.