Blog Buzz - Thursday, January 6 (AM)

The big Bill bore
Thank goodness Engadget had the patience to recap the entire Bill Gates keynote last night, because that thing was, to say the least, really shockingly boring. Even the formidably funny presence of Conan O'Brien couldn't save the show, although he gave a valiant effort (quick question: his being there was sort of, uh, weird, and do y'all think there's any chance it means Microsoft is going to, like, buy NBC? Or is it just a big, weird, sad sort of sellout thing?).

The biggest problem, really, was that poor Bill just doesn't have a compelling story to tell. Well, actually, the biggest problem was the hilariously bad technical glitches. They couldn't keep a video on the big screen for more than a few seconds -- especially annoying for me, sitting way in the back, with my view of Bill 100 percent blocked by a big video camera (I could see Conan, though, so that worked out fine). A planned slide show of wacky Photoshop adventures with Conan and Bill failed not once, but twice, but was luckily funny enough to recover nicely.

But technology glitches shouldn't be the most memorable part of a technology trade show keynote, and Bill just didn't bring it last night. Maybe it's a testament to the pervasiveness of the technology Gates has been espousing for all these years, but I kept thinking, "My TiVo does that. My TiVo does that if you hack it. My Harmony remote does that. Shouldn't he be talking about Xbox 2 now?" The IPTV demo was the most compelling -- and snarky, too, with the SBC exec commenting that all of her demonstrations worked. She is, no doubt, MIA today.

Anyway, the sum total of my notes, taken in the pitch dark, involve a sophomorically interpreted quote and some scribbles about the guy next to me using his Treo to light his notebook so that he could write down all the blandly sleep-inducing rambling about communication and media and digital this and that and things I'm happy I don't have to report in any sort of straightforward manner. Conan, stick to your night job.

To check out Bill's blundering for yourself, view the videos:

• Gates promotes portable media centre at CES


• Gates outlines vision for tech in 2005

Ice, ice baby
Is the tech bubble slowly reinflating? I've seen not one, but two ice bars at two separate parties -- and one contained suspended frozen mobile phones. If that isn't a sign of prosperity, avarice, and hedonistic spending, I don't know what is. Next year: the return of the tchotchkes!

One ice bar with vodka accessories...

...and one with suspended phones.