What's hot in the PC side of things (well, the Windows side of the PC side, that is)? It's what you've been waiting for, Windows gamer. At this year's D: All Things Digital, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer of Microsoft have demoed one of the new facets of Windows 7 in front of an audience that once witnessed the one-on-one between Gates and Jobs. And guess what? Windows 7's new features starts off with touch.

It's about time: Windows Vista's successor is scheduled to hit the streets a year ahead of schedule. According to Microsoft founder Bill Gates Windows 7, formerly known as Vienna, will be released sometime next year. Will the computing world be ready? Read more in the full article.

Microsoft Corporation chairman Bill Gates bid the Consumer Electronics Show a bittersweet farewell as he opened it for the last time in his legendary career. After showing a cool video of what he'll do after stepping down from Microsoft, Gates talked about the next 10 years in the electronics scene, earmarking touch screen, faster, and more accessible connectivity, and HD technology as the future's pillars. Head on to the full article for more details.

It's official: Microsoft will bring out the big guns in CES 2008 as Bill Gates and Robbie Bach take center stage with keynote addresses. This should provide a nice blast-off for an event which never fails to deliver glimpses of the latest in the gadgets scene. Are we expecting big announcements? You bet. Read the full article for more information on Microsoft's CES 2008 presence.

After Sony had its big ad campaign for the PlayStation 3, it's about time that Microsoft followed suit as well. The software and gaming mogul is said to be setting aside a hefty US$ 300 million in advertising most of its wares. More details in the full article.

Followers of major electronic and gaming events take heed: the activities for the upcoming 2008 International CES (Consumer Electronics Show) are finally announced, and there's a lot of stuff in store for gadget aficionados and gamers alike.

The 2008 International CES will put the latest gaming technology in the spotlight, with major gaming exhibitors such as Commodore Gaming, Entropia Universe, Red Lion Interactive, Shuttle Computers and War Machine as participants.

The gaming-related CES events are as follows: CES Game Power Conference Partner Program; Sandbox Summit, where people can experience the latest gaming gear, toys, and products; CES Mobile Entertainment Partner Program, where breakthroughs in mobile gaming and technology are featured.

For general electronics consumers there's the Home and Lifestyle Entertainment Knowledge Track, where visitors are given a peek of whats to come in the future of gaming as well as the possibilities of 3D home theater.

Finally, close followers of the current format wars should be interested in the Blu-ray Disc TechZone and the HD DVD TechZone, where the features of each of the leading high definition formats are tackled.

The 2008 International CES will be held in Las Vegas on January 7-10. Bill Gates will deliver the opening keynote address for the event on January 6.

The new Windows version, previously known as "Vienna," will now simply be called "7," obviously referring that the OS is the 7.0 offspring of the NT family. Although not much has been really said about this new Windows 7, a lot of speculation does seem to fly around it.

For one thing, because of the delay of Windows Vista, some companies might not be so eager to sign in on it. Some companies buy software assurance licenses from Microsoft, which gives them free upgrades when the new version of the platform comes out.

A recent survey by Forrester Research Inc. however, reveals that about a quarter of companies currently subscribed to the service might pull out. If subscribers to the Software Assurance program do pull out, it would be a blow to Microsoft seeing as it earned them US$ 4 billion in the first quarter of this year.

Another is the speculations surrounding on what the new Windows 7 actually does. In an interview by Newsweek, Bill Gates gives us what might be a look into the new OS:

... Right now when you move from one PC to another, you've got to install apps on each one, do upgrades on each one. Moving information between them is very painful. We can use Live Services to know what you're interested in. So even if you drop by a [public] kiosk or somebody else's PC, we can bring down your home page, your files, your fonts, your favorites and those things. So that's kind of the user-centric thing that Live Services can enable. [Also,] in Vista, things got a lot better with [digital] ink and speech, but by the next release there will be a much bigger bet. Students won't need textbooks; they can just use these tablet devices. Parallel computing is pretty important for the next release. We'll make it so that a lot of the high-level graphics will be just built into the operating system. So we've got a pretty good outline.

So as we wait for further news besides a change in name, let's hope Microsoft lives up to their promise for Windows 7. Release date is projected for 2010.

If Count Dracula was paid for every game published in his name, he could probably buy Bill Gates' blood served in the most luxurious wineglass. Just today, MC2 together with Kheops Studio announced the latest installment for another Dracula franchise - Dracula 3 will be hitting the PC.

Following a couple of games before it (Dracula: The Resurrection, 1999 and Dracula 2: The Last Sanctuary, 2000), Dracula 3 is from a series that sold more than 1 million copies worldwide.

Another dark and gritty game, the players takes the shoes of Mgr Arno Moriani. Called the “devil's advocate”, this man is investigating in the interwar years a potential candidate for beatification in Transylvania. Few twists and turns on his adventures leads to the discovery of a "mark" found on corpses that villagers can only identify as Count Dracula's.

“Fans of the Dracula series can’t wait to continue their adventure in the Count’s disturbing world. We are therefore delighted to be teaming up with Kheops Studio to launch Dracula 3”, said Emmanuel Nouaille, Editorial Director at MC2.

Benoît Hozjan, CEO of Kheops Studio added, “Kheops Studio is happy to be working with a developer that has been responsible for so many great adventure games.”

Not enough to wake up the fear dormant in you since childhood? Let's see you keep your pants dry with these screens.

  

 Due to the recent tragic event at the campus of Virginia Tech, Jack Thompson has been increasing his efforts to get media exposure. Gaming news site, GameAlmighty has posted a report on his latest open letter. This time it is addressed to Bill Gates:

April 18, 2007

Bill Gates

Microsoft

1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052 Via Fax and e-mail

Dear Mr. Gates:

On Monday, April 16, at 3:10 pm, I was a guest, as I often have been in the past, on the Fox News Channel. News anchor Bill Hemmer asked me to profile the Virginia Tech rampage killer. I did so, noting that until that day the worst school massacre in world history was at the hands of Robert Steinhaeuser, who literally trained on the Microsoft on-line, hyper-violent shooter game, Counterstrike. I mentioned your company’s game by name. I explained that the rehearsal for such a massacre is key to being able to pull it off, as efficiently as Cho, whose name we didn’t even know at the time. Cho and Steinhaeuser were able to do what they did the first time because it was not the first time. This is why the military uses this same virtual reality simulation to train soldiers to want to kill and how to kill calmly, as the witnesses of Cho said he did...

Get the rest of the letter to Bill after the jump.

Microsoft co-founder and chairman Bill Gates went to Mexico City to celebrate his company's 20th anniversary where he forged deals with the local and national government, talked about US-Mexican immigration policies, and even had time to play a virtual soccer match with Mexican star player Rafael Marquez.

The visit was primarily a trip geared at signing accords with officials to enable the government units to use technology to better serve the interest of the people in areas such as business, governance and health care. Gates believes that Microsoft technology can be best utilized in public education and medicine, where Mexicans face some financial barriers to modernization.

Gates emphasized the value of information technology in education by describing the PC as something "so wonderful that we should want every child to have the same opportunity to use it and connect up to the world's information over the Internet."

After sealing some deals with local officials, Gates went over to Microsoft Mexico where the exhibition soccer match was held. The game was shown through three giant screens where Microsoft employees and the media watched. Marquez edged Gates 2-1 in a penalty shootout. The two then exchanged signed tokens in an act of good faith.