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Speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas yesterday, Redmond's Chief Software Architect highlighted how its Media Center will continue to form the hub for many of the entertainment devices that have its backing.

Gates said Media Center PCs had doubled sales this year to 1.4 million units and the platform's capabilities will be extended to allow a machine to truly operate as a media server, piping music, video and TV programs to other devices in the home, to allow remote programming of recordings through a web interface accessed by any device with an Internet connection, whether it be a PC or phone.

He said that Microsoft was also putting its $6bn R&D investment into making software that's not just powerful but easy to use, and ensuring content plays properly: any device sporting Microsoft's PlayForSure branding for its rights management should handle Microsoft's protected media formats. This won't just be MP3 players and gadgets, but also consumer electronics products such as DVD players that utilise Microsoft's DRM standards. Gates also demoed

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a 40-inch LCD from Digitrex, which also sports the PlaysForSure logo.

On the hardware side Gates outlined a set-top box named MSN TV that 'plugs into your TV, lets you browse the Internet, sort of simpler than a PC and very straightforward for a lot of people.' Media Center Extender devices are also rolling out, both as set-top boxes and for the Xbox, which hook up your TV to a Media Center PC.

But it's not simply a case of throwing software at entertainment to find a problem to solve. Gates announced reams of content partners as well as outlining its efforts with cable providers such as Comcast, Bell South and SBC around IPTV - television programs delivered over an IP network rather than broadcast over the air.

Gates said: 'Now, there's a generation that can go even further as we get more video on-demand capability and literally anybody can watch any show at any time, even the ads can be targeted to you. We call that IPTV. And no doubt this is where the world is going, it requires a lot of investments to get the networks up to this, but this is the maximum flexibility, watching different shows, picture-in-picture and really opening up creativity, the same type of creativity we've seen on the Internet side for the TV, and so it's a great way to think about the integrated scenarios, video, data and voice actually coming together.'

Gates also highlighted how technology was being used socially - sharing content between connected devices is one aspect, but people now want to connect with friends, family and complete strangers for online gaming, blogging and the other online communities that have exploded over the past few years.