Blogs

I'll be out of the office for the next week, but don't be surprised if you see some posts here from some of my colleagues at the paper, as developments warrant.

A big event to watch during the week will be the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Seattle, which starts Tuesday morning with addresses by Bill Gates and other Microsoft executives at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center. One focus will be Windows Vista, but the company also tends to trot out some surprises at WinHEC. At last year's conference, for example, Gates showed the "Ultra Mobile 2007" mock-up that foreshadowed Microsoft's Origami Project and ultimately resulted in the new Ultra-Mobile PCs from hardware companies including Samsung.

One technology expected to be shown during WinHEC is a new Microsoft pay-as-you-go PC initiative, dubbed FlexGo, that will test the concept of pre-paid cards and subscriptions for home and small-business PC use in developing nations. See this story from Monday's paper for more details.

Sites to follow for WinHEC news include Mary Jo Foley's Microsoft Watch and Paul Thurrott's WinInfo.