Steve Ballmer took the stage to give the pre-CES keynote yesterday and unveiled a long list of updates and features coming to Windows 7, Internet Explorer 8, the Windows Live family of products, and Xbox. For the sake of simplicity, we've boiled them down into a series bullet points of what to look out for from Microsoft in the coming year. The long and the short of it is that Ballmer barely even mentioned Microsoft's troubled Vista operating system!

Windows 7

Faster boot time and performance.
An improved task bar that is a little reminiscent of the OS X dock at the bottom of the desktop screen.

Jumplists -- which reveal recently opened documents, Web pages, and common tasks when you right click on an app in the task bar.
Improved networking, which will make setting up streaming media between devices simpler. It will also let you tell one computer to stream media from another computer to a third device like an Xbox or a Roku
Windows 7 will also get a public beta, starting January 9, so consumers will be able to try out the new operating system. This a first for any Microsoft OS.


Window Live Services

Partnership with Facebook that will sync LiveSpaces accounts with Facebook accounts, making Microsoft's social networking site more relevant!

Useful search side bar in Live Hotmail that minimizes the need for switching tabs.
Live Messenger is adding dynamic buddy icons that update according to the emoticons you use.

Internet Explorer 8

Accelerators that add common tasks to the right click menu so you can translate text, define a word, or look up info on IMDB or Wikipedia without opening a new tab or window

Xbox 360

Two new 'Halo' titles -- 'Halo Wars' a real time strategy game, and 'Halo 3 ODST' a more traditional 'Halo' experience.
Xbox Live Primetime Events -- live online events that players around the world can participate in, including '1 Vs. 100' an online game show
Kodu -- a game creation tool for kids that lets them publish their creations to the community channel
Check out Engadget for more in depth coverage of the keynote, and check out the gallery below for some of what Ballmer had to show off.

Credit: http://www.switched.com/2009/01/08/is-microsoft-dumping-vista/

The only bad part about this is I would have to buy a new pc since my pc isn't up to date enough, that or buy new parts for it and buy that time I mine as well have bought a new pc.

Hopefully though MS as fixed things well enough with Windows 7, also I hope they don't rush it out the door like they seem to have with Vista.

i now have the beta 8 internet explorer, and ever since i put it on, some of the websites i visit are all weird. like buttons not functioning right, things in odd places, any suggestions? my comp is a few years old, possibly cant handle it?

My guess would be that the site designers don't have the necessary hacks or created yet another stylesheet for IE. Most of those issues would go away if MS would make IE standards compliant instead of still trying to force people to do things their way.