Longhorn Hardware Specs - these give a flavor of where the PC Market is moving. Also, reading this gives excellent insight over who really calls the shots in terms of how PC hardware is built. A quick summary:

• new APIs for accelerated 2D drawing using Direct3D — a son of Chrome? - a clear case of Quartz envy if I ever saw one
• DXVA (DirectX Video Acceleration) for faster MPEG and iDCT encoding
• a serious implementation of OnNow (’predictable power button behavior’ - heh)
• added support for smartcards and biometric input devices. From the trustworthy computing dept.
• Better audio/video streaming and realtime voice/video capabilities
• This one’s interesting — easier access to connectors, and interfaces that look as good from two feet as they do from ten feet.
• ‘The PC as the preferred mobile device’ — think tablet PC with Wifi, IPv6, and UPNP discovery (minus the buffer overrruns hopefully).

Bottom Line: Microsoft is betting heavily on Gates’ vision for the future, a future he outlined in The Road Ahead. It’s a vision where tablet PCs, not cellphones, rule; where the PC has morphed into an entertainment supercenter with an interface that looks good from across the living room and which interacts with zillions of electronic geegaws scattered all around; and with Windows (and descendants) on all of these.

It’s a good vision for the future, and Microsoft could probably make it happen, but no customer on Earth is going to buy Windows licenses (or even client access licenses) for all the Windows-powered devices he has. Microsoft won the PC OS game by pre-installing the OS. For them to win this round, they’ll have to burn Windows onto each device’s ROM. The problem is, the manufacturers who will make these devices don’t trust Microsoft an inch. Sony et al would much rather go with Symbian, QNX or a Lineo to achieve the same effect — and they have much more experience in consumer electronics than MS does. Interesting little conundrum there for msft strategy mavens.