I’m attending the Microsoft Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles this week on behalf of OSNN for the second time.

Today was the first day of the conference, and it started out with the customary keynote by Bill Gates, focusing mainly on the evolution of the computer industry, the rapid growth of the portable and mobile devices market, demos of Windows Rally, Windows Home Server, and Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn).

BillG’s keynote was followed by a talk on the “Evolution of Computing” by Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s Chief Research and Strategy Officer. The presentation also highlighted some of the ways in which computers and technology can be used effectively in healthcare, especially in rural areas and developing countries.

I’ve posted lots of pictures from the keynote (second-row seating, thanks to the Press pass), and a couple of videos that were played back during BillG’s talk. If you’d like to watch the complete keynotes and demos, the official on-demand webcast (direct link) is also available.

A µTorrent forum member named patrickbrans has created a µTorrent Sidebar gadget for Vista that works in conjunction with the µTorrent WebUI.

The docked gadget shows basic download and upload speeds, and includes buttons to start, stop, or pause downloads. The flyout panel displays additional info such as the progress of each download, number of seeds and peers, and so on.

Nicely done.