VIA GAWKER:

In a recent interview with CNET, Bill Gates let spill the true scope of Microsoft’s ambitions for the technology behind the Xbox’s Project Natal. Basically, it isn’t just a gaming gimmick—they want to try it everywhere.

Here’s how everyone’s still-favorite Microsoft figurehead (sorry Ballmer!) sees camera-based motion tech playing out:

[The concept also works] for media consumption as a whole, and even if they connect it up to Windows PCs for interacting in terms of meetings, and collaboration, and communication…I think the value is as great for if you’re in the home, as you want to manage your movies, music, home system type stuff, it’s very cool there.

Combined with his statements that it’s specifically “Windows guys” who’ve latched onto the technology, this implies something like a motion-controlled Windows, core application set or, at the very least, Media Center. He doesn’t offer any specifics, but gesture-based music, video and photo manipulation aren’t too difficult to imagine. What about office uses?:

…I think there’s incredible value as we use that in the office connected to a Windows PC. So Microsoft research and the product groups have a lot going on there, because you can use the cost reduction that will take place over the years to say, why shouldn’t that be in most office environments.

So the coolest thing about Natal in the workplace is, based on what we know now, “cost reduction.” Guys, I want dance-actuated PowerPoint presentations at a minimum.

We’ll probably see some meatier details about Microsoft’s wider motion control ambitions soon enough, but even with this scant information, it’s fair to say that the company is serious about the technology. We’re well overdue for an overhaul to the way we interact with computers, and the fact that Microsoft is aware of this—and doing something about it—is promising. Tentatively. [CNET]

If Naughty By Nature were new artists that just came out recently instead of twenty years ago would they be considered “ringtone rappers”? Group member Vinnie thinks so.

In the early nineties, the grimy-looking rap trio from East Orange rode to the upper echelons of the pop charts on infectious hooks and catchy choruses with singles like “O.P.P.” and “Hip Hop Hooray” but their impact on rap places them way above any category that includes Flo Rida or DJ Unk, with all due respect.

It’s been a decade since Naughty By Nature had anything resembling a hit, and after unsuccessfully putting out an album in 2004 without their DJ, who left the group over a money dispute, Treach, Vinnie and DJ Kay Gee are all reunited for the first time in years when they were inducted to VH1′s Hip Hop Honors, and they are popping up on other people’s property as more than just ring tones.

The Illtown icons are back with a new independent album but, instead of utilizing traditional promotional outlets Naughty is ingeniously leaning on the mobile market. The group jumped in bed with corporate giant Microsoft, who launched a Windows Mobile phone promotion to push their new single “Get To Know Me Better” [check it out below].

We caught up with Vinnie. He talked mobile devices, being independent leaders in the digital music era and what his Grammy Award winning crew has been up to over the years.

You just linked up with Microsoft and told me you use even use a Windows Mobile device in real life instead of an iPhone or a Blackberry. What do you like about Windows Mobile phones?

I think features wise Windows mobile devices are mini PCs. I’ve had the Treos and the iPhones. For me, I do so much with PDFs, Excel files dealing with all of my touring, I always have itineraries, I have to sign contracts…even with my commissions, my manager has to send me breakdowns every time. So, I need access to all of this stuff on the fly at all times. And also, I use a PC at home so its all compatible. It’s easy to sync up all of your stuff. So, if you’re at home and you’re getting a lot of itineraries or organizing your music…that’s another thing that’s good about Windows Mobile- they have removable storage, unlike the iPhone. Their have tons of times when I would get an email from a producer who would send us beats and I would load the beat on to my desktop. I just have to link up my phone with my storage now. I don’t have to carry around a bunch of CDs n more.

What have you guys been up to over the last decade plus since your last big hit “Jamboree”?

Well primarily were been touring. We lost Kay Gee in 2000 and so, me and Treach did an album in 2002 on TVT, ya know? We finished with TVT in 2003, going into 2004. Basically we’ve been touring and working on independent projects. I’ve always manned the online business for Naughty By Nature, and basically that’s the crux of our business. Personally, I didn’t want to put out another album without Kay Gee but I knew eventually we’d just get back in the mix of that. In 2005, Kay Gee and I hooked back up and we did a few film projects. And leading into 2008 we just decided to do another Naughty album, and that was July of last year. And it was ironic that when we started recording the album they called us for Hip Hop Honors. We thought that that would’ve been a great boost to let everybody know that all three of us is back in the studio working an album. And what I was telling Kay about the mobile game is that everything is gonna be a PDA mobile device, everything is gonna be a mobile computer. Look, the end game for us, being that we are independent right now, is to cut a deal where we pre-load an album on a series of phones with mobile partners like Verizon or ATT, or even a hardware manufacturer like Samsung or LG. Imagine on a Verizon commercial they are promoting your lead single, promoting your new phone that’s about to be released that’s pre-loaded with your new album. Imagine them pre-loading a hundred thousand phones with your album, which is easy to do, but have that third-party carrier or element buy your album from you per phone directly. So, you basically wholesale your album to them. Five dollars times a hundred thousand phones is a half a million dollars without having to play any radio politics.

I’m actually glad to hear you guys taking advantage of new media strategies to sell your records. A lot of cats don’t advantage of the digital media like they should and you guys are doing this as vets, as icons with many years in the game. You guys came out in 91′ but the music climate today is vastly different then it was back then. Do you think you would’ve had the same or a similar impact if you came out as new artists today as you did back then?

Everyone talked about the ring tone artists. Naughty By Nature was like the first ring tone artists. We have such catchy hooks [singing] “You down with O.P.P.? Yeah you know me”, “Hip-Hop Hooray! Hooo!”, “I know I jam I know I jam jam”, “We gonna break, we gonna bash”, all of the them would’ve been ultimate ring tones back in the day. If we would’ve had the today technology back then? Please. It would’ve been crazy. But, what I like about the game right now is, even though we are veterans and still do about 150 shows a year, through naughtybynature.com we market directly to our fan base all of the time. Now, with us coming back out we can get major distribution and still be independent. We can come out of the box with a partner like Microsoft and we’re not even signed to a label but, we’re doing better promotions than the labels because they can’t even afford to do that right now. We come to the table with a sponsor so not only can we support the DJs who play our music we can also support the local radio stations because our partner is placing ads.

VIA DX:

New Jersey Rap pioneers Naughty By Nature are hard at work with their first completely reunited (and yet to be titled) album (with Kay Gee) in over a decade. Recenly, Vin Rock spoke to HipHopDX about how the ’80s and ’90s Rap veterans may be partnering with Microsoft to take “O.P.P.” to the personal PC.

“First and foremost, I am a Windows Mobile power-user,” began Vin. “I’ve had these devices since the Treo and the iPhone and all of that, but once I got introduced to the Windows Mobile platform, I realized those were mini-PCs. For the past four years or so, I’ve just been riding with Windows Mobile devices – even before the iPhone came out.”

Vin spouted off a grocery list of devices he’s previously owned, before championing the AT&T Tilt to HipHopDX. “After the Tilt came out two years ago. I got that and I got one for my neice; we both gave the iPhone back because we were so used to all of the features and a physical keyboard on the Tilt.” Taking it a step further, the “Jamboree” songwriter says, “Eventually I locked onto HTC as the hardware manufacturer, so I’d go onto the websites and see which devices were coming up.”

After reading blogs and following trends, Vin says he got in custom themes, “HTC came with the user interface on top of the Microsoft platform which is called TouchFLO 3D. So I started going onto underground blog sites and saw that there were basically developers that hacked into that interface with custom themes for them. Once I saw that, I started looking for these designers, which were basically graphic designers.” One in particular impressed Vin. “I found the guy Probex, who basically did this Jessica Alba theme. I found Probex, I got him to start developing a Naughty By Nature the for the TouchFLO 3D interface. While that was going on, we were working on a new album, and I knew that I wanted to cross-promote into some element of the mobile world.”

“I was developing this app for a Windows Mobile phone,” revealed Vin, taking matters into his own hands. Then fate changed things a bit. “I was on a plane maybe a month-and-a-half, two months ago. I saw a guy with an AT&T Tilt, which is a Windows Mobile device. I always make small-talk with people with a Windows Mobile device. I said, ‘Hey buddy, I see you’re a fellow AT&T Tilt user.’” The stranger turned out to be a Microsoft executive. Recalling the meeting, Vin shared his thoughts with a laugh, “Aw man, this is divine intervention.”

Common talks about his new T-Shirt line with Microsoft called Softwear. Giggety.

Netflix Inc. has come up with another way to get movies to people without sending DVDs in the mail.

In a partnership to be announced Monday, LG Electronics will start selling high-definition TV sets that stream Netflix videos directly from the Internet, without an additional device. The deal marks the first time Netflix’s streaming service will be embedded in a television.

Netflix, still best known for its online DVD rental service, offers about 12,000 movies and TV shows for instant streaming over the Internet, for no additional cost to subscribers who pay at least $9 per month for a DVD rental plan.

Those streamed movies can be watched on a computer, or sent to a TV through an increasing number of devices, including a $100 unit made by Silicon Valley startup Roku Inc. Other partnerships enable Netflix to pump its video library to TVs through Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 video game consoles or recorders made by TiVo Inc. LG and Samsung Electronics Co. also sell Blu-ray DVD players compatible with the streaming service.

Piping movies directly to TV sets is the natural evolution of the video streaming service, said Reed Hastings, the chief executive of Netflix.

“The TV symbolizes the ultimate destination,” he said.

That idea shared by Sony Corp., which already streams feature films and TV shows directly to its Bravia televisions is still in its early stages. Netflix’s streaming service taps a library of 12,000 titles, while the company’s DVD menu numbers more than 100,000 titles.

Hastings expects that gap will “definitely narrow” over time, but he noted that DVDs maintain an advantage over streaming, which is that “they are very profitable” for film studios.

Tim Alessi, director of product development for LG Electronics USA, said the broadband TVs will sell for roughly $200 to $300 more than a regular HDTV set.

E-40 has been the center of controversy recently after a shooting following his Denver concert, but the Bay Area rapper also took some unlikely hits as the stock market crashed this past month.

“40 Water” explained to the Los Angeles Times that he had some big loses in his Microsoft stock. “I was sitting there waiting for something, but it just didn’t unfold for me,” said E-40. “Apple, now that’s what I should have got.”

The Bay Ambassador, whose new album is titled The Ball Street Journal, explained he has been in the financial game for a while. “I first started messing with [stocks] in ’95 or ’96,” 40 said.

But even all this experience could not help the troubled rapper as not only his own personal stocks fell but he was also recently forced to close a Vallejo branch of his chain of restaurants, Fatburger.

“I’m moving on from Fatburger because it didn’t really take off like it did in Southern California,” he said. “I’m moving on to Wing Stop… that’s where it’s at,” E-40 told the Times this week.

40 also unveiled his new line of flavor and vitamin enhanced water titled, 40 Water.

“I’m revamping it right now … changing the artwork, because there are so many big dogs out there, and I’m independent like an independent record, and big dogs like Pepsi are trying to crush me,” he said.

Coming off a strong Black Friday performance where Microsoft claims the Xbox 360 trounced the PlayStation 3 by a three-to-one sales margin, Microsoft’s vice president of strategy and business development, Shane Kim, has told Reuters that Microsoft is “cautiously optimistic” about holiday sales. This comes during a year where the industry is expected to grow 20% according to Kim. But next year is where the real concern lies, as it’s impossible to predict what impact the economic recession will have.

Regarding 2008′s growth, Kim said “people are not projecting that kind of growth” for 2009. “Who knows, maybe flat performance will be considered a remarkable achievement. It’s difficult to predict the future.”

As a result, Kim says that Microsoft is preparing for “tough times,” adding, “A big objective for us is to deliver most entertainment value for the dollar.”

If one thing is for sure, though, it’s that there won’t be any shortage of big games to keep an eye on in 2009.