Posting for Sharon because of technical difficulties:

NEW YORK -- Microsoft launched Windows 7 worldwide with a keynote featuring Chief Executive Steve Ballmer today at Skylight Studies in New York.

The company aired a new commercial that features regular people saying, "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea" with the tagline "A billion ideas = 7."

Ballmer was introduced by Kylie, the 5 1/2-year-old featured in the Windows ads using the computer.

"We're trying to make every day usage better in the way our customers wanted it: simpler faster more responsive," he said.

Ballmer said the software was built around three pillars: "No. 1 it works the way you want it to work. You want the computer to fire up quickly, boom. ... No. 2 the things you do all the time need to be simpler. You want to manage the windows on your desktop. ... No. 3 let's enable a world of new things, new possibilities for partner developers end users."

The company announced that Amazon.com has built a Kindle application that will allow people to access their Kindle libraries through a touchscreen computer.

Microsoft also showed off a USB tuner that will cost about $100 and allow users to watch television on their computers.

Brad Brooks, corporate vice president, demonstrated video, media and networking features, at one point streaming video to seven other computers from one computer.

"Windows 7 takes us closer to the vision that we articulate that focuses in and around three devices," Ballmer said. "The PC, phone and TV all communicating across the cloud, the Internet backbone."

While the keynote demonstrated the connection between the PC and the TV, there was not a lot shown about the connection with the phone.

Update 1:20 p.m.: Here is the recording of the keynote:

And here is video of Ballmer on the Today Show: