CES TV intel: ABC and Disney shows coming to Xbox Microsoft is getting into the video content on demand game. Bill Gates said yesterday during his final keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that ABC Television, the Disney Channel and MGM will all become a part of Microsoft’s online Xbox Live programming service. The service that will provide TV shows and movies to the Xbox 360 console is being offered up as an alternative to cable. Xbox Live subscribers will have access to twice as much on-demand content as cable or satellite TV subscribers, up to 3,500 hours of TV shows and films, claim the companies entering the deal. Among those TV shows will be Disney hits “Hannah Montana” and “High School Musical” as well as ABC’s “Lost” and “Ugly Betty.”   Microsoft lets viewers pick the schedule for Olympics Imagine having a menu to pick and choose how you watch this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing – all gymnastics and no weight lifting, for example. That’s exactly what Microsoft founder Bill Gates envisions with a new NBC Universal-MSN partnership that will let viewers customize events they are most interested in watching through live video alerts and social networking opportunities, among others. Microsoft plans to pair its Silverlight online video capabilities and its MSN Network with NBC’s TV coverage on NBCOlympics.com, which will have as many as 30 simultaneous live feeds. The partnership will provide more than 3,000 hours of live and on-demand content and will be limited to U.S. broadband users on NBC’s web site, MSN.com and other Microsoft internet outlets. Both companies will share online ad revenues from the 3,600 hours of coverage planned from Aug. 8-24.   New from Napster, downloadable, sharable MP3 files Napster is starting to come full circle, returning to the realm of file sharing, but from the legal side this time. The site will begin offering MP3 files for download in the spring in unprotected format, which means that the files are compatible with most portable MP3 and mobile phone devices and are sharable with other computers. Napster comes after Amazon.com, which also sells unprotected MP3 online. The files lack any built-in copy protection coding to prevent them from being redistributed or used on any other device. By contrast, Apple's iTunes downloads are only unlockable on a limited number of computers for each purchase and will only play on certain players, including Apple’s own iPod. Napster's new downloads will only be available for single tracks and albums and not files downloaded as part of the company's basic subscription service, whose price is rising from $9.95 per month to $12.95 per month at the end of January.   LA Times' tech show coverage goes high-tech itself As the above shorts attest, there has already been a ton of news out of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For those who don’t want to miss any of it, The Los Angeles Times is going high tech in its coverage through its web site at www.latimes.com/bitplayer. Starting today, the paper's web site includes a live blog that features video clips and photos of the hottest new gadgets. The Tribune Co.-owned paper is also covering the latest electronics trends in print, with a teaser to the gadget of the day that will be posted online. And the paper is letting web users submit their own photos and video from CES to www.latimes.com/yourtechreviews. The interactive feature also lets conference attendees post their own comments about what they discover at the show.