Gates Predicts Computing Advances in Final CES Keynote

Published: January 9, 2008

by Alex Woodie

In his final keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Sunday, Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates marveled at how far technology has come since his first CES keynote back in 1994, and then went on to sketch an optimistic picture of how he sees computers changing during the next 10 years.

Over the last 14 years, Gates' keynote addresses at the annual Sin City geekfest that is the CES have become a mainstay of the computer industry. In years past, Gates has previewed upcoming enhancements like Windows Vista's 3-D interface, home media centers, smart mobile phones, and the latest in X-Box hardware.

It's a bit difficult to remember a time when Windows 95 seemed like the cutting edge of technology, 56K was a suitable Internet connection, and your typical $1,000 PC had 128 MB of RAM. Now we find ourselves in 2008, at the far end of a period of rapid technological evolution--what seems likely to be the fastest period of technology change we'll experience in our lifetimes. That baseline $1,000 PC is now a quad-core machine with more MIPS and memory than most mainframes had a decade ago, and we say to ourselves, "It can't get any better than this."

Of course, things will change--hopefully for the better--and Microsoft hopes to be the agent of that positive change. According to Gates--who is stepping down from his full-time position at Microsoft in July to spend more time with his charitable work--the next 10 years, what he calls the "second digital decade," will bring a period of change that surpasses the first digital decade.

"The first digital decade has been a great success," he says. "Now, this is just the beginning. There's nothing holding us back from going much faster and much further in the second digital decade."

Gates says the next 10 years will be all about connecting people and enabling services for users over the Internet, or the "cloud" as Microsofties have taken to calling it. No matter where you go, or what device you use, you will be able to pull up your customized set of applications and your data by simply authenticating against the cloud.

"No longer will users have to bridge between the devices . . . [or] have to remember what's where," Gates says. "By having essentially the master of what's going on stored up in the cloud, things like docking up, connecting, searching across devices will be very simple, and the information, of course, can be shared across many users in a very strong way.

"In fact, if you just pick up the device and authenticate who you are, then you'll connect up to your information. So when you get a new phone, or want to borrow a device it will be a very, very simple thing to be up and running."

So, what devices is Gates referring to? It won't just be the PC, although that will always be a central element of it, he says. But it will also be your smart phone, your high-definition television, a screen at a retail shop, or even a display in your Ford, which now features the Sync in-dash device co-developed by Microsoft.

Gates also predicted you'll be interacting with your computer in different ways in the future. No longer will it just be with a mouse and a keyboard, but handwriting recognition and speech recognition will allow light pens and your own voice to direct the computer. (These so-called "natural user interfaces" have been pet projects of Gates for some time, but they still are a ways from breaking into the mainstream.)

Microsoft and its partners are desperate to find the next big thing that will drive consumer and business sales, and they will undoubtedly hit on a few compelling combinations over the next decade. One of the key drivers will be keeping the various branches of technology from splintering off in separate directions, making computers and the new era of gadgets too complicated and difficult to use.

Through the power of software, Gates predicts that won't be the case. "We're just at the beginning of this, and this is something the software industry will build into the platform, so individual developers don't have to go off and do that complicated work."

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