Bill Gates Hints About the Future While at University of Waterloo

Published on February 25th, 2008

Posted by John C Dvorak in General

Bill Gates gives a speech at University of Waterloo where he makes interesting hints. I reveal all! It may have to do with the “big secret.”
I discuss an interesting anecdote about Lernout & Hauspie and where all the intellectual property went. Microsoft? Bill went on and on about the keyboard-less computer.
Net-neutrality back in the news.
Comcast not being honest.
Nokia comes up with a bendable cell-phone.
Apple may roll out new Mac Book Pro tomorrow?
Japan working on an extra high-speed satellite system. So what?
Pension groups suing Yahoo.
The death knell for the 42-inch plasma. Bye-bye old plasma.

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14 users responded in " Bill Gates Hints About the Future While at University of Waterloo "

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# 1 GRtak said, on February 25th, 2008 at 9:49 pm

HEY!!!! Where is the volume control????

[Don't panic. It's back. - ed.]

# 2 Hmeyers said, on February 25th, 2008 at 10:01 pm

The keyboard-less computer is going to be as big of a deal as the computer that needs no display (googles? hologram projection?).

Everyone is going to want wristwatch computers and wristwatch cellphones in the future and the display and the input interface are the 2 clunkers that keep this from happening.

# 3 Hmeyers said, on February 25th, 2008 at 10:03 pm

Bill Gates at Waterloo? Hmmm.

Does this mean that Google is going to announce a desktop operating system to be sold at Wal-Mart within the next week?

# 4 Danijel said, on February 26th, 2008 at 2:37 am

Are you kidding John? You keep talking about that story about this hack in a plane. L&H died ages ago. Dragon (owned by LH) was bought by ScanSoft. ScanSoft merged and renamed to Nuance and for the last 5-10 years it’s been only IBM and Nuance that did anything worthwhile in the field of speech recognition. All this time MS fiddled with some of the worst speech recognition and synthesis in the industry. It was so bad, in fact, they had to give it away for free cause no one in their right mind would pay for it.

As usual, Microsoft is all talk, but no action…

# 5 OvenMaster said, on February 26th, 2008 at 8:03 am

Um, last I recall, the University of Waterloo is in… Waterloo, Ontario.

# 6 andrew said, on February 26th, 2008 at 8:21 am

The problem with voice activation on your computer is that it needs to be quiet around you or there will be all kinds of errors and frustration.

While I am not sure how the car system works, I can only imagine you trying to shout over the Counting Crows to get the volume down or change songs.

# 7 hhopper said, on February 26th, 2008 at 9:27 am

You hit a button before the voice command. It momentarily silences any audio.

# 8 gunny said, on February 26th, 2008 at 10:07 am

Voice commands and voice recognition? Hah! I’d love to see that work in a cubicle jungle.

# 9 JimD said, on February 26th, 2008 at 10:24 am

“# 4 Danijel said, on February 26th, 2008 at 2:37 am

As usual, Microsoft is all talk, but no action…
”

Well, when it comes to M$, its “IBM” – Inferior, but Marketable” – especially if it is PRE-LOADED !!! And good enough, although lame, to kill off the competition !!! “Innovation” M$ $tyle !!!

# 10 jbellies said, on February 26th, 2008 at 10:40 am

#5 Yup. Saying that the University of Waterloo is in “Toronto” is like saying that Silicon Valley is in “San Francisco”, except that Waterloo is twice as far from To. as San Francisco is from, oh, San Jose.

The parallel goes a bit farther, as Waterloo is Canada’s Silicon Valley. Those who have not heard of it in relation to the FORTRAN programming language have probably heard of the Blackberry mobile computing device…. I’ve never been to Waterloo, but before buying my first computer (it was called a microcomputer in those days) in 1979, I got a referral from a guy at the University of Waterloo Computing Department. Best computing decision I ever made.

# 11 Miguel Correia said, on February 26th, 2008 at 1:09 pm

Dvorak, the car I’m driving these days is a Fiat Bravo that has Windows Mobile running its media features and bluetooth phone integration. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue&Me)

The beauty of the voice technology is that I didn’t have to train it. It simply works.

# 12 pedro said, on February 26th, 2008 at 2:07 pm

#11 could that be the reason why fiat is having such financial problems????

# 13 /t. said, on February 26th, 2008 at 3:45 pm

JCD,

As a citizen of “the great white north”, I’m glad to hear that you enjoy our CBC. Check out their radio show “As It Happens” … stellar interview format journalism.

I’d post a link but hey, if you’re reading this, you know how to find it.

Let us know if you’re ever going to be in Ottawa.

First round’s on me.

# 14 dg said, on February 26th, 2008 at 9:27 pm

John, you got the secret all wrong. Waaaay off target. You’ll never guess.

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