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way down, and that's where you really see widespread computing breakthroughs.
The hardest thing, by far, is communications, then the hardware costs. We can make sure the software cost is never really holding things back--that it's a small-enough percentage. In educational things, we do a lot of software giveaways. We've been very generous to make sure that when people first come into computing, software doesn't hold them back.
That's interesting--the mesh--because that way, people can actually share a connection.
Yeah, the hard thing is the back haul of the Internet out of the village. Within the village, sure, you can mesh that up, but if people are going to be streaming video, you need quite a bit of capacity there. So it's not a simple problem to solve; we've got actually multiple research locations at Microsoft working together on this mesh thing, and we've had a lot of conferences working with third parties, so we're optimistic that that's the thing that can solve the thing that holds back developing-world computing.
In recent years, there's been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, "We've got to look at patents, we've got to look at copyrights." What's driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?
No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.
And this debate will always be there. I'd be the first to say that the patent system can always be tuned--including the U.S. patent system. There are some goals to cap some reform elements. But the idea that the United States has led in creating companies, creating jobs, because we've had the best intellectual-property system--there's no doubt about that in my mind, and when people say they want to be the most competitive economy, they've got to have the incentive system. Intellectual property is the incentive system for the products of the future.
I'm wondering, too, as you look forward 10, 20 years from now--what are the big problems that technology industry really needs to focus on?
Well, the technology business provides tools of empowerment, tools to let people be creative, to communicate, and there's no end in sight and certainly a decade's worth of work to make the ease of use and the power of these tools better. If you just think about meetings and the ability to record the video and the audio of the meeting--create a transcript, notify people, have them see the parts they care about--it's crummy today, and that's solvable.
When people want to manage a project with many companies involved--keeping data confidential, tracking and knowing what's going on--that's very crummy today compared to what it can be.
We, with our Office franchise, are committed to making workers far, far more productive than they are today. And believe me, we're not running out of ideas. The phone is inefficient today with phone tag and busy signals. E-mail is inefficient today with seeing stuff that's less relevant and how you organize it--bringing in the blog-type capabilities is very important there.
There's plenty of room to do dramatic horizontal innovation that will drive productivity in every sector of the economy. Whether it's scientific discovery, health care, engineering, marketing, sales--you name it--the tools around Windows and Office are not even half of what they will be.
If you take that and map that into the home, that's where you get the idea of movies, music, games. There, again, we're not even halfway to what we can deliver in that digital lifestyle.
Just because someone says something, be it Bush or Gates,
doesn't make it true.
"Iraq has weapons of mass destruction"
"Well, no one invests more in security of their browser than what
we do on IE"
These people stated that Microsoft's final-goal was to fundamentally redesign the PC to be nothing more than an, entirely Microsoft-controlled, delivery-system for "rented content", -where even the hardware obeyed Microsoft, not consumers.
These people also predicted that, eventually, all consumer-choice would eliminated, by this fundamental redesign, because it would leave no room for any product or service not sanctioned, and licensed, by "...the holder of all the keys", ...Microsoft.
These people were, at best, ...ignored, or made fun of. At worst, these forward-looking critics of Microsoft's actions, were actively attacked and demonized.
Now, Bill Gates freely admits that the "X-Box", in Microsoft's vision, is the computer of the future. Furthermore, he bluntly states that Microsoft's goal is, in fact, for the entire electronics-industry to finally, exclusively, adopt Microsoft's concept of,
...Microsoft Hardware (the locked-down "Trusted Computer"),
...Running Microsoft software (a Microsoft OS and Microsoft-allowed applications),
...which Microsoft can change or disable at any time ("Automatic-Updates" without choice)
...using Microsoft DRM (which cannot, under any circumstance, be controlled by consumers),
...to deliver Microsoft-chosen content (thanks to MS-DRM and mandatory MS-Licensing),
...over Microsoft-controlled networks (since Microsoft's "Trusted Computing" is already being implemented by network-hardware companies, in order to, "...protect the Internet, and other important networks"),
...all of which, by the way, would have to be 'perpetually' paid-for by the consumer (remember Microsoft has been claiming for years that consumers don't actually own the products they have bought).
And, thanks to the recent extensions of "Intellectual Property Rights" (which most people are finally realizing is little more than an underhanded-charade), ...the imposition of such anti-consumer concepts as "computer-use as a Service" (not a 'tangible' product-sale) is now steadily moving within Microsoft's grasp.
No More Microsoft!
Daily Mozilla News
To me it seems Mr. Gates is more in touch with the world today then I thought before. Be interesting to see what microsoft will do for the industry in the next 10 - 20 years.
How he can say that people who want all business to operate and compete on a level playing field are communistic is a sad statement. Of course Gates doesn't want a level playing field, MS would be shoved out or at least severely marginalized out of nearly every market they are in.
The only good thing that MS constantly produces is comedy.
And to Bill: sure Bill, you have many great ideas in mind regarding IE and that should be the reason why you kept them for more than 4 years and security updates was the only area innovations have occured on.
/Donny
SF Gate News article / Associated Press AP:
Bill Gates touts 'digital lifestyle,' despite technical bugs
RACHEL KONRAD, AP Technology Writer
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
(01-05) 21:19 PST LAS VEGAS (AP) --
Despite suffering technical glitches that prompted jokes and
guffaws, Bill Gates promised Wednesday that Microsoft Corp.
would help millions of consumers stay seamlessly plugged into a
world of digital music, movies, video games and television
shows.
But while promoting what he calls the "digital lifestyle," Gates
showed how vulnerable all consumers -- even the world's
richest man -- are to hardware and software bugs.
During a demonstration of digital photography with a Nikon
camera, a Windows Media Center PC froze and wouldn't respond
to Gates' pushing of the remote control.
Later in the 90-minute presentation, a product manager
demonstrated the ostensible user-friendliness of a video game
expected to hit retail stores in April, Forza Motor Sport. But
instead of configuring a custom-designed race car, the
computer monitor displayed the dreaded "blue screen of death"
and warned, "out of system memory."
The errors -- which came during what's usually an ode to
Microsoft's dominance of the software industry and its
increasing control of consumer electronics -- prompted the
celebrity host, NBC comedian Conan O'Brien, to quip, "Who's in
charge of Microsoft, anyway?"
Gates, who was sitting next to O'Brien on a set staged to look
like NBC's Late Night set, smiled dryly and continued with his
discussion.
Gates also announced several partnerships with
telecommunication companies such as SBC Communications Inc.
and television networks.
Microsoft and music network MTV last month inked a deal that
will eventually allow people to send cable programs from rock,
pop and country music channels and Comedy Central to their
laptops, hand-held computers and other devices.
Although he accepted guffaws from audience members in the
theater, the technical hiccups didn't prompt Gates to engage in a
hard-hitting analysis of computer reliability and security.
It will likely take Microsoft years to understand the consumer
electronics market and produce simple, glitch-free products for
consumers' living rooms, analysts say.
"Microsoft was founded by programmers and is still run by
programmers, and the bias of programmers is that software can
do anything," said Paul DeGroot, an analyst at Kirkland, Wash.-
based Directions on Microsoft. "While Microsoft's goal is to turn
the PC into a superhub that does everything -- plays music,
works as a cell phone, stores your photos -- they're running up
against the fact that most people buy discreet components that
do particular things."
This was also announced on Channel 4 KOMO News - ABC in
Seattle, WA. as well...
Redmond, we have a problem...
Excuse me? Is this an implication that communists are the main people against government-granted monopolies that disrupt the free market economy? Yes, such as (software) patents?
And how does this compare with the fact that the EU commission is trying to jump through hoops currently to please Microsoft, among others, and disregard the will of the democratically elected parliament in the software patent issue?
I don't like to underestimate Bill's intelligence, therefore I must conclude that he's simply talking PR bull. And, in the spirit of respecting his intelligence, I must also assume that we both know that him resorting to reality-challenged communist rhetoric is rather desperate.
First they ignore you. Then they fight you.
In fact, would the IP laws have been the same as they are today, some of us would today be running Wordstar and Visicalc on Altair computers, but most of us would still only be able to dream about using a computer.
The IP laws have been reformed since and are still in the process of becoming more and more restrictive. The so-called communists that Gates refers to are only trying to reverse this in order to bring back the balance that allowed the whole industry to exist in the first place.
Hmm sounds like Billy boy is brown nosing to the RIAA and MPAA. I mean instead of talking about fair rights he basically called anyone who wants to restructure IP rules communists. Lovely. It also suggests the mindset of where Microsoft will prob take DRM in Windows in the future. e.g. Favor the big corp's agenda rather then fair use to the end user.
Look at the "get your pictures printed" wizard in Windows XP - it's the way that MS wants everything working in the future. XP sees that you've plugged in your digital camera and offers to get prints of your pictures ordered. The software grabs the photos, and ships them off to one of 3 photo developing labs, you enter your credit card number and *poof* you get your pictures delivered in about a week - and Microsoft gets a nice kickback for every picture developed (that's why the MS photo developing partners are so much more expensive than other online photo labs).
Right now you have a choice about who does your photo developing, but with each revision of Windows it will become more and more difficult to make your own choices.
I predict that in future products MS will allow you to buy DVD movies from some on-line retailer at a discount much deeper than the going rate, but you'll have to pay a $2 "viewing fee" every time you play the movie back (and you'll only be able to play it in MS DRM'd machines). It'll all be very slick, and you'll hardly notice as your cerdit card bill gets bigger and bigger every month and more and more "services" are added to your PC/Media Center/Game console.
There'll be people that might think it's just great - and that's fine for them, but I think that myself and a lot of other people see which way things are headed and have already chosen to abandon MS's vision of the future. We've chosen to secure our own freedom of choice. We'll use Linux, BSD, and Macintosh systems that are all free of Bill's "vision".
http://vnuuk.typepad.com/ces/2005/01/gates_keynote_t.html
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1160317
I'll wait for Shorthorn 2006
(entire keynote unedited by C/NET)
http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/01/06/1337228.shtml?tid=109&tid=211
power cord to my iBook, call my husband away from our 21"
screen iMac, and pull the children away from their Flower Power
iMac...
People ask me all the time who I call for home networking and
the blue screen of death...I tell them to call Steve Jobs in
Cupertino, CA. He's the best "computer guy" that I know...
- communists?!?!?
-
by rdean
January 6, 2005 7:14 PM PST
- Bill seems like a bright enough guy, but occasionally he says things that are just so wrong-headed it's baffling (ala "640k ought to be enough for anybody"). However, knowing that Bill is a militant capitalist (indicated by statements to the effect of "the only incentive to create is money") at least makes it possible to understand where the statement comes from.
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See all 147 Comments >>If Bill really believes that the proponents of Intellectual Property Reform are communists, he's stupid. I don't believe he's stupid. I think he wants to protect the revenue stream from Windows Media DRM, so he's going to disparage anyone who would undermine the need for draconian DRM schemes.
Just because someone believes in Intellectual Property Reform does not make them a communist. Intellectual Property Reform is overdue.
- It was designed to protect small inventors from larger companies who would copy inventions and undercut the small inventor's selling price, thus eliminating any hope of them being able to profit from their invention. What we have today is a bunch of big companies (Microsoft and IBM being the two gorillas) being granted patents on "Method for converting oxygen to carbon dioxide" that they then turn around and use as a bludgeon against small inventors. Furthermore, some patents are written without the claimed invention having been realized (thus it wasn't invented so much as imagined). These problems undermine the value of patents as protections of new and useful *inventions*.
Beyond that, there is the fact that the patent system is not just about enriching the inventor. The other side of the coin is that it is also about advancing the state of the art. At least in the realm of new technology, the USPTO is woefully understaffed to be able to make the kinds of assessments to reliably determine what inventions constitute an advance in the state of the art and are therefore worthy of patent. James Gleick once wrote an article "Patently Absurd," which I remember mainly because it included a description of a patent that a gentleman had received on entertaining a cat with a laser pointer. I don't think I need to say more than that.
- Copyrights seem to me to be less problematic than patents, but they still need some work. The framers guaranteed copyright protection in exchange for the release of the work to extend the sciences and useful arts. The recent enactments affecting copyrights, DMCA and copyright term extension, both create new problems (including prohibitions on getting into things to see how they work and the possibility for interminable copyrights) while trying to solve valid concerns.
The intellectual property system in the U.S. needs more than tweaks, and I'm not a communist for believing that.