Microsoft boss entertains at gadget show

The audience of a gadget show in the US burst into laughter when they watched Microsoft chairman Bill Gates take a starring role in his self-deprecating farewell video.

Mr Gates, who is to retire in July, ended a speech at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas by screening the celebrity-packed film.

In it, he mocked the idea that he would desperately search for things to do after leaving the software giant.

It showed him rapping, trying to lift weights, pleading for a spot in U2 and lobbying for a place on a presidential ticket.

The video featured cameo appearances from the likes of Jay-Z, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Steven Spielberg and George Clooney.

During last night’s speech, Mr Gates argued that his company’s technologies are becoming even more flexible and powerful as they seep into cars, Internet-based TV networks and living rooms.

A few months away from leaving Microsoft to focus on his philanthropy, Mr Gates used his traditional kickoff keynote last night to highlight how Microsoft is extending the reach of its software beyond desktops and servers, and incorporating alternative inputs like voice and touch.

“The first digital decade has been a great success,” he said. “This is just the beginning. There’s nothing holding us back from going much faster and much further in the second digital decade.”

Traditional PC programs got less airtime than in previous keynotes.

That contrast stood out considering not only the tepid response for Microsoft’s year-old Windows Vista operating system but also the way that web-based applications are threatening Microsoft’s hold on desktop computing.

Instead Mr Gates bounced from cars – Microsoft’s Sync technology for playing music and making phone calls should be in all Ford, Mercury and Lincoln vehicles in the 2009 model year – to the living room.

Mr Gates and Robbie Bach, who heads Microsoft’s entertainment division, announced an expansion of the high-definition Hollywood movies and TV shows that can be downloaded through the Xbox video game console’s online service.

Those include shows from ABC television and other properties of Walt Disney.

Mr Gates also explained how Mediaroom, the internet-based television platform that Microsoft created for telecommunications companies to sell, will work with TNT and Showtime to let users select their own camera angles when viewing sports.

For example, a Nascar fan could maintain a constant view from his favourite driver’s car, or plug into a certain ringside shot in a boxing match. For now, though, Mediaroom is mainly used for TV services in other countries.

Mr Gates and Mr Bach also talked up improvements in ways for people to interact with software by voice, touch and gesture.

In addition to the speech-recognising functions in Sync-enabled cars, Microsoft plans to soon upgrade the voice-activated information searches available through its subsidiary Tellme.

It will also augment the system underlying Surface, Microsoft’s computer in a table that responds to users’ touches and gestures.

Surface is debuting as a virtual concierge in hotels, but Mr Gates hopes it will soon be used in retail stores.

For example, Mr Gates showed how an outdoors-shop customer could use a Surface table to customise a snowboard and transfer an image of his creation to a mobile device simply by putting it on the table.

It was that kind of demonstration that inspired thousands of techies to begin queuing for the speech more than four hours before it started.