Bill Gates: Welcome to next digital decade

BILL GATES has heralded the arrival of the world’s “second digital decade”, predicting that within a few years technology will be in every room in the home, from screens to wall projections and even built into desks or tables.

The founder of Microsoft predicted devices will become easier to use, controlled by voice and gesture instead of mouse and keyboard.

“The first digital decade has been a great success,” Mr Gates told the Consumer Electronics Show, the vast technology fair in Las Vegas that opened yesterday.

“This is just the beginning. There is nothing holding us back from going much faster and further in the second digital decade.”

The event offers a vault of hi-tech marvels — a TV that’s only two credit cards thick, a driverless car, and a bed called Starry Starry Night — which features sensors that detect body movements and breathing patterns. For snoring, the bed will detect and alleviate the condition by automatically adjusting bed positions.

You can do your email, eat breakfast and even watch the news while being chauffeured to work in your driverless car. Carnegie Mellon, along with General Motors and other partner companies, developed a driverless vehicle in a US Defense Department-sponsored competition. The unmanned Chevrolet Tahoe used “intelligent decisions” — obeying traffic laws, and driving with and merging into traffic — to make its way through a 100km urban course in November to win the challenge. Much of the technology already exists for vehicles including radar-based cruise control, motion sensors, lane-change warning devices, electronic stability control and satellite-based digital mapping.

While at work a wheeled robot back home called Rovio is equipped with a camera that sends live video wirelessly to a laptop computer being used by its controller.

The toaster-sized robot by Canadian firm WowWee can “learn” its way around homes and be dispatched on command to different spots so you can check on the children around the house.

Nearby, people took turns being kneaded and rubbed by a Human Touch lounge chair that combines zero-gravity positioning with robotic massage.

Olaroid unveiled a portable printer for mobile phone images.

The printers, which will also connect to digital cameras, require no ink.

The printers, slightly bigger than a deck of cards, and priced at about $150, are connected to a phone or camera by Bluetooth wireless or the USB port and churn out 2in by 3in prints, which can be peeled off a backing and used as stickers.

Among wireless technology offerings from France-based Parrot were ways to beam digital music around homes, workplaces, cars and even into motorcycle helmets.

US company Celestron used satellite positioning technology for a handheld SkyScout viewer that anyone curious about the heavens can aim into the night sky and be told precisely what stars they are looking at.

Car maker Continental demonstrated technology that lets vehicles gauge conditions and even communicate with each other to help drivers avoid crashes.

Mr Gates livened up his speech by playing a spoof home video, and by challenging Robbie Bach, the head of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, to a match of Guitar Hero, a video music game that mimics the sensation of being a rock star.

During his speech, Mr Gates argued his company’s technologies are becoming 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 to highlight how Microsoft is extending the reach of its software beyond desktops and servers, and incorporating alternative inputs like voice and touch.

Microsoft plans to soon upgrade information searches available through Surface, Microsoft’s computer in a table that responds to users’ touches and gestures.