In a News.com article, Gates is still reported to be addressing challenging issues at Microsoft. And one of his major interest seems to be in — natural interfaces.
“Big screens, touch, ink, speech, that’s something that I think, along with cloud computing, is the next big change in how we think about software,” Gates told CNET News.com on Tuesday.
He further adds:
“All these things about natural interface are coming to the fore, and they are probably the thing that’s most underestimated right now about the digital revolution,” Gates said.
I like this. The only bad thing is that this has not received as much attention even from Microsoft as it deserves. I think much more attention and research needs to go in this area.
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Bill Gates (and by extension Microsoft) have been experimenting with all forms of alternate interfaces for the better part of the past two decades–with _nothing_ to show for it.
In one sense, it’s a good thing that BillG will focus on this, as it means that Microsoft will still spend money and time on this fruitless venture. Far better, though, for them to forgo this type of work (which by the evidence of the past twenty years they are not any good at) and let far more nimble competitors do the real work.