Despite an economic landscape of dead dotcoms and battered hi-tech companies, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates expects continued innovation to fuel what he calls the "Digital Decade". In a keynote address Sunday in Las Vegas to kick off the massive Comdex trade show, Gates was expected to outline his vision of a connected and highly mobile society. He said future technological feats would surpass those of the last 25 years.
Gates expects the number of people using e-mail to quadruple, and that e-commerce will take off the way visionaries and analysts have expected it to for years.
Gates also predicts the percentage of American homes with personal computers will grow from just over 50 per cent to 75 per cent by 2010. Gates also was expected to unveil new prototypes of the Tablet PC, a pen-based device that is expected to include wireless networking capabilities.
The Tablet PC would be a full-powered PC that runs on Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. It would allow users to take handwritten notes on the device or create e-mails in handwriting, then link the data with laptop or desktop computers.
Gates unveiled the tablet as a concept at last year's show. Gates predicts the device will be the most popular form of the personal computer five years from now. Bureau Report