Las Vegas, Nov 18: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates declared on Sunday that the best in computing was yet to come, despite the gloomy state of the technology industry, with a new breed of intelligent products set to debut in the near future. Gates, delivering the opening keynote address at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas, revealed that Microsoft has been working to develop new software and hardware designs that let people harness the power of computers without being tied to a desk.

Although the pen-based Tablet PC, a multimedia personal computer, and software for mobile devices have been part of Microsoft's recent drive to get its software into users' hands and pockets, Gates said the software giant was starting to target more mundane everyday objects, such as the alarm clock.

In an example of how better software and hardware can make everyday objects perform useful tasks, Gates described the "intelligent alarm clock" that automatically adjusts to time zones and communicates with schedules to automatically set alarm times.
Instead of trying to cram information into these objects, which tend to be smaller in size, Gates said that a software group within Microsoft had been working over the last two years to develop devices that display "glanceable information" in the same way that a driver would glance at a speedometer or a baseball fan would check a scoreboard. Bureau Report