Bill Gates Hails Age Of Digital Senses
The way in which users interact with computers is set to change dramatically within the next 5 years, according to Bill Gates. The Microsoft chief believes that speech and vision interfaces will come to the forefront, gradually phasing out the mouse and keyboard devices.
Gates spoke about what he liked to call “natural user interface” and claimed that millions of people will be using touch interfaces to browse photos and music and even organise their whole life.
As well as adding the touch and speech interaction, Gates revealed that they will be adding vision to the computer so that it can see what the user is doing. Gates cited the Apple iPhone and the Nintendo Wii as being great successes, and would like to bring some of the innovative ideas of these products to Microsoft developments of the future.
Gates spoke of improvements in methods for people to interact with software by voice, touch and gesture. In addition to the speech-recognizing functions in Sync-enabled cars, Microsoft plans to soon upgrade the voice-activated information searches available through its subsidiary Tellme. It also will augment the system underlying Surface, Microsoft’s computer in a table that responds to users’ touches and gestures.
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