Bill Gates says world nears next digital decade

By Daisuke Wakabayashi

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates on Sunday took center stage at the world's largest technology show for the last time and predicted that his industry was on the cusp of the next "digital decade."

Gates, who plans to switch in July to a more limited role at the company he co-founded in 1975 with childhood friend Paul Allen, said computing will become a pervasive part of everyday life.

"In many ways, we are at the very beginning," Gates told the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "During the next Digital Decade, technology will make our lives richer, more connected, more productive, and more fulfilling."

Microsoft has said this will be Gates' last keynote address to CES -- at least in his current role. In the future, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, will take a central role in delivering the address.

Gates predicted that people would interact more naturally with technology through methods like speech and touch over the next decade. It is a prediction Gates has made for years, touting devices like the tablet computer, which have had slow adoption.

However, devices like Apple Inc iPhone and Nintendo Co Ltd's are proving that more "natural" user interfaces have a broad appeal with consumers.

"All of those are just starting to show you that natural interaction pattern really breaks you out of the keyboard and mouse," Gates said in an embargoed interview with Reuters before the speech. "The next big surprise for people will be how this natural interface becomes pervasive."

Microsoft has also developed its own products that capitalize on speech and touch.

Last year at CES, Microsoft unveiled the Sync car audio and mobile phone system for cars offered by Ford Motor Co Sync recognizes voice commands to play music and make phone calls.

Gates also displayed the company's Surface computer, a coffee table shaped PC that works like a large touch-screen PC and can respond to objects placed on top of it, such as describing the wine in a bottle with an embedded microchip.

The company also unveiled a set of partnerships with media companies including a deal with General Electric's NBC Universal to power its Web site for the 2008 Summer Olympics

in Beijing.

Using Microsoft's Silverlight Web video technology, a rival to Adobe System Inc's Flash video technology, the Web site "NBCOlympics.com on MSN" will offer more than 3,000 hours of live and on-demand sports coverage.

Microsoft also said it struck a deal with Walt Disney Co to bring ABC and Disney Channel shows to Xbox Live Marketplace, the online video game and entertainment store tethered to its Xbox 360 game console.

It also said MGM Studios will be bringing its library of movies including titles like "Rocky," "Terminator" and "Legally Blonde" to Xbox Live.

(For an edited transcript of our interview with Gates, please go to http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/)

(Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

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