Bill Gates on Handhelds

Graham

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Bill Gates on Handhelds

« on: October 31, 2005, 12:53:27 PM »

An interesting article appeared in last Fridays Guardian newspaper where Bill Gates predicts the future of handheld computing devices for education and pretty much everything else:

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Gates unveils his vision of a future made of silicon
Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Friday October 28, 2005
Guardian

While his wife was pondering what to get the world's richest man for his birthday, Bill Gates arrived in London yesterday to deliver his vision of the future and predict the eventual demise of paper at the hands of silicon.
The Microsoft chairman celebrates his 50th birthday today, and suggests that by the time he is 60 we will all be connected to the internet all the time, carrying paper-thin devices that will interact with our environment and provide our entertainment, education and information needs.

"Microsoft is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year. Thirty years ago I was 19 years old and dreamed about the idea of a personal computer on every desk in every home. We have come a long way towards achieving that. We don't have 6bn PCs but we've got more than a billion," he told the Internet Advertising Bureau's Engage conference. "They're not quite as powerful or easy to use as I dreamed of at that time, but we're getting close. Over this next decade we'll have achieved everything we had in mind at that time."

He said the next challenge would be to take advantage of ubiquitous wireless, super-fast internet connections. Advances in computer hardware had been a "miracle" but high-speed internet connections would accelerate the pace of change even further. Computers would become almost invisible, he said, integrated into everything that we do.

"In some ways the computer just disappears into the environment. All these devices will be hooked up to the internet and the internet will not have any speed limitations. And these devices will be a lot cheaper than they are today," he said.

Magazines and newspapers would eventually become redundant in their existing form, with interactive, personalised content delivered to handheld devices. "A lot of the reading that's taking place, the richness to be able to call up anything will take over," he said.

Mr Gates pointed to students as an example of how the world would shift from books to bytes. "Within four or five years, instead of spending money on textbooks they'll spend a mere $400 or so buying that tablet device and the material they hook up to will all be on the wireless internet with animations, timelines and links to deep information. But they'll be spending less than they would have on text books and have a dramatically better experience."

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Do you think he's been listening in to the Handheld Learning 2005 or mLearn conferences?

Grin


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danny

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Re: Bill Gates on Handhelds

« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2005, 01:20:33 PM »

:-) I wonder if Microsoft will EVER actually have an original idea.....that would be news.
(not that I am cynical or anything)


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thornuk

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Re: Bill Gates on Handhelds

« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2005, 01:35:00 PM »

Perhaps we should book him for next year's conference ! - Then tell him we said all that already!


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Graham

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Re: Bill Gates on Handhelds

« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2005, 07:40:49 PM »

Those guys at The Guardian don't get out much... Grin

Here's yet another Bill Gates story from last Friday:

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Ivory towers will fall to digital land grab

As Bill Gates seeks to profit from putting knowledge online, John Sutherland wonders whether universities realise how much they must change

Friday November 4, 2005

The historian of the future will find much red meat in the UK's papers over the past fortnight. But for the historian of higher education, one story in the Guardian on October 28 may well turn out to be the most momentous.
Bill Gates had touched down briefly in London on his way to solve Africa's problems. It was the magnate's 50th birthday. In passing, he outlined the Shape of Things to Come, AD2015, when he will be 60 and presumably possess all the money in the world.

"Exit paper" was the Gatesian theme. The newspaper, magazine, journal and book will be replaced, he informed us, by a "wafer-thin tablet" already on the drawing board in Seattle, if not the patent office in Washington. It will be the most important tablet since Moses brought his two down from Mount Sinai.

According to Gates, young people in higher education will be the first to benefit. "Within four or five years, instead of spending money on textbooks," he is quoted as saying, "they'll spend a mere $400 or so buying that tablet device and the material they hook up to will all be on the wireless internet with animations, timelines and links to deep information. But they'll be spending less than they would have on text books and have a dramatically better experience."

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And behold, it was so...


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teach534

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Re: Bill Gates on Handhelds

« Reply #4 on: November 15, 2005, 02:07:03 AM »

I wonder if Mr. Gates would be willing to donate some money to schools to make this a reality. How do we convince administration of the benefits of PDAs in school? We still have traditional ideas controlling what goes on, what is purchased.


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