Microsoft Corp chairman Bill Gates has a dream. He shared it with University of Washington officials and computer science students – and a Reuters reporter – in a lecture on Monday night. And Gates being the man he is, the subject of his dream is a super-gadget. He wants to do nothing less than to replace all the clutter we have in our pockets – cash, keys, credit cards, passports, other identifiers, calculator, driving licence, diary, address and phone book – with a single electronic device that would also serve as a dictating machine and electronic notebook, communications device and location finder. And in its spare time, it would put up pictures of the wife and kids on its flat colour screen when the television function was not in use. This thing has a global positioning system so you can always tell where you are, he promised, adding that it might even provide you with a map or diagram of how to get around an unfamiliar town. I’ve thought about this so much I forgot which features are funny and which are just expected, he grinned after the audience alternately gasped and laughed at the possibilities. He suggested that one day, computer interfaces might become so simple that the wallet could be simply waved at any personal computer – just as one waves a remote control at the television or stereo – and the data would be available to be displayed or updated on the larger machine. He warns that his vision is still years – and many innovations in the future, but he reckons that it will one day make clipboards, passports, cellular telephones, pens and even photographs obsolete. The makers of wallets and pocket diaries had better prepare: what William desires, he usually gets.
