Todoleo.com Exclusive Interview With Bill Gates [Updated]

Bill Gates is currently the non-executive part-time Chairman of Microsoft, the American software company he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked amongst the world's wealthiest people, and has also pursued a number of philanthropic endeavours, donating large amounts of money to various charitable organizations and scientific research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.

To celebrate the move of the Todoleo Tech Blog to http://www.todoleo.com/ Bill has agreed to an exclusive interview in which we'll touch on subjects related to the technology and consumer electronics industry.

On Windows

Microsoft Windows is globally the most used operating system on personal computers. Since 1985, in its first incarnation as an add-on for MS-DOS, Microsoft has come to dominate the world's PC market. Microsoft now has versions of Windows that run on PCs, servers and smartphones.

Naturally the first subject I touched on was Windows, which Bill is still really enthusiastic about.

"When Microsoft first started out with Windows the market was totally different, computers were not connected through the internet and software was distributed  in boxes on tapes or disks. I remember playing Leisure Suit Larry and thinking man, look what we've achieved and what I could do if I left the office one night."

"Making computers easier and safer to use through the years, and kickstarting the PC revolution was great. Now Windows is the best way to run iTunes and sync an iPod. You can even install Chrome and Google things. The internet has really changed things. On Chrome I can even go into incognito mode and buy my wife a gift. By the way, Windows 7 was my idea."

On XBOX

I'm personally an XBOX 360 owner and spend far too much time playing games on it. Microsoft has a great product and the media capabilities are useful in the living room, even for non gamers. So I asked Bill what this living room computer is to him.

"The XBOX is a wonderful educational tool. I would recommend it for the character formation of every individual on the planet. There is so much you can learn. If you are getting ready to move to a big city, just play GTA IV for a while and you'll gain all the social skills you'll need. One of the best ways to do your history homework is on the XBOX: play Red Dead Redeption, Assassin's Creed or Command & Conquer Red Alert and you'll know what history was all about."

"At Microsoft we still have a lot of work to do on the XBOX though. I've been buying some games like Gran Turismo and Little Big Planet and still can't get them to work."

"When my wife is not at home I can even use the XBOX as  a media centre and play back some specialist movies I downloaded using Chrome in incognito mode. Man, that is so awesome!"

On The UK

Bill Gates was Gates was made an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2005. He is often in the UK, as he is today, so I asked him what his favourite thing is over here.

"To tell the truth, I really come here for the Tesco Finest Heather Honey & Stem Ginger Yogurt. It's really tasty and it has lots of bits of Honeycomb in it. Mmmm, honeycomb...!"

On Mobile

Bill's mention of Honeycomb brought us nicely onto the subject of mobile:

"The future of communication and computers is Mobile. I recently got this amazing phone called a Nexus One. It has a really good touchscreen, I can check my email, Google stuff and even download podcasts on the go. I really like the Outlaws Podcast where they have a segment about Microsoft called Microwatch. The German guy and the Liverpudlian are so informative and entertaining!"

"Anyway, I had better get going. I have to submit a bug in Launchpad on an OS project my friend in London called Mark is working on. It's something to do with DirectX not working properly."

Thanks to Bill for taking time to help launch Todoleo.com. You can carry on following the Todoleo Tech Blog at its new address: http://www.todoleo.com/


Update


Yes, this was an April's Fools thing. I see Bill's search engine, Bing took it well though.

Thanks for all the feedback on this!

Feel free to leave comments/questions!

Microsoft Kinect for XBOX 360 FTW!

Before I start, with this blog post, I should let you know about my views on Microsoft and their products: I disagree with their anticompetitive business practices, think that their market dominance is bad for the IT industry and the global economy as a whole. As most human beings I live in a bit of a contradiction: although a Linux user and a Microsoft Windows OS boycotter, I own and use a Microsoft XBOX 360 games console, pay for and use XBOX Live Gold membership and generally am a bit of an XBOX 360 fanboy. I am aware that this is going to attract hate comments on my blog, accusations of hypocrisy and moral inconsistency as well as just general spam.

The Kinect Sensor Peripheral For The XBOX 360

A week ago Microsoft launched its Kinect for XBOX 360 in the UK. Kinect is a webcam-style peripheral (accessory) for the Xbox 360 games console, it enables users to interact with the XBOX 360 without a physical controller using body gestures and spoken commands.

During the month of September I was at a Microsoft training event for the Kinect, and tried out the pre-release beta of the peripheral and some of the games that would be available for it at launch. It was great fun, and gave me a good idea of how it would work on the XBOX 360. At a conference in October, I got to mess around with it again, try out more games and lose any street-cred I had left on stage in front of other conference delegates. (currently my street-cred it is at an all time low, probably in a negative range...).

On the day before the launch, my colleagues and I set up an XBOX 360 with a Kinect sensor and hooked it up to a 40" LED backlit LCD TV. Since then it has attracted a lot of interest from people of many different age groups passing by in-store. Image conscious customers won't step in front of it to try it out, but sometimes walk to a checkout to purchase it anyway. Kids love it and often are parked at the display while their parents browse other departments or are doing the rest of their shopping.

Kinect is a direct competitor to the Nintendo Wii and Sony's Playstation Move. In my opinion it is a superior system, and much better value for money than its competitors. Here's a summary of why:

• Kinect is a one off purchase as far as peripherals go. There is no need to purchase extra conrollers or controller add-ons (as is the case with the Wii and Playstation Move) both for single and multi-player use.
• Kinect is better value for money when bundled with a console and is on a platform that can provide HD entertainment (unlike the Nintendo Wii)
• Kinect uses full body control which means you can use your whole body to control the games and/or interfaces (unlike the Nintendo Wii or Playstation Move which only track one point in space on the conroller). Think of it like multi-touch on a touchscreen but with depth added to it.
• Voice control with Kinect is very, very good. In-store we have a pretty loud and noisy environment, yet it still works most of the time. Apparently voice recognition is coming to Kinect in a future update as well.
• Open Source drivers have been already developed and released less than a week from the UK launch. If you want to, you can plug a Kinect Sensor into your PC and use it as a 3D video capture tool (it works out cheaper than buying a 3D webcam...)

The games available at launch with the device are pretty varied and aimed at the "casual gamer" market created and dominated up until now by Nintendo with the Wii console. Dance Central by Harmonix (developers of Guitar Hero and Rock Band) is a Guitar Hero like game where your guided dance moves earn you points. While with Guitar Hero and Rock Band all you do is tap buttons in certain sequences, with Dance Central and Kinect you have to actually replicate dance moves. This is probably my favourite game for Kinect so far and lead cause of my negative street-cred.

Kinect has pushed me further into XBOX 360 Fanboy territory, and deeper into a hole in moral no man's land when it comes to my views on tech and IT. Kinect for XBOX 360 is now on my tech and gadget shopping list.