gate

Gates to keynote CES, while CeBit rejiggers itself

Though he plans to transition to part-time Microsoft employee next year, Chairman Bill Gates isn't leaving the tech stage. In fact, he will assume his usual place in the tech world, delivering the opening keynote for the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show, which takes place in January.

Also on the lineup announced Thursday are Intel CEO Paul Otellini and Toshihiro Sakamoto, president of Panasonic's AVC Networks Company unit. The show runs from Jan 7 to 10, with Gates kicking things off on January 6, the Sunday before the event officially gets under way.

Meanwhile, in other trade show news, … Read more

PlanetOut gets new investors

Struggling PlanetOut said Monday that it has struck a deal to raise $26 million in new funds from private investors.

The publicly traded company, which runs the PlanetOut and Gay.com Web sites, as well as Out and The Advocate magazines, has seen its revenue drop and its losses widen in recent months.

Among those investing, as noted by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, is Bill Gates' investment arm, Cascade Investment LLC. Other investors include Special Situations Funds, SF Capital Partners, PAR Investment Partners and Allen & Co. The investment is coming from the sale of roughly 22.8 million shares of … Read more

Bill Gates overtaken as world's richest?

Bill Gates is still rich, but he may no longer be the world's richest man.

A Mexican online financial Web site estimates that tycoon Carlos Slim has a net worth of $67 billion, which would place his fortune above that of the Microsoft chairman, according to various media reports. Slim is known for a wide swath of holdings including banking interests, CompUSA and telecommunications firms.

The Mexican site, Sentido Comun, noted Slim's rising wealth in April, saying that they believed he had passed both then No. 2 Warren Buffet and Gates, Britain's The Guardian said in its … Read more

The Gizmo History Report: The TRS-80 Model 100

I was in the Air Force in 1983, serving at Hahn AB in Germany (now a civilian facility somewhat misleadingly renamed Frankfurt Hahn Airport, although it's 110 km-- 68 miles-- away from Frankfurt).

In March, I was given a temporary duty assignment back to the US, and I was able to take some leave to go back home to Miami.

I dropped in at the old Radio Shack Computer Center, where I used to hang around-- yeah, I was the kind of kid who would hang around at a Radio Shack Computer Center-- and they had this new gizmo for sale.… Read more

Jobs and Gates act now a podcast

If you didn't catch the Steve and Bill show at the D5 conference in Southern California last week, Apple has posted the full hour and a half discussion on iTunes. The rare joint appearance between the Microsoft chairman and the Apple chief has risen to the top of the podcast charts on iTunes.

It's available in both audio and video, though the latter weighs in at almost a gigabyte (my copy is still downloading as I blog this). Unlike the high-end conference, the podcast is free. Of course, it doesn't come with the nifty swag bags that … Read more

CNET Live - Episode 8 - Show Notes

A perfect show! Well except for the whole thing going off the air halfway through. Apparently somebody kicked a cord and unplugged us. I think it was Brian's cat.

Watch the show

And we didn't have our mics on at the beginning of the show. Brian's cat again. Had our tongues.

But beyond that we had some great stuff!

Things we Crave

Warming keyboard

Software prevents cats from emailing. (But not unplugging the show.)

Bill Gates and Steve jobs share the stage at D. Courtesy www.AllThingsD.com.

Grads and Dads gift guide/

Download of the Week… Read more

Gates and Jobs: Same stage, same time

Now here's the tech world's equivalent of Nixon going to China.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates will share a stage next week at the D: All Things Digital tech conference in California next week for a 75-minute joint interview.

Besides a brief shared appearance at an Apple event in 1983, the two have never appeared together in public before. The prospect has bloggers in a lather over what will be asked, what should be asked and what they'll say. (A guess: "So, do you think Barry Bonds is using or what?")… Read more

Gates: 40 million Vista copies sold

LOS ANGELES--Microsoft has sold more than 40 million copies of Windows Vista so far, Bill Gates told a crowd of hardware developers Tuesday.

That's more than the total install base of Windows' largest competitors, Gates quipped as he began his keynote at the Windows Hardware and Engineering Conference (WinHEC) here.

"As of last week, we've (sold) nearly 40 million copies," Gates said. "That's twice as fast as the adoption of Windows XP, the last major release we had."

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Even Bill Gates Zillows his house

SEATTLE--Many homeowners use Zillow to get a quick sense of how much their house is worth, the mega-rich included.

Speaking at a conference for Microsoft's top digital advertisers, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said he has even used the site to check the value of his lavish home. "Oh yeah," Gates said. However, he said Zillow's estimate is far too low.

"If you bid that number on my house I won't sell it to you," Gates said. He noted that Zillow's technology, while it does make good use of Microsoft's Virtual Earth … Read more