Bill

The tech world rejoices: A Congressman who can code

In what appears to be a first, the US House of Representatives now has a Congressman who can code...in assembly. That's right, a Congressman with geek skills.

Democratic Representative Bill Foster won a special election this past Saturday in the 14th Congressional District of Illinois. This was the district that former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert held from 1986-2007. Hastert stepped down in November of 2007.

Foster, a physicist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, surprised many when he won the district. After all, it had been a Republican stronghold for more than twenty years. After … Read more

Gates, Mundie: Congress must make trade-offs to propel tech's future

Editor's note: This story was updated at 3:40 p.m. PDT to add more on Gates' and Mundies' policy talk.

WASHINGTON--It's not always easy persuading politicians on Capitol Hill to take up items on Silicon Valley's wish list, even if you're Bill Gates and his posse.

That was one message that the Microsoft chairman and Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie had on Thursday for the some 1,100 local business and government representatives gathered at a breakfast here sponsored by the Northern Virginia Technology Council. (NVTC's board includes companies like IBM, Micron, … Read more

Bill Gates to Congress: Let us hire more foreigners

WASHINGTON--For the second year in a row, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates ventured to Capitol Hill and urged Congress to let more foreign-born engineers work in the United States and to direct larger numbers of tax dollars to research and education.

Just as he did around the same time last year before a U.S. Senate committee, Gates on Wednesday contended America's competitiveness in the global economy is "at risk." He said Congress, the administration, and the next president must commit to overhauling immigration policy and encouraging both public and private research investment.

"It makes no sense … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 675: Can I pay cash for that?

EPISODE 675

Apple SDK announcement http://www.news.com/one-more-thing/ http://www.engadget.com/2008/03/06/live-from-apples-iphone-press-conference/

The Vista Capable mess: Intel pushes, Microsoft bends http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/ 20080305-the-vista-capable-debacle-intel-pushes-microsoft-bends.html

Internet Explorer 8: Crash, Restart, Crash http://www.efluxmedia.com/news_Internet_Explorer_8_Crash_Restart_Crash_14848.html

Acid3 Test unleashed, murders every current browser http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=10975

Whistle-blower: Feds Have a high-speed backdoor into wireless carrier http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/whistleblower-f.html

Piracy caused by poor choice http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-caused-by-poor-choice-080305/

MIPI ISP filter conflict (Thanks Luke from Melbourne!) http://steve.blogs.exetel.com.au/index.php?/archives/79-MIPI.html… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 674: Pomme not Pom

EPISODE 674

Yahoo, Time Warner reportedly talk deal to thwart Microsoft http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9886157-7.html http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9886254-7.html

Gates to Google: 'Your business applications stink' http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9884752-16.html

Adobe bites its tongue after iPhone Flash jab http://www.news.com/8301-10787_3-9886265-60.html

Warning: Your iPod may get you mugged http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9885873-7.html http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/ 1282422/researchers_ipods_attract_violent_crime

Is Microsoft’s ‘Singularity’ the OS of the future? http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9886184-7.html

NIN’s music experiment sells big numbers http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/05/076221… Read more

Yahoo elephant follows Microsoft, Gates

I find it more than a little comical that Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell didn't get any questions about Yahoo and Bill Gates did get asked about it at a SharePoint conference.

Even when Yahoo is not openly discussed, it's always on people's minds. I find myself wanting to ask nearly every Microsoft executive to answer a question two ways, addressing their answers both if the Yahoo deal goes through and if it does not.

That's not to say Gates, CEO Steve Ballmer or anyone else at the company has much to say on the topic these … Read more

LinkedIn's latest updates take a few hints from Facebook

Business social-networking site LinkedIn unveiled a redesigned homepage with a number of updates on Wednesday night. It's the latest step in an ongoing initiative to prove that LinkedIn is more than a glorified address book by encouraging more professional interaction among users.

The newly revamped home page, with its focus on a left sidebar and tabs along the top of the window, certainly echoes of the wildly popular but far less business-centric Facebook.

New updates to the site include "status" messages to indicate current activity, similar to Facebook's, and a number of new personalized "modules&… Read more

Bill Gates, on Yahoo's trail, says China's online restrictions won't succeed

Microsoft is not a beacon of free expression in the face of China's government restrictions on online speech. But in a talk at Stanford, he said no one can control free expression on the web.

"I don't see any risk in the world at large that someone will restrict free content flow on the Internet," Gates said, according to IDC news service. "You cannot control the Internet."

As the article notes, Microsoft has been complicit in Chinese censorship. In the most high-profile case, the company shut down a blog by Michael Anti, a blogger … Read more

Bill Gates to get LinkedIn

Just a short while after abandoning Facebook due to being overwhelmed with friend requests, Bill Gates plans to experiment on rival service LinkedIn.

On Thursday, the Microsoft Chairman will post a question related to "how technology can be better utilized for charitable causes" to LinkedIn's entire 19 million members. I'm interested to see whether Gates finds LinkedIn scales to someone of his stature any better than Facebook.

The move comes as part of a set of announcements that LinkedIn plans to make on Thursday. A pitch from LinkedIn noted the company will have a revamped home … Read more

Bill Gates on the future of journalism and more

As promised, I've posted a pretty complete transcript of my interview on Tuesday with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

As noted earlier, some of his most interesting comments dealt with Yahoo as well as the natural interface options that are planned for Windows 7.

But I was also intrigued by some of his other answers, including something that hits close to home--the future of journalism.

"I hope that readers will be willing to pay subscriptions or watch ads or things that will keep the high quality and breadth of journalism alive and (make it) even better than it is … Read more