Gates Sees Physical World Connection

What Bill Gates is referring to is Phase 2 of the Internet.

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Whether addressing college students throughout North America last fall or dazzling the packed Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, Gates returned to those phrases ("digital lifestyle" and "digital work style") again and again to describe his view of a coming transformation in computing.

Phase 2 is when every physical object have at least one hyperlink, a physical world hyperlink.

An individual's cell-phone camera might provide a constant link to information and functionality from moment to moment: "If you're shopping, you take a picture of a product or a bar code that can be recognized, and your phone can tell you where you might get a better price or [whether] you should buy a different product," he said.

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Or, he continued, if you're traveling and run into a sign in a foreign language, you can use your phone to take a digital photo and transmit the image to a server that, in turn, displays the language translation on the phone.

I just hope the Vista guys aren't working on this project.

Click on Bill to see what Microsoft should do.