Bill Gates: information at your fingertips 2004

Bill Gates, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft Corporation presents a lecture, delivered in 1994 that predicts the technology and software that will be commonplace in the year 2004. To illustrate his many astoundingly accurate theories, Gates presents a fictional film that anticipates the extensive use of the Internet at home and work, mini-computers facilitating financial transactions checking and transferring funds, teleconferencing in cars enhancing communication for mobile workers, electronic maps providing expedient routes for drivers and the everyday use of email. School students will use the Internet for assignments, downloading images and text, presenting sophisticated graphics in class. In the medical arena, ambulance workers will scan injuries, ascertaining advice from doctors and nurses who download patient’s medical history and personal details. Gates forecasts that even the most minor business will have a website, and that at home entertainment will be re-shaped by interactive television and on-line activities such as gambling. He also envisages problematic issues such as privacy, copywriting information and images on the net, and concerns surrounding the sharing of information. Gates recognises the need for high-speed networks and integrated hardware that familiarises people and businesses with an array of hi-tech activities. An illuminating lecture.