gate

Some people simply won't read Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs because it has 656 pages, meaning it requires strong fingers--and nerves--in order to make it through the whole thing.

So with various media organizations obtaining copies by Wikileaky, Watergate-like subterfuge, I thought I'd create a little scorecard to tabulate all of the tiffs, digs, revelations, affronts and full-frontal stabbings that have dripped out so far.

Each of them I have given a score: The "What A Surprise" score. A score of 1 means that surely most sentient beings expected this. A 10 means that … Read more

No one ever imagined that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would have sipped on a brandy, punched each other on the shoulder, and giggled a lot.

However, the latest extracts to emerge from Walter Isaacson's biography of the late Apple CEO suggest that their philosophical differences were human, not merely technological.

In excerpts obtained by the Huffington Post, Gates reportedly described Jobs as "fundamentally odd," which I know one or two people might consider Gates.

Gates also reportedly added that Jobs was "weirdly flawed as a human being." Which seems weirdly flawed as a statement, … Read more

The death of Steve Jobs has led to the inevitable debate over just how important a figure he was. An undeniable master of consumer taste, Jobs transformed the tech industry and helped define the digital age. But where, ultimately, will he stand as an historical figure?

The comparisons to Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison seem a bit of a stretch. While Jobs has his name on hundreds of patents, he was not an inventor in the classic sense. What he was was an innovator and a business leader, with an unparalleled ability to bring people together to execute his … Read more

WASHINGTON--Eric Schmidt cut a confident figure today prior to his testimony before U.S. lawmakers, who later appeared determined to find out if Google abuses its supremacy on the Web.

The Google chairman glided into court smiling, sat at the witness table, and began staring into his laptop while photographers snapped away. One asked him if he was checking out Google. "Of course," he said laughing and batted back. "And I accessed it through (Google's Web browser) Chrome."

We saw the smooth, smart, unflappable Schmidt during the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee … Read more

It's no surprise that Bill Gates is still the richest man in the United States, according to Forbes' newest list of the 400 richest people in America. Perhaps more interesting is just how quickly Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is working his way up the ranks.

Gates, 55, the co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, topped the list once again with an estimated wealth valuation of $59 billion, up from last fall's $54 billion. Second on the list once again was Berkshire Hathaway CEO and Gates pal Warren Buffett, 81, with $39 billion, down from $45 billion … Read more

In reflecting on Steve Jobs' tenure at Apple, it's impossible to separate the role Microsoft played.

The companies, as well as Jobs and Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates, helped pioneer the industry and define an era. The two executives partnered at various times, competed all the time, and challenged one another in ways that helped shape the landscape of techdom. It's a complex relationship.

In the early days of computing, Apple depended on software from Microsoft for its Macintosh computer. There's a charming 1983 video, aired in an edited form for the D: All Things Digital Conference … Read more

Bill Gates may have given up running Microsoft, but he isn't taking his retirement sitting down. The software-entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist's charitable foundation has launched a new initiative aimed at improving the health of the billions of people who have no safe, sanitary way to get rid of their waste.

That's right, Bill Gates wants to reinvent the toilet.

"No innovation in the past 200 years has done more to save lives and improve health than the sanitation revolution triggered by invention of the toilet," Sylvia Mathews Burwell, president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's global development program, said in an address at a conference in Kigali, Rwanda, according to a written statement released by the foundation. "But it did not go far enough. It only reached one-third of the world. What we need are new approaches."

Forty percent of the world's population lacks access to flush toilets, and more than a billion people defecate in the open, according to the statement. That's not only revolting, but also tragic. UNICEF estimates that at least 1.2 million children under age 5 die of diarrhea each year, and contact with human feces is the main cause, Time reported.

Access to toilets could go a long way to preventing these deaths, the statement said.

In addition to preventing diarrhea, better access to toilets could boost school and work attendance of girls and women, who risk embarrassment and sexual assault when forced to relieve themselves in the open or use public restrooms.… Read more

Dow Jones CEO Les Hinton is leaving the company in the wake of the PhoneGate hacking scandal. Hinton is the second high-ranking News Corp. executive to step down today, and the first major figure from the company's American operations.

Hinton has been under scrutiny in the past couple weeks because he oversaw News Corp.'s News International unit, the group that publishes its British newspapers, from 1995 through 2007. That's the same time that News Corp.'s News of the World tabloid is alleged to have engaged in systemic voicemail hacking, among other offenses.

Hinton's resignation follows … Read more

Liquid Metal Battery, a company pursuing a breakthrough battery design, has attracted Bill Gates and an oil driller as seed investors.

Many battery companies are working to improve existing technology, but the founders of Liquid Metal Battery are taking an unusual approach that they hope will slash energy storage costs and deliver batteries able to store several hours of wind and solar power. The target of the company, which was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is to have demonstration systems connected to the grid in three to five years, executives said. An official announcement of the series … Read more