gate

Bill Gates has done some big thinking on energy and wants you to know: this is not an easy problem to solve.

Technology Review on Tuesday published an interview with the Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist on multiple topics, including energy--a subject that Gates spends a considerable amount of time thinking about. The energy portion of the interview is here; a longer version touching on philanthropy is here. Both are worth reading in full.

In the energy discussion, Gates adds color to the main point he continues to make, which is that many significant energy tech advances are needed to halt … Read more

Google, the movie?

We couldn't believe it either, but in yet another example of Hollywood rushing to jump on a meme, Deadline brings word that a movie is in the works based on the book "Googled" by Ken Auletta that will chronicle the rise of Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. No timetable was provided for the film, which will be "about these two young guys who created a company that changed the world, and how the world in turn changed them," said Michael London of Groundswell Productions, in an interview with Deadline.

"… Read more

Verizon and Motorola announce the pre-sale of the Droid 2, which will run Android 2.2 (Froyo) and Flash 10.1 and comes with a pull-out keyboard.

Netflix sign a deal with Paramount Pictures, Lions Gate and MGM to stream their films 3 months after they air on paid television and rentals.

BlockBuster adds game rentals to its service, which brings it into direct competition with GameFly.

Hong Kong jumps into the 3D world with pornography.

Apple in Japan will replace 1st generation iPod nanos that overheat.

TRUCKEE, Calif.--The exponential growth in chip performance, known as Moore's Law, is great, but can't be applied to all areas of technology, Bill Gates warned last week.

"We've all been spoiled and deeply confused by the IT model," Gates said, answering an audience question at last week's Techonomy conference. "Exponential improvement--that is rare."

Gates said that there are isolated segments of technology that do produce that rate of improvement.

"We do see it," Gates said. "We see it in hard disk storage, fiber capacity, gene-sequencing rates, biological databases, … Read more

NEAR LAKE TAHOE, Calif.--Bill Gates says it's gratifying to see the computer industry that he helped start turn some of its attention to broader societal challenges.

"I think there's increased awareness of using innovation to help in more than just profit making," Gates told CNET in an interview on Friday, following his speech at the Techonomy conference. "When I think back to the conferences I went to earlier in the industry, we were pretty darn focused on popularizing software and personal computing. Nothing wrong with that, but it's nice to see the evolution.&… Read more

TRUCKEE, Calif.--Bill Gates is a glass three-quarters-full kind of guy, but watching the U.S. political system fail to tackle big problems like health care is enough to get even him down.

"You can actually get depressed," he said, wrapping up a talk at the Techonomy conference here. Earlier, Gates talked about a variety of issues including how online courses will reshape higher education and the need for better software modeling for diseases and other complex systems.

Gates said that the political process hasn't shown itself to be very good at handling issues that "are … Read more

TRUCKEE, Calif.--A key to many hard problems, from using nuclear power to combating diseases, is better software modeling, Bill Gates said on Friday.

While it's not surprising that he's a fan of using software to help solve hard problems, it is somewhat surprising that there aren't already good models for some diseases.

"There's no disease-modeling software," he said, speaking at the end of the three-day Techonomy conference here. "There is none. Why is flu seasonal? We don't know."

Gates said he aims to make sure that gap is filled, supporting … Read more

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is among dozens of billionaires who have signed on to give away the bulk of their wealth to charity.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have been lobbying the world's megarich to sign a "Giving Pledge" to eventually donate at least half of their fortunes. The Wall Street Journal noted on Wednesday that there are now about 40 signatories to the pledge, including Ellison, filmmaker George Lucas, IAC chief Barry Diller, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, oil tycoon (and onetime Yahoo investor) T. Boone Pickens, and more.

"We've really just started, but already … Read more

If you believe that high-profile investors add to your credibility, then the folks at tiny EcoMotors are having a good day.

Vinod Khosla and Bill Gates on Monday said they are the sole investors in a series B round for EcoMotors. The money will allow the Troy, Mich.-based company to complete engineering and testing of its efficiency-minded car engine, called Opoc.

CEO Don Runkle told the Detroit Free Press that the value of the investment was $23.5 million. Khosla Ventures provided a smaller series A round for the 2-year-old company, which has about three dozen employees.

Although there'… Read more