THE BLOKE WHO THOUGHT that the Internet would not amount to much, Bill Gates, is now telling us that there is about to be a vast shift in Interweb technology over the next decade.

During a meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Gates noted that the World Wide Wibble has been up and running for "10 years" and its second decade will be very different.

We assume he means it is a decade since Microsoft discovered that others were making a fortune out of the Internet rather than any historical date.

He said that the variety and quality of software will accelerate in the years ahead.

One particular area will be the "natural interaction" between hardware and software which basically means that people will be able to give speech commands to computers. In other words the computer will actually shut down if you tell it to shut the frack up.

Gates said that this sort of thing will mean that the environment will be very different. µ

L'Inq
AP