Gates Says Technology Will One Day Allow Computer Implants

Technological advances will one day allow computers to be implanted in the human body — and could help the blind to see and the deaf to hear - Bill Gates said recently. But the Microsoft www.microsoft.com chairman says he’s not ready to be hardwired.

“One of the guys that works at Microsoft … always says to me ‘I’m ready, plug me in,”‘ Gates said at a Microsoft seminar in Singapore. “I don’t feel quite the same way. I’m happy to have the computer over there and I’m over here.”
 
Meshing people directly with computers has been a science fiction subject for years, from downloading memories onto computer chips to replacement robotic limbs controlled by brain waves.
 
The fantasy is coming closer to reality as advances in technology mean computers are learning to interact with human characteristics such as voices, touch — even smell.
 
Gates also predicted that the keyboard won’t be replaced by voice recognition software, and that the pen will make a comeback — although without ink. The three would form the basic ways people will interact with their computers in the future, he said. He said when computer pen technology — scratching words onto a screen that a computer tries to read — gets more sophisticated it will do things like let people draw musical notes and chemical signs, as well as recognize handwriting. “Some people today underestimate the pen, because that recognition software is at an early stage,” Gates said. “But it’s on a very fast learning curve.”
 
Read the entire article on Technology Review.