Gates to newspapers: Um, let's work together

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates delivered a keynote address at the Newspaper Association of America's annual convention today. His topic: "News and Information in the Digital Decade." Here are the highlights:

• Gates' message: Microsoft technology can help newspapers adapt to forthcoming changes in how publishers distribute content, how audiences consume it and in how journalists gather it.

• Cautionary note: He warned that, in the aftermath of the Bubble Years, many people now underestimate the technological changes that are taking place. "By the end of this decade, 2009, the number of activities that will have been changed by digital approaches will be extremely broad."

  "Many of the predictions that were made during those times, although they were wrong in terms of the time frames that were involved, they were right directionally," he added.

• Hit demo: OneNote, a multimedia note-taking application that takes advantage of Tablet PC's handwriting-recognition features. The audience was wowed by how OneNote kept recorded audio synchronized with written and typed text. Product manager Bobby Moore used OneNote to record his spiel while he showed off the handwriting features, then clicked on different paragraphs to hear what he said at the time he wrote them down.

• Carrying on the legacy: For fans of printed matter, Microsoft has tools that preserve the convenience of reading with the interactivity of the Web. Gregg Brown, senior program manager of Microsoft's E-Periodicals Team, demonstrated how ClearType and the dynamic layout capabilities of Microsoft Reader can preserve the look and feel of paper-based layouts on a Tablet PC or Pocket PC but still adapt and scale for different screen sizes. Plus, ads on the digital pages can link to video and multimedia, or take readers directly to online stores.

• Don't hold your breath for digital paper: Gates acknowledged that there were R&D efforts to create flexible screens that could be rolled or folded up but called them "highly speculative" and seemed skeptical of the outlook. "That'd be quite a breakthorugh. What's very predictable is that the weight and thickness of the tablet will go down and down again, and that's just using the classic LCD technology."

• On being a dad: The most interesting question from the audience was on how having three children has changed his perspective on the future. "Well, I think certainly having kids means that you think in terms of what's going to happen 20 years from now and 40 years from now. ... I think it's made me think about what aobut that next generation and what we leave for them."

By the way, Gates spoke at the NAA convention back in 1997. Here's what he had to say to the crowd then.