Microsoft’s Gates Sees Further Expansion Of Software In Sciences

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Bill Gates says people will increasingly interact with computers through such means as speech and touch screens rather than by using a keyboard.

The Microsoft chairman made his comments Thursday during the final stop of a farewell tour before he withdraws from the company’s daily operations in July. He spoke at Carnegie Mellon University.

In five years, Microsoft expects more Internet searches to be done through speech than through typing on a keyboard, Gates told about 1,200 students and faculty.

Gates says software is proliferating into various branches of science, including biology and astronomy.

Microsoft is trying to establish ties not only with university computer science departments but also with researchers in other scientific areas “to help us understand where new inventions are necessary,” Gates says.

Gates visited five other universities as part of the tour, including the University of Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas, Stanford University and Canada’s University of Waterloo.