--and gentlemen.
Let me explain that following very brief statements
by the three of us, the president of MIT, Chuck Vest,
and Bill Gates after me, we will open up
for question and answer.
Let me please ask you to keep topics to what this event is
about, the celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Lab
for Computer Science.
The big news from our point of view
are the celebration and what the celebration really
is putting forth--
first, the generous gift by Bill and Melinda Gates,
second the building--
the William H. Gates building--
that is being designed currently by architect Frank
Gehry, and third, the launch tomorrow--
actually later on today through tomorrow--
of our new research project called Oxygen,
and then finally, what you saw yesterday at the museum,
the Capsule of Innovations, with a race between time
and technology as to when the capsule will be unsealed--
35 years from now or when the cryptographic
puzzle that Professor Rivest has designed is solved.
I'd just like to say that from the point of view of LCS
and being director of LCS, this is an incredible day.
We are absolutely delighted.
We have spent all our 35 years creating the future.
We're happy that we've been fairly successful.
But we're even more excited and happier
with what we're doing today about tomorrow.
With that, I'd like to turn the floor over
to our president, Chuck Vest.
Thank you, Michael.
Intellectually, physically, architecturally MIT
is entering a period of its greatest
change since the immediate post-World War II era.
The Laboratory for Computer Science
is going to be at the absolute heart
of all of this new activity and all three of those dimensions.
And it is a tremendous privilege today
to have been able to formally announce and accept
the magnificent gift by Bill and Melinda Gates
through the Gates Foundation of $20 million
to create the William H. Gates building, the new home
in the heart of our campus--
where it belongs-- for the Laboratory of Computer Science.
It's a great privilege to be part of this undertaking.
Everybody's doing the big step.
Well, I'm excited to be participating with MIT.
And MIT has done such fantastic things
to get computer science as far along as it is today.
And the horizons ahead of us are really
the most interesting ones of all.
The synergy between the great work
done in the educational environment,
particularly at research universities,
and the commercial sector is part
of the reason why the great progress has been made.
The cross-fertilization of ideas is pretty fantastic.
We have researchers that are working with the MIT
people a great deal.
And I feel privileged to have a chance
to help contribute to this next phase.
My team's done a great job pulling together the donors
to have a wonderful facility where
some fantastic breakthroughs are going to be made that are going
to have a very positive impact.
Thank you, Bill.
Bill, you want to be here.
I will be moderating this.
I'll be trying to moderate this.
Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is open for questions.
Yes, please.
[INAUDIBLE], Mr. Gates.
I was wondering, a lot of [INAUDIBLE] talk about this
is the information era.
[INAUDIBLE] communication.
So what research needs to be done
to bring the future of communications
more accessible to consumers?
You'll hear my talk at 10:45.
So I'll pass.
You go ahead.
Well, there's certainly a lot of things.
I don't know how many people saw the video of the talk I just
gave.
And if you look at work like Victor Zue is doing here,
and that relates to taking speech recognition
and making it part of the user interface.
If you look at some of the recent Microsoft breakthroughs
things like clear type which is designed to make information
very readable off, of a flat panel
LCD type screen which would lead to a tablet PC one
where in a press conference like this.
Most of you instead of having actual paper tablets
would have that and could transmit the information
immediately.
So we definitely have to tackle reading.
We definitely have to tackle speech.
We've got to have a lot more ease of use
is the power of the system has gotten bigger and bigger.
The user interface has gotten--
there just too many commands.
And so, we have to have things that unify those commands back
into a very simple form.
That's been the state of progress all along,
but now people are demanding these systems
to do a lot more than they've ever done in the past.
And the impact, because of the way
it's been used in business of advances
there are much greater than ever before.
Let me add to this what you will hear you
I'll just enumerate it in less than 30 seconds.
We are starting work on oxygen, a multi-million dollar project,
sponsored by DOD, DARPA, currently in negotiation
with us, but it's been awarded.
And I should say that they've done a great job, incidentally,
over the years in supporting our lab.
Oxygen is designed exactly for this goal
of letting people do more by doing less in the 21st century.
It consists of eight technologies, handheld units
that are chameleon's, and can change
their function from cellular phones
to two way radios, radios, TVs, and much more.
Number two, built in the wall units,
or in the trunk of the car, or in the basement of your home
that are bigger gorillas are doing the same thing
that the little ones are doing.
Number three, a nice special network
that goes beyond what the internet can do,
because the internet deals only with stationary targets
and nodes.
And this one can deal with mobile and wireless nodes,
and things that rise and collapse and so on.
So that's the third technology.
Fourth, speech.
Built in speech.
You heard about the narrow domains from Bill,
this is stitching domains together
to make a broader listening area where the computer understands
what you say.
Fourth, individualized knowledge access.
Fifth, automation of both devices around us
and of information activities scripts things you want to do.
The next technology is collaboration
down to what Bill was talking about, meetings.
Keeping track of meetings and so forth.
And the last technology is customization
to individual needs.
More Q&A.
Mr Gates, I wonder if I could ask you.
I'm sure there are a lot of institutions knocking
on your door, including one just up the street here on Mass Ave.
Why--
very simply, why MIT?
Well, actually, if you're referring to Harvard,
Steve Ballmer and I did fund a computer science building
up there that's named after our mothers.
It's the Maxwell Dworkin building up there,
which is under construction.
Now, I think the reason to give to LCS
is because they've done so much in the past
and they have such an incredible group of people
that they pulled together.
I've done a few other gifts--
Stanford University, Washington, and Cambridge.
But this is one that I'm particularly proud because
of the fact that I know the group here
will be one of the very few groups that has the power
to make these breakthroughs.
And so, you know it's just very fitting based on the track
record and the things to come.
More questions?
About how few people relatively are
using the internet on a regular basis, the web lifestyle,
and how soon do you think we'll see
as being a very typical thing to do like the way people watch
TV or use a telephone?
And how will it help them in their daily lives?
Well, that's a very good question.
You know, it's one that you could
say billions of dollars of market valuation
are sort of based on knowing how quickly this will happen,
and what areas of behavior.
What kind of purchasing, what kind of information, and how
people use it.
I'm certainly an optimist about this.
And if you look at the last five years
those numbers have gone from almost nothing
to broad enough set that it's spreading out.
Once people become involved in this web lifestyle,
they have a tendency to be evangelistic
even though they know how much better could be there,
they're saying to friends hey, you got to use email,
you've got to see this latest internet site,
and the neat things I've been able to do with that.
And so, it's really achieving a critical mass.
I think within five years, business jobs
will be using the internet more than they use the phone.
I mean the internet will be the fundamental tool
of all knowledge workers in a very short period of time
because first of all connecting up businesses is a lot easier.
And the economic efficiency of the business
determines its success.
And so, as some companies and industry sees the tool
and are using that, the other companies
need to do it just to stay competitive.
Now, moving out into education into the home
takes a little bit longer because of some of the cost
factors and the difficulty of connecting homes up
with these high speed persistent connections.
There if you take the United States
I'd say in the next 10 years, we'll
get the certainly the majority of people
they have the kind of connections which will make it
part of their regular activity.
But cell phone use will lag a bit.
And then as you move outside the United States
you'll see some lag factors there.
But at the center of this, the next five years
are going to define exactly how this is all done.
Let me say that from the point of view of LCS,
where human utility is very important to us,
the world today may look very connected to you and to us
in the industrial world, the $18 trillion
that constitute the rich world's economy.
But there's only about one and 1/2 to 2% of the world
interconnected today.
The remaining 98% is not connected.
And it's not just a case of altruism to help these people.
It's also a case of self-preservation.
History teaches that whenever we have such gaps, growing gaps,
there could be bloodshed.
Now we have a little discussion with Bill
on this issue of technology to you about this very thing.
And I think we've come to the bottom of it agreeing, here
by helping out and I'm hoping that this 98%
will come on board.
I think that's terribly important for the world.
More Q. Yes.
Is the gift in cash or in stock?
And if it's in stock, does MIT intend to sell it or keep it?
[LAUGHTER]
Mr. President?
[WHISPERING]
I actually know the answer to this.
I have to tell you something really marvelous.
The Gates gift arrived in the Office of MIT'S treasure
as a handwritten cheque.
Mr. Gates, you mentioned the issues of privacy and trust,
and also scarcity of programmers.
Can you just elaborate a little bit
about some of those concerns?
Well, I'd say that, in some ways,
you can think of those as opportunities
for breakthroughs.
You know, people are very interested in being
able to do financial transactions over the internet
and being able to rely on the fact
that it worked, the person they were transacting with
was the person they thought it was.
And so, using cryptographic technologies, many of which
were pioneered here, you know I think
we're going to be able to recreate
monetary trust, contractual trust, communications
trust, in a pretty deep way in these environments.
Privacy is another very important issue.
some way is a trickier issue because there
are decisions that have to be made
that are political questions.
For example, if somebody is going to employ someone,
say as a teacher in a school, you know should they
be able to access information about that person's, say
their criminal record.
Well that's not a technological question, that's
purely a political question.
You know now that people are recognizing
the efficiency of databases that all this information that
is gathered can be easily searched and easily correlated,
they're having to think very explicitly about what
the rules should be.
In a sense for privacy, we relied
on the difficulty of getting information to move around,
and we're not going relying on that.
Is not the right solution when you
have such fantastic information tools around.
And this is an issue that the industry, and particularly
Microsoft, has really stepped up on because it could hold things
back unless we do it right.
And it's something you really have
to design into the products and think about the policy.
So we have a lot of people who are full time just thinking
about privacy and how that gets dealt with.
In terms of the shortage of programmers, and we
Microsoft has been in hiring more, looking for great people
since the company was founded back in 1975.
So when we think about how many projects can we take on,
what are the new things we can do,
it's less the financial constraints than just
taking that scarce resource which
are these fantastic developers that we're
able to hire from MIT and other places,
and how we want to assign them to tackle those problems.
So if you look at it worldwide, there
is the demand exceeds supply.
That's a good thing.
It means that people are going to have great opportunities
who've got those skills.
Means that from community colleges to MIT,
and they're seeing more people signing up
for computer science, and going after
the incredible opportunities that are out there.
We have just about another four or five minutes because we got
to return to the program, so.
One of the major problems facing the world today
is the crisis in Kosovo.
And you have two things there.
You have identity theft and you have separated families.
I wondered if you've given any thought
to using databases, or your skills,
or your humanitarian interest to working on this problem.
Well, last week the same foundation
that made the gift here, made a gift
to a couple of the key refugee organizations
in order to help them in their work.
I mean, they're on the ground there.
There is a very interesting question
about whether they're taking advantage of technology
in the best way they can.
And we have some more people in the foundation talking to them
about that.
Their need in the beginning was much more basic.
You know to be able to get the food, get the transport,
get things in there, and the key shortage there
was just having the money to go and do that.
So on top of that, we would like to make sure
they use technology as well, but that really is just
part of the picture.
We have thought about this and we're
building a virtual compassion corps which
is a website on which people who are willing to proffer
their help, and people who need help worldwide
can meet and service each other for free.
Please your question.
What is the best way, in the future,
to avoid a society of people who have
and have not, especially in the inner cities,
as well as in developing countries?
Well you have to go back and look
at when societies had something like the tool
the internet's becoming, how has it dealt with they have
and have not issue in the past.
And the answer is that, it's been through schools,
it's been through libraries, it's
been through government budgets, it's been through philanthropy.
All of those things were brought to bear
to make literacy something that we almost
take for granted in the United States.
We shouldn't take it for granted because there's still
some work to be done there.
But I think all of those same factors
need to be brought into play here.
Certainly, getting a state of the art computer connected up
to the internet into every library,
that was one of the first goals that one of my foundations
took on.
And it's been a great collaboration
with the librarians throughout the country.
And within the next several years
that goal will actually be achieved.
But there's so much to be done here, particularly
in K through 12 schools to make sure people get exposure.
There's some wonderful programs including giving every student
their own laptop device.
And the impact that has been really even better than people
expected, but the amount of resources
required to do that now is just way out of reach
of any of those school budgets.
So this is a problem that even in the United States where it's
the easiest to solve, we're going
to be wrestling with over the next 10 years,
and hopefully we'll get all those constituencies involved
and be pretty far along with that in the next decade.
Yet outside the United States, you
have to think about what the priorities are.
I mean, there, basic health care is probably more important,
making sure that the children don't
get diseases that are completely eliminated
from this part of the world.
And so, in terms of my philanthropy and most of it,
is outside the United States health
care has been the real priority.
Two more questions.
I'm sorry, but we have a program to go back to.
And the standing gentleman.
Mr. Gates, there was technology [INAUDIBLE]
which, on the one hand, apparently
made it possible for the accused perpetrator with an [INAUDIBLE]
virus to be found.
But on the other hand, may have made
it possible for the government in Kosovo
to track down protesters.
At least, that's been alleged.
In your own mind how would you weigh those two
on the issue of privacy.
Well, if you create a document.
You can create documents anonymously .
That's part of these tools allow you to do things
on a very anonymous basis.
And when people have looked at that they
see two sides of the coin they see the benefit
of allowing people to do things on an anonymous basis,
and they see the difficulty that creates for law enforcement
or others when you get somebody doing that in a malicious way.
But the fact is, the tools if used in a typical way you
can create things anonymously.
Let's go to the left section.
Yes, the gentleman in the middle, please.
Yes, Mr. Gates, can you comment on the antitrust trial,
your expectations there, and whether the settlement may not
being an alleged--
a monopolist?
Will you take it, or shall I run him out of our department?
Well, certainly, there are people at Microsoft
who are in the legal department who
are focused on that full time.
The key thing from our point of view
is that we think supporting the internet and Windows, that's
a very, very good thing.
And we think the fact of having the integrity of Windows
as a complete product is a very good thing.
And so, we just want to have the freedom
to innovate and continue to have a product with great integrity.
And that's all that we really stated as key principles.
So and I don't think today is the time
to talk about the lawsuit.
But I hope people do understand the two principles that
are at stake.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming.
We have to return to our program.
Press briefing is over.
Thank you.
If anybody needs to file stories,
there's a working pressroom next door [INAUDIBLE]..
[SIDE CONVERSATION]