Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates held his fourth Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) session earlier today, and he answered a bunch of community questions on a wide variety of topics.
Here's just a few things he discussed. One person asked him about his own personal computer specs. Gates replied:
"I just recently switched to the Surface Book. I only detach the screen a few times a week and I like the keyboard better than my previous Surface."
Another person asked him about his opinions on the current virtual reality trend. Gates stated:
"VR is the extreme case of AR when nothing from the real world gets mixed in. It can be tricky if you are walking around that you might run into things. Mixed systems which seems like VR but when you might hit something it shows you that seem better than pure VR. So I don't think these two things will stay as separate as they are now."
One person asked Gates about his famous goal of seeing a computer in every home, which the Reddit member called an "easy goal". This person asked Gates what kind of new goal would he have if he was to start over. Gates wrote:
"I think it looks easier in retrospect than it did at the time. People thought we were a bit crazy - even leaders in the industry like Ken Olsen said they didn't need a computer at home. Being young allowed us to think about computers in a different way. Today the challenge is to make computers more intelligent. Software still doesn't understand what thing I should pay attention to next - in fact the proliferation of various tools like texting and email and notifications mean the user has a lot of complexity to deal with. Eventually the software will understand what you should pay attention to by knowing the context and learning about your preferences."
One person asked, "Mr. Gates, can we please have another Age of Empires?". He replied at first with:
"I will look into this. How many empires do you need?"
When this question rose to the top, Gates stated:
"I think you did - sorry I can't deliver an Empire (or an Age) easily."
