"On his 50th Birthday, Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and multibillionaire, let his guard down and loosely spoke about his vision of the future. And when Gates announces his vision of the future, everyone should take notice, because with money, control, and a company like his, the future will be whatever the man wills it to be.

A lot of the futuristic 2015 things that Gates mentioned are interesting, but have nothing to do with DCC. Included is the coming obsolescence of paper, aided by high-speed wireless internet, and cell phones that can translate signs in foreign countries.

His more immediate vision does concern DCC, however. Gates wants to do away with the 2D, flat way that information over the web is delivered to us. Super fast internet connections and improvements in hardware will make possible a world wide web that gives us information in 3D.

Gates explained his vision of a 3D future as the ability to access distant places from your living room: "You'll be walking around in downtown London and be able to see the shops, the stores, see what the traffic is like. Walk in a shop and navigate the merchandise," he said. "Not in the flat, 2D interface that we have on the web today, but in a virtual reality walkthrough."

In fact, according to Gates, Microsoft is already spending "hundreds of millions of dollars" to create a photorealistic 3D map of the whole world in which we can all interact." [link]