Gates touts consumer gadgets

In his CES keynote speech, Microsoft boss Bill Gates revisited the SPOT smart personal object technology he had already announced at Comdex in November, only this time concentrating on wristwatches. He also showed a prototype of the new Media2Go platform -- multimedia 20GB handhelds (of the sort Apple didn't launch) which will be made initially by Sanyo, Samsung, ViewSonic and I-River -- and he played Xbox Live against Shaq O'Neal. Ashley Norris reports for the Guardian here. AP and IDG News also have reports. Microsoft has posted a transcript of the speech, so you can get more of the flavour. Gates also did a short interview with Business Week on SPOT.