Podcast: Taking another look at touch computing

By CNET News.com Staff

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Bill Gates gets 'touched'; the latest breakthrough in turning garbage into usable energy; and researchers test a way for people to help computers get smarter.

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Listen to more episodes of this podcast at the CNET News.com daily podcast archive.

At the company's annual CEO Summit in Redmond, Wash., Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said that new user interfaces, particularly touch, will change the "individual's office, the home, the living room." CNET News.com's Ina Fried explains what's behind Gates' thinking.

With the high price of gas and questions over biofuels, some companies are turning to garbage as a feedstock for ethanol. News.com's Martin Lamonica has a profile of one such company receiving a lot of attention.

Plus, we all know that computers help people but what about turning the equation on its head and have people help computers? Researchers at Carnegie Mellon are doing just that.

Today's stories:

Gates: Every surface to be a computer

Google edges forward in search share

Samsung may abandon laptops by 2011

Trash-to-ethanol firms get digging

FCC starts over with emergency network push

Is Yahoo next on Carl Icahn's proxy battle list?

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