Although a few of the robots of tomorrow may resemble the anthropomorphic devices seen in Star Wars, most will look nothing like the humanoid C-3PO. In fact, as mobile peripheral devices become more and more common, it may be increasingly difficult to say exactly what a robot is. Because the new machines will be so specialized and ubiquitous--and look so little like the two-legged automatons of science fiction--we probably will not even call them robots. But as these devices become affordable to consumers, they could have just as profound an impact on the way we work, communicate, learn and entertain ourselves as the PC has had over the past 30 years.

   
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
BILL GATES is co-founder and chairman of Microsoft, the world's largest software company. While attending Harvard University in the 1970s, Gates developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair. In his junior year, Gates left Harvard to devote his energies to Micro¿soft, the company he had begun in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen. In 2000 Gates and his wife, Melinda, established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on improving health, reducing poverty and increasing access to technology around the world.