Microsoft's Gates endures PC crash during keynote speech at U.S. tech show

l33tdawg: Much love to burningfire for the heads up on this story.

Despite suffering through an embarrassing computer crash that prompted jokes and guffaws, Bill Gates promised that Microsoft Corp. would help consumers stay plugged into technology, during a keynote speech Wednesday.

In his seventh annual keynote speech at the International Consumer Electronics Show, Microsoft's chairman explained that the proliferation of high-speed Internet access and the falling price of data storage are compelling people to put music, photos, movies and other aspects of their life into a digital format.

"We predicted at the beginning of this decade that this would be a decade where the digital approach would be taken for granted," Gates told hundreds of technology enthusiasts, who gathered for his kickoff to the world's largest electronics show. "It's going even faster than we expected."

But while promoting what he calls the "digital lifestyle," Gates showed how vulnerable all consumers - even the world's richest man - are to hardware and software bugs.