Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer demo Preview Windows 7, multi-touch at D6 conference

Fresh from the net, here’s a highlight from D6 down in Carlsbad and number one on the All Things D Top Ten list (as at right)…

“With Microsoft (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates soon relinquishing his daily role at the software company he co-founded as it grapples with Google (GOOG), European regulators, Yahoo (YHOO), and Windows Vista critics hoping to upgrade from XP to Windows 7 (skipping the much maligned Vista entirely), tonight’s conversation with Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will be a memorable one in the history of the software sovereign.”

Of particular interest: multi-touch in Windows 7…

“So is this the next phase of how people will use their computers. Gates says it’s the beginning of an era of computing based on a new hierarchy of input systems. Today the machine is really set up for one person to sit at a keyboard. “We’re at an interesting junction,” he says. “In the next few years, the roles of speech, gesture, vision, ink, all of those will become huge. For the person at home and the person at work, that interaction will change dramatically.”

Video: Multi-Touch in Windows 7