Even if you"re reading All the News That"s Fit to Print on an ultra-mobile computer, it may soon look and feel the same way it does spread out with your morning coffee — minus the ink-stained fingers, perhaps. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, appearing at the American Society of Newspaper Editors conference in Seattle, showed off a new feature of Microsoft"s forthcoming Windows Vista operating system that promises improved "on-screen reading."
He shared the podium Friday with Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times, which is partnering with Microsoft to develop a prototype application dubbed Times Reader. Microsoft plans to release development tools by the end of this summer for other newspapers and "whoever wanted to do these things," Gates said.