Instead, [Bill Gates] bounced from cars -- Microsoft's Sync technology for playing music and making phone calls should be in all Ford, Mercury and Lincoln vehicles in the 2009 model year -- to the living room. Gates and Robbie Bach, who heads Microsoft's entertainment division, announced an expansion of the high-definition Hollywood movies and TV shows that can be downloaded through the Xbox video game console's online service.

Gates and Bach also talked up improvements in ways for people to interact with software by voice, touch and gesture. In addition to the speech-recognizing functions in Sync-enabled cars, Microsoft plans to soon upgrade the voice-activated information searches available through its subsidiary Tellme. It also will augment the system underlying Surface, Microsoft's computer in a table that responds to users' touches and gestures.