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The latest barfer from Bill Gates is excerpted from his interview with Peter Jennings of ABC News - JENNINGS: Is there any part of the world that intimidates you? GATES: Well I could say that every time I go to China I am amazed by the level of energy and activity there. And you know its like super charged capitalism where they're creating new jobs and they are being very efficient. And you know that's daunting. It's a challenge to the rest of the world that we got this great opportunity that they're going to build good products, but we...

CANNES/HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, and software giant Microsoft struck a deal on Monday to make it easier for consumers to buy digital music on-line and play it back on their handsets. In a comprehensive agreement, which involves a separate deal with digital media company Loudeye, Nokia agreed to put Microsoft's music player software into its handsets. In return, Microsoft, will introduce open standards for digital music compression and piracy protection in its Media Players for personal computers. "Users can synchronize their music collection with their mobile device," Nokia said in a statement. "This agreement...

Microsoft, showing its endurance in the mobile phone business, is expected to announce on Monday a partnership with the largest contract electronics manufacturer, Flextronics of Singapore, to make low-cost smart phones that run on Microsoft's mobile operating system. . The device, in a so-called candy-bar design, will have the interactive features of a smart phone at the price of many standard mobile phones today, Microsoft executives said in advance of the opening on Monday of the 3GSM World Congress, the mobile phone industry's annual trade show in Cannes. . Microsoft began making software to power mobile phones five years ago...