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Bill Gates quits Facebook over 'too many friends'

NEW DELHI (AFP) -

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said he was forced to give up on the social networking phenomenon Facebook after too many people wanted to be his friend.

Gates, the billionaire computer geek-turned-philanthropist who was honoured Saturday by India for his charity work, told an audience in New Delhi he had tried out Facebook but ended up with "10,000 people wanting to be my friends".

Gates, who remains Microsoft chairman, said he had trouble figuring out whether he "knew this person, did I not know this person".

"It was just way too much trouble so I gave it up," Gates told the business forum.

Gates was in the Indian capital to receive the Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development, awarded by the government for his work for the charitable organisation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The foundation, built by his massive fortune, has committed nearly one billion dollars to health and development projects in India, targeting especially AIDS and polio.

Gates also confided to the audience that he was "not that big at text messaging" and that "I'm not a 24-hour-a-day tech person".

"I read a lot and some of that reading is not on a computer," he said.

Gates, who sought to drive a vision of a computer on every desk and in every home, said the information technology revolution had been "hugely beneficial" but added: "All these tools of tech waste our time if we're not careful."

Secret Moneys

How's this for a plot twist? Yesterday we broke the story that the Special Administrators of Michael Jackson's estate filed legal papers saying they just recovered $5.5 million is cash from a former financial advisor. The advisor is Dr. Tohme Tohme, who got involved with Jackson in the last year-and-a-half of his life, and he claims the money was "a secret."

In an interview last night, Dr. Tohme said the money came from recording residuals and that "It was a secret between Michael and me."

Dr. Tohme claims the money was going to be used for a Las Vegas "dream home."

Tohme says Michael implored him, "Don't tell anyone about the money." He says when the singer died, he came forward and said he had the stash.

Bill Gate Memories

I read those 1979 stories all last week, and it put me in a nostalgic mood, so wanted to offer my own memory to add to the collection.

In 1979, Microsoft had 13 employees, most of whom appear in that famous picture that provides indisputable proof that your average computer geek from the late 1970s was not exactly on the cutting edge of fashion. We started the year by moving from Albuquerque back to Bellevue, just across the lake from Seattle. By the end of the year we'd doubled in size to 28 employees. Even though we were doing pretty well, I was still kind of terrified by the rapid pace of hiring and worried that the bottom could fall out at any time.

What made me feel a little more confident was that 1979 was the year we began to sense that BASIC was right on the verge of becoming the standard language for microcomputers. We knew this could be the catalyst that would unlock the potential of the PC to democratize computing and create the right conditions for an explosion in programs and applications that would lead to really rapid growth of the PC market.

By the middle of 1979, BASIC was running on more than 200,000 Z-80 and 8080 machines and we were just releasing a new version for the 8086 16-bit microprocessor. As the numbers grew, we were starting to think beyond programming languages, too, and about the possibility of creating applications that would have real mass appeal to consumers. That led to the creation of the Consumer Products Division in 1979. One of our first consumer products was called Microsoft Adventure, which was a home version of the first mainframe adventure game. It didn't have all the bells and whistles of, say, Halo, but it was pretty interesting for its time.

Back in the 1970s, there was a publication called the International Computer Programs Directory that handed out what was known as the ICP Million Dollar Award for applications that had more than $1 million in annual sales. In the late 1970s the list included more than 100 different products, but they were all for mainframes. In April, the 8080 version of BASIC became the first software product built to run on microprocessors to win an ICP Million Dollar Award. That was a pretty good sign that a significant shift was underway.

Today, I would be surprised if the number of million-dollar applications isn't in the millions itself, and they range from apps and games created by a single developer working at home that you can download to your cell phone to massive solutions built by huge development teams that run the operations of huge corporations.

More important, of course, is the fact that more than a billion people around the world use computers and digital technology as an integral part of their day-to-day lives. That's something that really started to take shape in 1979.

Amy Winehouse Cleared in Assault Case

Amy Winehouse was acquitted of assaulting a fan who asked to take her picture.

A judge cleared the British singer of assault charges on Friday, the Associated Press reports.

District Judge Timothy Workman found the 25-year-old not guilty of punching dancer Sherene Flash, 27, in the eye after the fan asked for a photograph after a London charity ball in September.

Although prosecutors claimed it was a deliberate assault, Winehouse -- who had pleaded not guilty -- said she had felt intimidated by the drunken Flash and claimed she was too short to have hit the dancer in the face.

Winehouse's lawyer, Patrick Gibbs, said "the main injury here was probably to Miss Flash's pride."

The judge said that after hearing the evidence, he could not be sure the blow had been deliberate.

"The charge is dismissed and the defendant discharged," he said.

Winehouse, dressed in a knee-length black skirt, gray jacket and white shirt, shrugged as the verdict was announced.

"I'm relieved," she told reporters as she left the court. "I'm going home."

In a statement read by a spokesman, the "Back to Black" singer -- who was granted a divorce from her husband of two years, Blake Fielder-Civil, earlier this month -- said she was "very happy to move on with her life and put the episode behind her."

Paris Hilton Says Michael Jackson Named Daughter After Her

Reuters reports that Paris Hilton told Extra that Michael Jackson's 11-year-old daughter Paris is named after her. The Hilton family was close friends with Michael Jackson so it is possible. Paris says that Michael Jackson always loved the name Paris.

A month after the "Thriller" singer's sudden demise, socialite Paris Hilton has laid claim to being the inspiration behind the naming of Jackson's 11-year-old daughter.

Paris Hilton told celebrity TV show "Extra" that her family were close friends with Jackson. Her mother, Kathy, went to school with him for awhile in California "and they were best friends since they were 13."

"So I grew up knowing Michael very well and when he had his daughter, he always loved the name Paris and grew up being an uncle to me. So he asked my mom if it was okay, and of course she said 'yes' and I think she's such a beautiful little girl and I'm proud we have the same name," Hilton told Extra.

WORLD WAR II

Germany invades Czechoslovakia.
Britain & France tell them to stop that bullshit.
Germany invades Poland.
(Russia also invades Poland from the other side: everybody forgets this.)
Britain & France declare war. This is the 'official' kick-off.
Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, & Romania all join the German side. (Everybody forgets the last three.)
Axis forces go through Europe like vindaloo through a colostomy.
Nazis exterminate Jews, gays, gypsies, & the disabled. (everybody remembers the jews but forgets the rest.)
UK holds out.
Russia & the USA don't do shit.
Entire divisions of Danish, Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian, French & Serbian volunteers join the Axis armies & SS. (everybody forgets this & to listen to them now, they were all in the fucking resistance, which must have been MASSIVE.)
Axis forces invade Russia. Suddenly the Russians don't think it's funny any more.
Japan joins the Axis & bombs Pearl Harbor.
Suddenly the US doesn't think it's funny any more.
The USA tools up the world, 'cause it's got more factories than everybody else put together, & they're out of bomber range.
Axis runs out of steam in Russia, cause Russia's enormous & bloody freezing.
Allies invade on D-Day... 5 landings: 2 British, 2 American, 1 Canadian. (everybody forgets the Canadians.)
Hitler ends up smouldering in a ditch. Russians find the body & confirm he only had one ball. Seriously.
The US decides invading stuff is a pain in the ass and invents the atom bomb instead. Drops two buckets 'o sunshine on Japan.
Russians steal half of Europe.
UK's spent almost every penny it had.
US starts telling everybody how it was all about them, & 64 years later is still doing so.
"Some of the World War II guys in 'Call of Duty' have, like, foreign accents... what's up with that?"