Here is the full quote in context from the program Warren Buffett and Bill Gates: Keeping America Great.

“Well, he’s done a fantastic job,” Gates said. “Apple is in a bit of a different business where they make hardware and software together. But when Steve was coming back to Apple, which was actually through an acquisition of NeXT that he ran, Apple was in very tough shape. In fact, most likely it wasn’t going to survive.”

He continued: “And he brought in a team, he brought in inspiration about great products and design that’s made Apple back into being an incredible force in doing good things. And it’s great to have competitors like that. We write software for Apple, Microsoft does. They compete with Apple. But he, of all the leaders in the industry that I’ve worked with, he showed more inspiration and he saved the company.”

Awww…how touching. [AppleInsider]

$US35,000 was the final bid in a charity auction that will take the winner and a small group of friends around the Gates’ Lake Washington property, with the house pater familias as the exclusive tour guide. Last year, the winning bid was only $US8600.

If I had tons of money to spare, I’d probably bid next year. I’m curious to see his house. Can I play Natal with him? Who is his favourite painter? Can I browse through his record collection? And his personal, dearest bookshelf? Do his sofas have plastic covers? Can I open the fridge and make a sandwich? Oh well, since that is not going to happen, I’ll just watch the 3D video like everyone else.

[Techflash]

Bill Gates — one of my favourite Gizmodo readers, technology capo di tutti capi and philanthropist — was in Vancouver last week, watching a U2 in concert and celebrating. And of course, Bono greeted him. Belated Happy Birthday, Señor Gates. [Techflash]

This is the one you’ve waited for, where I get Steve to talk about his animalistic YouTube persona. But how do you ask calm collected Steve about crazy sweaty Steve? Very carefully.

As you can see in the video, he’s not going to stop being himself, just because Bill Gates is officially out of the picture and the public finally sees him as the big man up top. Does that mean more YouTube excitement? If it does, you’ll surely see it here.

Stay tuned for more exciting Ballmer moments (and facial expressions), and then the full uncut interview video later today.

Steve Ballmer Exclusive Interview Series:
Part 1: Ballmer Talks Natal, Says Blu-ray Add-On for Xbox Coming
Part 2: Ballmer on the Smartphone Race: “It Doesn’t Matter What the Critics Say”
Part 3: Ballmer on Zune: Sometimes You Get It Right The Third Time?

And in the rare case you hadn’t seen the video I’m referring to:

The gum would be used to test, painlessly, for malaria in children while the chocolate would serve as a way of getting some of the disease-feeding fat out of a patient’s body. There’s already some promise in these methods and the Gates contribution should certainly keep research going. [Telegraph]

Don’t worry! He’s still the richest man on the planet, but he’s less richer than everybody else than last year. Other losers on this year’s Forbes 400 include Paul Allen, who lost $US4.5 billion, Michael Dell, who lost $US2.8 billion, and Steve Ballmer, who lost $US1.7 billion.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, unlike all the other tech mavens on the list who lost money, actually made $US100 million this year, bringing his value up to $US8.8 billion. Good for him! I’m sure that made a f–king difference. [Forbes via Fortune]

Remember this? When Steve had to put a live feed of Bill Gates up in front of a seething mass of fanboys in exchange for $US150 million to save Apple from certain death?

It happened back on August 6, 1997. The video is pretty amazing to watch when we’ve got more recent and triumphant Apple keynotes to compare it to. When was the last time the crowd seemed ready to jump on stage and beat Steve up?

And you’ve just got to love the reaction to a huge, Big-Brotheresque Gates appearing above Jobs, swooping in to the rescue.

And who could have predicted where things would go from there? 12 years later and Apple sure doesn’t need any help from Uncle Bill. Also, Steve no longer wears those stupid vests. [9 to 5 Mac via CrunchGear]

You may remember, Bill Gates was a loyal tablet user for years (and he still uses one). He was such a fan, in fact, that back in 2001 Gates told CNN, “The tablet takes cutting-edge PC technology and makes it available whenever you want it…It’s a PC that is virtually without limits — and within five years I predict it will be the most popular form of PC sold in America.”

Obviously, Gates was wrong—at least about the timeline. It’s seven years later and tablets are all but dead while netbooks and touchscreen smartphones thrive. Keep in mind that multitouch wasn’t around yet, though the idea of smudging up your computer’s screen probably didn’t make much sense given that a stylus was the ideal means for navigation.

Microsoft has since dialed back their enthusiasm on the tablet form factor, but you can see its spirit live on in products like the Surface and Windows 7’s multitouch support.

To me, the question is not so much whether or not tablets are capable of succeeding in the marketplace but how they’ve captured the imaginations of Bill Gates, Apple fanboys and Star Trek alike yet still managed to elude mainstream popularity. [CNN and Image]

I wonder if he’s thought about a Kindle? I know I wish I had time to read real books. I’m glad he found time to write about his 1979 memories for Giz though, back when all you could read were like, things made out of paper, or poo scribbled on a wall, like the Marquis de Sade. [Yahoo via Neowin]

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 democratise 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 $US1 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.

Thanks for the memories, Bill—please keep us posted on that new beer keg of yours!

Microsoft Adventure shot found on YOIS