Gates on physics, Chrome OS, and Project Natal

Bill Gates may not be showing up at Microsoft headquarters every day, but he's certainly staying busy.

In an interview with CNET News, the Microsoft chairman talks about just a few of the things on his plate, including an effort to make a series of classic physics lectures available for free over the Internet.

Although it's unlikely to garner the audience of say, a sneezing panda, Gates said that putting great educational content online is an important part of getting people interested in science.

"When a lecture is presented as well as this, it draws more people in to understanding science." Gates said.

Gates also took on topics such as Google's Chrome OS and what things at Microsoft still have him excited.

One of those things, he said, is Project Natal, the technology shown at E3 this year that uses depth-sensing cameras to allow one's own hands to act as a video game controller. But Natal is not just for games, Gates said, noting that the technology is also being used by the Windows team, which sees uses both for controlling media at home as well as in a number of workplace scenarios.

"If they connect it up to Windows PCs for interacting in terms of meetings, and collaboration, and communication, you put the camera in now it's a cool thing, and it's just an example where Microsoft research did the original stuff to show, with the depth information, something great could be done," Gates said. "Then both the Xbox guys and the Windows guys latched onto that and now even since they latched onto it the idea of how it can be used in the office is getting much more concrete, and is pretty exciting."