Retiring Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates ventured inside the Beltway that week, calling on Congress to issue more visas for high-tech workers, thereupon issuing a signal for Federal Communications Commission approval of so-called white-space devices, and finally rhapsodizing on the future of computing to a local technology group.

High-Tech Visas

“It makes no sense to educate humans in our universities, often subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, and soon after insist they return home,” Gates told the House Science and Technology Committee at a hearing Wednesday. Gates has been a leading proponent of dramatically increasing the number of H-1B temporary visas issued to foreign computer scientists, allowing them to work in the United States.

During Gates’ testimony, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) pushed back, saying those foreign experts will take jobs away from Americans. “If we bring [in] more public from the outside, will it not plus depress the wages in our own country that humans like yourself would have to pay

“No,” said Gates firmly. “These top folks are going to be hired. It’s just a question of what country they are hired in. When we bring in these world-class engineers, we create jobs around them. The B and C students are the ones who get those jobs around these top engineers. And whether these top engineers are forced to work in India, we will hire the B and C students from India to work around them.”

Push for White Space

next it was off to the Northern Virginia Technology Council, where Gates and Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie made a push for adoption of technology to deliver wireless Web by white space — the vacant frequencies that supply buffers amoung television broadcasts.

“White-space activity today is sort of our last hope to get some good spectrum,” Mundie said. “The only way to do it…

Orginal post by Top Tech News