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Bill Gates returned to "The Daily Show" on Monday night, trading barbs with Jon Stewart while highlighting his philanthropic work.

Gates, who last appeared on the show three years ago to tout the launch of Windows Vista, showed up this time to coincide with the release of his annual foundation letter (also the subject of this CNET interview I did with Gates).

On the Daily Show, Gates caught Stewart up on recent history, pointing out that it has been 18 months since he left Microsoft's full-time employ.

Stewart quickly recovered. "Do you feel unburdened now not … Read more

The rumors that Apple would be holding a press event this month have panned out. On Monday the company sent out invitations to an event that's slated to take place next week in downtown San Francisco that will show its "latest creation." All the rumors point to it being the long-awaited tablet computer.

Today's stories:

Apple officially announces January 27 event

Google postpones phone launches in China

EMI licenses songs to new ad-supported site

Microsoft cuts Bing IP address storage to 6 months

Mozilla releases second Firefox release candidate

Bungie: Play Halo and help Haiti

Report: New York Times to charge online readers… Read more

It might have been the least-surprising move thus far, but on Tuesday Amazon finally brought international wireless capability to its Kindle DX. This will let users of the larger-format Kindle get books while outside of their home country, and more importantly, out of the U.S.

In today's podcast we also talk about the Xbox 360 becoming the most-used game console, technology that could have you watching football games in 3D in time for next year's Super Bowl, and new technology from winemaker Kendall-Jackson that will save a few million gallons of water.

Today's stories:

Amazon beefs up wireless Kindle family… Read more

It might have been the least-surprising move thus far, but on Tuesday Amazon finally brought international wireless capability to its Kindle DX. This will let users of the larger-format Kindle get books while outside of their home country, and more importantly, out of the U.S.

In today's podcast we also talk about the Xbox 360 becoming the most-used game console, technology that could have you watching football games in 3D in time for next year's Super Bowl, and new technology from winemaker Kendall-Jackson that will save a few million gallons of water.

Today's stories:

Amazon beefs up wireless Kindle family… Read more

Stephen Colbert, the comedian, political satirist, and host of Comedy Central's "Colbert Report," is funny on his show. The animated characters on "South Park," created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, are hilarious.

But will they be as witty on the witness stand?

Colbert was recently questioned by Google attorneys during a legal deposition as part of Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit against Google and YouTube. Viacom argues that YouTube encouraged people to upload unauthorized video clips from films and TV shows. The case is nearly three years old but could finally go to … Read more

The past few days have been good for Google. First it was a hot new Google-branded cell phone, followed up shortly thereafter by a new link-shortening service. This may seem like a very common feature these days with services like Bit.ly, but keep in mind that Google's big business is ads. The more it knows about where people are going on the Internet, the more advertising power it wields.

We also lead today's podcast with a developing story about a potential code ripoff of Plurk.com by Microsoft's MSN site in China.

Today's stories:

Microsoft pulls China site amid code-theft charges… Read more

Organizer from Miha Rataj is just the sort of handy freeware we like to see. It's a simple but efficient and effective desktop organization application that combines a suite of tools and displays in one easy-to-use interface. It has a scrolling, configurable calendar, a prominent analog clock face, a daily task organizer, sticky notes, and an alarm clock that you can sync to tasks and that will alert to an impending event with an alarm tone, the time, or something you add yourself.

The main interface is cleanly laid out, with everything neatly spaced around the task organizer window … Read more

Comcast is on a roll this week. On Tuesday it began its public pilot of a bandwidth monitoring system for its customers to figure out exactly how much they're downloading each month. This comes a little more than a year after the company announced it would be capping users at 250GB per month.

More importantly, reports say that General Electric and Vivendi have reached a tentative agreement that helps pave the way for Comcast to buy NBC Universal. If, or rather when, that deal is sealed, Comcast would expand its media reach outside of its service roots into being … Read more

Cisco Systems has pledged to spend more than $6 billion on acquisitions this month, the latest of which comes in at a cool $183 million for Web-based security software company ScanSafe.

We also talk about the Apple tablet everyone keeps spreading rumors about, a computer Trojan that's masquerading as an e-mail from Facebook, and a new printing technology from Xerox that prints electronic circuitry on all sorts of things including fabric. Just think about what that's going to do to the T-shirt industry...

Today's stories:

Cisco to buy cloud security firm for $183 million

More evidence of Apple's nonexistent tablet surfaces… Read more