The right-hand side of my old desktop used to be a chaotic jumble of desktop "gadgets" and Chrome windows that were forever obscuring each other or getting accidentally minimized.

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Not just to get into the fast growing smartphone industry, but to end its reliance on Microsoft Windows as the basis for its hardware gadgets.

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Gadgets are small snippets of HTML code that run on the Windows desktop.

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As Microsoft's Windows client marketing manger, the self-confessed "technology geek" has all sorts of gadgets installed that make it seem like something out of a futuristic movie.

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He trotted back out Windows Surface, a touch-screen PC inside a table that uses sophisticated cameras and software to synchronize with other gadgets.

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