Future shoes -pictures

TVs of the Future: Flat and Huge

Bigger, brighter, and unwired--that's what the new crop of flat-panel TVs from LG Electronics, Samsung, and Sharp promises for consumers in 2004. But don't rush out to the store just yet: Many of the most exciting models are at least a few months away, and still others may not make it to showroom floors for a couple of years.

Size Matters

Vendors are sparring over bragging rights as producer of the largest display. Many of the biggest new entries were unveiled at the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Blue ribbon in the plasma size category goes to Samsung, which is preparing an 80-inch plasma display. Though lovely--and heavy at well over 200 pounds--the 4.5-inch-thick unit won't be available for as long as two years. When it does arrive, the HPP8071 should cost over $30,000, according to company representatives, and will likely first go to commercial buyers such as casinos and military installations.

Like most plasma screens from Samsung, the 80-inch plasma TV will have a built-in HDTV tuner. A 70-inch plasma model may be available by the end of this year, however, with pricing in the same ballpark as the forthcoming 80-inch model's. Samsung is also readying 42- and 50-inch models for release in April, ranging in price from $4300 to $9000.

LG Electronics will beat that 70-inch Samsung with its own 76-inch plasma, also due by year's end, when pricing will be revealed. The unit should feature 2.07 million pixels and 1920 by 1080 progressive-scan high-definition resolution, say LG representatives. At less than 3.3-inches thick, it will also have one of the slimmest profiles around. Also coming from LG: a 71-inch model that should be out midsummer; it will not have an HD TV tuner built-in, though it should offer HDMI connectors; the company isn't releasing pricing information yet, either.

Smaller, With Options

Rounding out offerings from LG are new, (relatively) smaller plasma screens ranging in size from 42 to 60 inches. The models will come out beginning in the first quarter of this year, with another crop due in the third quarter. Some have built-in HDTV tuners, but others don't, so check carefully if this is a must for you. Most should boast a dazzling 1000:1 contrast ratio. LG isn't releasing price information yet.

Also preparing new plasma and LCD TVs are Panasonic and Philips, which both showed their new entries at CES.

Panasonic's $8500 50-inch model, the TH-50PX25U/P, is scheduled to ship in April. Philips is readying 50-inch plasma FlatTVs that are expected to become available in the second quarter priced at $10,000.

LCDs Get Bigger Too

Samsung and LG also duked it out for the crown of showing the largest LCD TV at the 2004 CES. Once again, Samsung demonstrated the largest model at an impressive 57 inches, but doesn't expect to ship the TV until year. A 46-inch version, however, should hit stores in June of this year; pricing is not yet determined for either model. All larger and newer LCD models should have 1920 by 1080 resolution.

LG was closer to market with its only slightly smaller 55-inch flat screen: It should be out in the third quarter of this year, though pricing has not yet been announced. LG also plans to introduce new models ranging in size from 30 to 42 inches to round out its LCD TV line. All are likely to ship by midsummer, and all are expected to offer a 176-degree viewing angle and to integrate an ATSC VSB/QAM tuner as well as an NTSC tuner.

Sharp will have its own sizable LCD displays this summer, including a brilliant 45-inch model, the LC45G1U, less than 3 inches thick. It should feature 1920 by 1080 resolution, a built-in HDTV tuner, and DVI and HDMI ports. Also look for new 26- inch to 37-inch models from Sharp in the same time frame. Sharp is not yet releasing pricing information.

Unwired Television

All of these flat-panel displays look great, and most are designed to hang on a wall. Only one thing mars the beautiful pictures: cables--to your VCR, DVD recorder, TiVo or Replay box, satellite or cable, speakers...the list goes on. Unless you're also willing to remodel your living room, cable clutter can be a real problem. This quandary heralds the entry of devices that do away with most of those cables, save for the actual electrical plug.

Sharp's 15-inch Aquos LC-15L1U-S LCD will be first to make it to market, with its release in February. The unit should cost $1800, and it boasts 802.11b connectivity that will let you stream all your video and audio to your LCD while you connect the messy cables to a separate SmartLink base station that comes with the unit and can be hidden away. The Aquos also has a lithium ion battery, so you can tote it around and even lose the power cable, if you want.

Sony also demonstrated its version of a cable-less TV, which it calls a Location-Free TV. Still in prototype, the unit had a 12.1-inch SVGA touch screen and supports 802.11a, .11b, and .11g. The unit is expected to ship later this year.

If you'd like something larger but still wireless, Samsung may offer a better choice. Its 50-inch plasma model, the HPP5091 HD Integrated-Wireless Plasma TV, is scheduled for release this summer priced at about $13,000. It boasts 802.11a connectivity, DVI and HDMI connectors, and built-in ATSC and NTSC tuners. The unit has a 3000:1 contrast ratio and Samsung's Digital Natural Image engine (DNIe), which enhances image quality.

Cell Phone Wristwatches of the Future

Ever since Bill Gate's at Comdex revealed the Microsoft Prototype voice activated wrist watch PDA computer that sends email, at the Las Vegas Comdex Convention; many folks have been waiting for this technology to come to market in the form of a Cell Phone/Computer/PDA/GPS wrist watch. And you cannot tell me that you would not like to own something like this.

A device like this would simplify your life with an all-in-one, lightweight device. Fewer people these days are wearing a wristwatches and that is because their mobile cell phones that they carry with them everywhere also display the time of day and it is therefore not necessary to have the redundancy of two devices to carry around at all times.

This latest trend and the trend of cell phones becoming feature rich leads many futurist to believe that wristwatches will finally be the answer to the shrinking size of the mobile cell phones that we use. With the voice activation ability of you will not need a keyboard and right now that is a largest part of these newest complex cell phones.

Does this mean that Rolex will one day sell a wristwatch that is actually a computer and does not operate mechanically, rather with a microchip inside? Could be and Rolex like every other company will either adapt or die to the changing consumer sentiment and desires.

And since this is one device that will sell better than any iPod, iPhone or G-Phone, you can bet that Motorola and Nokia research and development departments are working on this as hard as the Venture Capitalists are on getting in on the money end of this future technology.

Is a Wrist Watch Cell Phone the Future?

Cell phone wrist watches emerged on the market some time ago and are increasing in their usefulness. Now major manufacturers are entering the picture. LG has announced a model and Samsung recently showcased a prototype. These phones offer a bit of added security and portability, and may be the future of the ever shrinking cell phone.

You can learn more about what is currently available and what's on the near horizon on this page. You can even see a video review that demonstrates a touchscreen, bluetooth enabled wrist watch cell phone.

Future City Mobility: Bicycle Transportation via Folding Scooters, Electric Buses, and Bike Trees

Imagine riding through Picadily Circus and all you hear and see are people talking and birds in the sky. This was the guiding vision of this year’s winners at the Future City Mobility competition for designers to envision how London’s transportation could look in 2030.

Marten Wallgren, a Swede studying at the Royal College of Art and with three collegues, won the SeymourPowell award for their concept dubbed, “London Garden”. The scheme incorporates a network of electric buses, taxis, and scooter-bikes, all of which interconnect to make London Garden a car-free zone.

The concept of London Garden includes special bicycles that operate in three modes. The first mode is the cruising option with the possible addition of regenerative braking. The second mode is a rigorous bicycling, where additional resistance is supplied to generate and store electricity. The third mode cashes in on stored power and turns the bike into an electric scooter. These bicycles are foldable, and are stored for community use in tall, treelike structures that double as bus stops. The bike racks themselves are meant to generate power from rainwater, sun, and even kinetically from the wind as its swooping arms sway.

The bicycles also work as modular components within the urban environment where they can be folded and carried on-board electric buses and taxis. Once docked inside, they double as seats and the stored energy that was generated during pedaling is now transferred into the vehicle and even credited as currency towards your fare.

Buses Of The Future

Boris Johnson, now Mayor of London, premised much of his 2008 campaign on the reinstatement of a bus. Johnson argued, using his rival Ken Livington’s own words from a decade before, that “only a ghastly, dehumanised moron would get rid of the Routemaster,” London’s famous double-decker bus. If he were elected, the candidate promised, he would reverse his rival’s decision in 2005 to replace the Routemasters with articulated “bendy-buses” Londoners had come to love to hate.

Indeed, one of Johnson’s first acts as mayor was the constitution of a bus design competition which encouraged independent designers to consider how a new Routemaster would look and feel. The winners - architects Foster and Partners and carmaker Aston Martin - developed a brilliant concept for a new double-decker bus that would radically redefine how customers get around London.

The vehicle, while modeled in form on the iconic Routemaster, would be technologically advanced. The glazed roof would be covered with solar panels to help power the bus. On each side would be large LED signs providing customers detailed information about the route and its destinations. Finally, access would be provided not only by the open rear door that made the Routemasters famous, but also by a central handicap-accessible door. For the comfort of passengers, the seats would be covered in leather and the floors in wood. The bus remains a concept, but London will soon commission the next generation of double deckers with the ideas generated by the competition in mind.

All over the world, in fact, the bus is being reinvented. Far from the sturdy but utilitarian mainstay with little of the romance of streetcars or the luxury of private automobiles, several new bus models are some of the most fascinating and technologically advanced vehicles in the world right now.

In the United States, bus rapid transit (BRT) has become all the rage, New Flyer and North American Bus Industries has developed extended-length buses with flat floors and high passenger capacity. These systems have allowed cities like Los Angeles and Cleveland to implement bus rapid transit systems that provide many of the advantages of light rail at only a fraction of the construction cost. Unfortunately, neither of these cities’ BRT networks are especially ambitious, consisting of little more than glorified bus lines with dedicated lanes, pre-paid fares, prettier stations, and gussied-up vehicles.

On the other hand, Las Vegas’s Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) line, opened in 2004, incorporates some features that truly differentiate it from the crowd. Using Irisbus Civis vehicles, MAX includes an optical guidance system that takes over from the driver at stations, parks the bus very close to elevated platforms, and allows people in wheelchairs to roll right on - without the irritating bus kneeling and ramp-sliding used on regular buses and which inevitably delays commutes. Las Vegas’ buses are also particularly impressive because they have four side doors, compared to the usual two, meaning that boarding congestion is nonexistent.

Meanwhile, two French cities have taken the concept of the bus to never-before-seen levels. In Caen and Nancy, “trams on tires” run on the pavement while aligned to a central track that keeps the vehicles in their lanes and allows faster speeds. These “buses” are virtually indistinguishable from rail-riding trams, as the vehicles are several car-lengths long and rely on electric overhead catenaries for power.

The Translohr system, which is in use in China, Italy and France, takes the concept even further, allowing “buses” of up to six cabs in length. They’re also bi-directional, with a driver’s cab at both ends of the vehicle.

Most radical of all is the dual mode vehicle being designed by Japan Rail Hokkaido and Toyota. This bus - which in the design stage remains more than a bit clumsy looking - has the ability to run on both pavement and traditional railways, because it has retractable steel wheels below its chassis. The advantage? This road-ready vehicle is four times as efficient as a diesel bus because it can glide along steel tracks between cities even as it can access the center of towns on their streets.

As LightRailNow puts it, though, how different are these advanced buses from the light rail systems that would otherwise be built in their place? With construction costs that are roughly similar to streetcar systems, the “buses” used in Nancy are an engineering nightmare and have had frequent maintenance problems.

Even so, the future is bright for bus technology with so much creativity and invention on the part of manufacturers. It won’t be long before the daily commute is more convenient, comfortable, and quick, even for those on the bus.

Wireless Surround Sound Speakers - The Future?

Are wireless surround sound speakers the next big thing? Hong Kong leads the market in the release of wireless 5.1 speaker systems. Wireless and active surround sound speakers with built-in decoders appear to be topping the list of R & D expenditures in various Chinese technology manufacturing companies. Makers in both Hong Kong and mainland China are racing to come out with the latest wireless surround speakers, and upgrade various 5.1, 6.1 and 7.1systems to make use of this technology.2.4GHz RF and Bluetooth integration coupled with digital amplification systems seem to be the direction many companies are headed in terms of providing new innovative products for average consumers looking to expand into, or improve upon, home theater systems. The advantages are obvious - no line level signal wires to run and a great freedom of speaker placement throughout the listening room and home. Here are some of the challenges to the format:Perceived and actual signal quality of 2.4GHz and Bluetooth systems [Bluetooth has a practical data transfer rate of 433kbps though using asymetrical transfers that rate can be increased (Dolby Digital requires 400 kbps and DTS uses up to 448kbps - for a full 5.1 stream)]DSP issues related to encoding and decoding signals sent to wireless surround speakersDigital amplification quality for surround channels (Class-D amplification seems to be the currently favored amplifcation for wireless surround loudspeakers)Wireless loudspeakers will require power - is the format potentially exchanging one inconvenience (speaker cables) for another (running power to surround speakers.) One thing to note is that it will be far easier to locate power to a surround speaker than a line level or speaker level cable which needs to originate from the opposite side of the listening room.Wireless speaker systems currently account for less than ten percent of Hong Kong's production output, however manufacturers expect the demand to grow as inquiries continue to come in. It is estimated that by the third quarter, the wireless speaker systems launched in the first half-year are expected to go into mass production.Current versions utilize either 2.4GHz RF or IR technology, though IR models are less popular because they are not as user-friendly as their RF counterparts. Moreover, the IR transmission gets terminated whenever there is an obstacle between the transmitter and the receiver. MIR (1.15 Mbps) or FIR (4Mbps) would presumably need to be used in order to transmit the necessary information to the surround speakers, though we'll find out more once additional products are produced that address home theater users specifically.Most first launches in this area will be 5.1 surround speaker systems featuring wireless 2.4GHz rear speakers only. Several firms use RF module from Singapore and LG also produces several wireless 2.4GHz RF components that are being utilized by others. Most plan to start applying wireless features to entire 5.1 systems by the third quarter. Pricing for these products is remarkably inexpensive since the technology is proven and labor costs are relatively inexpensive.

A sound future.(sound systems in nightclubs)(Statistical Data Included)

Quality is key when it comes to sound, and operators now have more technology to choose from than ever before. Caroline Parry lends an ear to the sounds of the future

It was not so long ago that music at a leisure venue meant a tape played on a dodgy stereo. But today's operators have realised their customers are a discerning lot when it comes to sound quality and equipment.

Sound industry designers and installers say customers have become more demanding after the introduction of compact disc hi-fi systems for the home and the use of surround sound in cinemas. The average ear has become used to high quality sound and expects similar quality from venues offering musical entertainment.

"If you go to a club and the sound system is bad you'll walk out," says Brian McMurray, technical manager at the Area nightclub in Watford which features Britain's first surround sound system for nightclubs (see box above right). "People want quality and it's because of what they have in their homes."

For Chris Ewington, head of sound system designer and installer Fern Audio, the designer of Area's surround sound system which has now been installed in seven leisure venues, the future for the nightclub system is three dimensional sound.

"You win be able to position speakers in such a way you will be able to direct the sound. Different parts of the music win be coming from behind different people," he says. "Where this is already working like at the Music Box in Manchester (Fern Audio's test club), I have seen people following the music around the, room."

For Tim Harnden, director at sound equipment designer, manufacturer and installer Thunder Ridge which designed and installed the high powered MX6000 sound system for London nightclub The End in February, the best recent advancement is digital signal processing which improves the sonic quality of the sound and not the equipment. He cites BSS Omnidrive, a loudspeaker management system, as a prime example.

The Future of the Internet

Just as the Internet revolutionized how the world accessed information and communicated through the 1990's, the ongoing development in speed, bandwidth, and functionality will continue to cause fundamental changes to how our world operates for decades to come. Some of the major trends shaping the future of the Internet are summarized below, along with extrapolated predictions:

Globalism.The future of the Internet global distribution of information and knowledge at lower and lower cost will continue to lift the world community for generations to come. People will have access to any information they wish, get smarter sooner, and be more aware of the world outside their local environment. A better informed humanity will make better macro-level decisions, and an increasingly integrated world will drive international relations towards a global focus. Attachments to countries will marginally decrease, and attachments to the Earth as a shared resource will significantly increase.

Communities. The future of the Internet communications revolution is ongoing, now uniting communities as it recently united networks. Not everything about the Internet is global; an interconnected world is also locally interconnected. The Internet will increasingly be used for communications within communities as much as across countries. Local communities will organize in virtual space and take increasing advantage of group communication tools such as mailing lists, newsgroups, and web sites, and towns and cities will become more organized and empowered at the neighborhood level.

At the same time, communities will be as profoundly affected by the capabilities the Internet is bringing to individual communications, providing individuals in the once isolating city the ability to easily establish relationships with others in their local area by first meeting in cyberspace. From hobby clubs to political organizations to social networking, Internet applications will change expectations of geographically oriented community organizations, and provide increasingly wide choices to individuals who wish to participate in local communities that share their interests.

Virtual reality. The future of the Internet technological revolution will continue to be made in man's image. Experiments with wide area voice and video communications on the Internet began to be held in the early 1990's. Voice over IP (VOIP) began to be used regularly for long distance voice communications in 2002. Internet video phones won't be far behind. With the continued doubling of computer capability every couple of years, the ability of technology to process the complex analog environment that humans live in -- "reality" -- will continue to increase, and will be increasingly integrated with the Internet.

Three dimensional graphics will become more sophisticated, and virtual reality interfaces such as viewers and tactile feedback systems will become more realistic. The technology will be applied to innovative ways to navigate the Internet's information universe, for hyper-realistic gaming, and for group communications. There will come a day when you will be able to have dinner with a group of friends each in a different city, almost as though you were in the same room, although you will all have to bring your own food.

Virtual reality applications will not only better and better reflect the natural world, they will also have the fluidity, flexibility, and speed of the digital world, layered on the Internet, and so will be used to create apparently magical environments of types we can only now begin to imagine. These increasingly sophisticated virtual experiences will continue to change how we understand the nature of reality, experience, art, and human relations.

Bandwidth. The future of the Internet growth in bandwidth availability shows little sign of flattening. Large increases of bandwidth in the 10 Mbps range and up will continue to be deployed to home users through cable, phone, and wireless networks. Cable modems and telephone-based DSL modems will continue to spread high speed Internet throughout populated areas. High resolution audio, video, and virtual reality will be increasingly available online and on demand, and the cost of all kinds of Internet connections will continue to drop.

Wireless. The future of Internet wireless communications is the end-game. Wireless frequencies has two great advantages: (a) there are no infrastructure start-up or maintenance costs other than the base stations, and (b) it frees users to become mobile, taking Internet use from one dimension to three. Wireless Internet networks will offer increasingly faster services at vastly lower costs over wider distances, eventually pushing out physical transmission systems.

The Internet's open TCP/IP design was originally inspired by use of radio communications networks in the 1970's. The wireless technologies experimented with in the 1990's were continually improved. By the early 2000's, several technologies provided reliable, secure, high bandwidth networking that worked in crowded city centers and on the move, providing nearly the same mobility for Internet communications as for the cellular phone.

Grids. The future of the Internet grid movement is as inevitable as the spread of the Internet seems now. The connection of thousands of computers on the Internet together to solve problems, often called grid computing, will continue to evolve and change many areas of human endevour. In a large scale example of the connected Internet fostering technological cooperation, un-used computer cycles from home users across the world will be harnessed together to provide enormous reservoirs of computer power for all sorts of purposes. Increasingly used for scientific and engineering research, grids can create processing powerhouses far larger than any one organization by itself.

Integration. The future of the Internet integration with an increasing number of other technologies is as natural as a musician's experimentation with notes. The Internet will become increasingly integrated with phones, televisions, home appliances, portable digital assistants, and a range of other small hardware devices, providing an unprecedented, nearly uniform level of integrated data communications. Users will be able to access, status, and control this connected infrastructure from anywhere on the Internet.

One of the leading efforts to define the future of the next generation Internet is the Internet2 project, which grew out of the transition of the NSFNET to the Very High Speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS, vbns.net). The vBNS supported very high bandwidth research applications, and was established in 1995 as a cooperative agreement between MCI and the National Science Foundation.

CAMERAS OF THE FUTURE

I’ve done a lot of thinking recently, about what’s next for photography.

Think about it – while the manufacturers launch new cameras every couple of months, there hasn’t been a single fundamental change in the art of photography since the mid-1960s, when through-the-lens lightmetering on SLR cameras meant that you didn’t have to have a separate light meter anymore.

So, I wonder, what’s next?

A lot of other things have happened since then, of course – flashguns have become more advanced, lenses have become sharper, and there’s that little thing called Digital. But ultimately – it’s all progression from old technology: Better flashguns are merely flashguns that have more functions and are more intelligent than old flash guns. Sharper lenses are simply, er, sharper.

Digital might be the biggest change, in that you can store hundreds – even thousands – of photos in your camera, rather than the 24 or 36 you were limited to before that, but the digital medium itself is really just a progression from capturing light on silver halide, just like we did in the days of film.

The next 50 years

If there have been no big changes in the past 50 years, then what does the next 50 hold for us photographers?

The evolution – rather than revolution – is benefiting everybody who is passionate about photography: More and better cameras are available, more cheaply than ever, and the Internet is helping photographers of all ages and skill levels to improve (through feedback sites like PhotoSIG and Deviant Art) and sell (through companies like PhotoStock Plus) their photography.

The big question in my mind – what is the next big change in photography? Gadget magazine T3 claims that the future is panoramic photography (disclaimer: I work for T3), which I can kind of see – while panoramic photography in itself isn’t anything new, next-generation technologies can make panorama taking a lot easier – and now that we have ways of showing off panoramic images in a sensible way (through, say, CleVR), perhaps that’s where the next big development will come from.

No new technology in sight

On the other hand, panoramas are just another development (and a rather small, niche subject in the world of photography) in the grander photographic world. You could argue that ‘new’ genres of photography are progress (say, the rekindled interest for macro photography and smoke photography), but ultimately, it’s just other ways of using photographic techniques that have been around for scores of years.

The only genuinely new addition to photography itself is strictly part of post-production, but high dynamic range imaging (HDR photography – read more on Wikipedia) deserves a special mention, because it uses digital darkroom techniques in combination with a novel way of using current photographic techiques to create an entirely new genre.

What do you think?

I guess I don’t have any answers – what do you think might be the future of photography? What is about to be invented, or make it mainstream, that will revolutionise photography, technically?

Or perhaps we don’t actually need any new technology: Is it time that we started getting more creative with the tech we already have available to us?

AMD drives future of Formula One technology.

Using technology provided by AMD
(NYSE


:AMD), Formula One team Sauber Petronas has launched its new supercomputer at the team's headquarters in Hinwil, Switzerland. This groundbreaking supercomputer, powered by more than 500 AMD Opteron processors and one of the most advanced in Formula One and the automotive industry, will act as the "brain" for the team's Computational Fluid Dynamics


(CFD
) center.

Because CFD is considered a key factor in optimizing the aerodynamic performance of race cars, the new AMD Opteron processor-powered supercomputer is expected to have a significant effect on reducing lap times, putting the Sauber team in a position to score valuable World Championship points. AMD is the leading supplier of micro-technology in Formula One and a premier processor manufacturer for organizations involved in CFD.

"If you look at all the factors in Formula One that can be influenced with engineering, more than 70 percent are aerodynamics

," reveals Peter Sauber, team principal of Team Sauber Petronas. Sauber Petronas' Technical Director, Willy Rampf

, adds: "Success in F1 requires world-class computational fluid dynamics and a cutting-edge aerodynamic team that is armed with the best tools available, such as the AMD Opteron processor."

The AMD Opteron processor, the world's first 32-bit and 64-bit processor compatible with the x86 architecture, plays a critical role in the creation and development of new and enhanced Sauber design innovations and evolutions. The new supercomputer, powered by AMD Opteron processor-based servers with Direct Connect Architecture, will enable Sauber to simulate more complex variables with greatly improved accuracy in reduced time, compared with the team's past supercomputer. This reduction in time required for aerodynamic development and testing will in turn enable the team to focus track testing on tire and engine development.

The 530 AMD Opteron processors, which run on a Linux operating system

, will process a critical flow of robust CFD data. The new supercomputer is expected to allow Sauber to compile aerodynamic information faster

and more efficiently through higher power calculations. This improved performance and optimized data analysis will enable better decisions and provide a competitive edge.

Sauber's Head of CFD, Torbjorn Larsson, is enthused by the potential gains that AMD64 technology will offer his department. "With our new AMD Opteron processor-powered supercomputer, Sauber should be able to increase its CFD calculation capacity by a factor of almost 30. This is particularly important in light of new FIA

(Federation Internationale de l'Automobile--the governing body of world motorsport) regulatory changes to the cars' aerodynamics," said Larsson. "The AMD Opteron processor will also accelerate research and development processes, which are critical in the battle against both the time and testing constraints that are inherent to motor racing. AMD64 technology will deliver a number of key competitive advantages, and Sauber is determined to make the most of them."

"AMD aligns itself with teams and individuals who share our brand attributes--strength; determination; passion; excellence; people who rely on technology for their success, and compete against the world's toughest competitors on a global stage," said Henri Richard, executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing at AMD. "We serve individuals, teams and organizations who demand the highest levels of performance, without compromise. We'd expect nothing less. Sauber Petronas is a very demanding customer, and AMD is meeting those demands."

By delivering the world's first x86-based 64-bit processor capable of also running 32-bit applications, AMD has enabled customers like Sauber to leverage existing software with outstanding performance while seamlessly migrating to 64-bit applications as they are introduced. Of the Fortune Global 100 companies, 25 now use AMD Opteron processor-based systems to run their critical applications.

Team Sauber Petronas joins AMD's world-class stable of sporting heroes at the top of their game--14-time Formula One World Champions Scuderia Ferrari, six-time Tour de France

winner Lance Armstrong, and the victorious United States Postal Service Pro Cycling Team. AMD's customer-centric products are driven by technical excellence and real-world customer needs. Its innovations are developed in the most extreme and elite environments and industries, from the FIA Formula One World Championship to the grueling Tour de France, to provide inspirational products to customers around the world.