Speaker: Andrew Wolfe, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer, S3 Incorporated
Title: Internet Appliances for the Post-PC Era

Abstract: The Digital Age has changed the way we create, store, and access information. Digital technology has reduced cost, improved reliability, and increased quality, but for the most part, the average consumers use information in much the same way they did 20 years ago. They read newspapers; they watch television; and they pop physical music storage media into the dashboards of their cars. Improvements in some key digital technologies are just now fundamentally changing the way we access and use information. Cheap, very-high density storage allows us to aggregate digital content in our homes and replicate digital content in a variety of devices. Ubiquitous networking, bringing high-speed internet connectivity into the home, distributing data throughout the home on high-speed home networks, and providing mobile access via wireless networking, allows seamless access to content in all of the places where we traditionally have used physical distribution of content.

A new class of information appliances is evolving to change the way we use information. Diamond Multimedia, an S3 company, introduced the first mass-market information appliance about a year ago. Last year, over 500,000 consumers used the Diamond Rio portable music player to change the way they access music. They obtained new music over the internet, stored it in their homes on a hard disk, and downloaded it as needed to an information appliance optimized for portable music listening. In the upcoming year, there will be an explosion of new opportunities to change the way we access information. Digital music will flow freely into the home, through the home, into the car, and into personal music players. Streaming video will be available on handheld devices that can be carried into the back yard or used on the train to read the morning news. A movie stored on a digital video recorder in an upstairs bedroom can be viewed in the family room until it is interrupted by an application on your PC which has detected unusual movement from the video camera in the baby’s room.

This presentation will introduce some of the emerging technologies that enable a new class of internet-connected devices and will describe some of the kinds of products that will bring these technologies into the home.

Speaker Background: Andrew Wolfe, Ph.D. is Chief Technology Officer at S3 Incorporated. He is responsible for technology acquisition, corporate-level business development, and introduction of emerging technologies into the S3 and Diamond Multimedia product lines. Dr. Wolfe is also a Consulting Assistant Professor in the ECE Department at Stanford University. From 1991 through 1997, he served on the faculty of Princeton University. Prior to that he founded The Graphics Technology Company, a manufacturer of interactive computer peripherals. Dr. Wolfe holds a B.S.E.E. from The Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University

The seminar is free. Please join our speaker for dinner ($10-20) afterwards. Directions to the restaurant will be handed out at the seminar.

Location: SEMI Technology Building, 815 E. Middlefield Road, Mountain View, CA