Seattle, WA - Part 1

After a week in Los Angeles, and 48 hours in Utah, I'm now in Seattle, Washington.  I'm hear on business, with several events surrounding the AMD Fusion Developer Summit (AFDS).

The Summit is a conference for software developers, to learn more about harnessing the computing power in our latest computer chips.  In addition, I will have the change to participate in a couple of press conferences.

We took over an entire conference center...

We gave attendees the chance to play around with our latest technology.  This area was sponsored by our friends at HP:

If I have anything to do with it, we'll be showing games ; )

Still setting things up...

We worked with Microsoft to show the Microsoft Surface - this is a PC with a huge touch-screen that sits on top of a table.  This way, you can actually interact with the screen, or any objects on it:

In the afternoon, we held a small press conference for all the international press that were attending the Summit.  We tried to help them understand why it was important, and what it will mean for consumers around the world.  Here are a couple of iPhone shots of me speaking - just to prove that I do work at these things:

As most people know, Microsoft's HQ is here in the Redmond/Bellevue area.  While we aren't right next to the Microsoft campus, there are enough reminders of Microsoft's presence all over the place - including this little shack:

At the same time as AFDS, we're holding a huge product launch event.  This takes place in downtown Seattle, at the Experience Music Project (EMP) - a museum that is dedicated to music and pop culture.  It's a unique place - I believe it was funded by one of the Microsoft billionaires (Paul Allen).  The architecture is amazing:

Obviously, this isn't my picture, as I couldn't reach this angle.

It's located right next to the Seattle Space Needle (it was an overcast day...which is pretty much the norm for Seattle):

Here's part of the set-up for tonight: 

This is a GIANT screen, that we're showing images and videos on, throughout the evening

While the rest of the crew was working on set-up, I managed to sneak away, to see a little of the EMP exhibits.  The most impressive is the huge guitar "sculpture":

The rest of EMP is amazing...with interactive music exhibits and profiles of some of the famous rock bands that came out of the Seattle area (Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nivana, etc).  However, I found one of the pop culture exhibits that really made my happy.  NERD ALERT!!

The exhibit was dedicated to Battlestar Galactica - a science fiction TV show that aired in 1978, as well as a brand-new version from 2003 - 2009.

If you grew up in the late 70's, and were a huge Star Wars fan, you probably knew all about Battlestar Galactica - one of the most expensive television series at the time.  The remake in 2003 was also really popular with science fiction fans.  Due to it's realism and focus on character-driven stories, it actually appealed to folks outside the nerd realm.  Anyway, I can go on-and-on, but the exhibit was really cool.  They had a full model of the spacecraft:

Helmets from the original series (left) and new series (right)

They had some large displays, as well. Below is a full-size Colonial Viper - the fighter spacecraft from the show.  I had this in toy size when I was a youngster:

There was a little kid on the original show.  He had a robot dog, because the evil robots killed his real dog.  At the time, I wished I had a robot dog - especially one that didn't make a mess, and could be turned "off" ; )

Well - that's it for now, as I need to prepare for the big event this evening.  Wish me luck!!!