Texas Governor Rick Perry opens the 2006 World Congress on Information Technology in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. He made a pitch for Texas–home to companies like Dell and Advanced Micro Devices–as a center of high-technology development.
AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz discussed his company’s “50×15” initiative, which has set a goal of bringing Internet access to 50 percent of the world’s people by 2015.
AMD’s PIC (Personal Internet Communicator) uses one of the company’s Geode embedded processors. Several PICs were set up as Internet stations for conference attendees. AMD gave one PIC to each WCIT attendee–around 4,500 people. The PIC was designed as a basic low-cost PC that could withstand dusty environments, and it cost\r\n$185 when it was introduced. AMD won’t comment on how many it has sold.
Bill Detwiler is the Editor for Technical Content and Ecosystem at Celonis. He is the former Editor in Chief of TechRepublic and previous host of TechRepublic's Dynamic Developer podcast and Cracking Open, CNET and TechRepublic's popular online show. Previously, Bill was an IT manager in the social research and energy industries. He has bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Louisville, where he has also lectured on computer crime and crime prevention.
