From: "Linda Jacobson" Subject: ANNOUNCE: Silicon Graphics appoints VR Evangelist Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 16:27:00 -0800 From: "Linda Jacobson" SILICON GRAPHICS EXPANDS COMMITMENT TO VIRTUAL REALITY: LINDA JACOBSON JOINS AS VIRTUAL REALITY EVANGELIST Linda Jacobson joins Silicon Graphics to educate the public and evangelize Silicon Graphics' role in Virtual Reality MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (February 6, 1995) - Silicon Graphics, Inc. (NYSE: SGI) today announced that Linda Jacobson has taken on the position of Virtual Reality Evangelist. Ever since the inception of the commercial Virtual Reality market, Silicon Graphics has been the platform of choice. Developers and peripheral suppliers have uniformly turned to Silicon Graphics to provide the systems required to compute and visualize virtual environments. The establishment of the Virtual Reality Evangelist position expands Silicon Graphics' dedication to innovation and leadership in VR; joining with one of the leading visionaries in the VR community cements it. "In keeping with Silicon Graphics defacto position as the leading supplier of VR technology," said David E. Orton, vice president and general manager of Silicon Graphics' Advanced Systems Division, "we are extremely pleased that Linda Jacobson has come on board to drive our VR strategy and untangle public confusion about what VR is and what it isn't." The position of Evangelist is a first for Silicon Graphics. There is no comparable position within the company to serve as a reference for Ms. Jacobson's role. Virtual reality is a field full of hype, confusion, and much misinformation. At the same time, it is a user interface technology that promises to make human interactions with computers more natural, effective, and powerful. While very exciting, VR hype has far exceeded the ability of the current technology to deliver, resulting in tremendous concern about the practicality and safety of this new technology. Ms. Jacobson, through her work as a writer, journalist, and founder of the Virtual Reality Education Foundation, Inc. (known as VeRgE), has dedicated her career to creating forums for communicating the realities and possibilities of VR. Ms. Jacobson is the author of *Cyberarts: Exploring Art and Technology* (Miller Freeman 1992) and *Garage Virtual Reality* (Sams/Macmillan 1994) and was a founding editor of Wired magazine. At the same time, Silicon Graphics has dedicated itself to creating computer systems that focus on interaction through the visual and aural mediums, creating an experiential environment for computing and communicating information. With the advent of Silicon Graphics' RealityEngine graphics systems in 1992, Silicon Graphics cemented its VR leadership, drawing multiple awards for the VR product of the year. Silicon Graphics tradition of involvement in Virtual Reality traces back over two decades, to 1974, when Silicon Graphics' founder, Dr. James Clark, experimented with VR technology, including head- tracked displays and 3D input devices, during his graduate studies at the University of Utah. No company has been associated with VR longer and no company is more accepted within the VR community. Now, with Ms. Jacobson as Silicon Graphics emissary, no company will have more of an impact on bringing virtual reality technology into the mainstream of computing, safely and effectively. Silicon Graphics, Inc. is the leading manufacturer of high-performance visual and experiential computing systems. The company delivers interactive three-dimensional graphics, digital media, internet, virtual reality and multiprocessing supercomputing and server technologies to technical, scientific, commercial, industrial and creative professionals. Its subsidiaries include MIPS Technologies, Inc., which designs and licenses the industry's leading RISC processor technology for the computer systems, home game consoles, and embedded control markets, Silicon Studio, Inc., which provides software and training solutions to the entertainment industry worldwide, and Alias/Wavefront Inc., the world's leading supplier of industrial design, animation, and game authoring software. Silicon Graphics has offices worldwide and headquarters in Mountain View, California. Silicon Graphics, the Silicon Graphics logo and OpenGL are registered trademarks, and IRIS GL and IRIS Graphics Library are trademarks, of Silicon Graphics, Inc. All other product or service names mentioned herein are the property of their respective owners. Press materials are available on the World Wide Web via http://www.sgi.com. # # # [MODERATOR'S NOTE: Commercial postings are offered on this newsgroup as a public service. Their appearance here does not indicate endorsement by the moderators or by the USENET or its administrators.]