ACADEMIA

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- Silicon Graphics, Inc. (NYSE: SGI) announced today new advances that will soon enable technical and creative professionals to access supercomputer visuals from almost any mobile or consumer device over standard computer networks. This capability is a significant step in making SGI's vision of universal access to advanced visualization a reality. SGI has been well known for transforming complex data into visualized information to create breakthroughs in defense technology, medicine, oil and gas exploration, engineering design and visual effects for the movies. In January 2002, SGI demonstrated the capability to enable customers to collaborate using real-time visualization, with common PCs, Linux® operating system-based tablets or any standard UNIX® OS-based workstation. The SGI solution -- called Visual Area Networking -- allows users to see graphics on their screens generated by an SGI® supercomputer at thousands of times the detail and complexity that normally could be handled by PCs, with their limitations in graphics and data handling capability. Now, SGI and its partners are making it possible to access this advanced visualization technology on new computing devices, specifically wireless mobile devices, television set top boxes and even wearable computers such as "eye pieces." Visual Area Networking makes that information -- often based on data sets far too large and complex for a PC to handle -- available to users over standard networks. In science, Visual Area Networking can be used for collaboration between researchers in far-flung places around the world. In engineering, it can be used for collaborative decision-making; in medicine this technology can enable doctors to have access to real-time 3D patient data, even if they are thousands of miles from the patient. Visual Area Networking could conceivably also be used in the entertainment industry to enable directors and editors to have access to supercomputer-quality visual effects, even when working in a remote location. "SGI is radically changing the way the world uses computer graphics," said Bob Bishop, chairman and chief executive officer of SGI. "In January of this year we introduced the breakthrough concept of Visual Area Networking that is revolutionizing the way our customers work. Now, a mere six months later, we're extending the technology even further to a variety of mobile and wireless devices to enable our technical and creative customers with anytime and anywhere access to advanced visualization capabilities." Wireless Devices As wireless communications networks become faster and more ubiquitous, users are looking to visual applications for the next generation of convenience and productivity enhancements. Nokia's support for the OpenGL® API illustrates how communications vendors are moving aggressively to support those needs with embedded connectivity and personal productivity applications. SGI Visual Area Networking solutions are designed to work over high-speed wireless networks and provide universal access to advanced visualization and massive data sets that are beyond the reach of cell phone technology. Wearable Mobile Visualization Systems Today, wearable computers with access to petabytes of data, teraflops of computing and gigabytes per second of I/O are no longer science fiction. Visual Area Networking solutions from SGI can now be combined with wearable computers that fit on a user's belt and light-weight, high-resolution displays such as Microvision's NOMAD Personal Display System, the world's only daylight-readable, see-through, head-worn display. These mobile visualization systems provide users with a full range of motion and the ability to augment real world objects with computer-generated images. Using Visual Area Networking, these solutions enable users to visualize terabytes of data using the world's most powerful visual supercomputers and collaborate with colleagues around the world. Set-Top Box Support Technical and creative professionals on the road need to stay connected to powerful corporate resources. Linux operating system-based television set-top boxes can act as clients in an SGI Visual Area Networking environment and enable users to connect over high speed broadband networks from the comfort of their hotel rooms or at home. Engineers can log-on and immediately view simulation results and interactively optimize designs without having to wait hours for low-resolution data sets to download to a laptop. SGI will demonstrate its graphics innovation and leadership with this new level of Visual Area Networking at SIGGRAPH 2002 featuring a personal wearable computer and retinal scanner enabling users to interact with a SGI® Onyx® family visualization supercomputers. These revolutionary innovations will have significant benefits across industries: Sciences: Visual Area Networking changes the way we think of health care forever by giving surgeons the ability to use realistic or volumetric or scanned 3D images -- generated using an SGI® Onyx® 3000 series system and displayed on a wireless tablet in a sterile operating room environment -- for successfully planning and performing life-saving surgical procedures. Government and defense: Using Visual Area Networking, an SGI Onyx 3000 series visualization system could provide visual representations of floor plans of an unfamiliar building to police or rescue workers wearing a wireless, personal wearable computer with headset/goggles for emergency search and rescue operations. Manufacturing: Designers will someday use Visual Area Networking via set-top boxes-the computer-like cable box that sits on top of a television that provides cable input, video on demand, audio or Web access services -- to perform collaborative product design regardless of whether they are in a hotel, on the road or in the comfort of their own home. Energy: A geologist could use a mobile phone from an oil rig anywhere in the middle of the sea to directly access and manipulate images generated by an SGI Onyx 3000 series visualization system in order to collaborate with other experts around the world on accurate drilling sites. Visual Area Networking works with applications based on the OpenGL API, including existing packages from software vendors and customer proprietary software, with zero modification. It works with existing and future network infrastructures. It is client independent, including small devices such as tablets, PDAs, personal wearable computers, and, someday, mobile phones, through large-scale SGI® Reality Center(TM) facilities. It allows shared application control between all participants in a session. "SGI is forging technological breakthroughs for the future needs of technical and creative users," added Bishop. "The power of SGI visualization supercomputers is literally put into the hands of people like surgeons performing virtual surgeries on the battlefield or emergency response workers performing search-and-rescue missions." More information about Visual Area Networking can be found at www.sgi.com/visualization/van/.