ShadowRAM: Lenovo may fly resellers to Beijing games

COMMENTARY: Rumours, truth and innuendo


Lenovo may fly resellers to Beijing games

Australian resellers may soon be competing for a special once-in-a-lifetime prize being considered by major Olympic Games sponsor Lenovo -- a trip to Beijing to enjoy the next summer Olympiad in 2008.

Phil Cameron, channel manager at Lenovo, said the Chinese vendor was mulling a reseller initiative that would tie in with its sponsorship of both upcoming Olympic Games -- the next Winter Games in 2006 and the Summer Games in 2008.

He said it was probable that prizes would include trips for its top-performing resellers to the Summer Games in Chinese capital Beijing. The winter Olympiad is being held in Turin, Italy.

“Resellers should start working hard now,” he says. “Lenovo is sponsor for the next two Olympics. That will be massive.” Lenovo would start its marketing efforts around its sponsorship of the Games shortly. The company envisaged tying its brand into publicity around some of the teams, Cameron said.

As a heavily channel-focused vendor, Lenovo wanted to ensure that its channel benefited from the hype and endless promotions that would revolve in the lead-up to and during the Olympics, Cameron said.

The news follows Lenovo’s recent outline of plans to enter Australian retail. Lenovo bought IBM’s personal computing division last year for US$1.75 billion.


Urine-powered laptops

Urinating and laptop computers caught The Shadow’s attention recently with the news that researchers in Singapore have developed a urine-powered battery.

According to the Institute of Physics’ Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering, researchers discovered that urine could be used to generate 1.5 volts at 1.5 watts when applied to a battery consisting of a sheet of paper “steeped in copper chloride and sandwiched between strips of magnesium and copper”.

The team said the battery is ideal to test urine for diabetes or other diseases that are now checked via a battery-powered device. But we think this research might have promise for those of us whose four-year-old Apple iBook batteries die while trapped in a plane at 35,000 feet.


AMD takes some of its own medicine

At just about every past Intel Developer Forum in the US, AMD would taunt its hated rival by posting AMD reps outside the convention hall offering free coffee and other giveaways touting AMD processors as the superior silicon.

But at last month’s IDF, AMD wound up on the receiving end. Outside the Moscone Centre in San Francisco, representatives of MoveAMD.com, a group opposed to the company’s plan to put a new office building near aquifers in Barton Springs, Texas, posted signs reading, “Hey, Hector Ruiz! Not on our aquifer, please!” A nearby woman handed out explanatory flyers asking,

“Why is AMD breaking its own standards for sustainable growth?”

While Intel often calls security to confront the AMD reps who hang out too close to the conference, there was no immediate sign they were asking the MoveAMD people to, well, move.