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  • Matrox Headcasting vs. ATI Headcasting

    At Yahoo Finance, you get free stock quotes, up-to-date news, portfolio management resources, international market data, social interaction and mortgage rates that help you manage your financial life.


    NEWTON, Mass., Aug. 9, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- LifeFX, Inc. (Nasdaq:LEFX - news), the leading developer of Stand-In (tm) virtual people for the Internet, and ATI Technologies Inc. (TSE:ATY - news; Nasdaq:ATYT - news), a world leader in graphics, video and multimedia solutions, today announced that ATI Technologies will license the LifeFX Stand-In (tm) software to demonstrate their state-of-the-art capabilities of rendering high-resolution graphics.

    ``Our team demanded a demonstration of our R200 capabilities that would blow the industry away. And, the high resolution LifeFX Stand-In demonstration surpasses our expectations,'' said Andrew Rodie, Group Marketing Manager, ATI Technologies. ``We are very excited to have this relationship with LifeFX. Together, we have raised the bar for the computer graphics and interactive developers market.''

    ATI Technologies chose the LifeFX Stand-In software, the only biologically based facial modeling system of its kind, to create a high resolution, life-like, virtual representative to demo ATI Technologies' newest R200 video graphics technology.

    Under the terms of the agreement, ATI Technologies will bundle and distribute the LifeFX software and a custom Stand-In virtual person in all of its retail offerings, including their distribution channels and OEM customers. In exchange, LifeFX will grant a one-year Stand-In software license to ATI Technologies for marketing, promotional and demonstration purposes, including the highly anticipated product launch of R200 at this year's SIGGRAPH Exhibition. ATI will be in Booth 617, Aug. 14-16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Calif.

    ``ATI continues to be the leader in video graphic capabilities,'' said Lucie Salhany, CEO and Co-President, LifeFX. ``Our relationship with ATI will, for the first time, offer developers a bundled technology solution that will enable online branding capabilities at high resolution, film quality, rendering in real time and streamed over the Internet, yet be 100% digital for total control of content creation, dynamic modification and true interactivity for next-generation Web development.''

    About ATI Technologies

    Founded in 1985, ATI Technologies Inc. is a world leader in the supply of graphics, video and multimedia solutions for personal computer and Mac platforms. The pioneer, innovator and market leader in the graphics industry, ATI provides cutting-edge technologies for the PC, set-top box, game console and other consumer appliances markets. The Company has more than 1,900 employees supporting customers from its headquarters in Markham, Ontario, Canada, as well as from offices in Barbados, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and the United States. ATI common shares trade on Nasdaq (ATYT) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ATY).

    About LifeFX

    Lifef/x, Inc., a Safeguard Scientifics (NYSE:SFE - news) partner company, is creating the face of the Internet by developing photo-realistic, digital human faces, or LifeFX Stand- In (tm) virtual people, that can interact in real time. LifeFX Stand-In (tm) virtual people will be used by Web businesses as life-like customer-service and sales representatives, guides, teachers and entertainers, while consumer applications will include e-mail, instant messaging and chat rooms. The LifeFX technology was originally developed for professional medical applications by the University of Auckland, with which LifeFX has an exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, paid up license. LifeFX holds three patents and has five pending. For more information about LifeFX, visit http://www.lifefx.com. For application ideas and demos, visit http://www.facemail.com

    Statements made in this news release, other than those concerning historical information, should be considered forward-looking and subject to various risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements are made based on management's belief as well as assumptions made by, and information currently available to, management pursuant to the ``safe-harbor'' provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. LifeFX Inc.'s future results may differ materially from the results anticipated in these forward-looking statements because of a variety of factors, including the ability of the company to implement its business strategy; the ability of the company to achieve the intended benefits of this strategy; the ability of the company to complete development of its technology; the ability of the company to achieve success in forging strategic relationships; adoption of the technology by major consumer and commercial Web sites; the ability of the company to commercialize the technology before competitors; the ability of the company to retain key employees; and those factors identified in Lifef/x, Inc.'s annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2000, and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

  • #2
    Wow, it's like the Cold War, but instead of nuclear weapons (which are VERY effective in what they do), it's disembodied floating lip-synced head things (which are NOT very effective). Who will be the next to escalate the arms... err.. heads race?

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    • #3
      if ati tries to compete with matrox's headcasting, it might not be as useless as i thought it would be (on the other hand, maybe it is )

      ati seems to be trying to deliver exactly what we expected from the g800: high performance & quality, features, business stuff, dual head etc.

      might even be that i switch sides around christmas, when the have the all-in-wonder r200

      Comment


      • #4
        Oh no, must resist feature madness... i failed

        Good comparison Jon P. but of course ATI had this 2 years ago, just like the Q-Bomb

        Actually i find this really amusing. One competitor comes up with a - mutually agreed upon - useless feature and sells it as the next hot thing and suddenly all competitors (want to) have it. That's very Dilbert... lol.

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        • #5
          well i checked out the demo. The lighting looked better than matrox's. I wonder if it is realtime lighting or if it is part of the picture. I couldn't really tell if it was a 3d head or just a flat image that was being messed with.

          I think i like matrox's better. from what i've seen matrox can better reproduce facial expressions. but i've only seen the demos. the girl in lifeFX's demo looked retarted when she smiled, but at least she had a body. If i was a business, and i REALLY wanted this feature, i would probably get ati's card, just 'cause it will kick the g550's ass in games.

          I think it's silly though that anyone would want to use this feature. It doesn't copy your facial expressions, it just adds generic ones to your 3d head. who knows how good it's going to look on your head. would it really be that hard to tie the 3d head into a web cam or something so that it would reproduce YOUR facial expressions?

          everyone I tell about headcasting says "Wait, How does it know what your head is doing? does it use a web cam or something?" I tell them no, it just guesses what your face is doing by what your saying. then they give me this wieird look. Every Single PERSON!

          someday they'll get it right.

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          • #6
            Wishfull thinking, but

            wouldn't it be nice if ATi and Matrox 'Casting' could interoperate with each other?

            Oh well just hope it doesn't turn out to be like the IM wars of '99 and '00.
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