Monday, September 19 12:55 p.m. to 1:45 p.m HD DVD Hardware Update & Advanced Content Demonstration News and latest updates on the hardware industry leader’s progress towards introducing HD DVD players, drives and key components will be presented. Information covered will include consumer and PC hardware. Also, an update regarding the exciting interactivity capabilities which will be delivered to the consumers as part of HD DVD HW and SW specifications will be shared. Mark Waring, Director, Sanyo Technology Center, USA Kevin Collins, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft Corporation Rick Hayatsu, Chief Manager, 1st Storage Products Division, NEC Mark Knox, Advisor, Toshiba, HD-DVD Promotion Division Rick Hayatsu is Chief Manager of First Storage Products Division at NEC Corporation. This division develops, designs, and sells optical disc drives, such as DVD Dual (-/+R/RW), DVD Super Multi (-/+R/RW & RAM) and HD DVD-ROM, HD DVD-R/RW drives as the PC Peripherals. He is Co-Chair of the DVD Forum WG-11, which develops specifications for the HD-DVD physical layer. He is also a member of the DVD Forum Steering Committee and Promotion Group. Mr. Hayatsu was an audio engineer for 10 years in Japan, working for Marantz and NEC. He subsequently worked in the optical disc drive business for 24 years. During 1990 to 1995, he was in charge of the CD-ROM business at the NEC USA branch office. It was during this time that he was responsible for launching the world’s first 2X speed CD-ROM drive. After returning to NEC Japan, he became in charge of the above mentioned activities. Mark Waring, Director of Sanyo Technology Center USA, has been involved in both the technical and business aspects of the display and consumer electronics industry for his entire career. Mr. Waring began his career working on optical pattern recognition systems, and many other laser based optical technologies including co-inventing Sony’s SDDS digital film sound recording technology. In more recent years he has supported leading Japanese manufacturers’ LCD display marketing efforts in North America, and subsequently managed Strategic Planning for graphic chipsets, led the DVI standards industry consortium and other display related efforts on behalf of Intel. In 2004 he joined Sanyo in a new position to spearhead this leading Japanese CE supplier’s efforts and strategic activities in working with U.S. and other key technology suppliers and key industry partners to help further Sanyo’s many CE product roadmap plans. Mark Knox is an independent consultant and writer based in Union County New Jersey, who is currently working with Toshiba and the HD DVD Promotion Group. A 25 year veteran of the Electronics Industry, he has been instrumental in the launch of many new product categories, including the first true Digital Pianos, Dolby Surround Sound, CD recording, Satellite Television, DVD, HDTV and now HD DVD. He has been consistently active in the Consumer Electronics Alliance, having served on various product Division Boards as well as the Technology and Standards groups. In 1996, he received the "Digi" award from Wideband Magazine, recognizing his contributions to the Digital Products industry. Mark lives in New Jersey in a very old house with a very new wireless network, his wife Kat and five other felines. He frequently enjoys watching terrestrial and cable HDTV, listening to high performance Audio and serenading his wife and the other cats with his guitar and keyboards. Kevin Collins is a senior program manager on the professional content team at Microsoft focusing on all aspects of the "iHD" product that represents advanced content in the HD DVD-Video specification. Prior to that he started the SQL Mobile product, a small footprint database working on mobile devices and before that working on the JET database engine which still is the data store for Microsoft Access and is part of all current Microsoft Windows operating systems. He has been involved with database technology for over 19 years, with over ten years working on database technology at Microsoft. Previously Kevin worked at Microrim on R:BASE features, performance and multi-user issues. Prior to that he managed a small consulting firm in Minneapolis specializing in large multi-user multi-location fileserver-based application development.