FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Dr. Martha Russell, Associate Director
Media X at Stanford University, 650-723-1616
Martha.Russell@stanford.edu

Velocity and Effectiveness in Knowledge Transfer Attracts New Media X Corporate Members

PALO ALTO, California, February 28, 2008 – Media X at Stanford University will announce five new corporate members at the 6th Media X Annual Meeting on March 3-4, in Arrillaga Hall at Stanford University, http://mediax.stanford.edu/conf_08/index.html. These new members are: FX Palo Alto Laboratories, Konica Minolta Technology USA, Motorola, NACS (Association for Petroleum and Convenience Retailing) and Sun Microsystems.

“From real world assistance to virtual world simulations, and from entertainment to collaboration, many new technologies are being brought into play to support how people communicate,” says Charles (Chuck) House, Executive Director of Media X at Stanford University. “Each corporate member of the Media X community brings its own set of pressing issues and business priorities. Through focused meetings, ongoing communication and participation in themed research, Media X provides access to unlimited brain cycles from thought leaders in all fields at Stanford University.”

“Through our participation in Media X at Stanford University, we know that the best and the brightest at Stanford University will be engaged in developing insights that we can use to solve our most pressing issues,” says Chao King, President of Konica Minolta Technology USA. “We know that the collaborative and multidisciplinary brain trust available through Media X will focus on our problems and that we can be involved with the process.”

“Sun Microsystems joined Media X for two important reasons,” says Ann Bamesberger, Vice President of the Open Work Services Group at Sun Microsystems. “The research sponsored by Media X is on target with the basic questions Sun’s researchers are exploring. These questions are on the horizon now, but they will soon be on our desktops. Additionally, the Media X community – the scholars, the students, and the member organizations – are key for Sun Microsystems’ new products, and we put a high priority on having a close relationship with our partners.”

“At Motorola, we rely on cross-functional teams to move ideas quickly from concept to prototype to product,” says Rajiv Taneja, Senior Director of Applications and Software Research at Motorola, Sunnyvale. “We were drawn to Media X as a research partner with a compatible culture for collaboration across disciplines, allowing us to integrate research insights from Stanford into key topics of interest to Motorola. The interdisciplinary environment of Media X lets our research teams interact with the country’s top intellectuals in a meaningful and effective way.”

“We have to engage the best scientists we can find to bring their perspectives on the challenging problems, such as our energy policy ‘mess,’ global warming and economic hardships for our nation and world,” said Scott Hartman, President of CHR Corp. and Past President of NACS, The Association for Petroleum and Convenience Retailing. “Through NACS’ relationship with Media X,” adds Michael Davis, NACS Vice President of Member Services, “our Technology Council is able to tap into Stanford thought leaders in the many diverse fields whose insights are needed to solve such problems.”

“Our membership and interaction with Media X has provided extraordinary benefit for our research directions on distributed collaboration and interactive multimedia documents, both of which are studied at Stanford through Media X initiatives,” says Lawrence (Larry) Rowe, President of FX Palo Alto Laboratory. “Our employees attend the seminars, workshops and other meetings held by Media X and return with energy and insight.”

“The Media X research agenda is guided by the business challenges of our member companies. It includes all aspects of the interaction of people with advanced communication technologies,” adds Chuck House. “These new members have expanded and enhanced the Media X community that provides resources to stimulate novel interdisciplinary research, integrating perspectives from communication, engineering, humanities, law, medicine, business, and design.

Media X supports Stanford faculty members and graduate students in conducting new studies on themed research initiatives. Input from Media X member companies is critically important in framing the most important research questions around which the themes are constructed. Proposals to study those questions using novel, interdisciplinary approaches are requested from Stanford faculty members across all colleges. The academic merit is verified by a faculty review committee. As the research progresses, member companies participating in that research theme engage in ongoing conversations with the Media X research teams. At the conclusion of the research project, results are shared with the wider Media X community.

“The ability of Media X to leverage the best of industry with the brightest at Stanford University is gated only by our engagement with each other – thinkers and doers together – imagining solutions for the intractable problems and making incremental progress solving those we can get our arms around,” says Dr. Martha Russell, Associate Director of Media X at Stanford University. “This is a time of considerable opportunity. We are grateful to have good partners.”

About Media X

Media X is a community of academic researchers and industry partners studying interactive communications and technology. Strategic corporate partners include DNP, Philips, Sun Microsystems, Time Warner, and The University of Edinburgh. Members of Media X also include The Association of Petroleum and Convenience Retailers, British Petroleum, FX-PAL, Intel, Intuit, Konica Minolta, Learning.com, Motorola, NBC Universal, NCast, Phillips, Quindi, Qwaq Forums, SAP, Sesame Workshop, Sun Microsystems, Swivel Media, Tekes, Teknowledge, and Visa. For more information about Media X, see: http://mediax.stanford.edu.

About FXPAL

FX Palo Alto Laboratory (FXPAL) is a leading research laboratory established in 1995 by Fuji Xerox (FX) Co., Ltd. to develop information technologies to address issues of customers and society. These technologies are integrated with FX products or licensed to other companies. FXPAL has worked on user interfaces, multimedia systems and applications, smart environments, document processing, and distributed collaboration. FXPAL’s current research directions include distributed collaboration and interactive multimedia documents. For more information about FXPAL, see: http://www.fxpal.com/.

About Konica-Minolta Technology USA

Konica Minolta Technology USA's business spans imaging input through output. Konica Minolta Technology USA offers diverse products and services that realize new digital imaging environments in a wide range of fields, from those targeting consumers to their business-oriented counterparts, including medical and graphic sectors. These businesses are sustained by materials technology, optical technology, nanotechnology, image technology and other core technologies. For more information about Konica Minolta Technology USA, see: http://konicaminolta.us/.

About Motorola

Motorola is revolutionizing broadband, embedded systems and wireless networks – bringing cutting-edge technologies into your everyday life, with style. Motorola forever changed the history of communications with the world's first commercial portable cellular phone. Motorola is known around the world as an innovator and leader in wireless and broadband communications. Motorola is committed to helping users get and stay connected simply and seamlessly to the people, information and entertainment you want and need. Motorola does this by designing and delivering "must have" products, "must do" experiences and powerful networks — with a full complement of support services as well. A Fortune 100 company with global presence and impact, Motorola had sales of US$42.9 billion in 2006. For more information about Motorola, see: http://www.motorola.com/.

About NACS

NACS, the association for convenience and petroleum retailing, is an international trade association representing more than 2,200 retail and 1,800 supplier member companies. The U.S. convenience store industry, with over 146,000 stores across the country, posted $569.4 billion in total sales in 2006, with $405.8 billion in motor fuels sales. For further information, visit the NACS website at www.nacsonline.com.

About Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems develops the most innovative products and services that power the network economy. Guided by a singular vision – “The Network is the Computer” – Sun drives network participation through shared innovation, community development and open source leadership. The Open Work Services Group supports, empowers and deploys resources to provide choice and access for the flexible workforce, matching the needs and habits of a mobile and distributed workforce with corporate strategy and vision. By revolutionizing the way we go to the office, the Sun Open Work Practice is helping organizations realize millions in cost avoidances. For more information about Sun Microsystems’ Open Work Practice, see: http://www.sun.com/service/openwork/.

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