Doug Rasor
TI Vice President of Strategic Marketing

As resident “gadget guy” at Texas Instruments, the TI Developers Conference (TIDC) is especially fun for me. I love getting a sneak peek at the latest and greatest innovations from our customers. Every year, I’m amazed by what’s being done with TI DSPs and high-performance analog technology across a multitude of application spaces.

Last year, we had some great tech demonstrations in the Technology Play Room as well as on Day Two of the keynote series. For those of you who attended, perhaps you remember that Sling Media showcased their brand new Sling Box at TIDC 2005, blowing away the audience. Now you can’t turn on your TV or radio without hearing celebrities like Jim Rome and Terry Bradshaw singing the product’s praises. It makes one wonder what break-out product will be demoed this year.

As emcee of this year’s show, I’m glad to see that there will be even more live demos than ever before. Rather than holding them on a single day, we will have demonstrations throughout the keynote series – three on each of the three days – not to mention that the Play Room will be accessible all day, every day.

On Day One, we’re going to get a glimpse of some interesting new technology like Terrestrial HD Radio, WiMax and virtual surround sound. We’ll also hear from Gregg Lowe, senior vice president, high-performance analog for TI. He and I will both take some time to introduce the theme of this year’s show, “Heroes of The Signal Processing Domain.” This is our way of honoring you, the unsung heroes who create the technologies that change and improve life in a thousand different ways.

Heroes embody an ideal and demonstrate the limitless possibilities of humankind. Throughout history, there is a common thread between all heroes - they recognize problems and find innovative ways of solving them. Sound familiar?

And if you made a heroic attempt, but couldn’t quite make it to TIDC this year – don’t worry. Tune in here daily and we’ll give you a quick look at what’s going on. But don’t forget to sign up for next year. I, for one, can’t wait to see the gadgets then.