AMD spins Microsoft up its Vanishing Point

A HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL bit of marketing by the Vole and AMD will actually see a person shoved up 60 miles in the air without a parachute.

As part of the marketing of Vista, the Vole and AMD developed a puzzle game called "Vanishing Point" with the main prize being a trip 60 miles up in a rocket-jet.

Much to everyone's surprise the game took off and managed to get 87,000 people registered for Microsoft and AMD spam, er, the game.

In a press release, Aaron Coldiron, lead communications manager for Microsoft said, "We wanted to show people how Windows Vista will take computing to new heights — 60 miles up, in this case. The chance to give someone the ultimate "vista" from space is a fantastic reward."

Let us hope all the drivers work and the whole lot does not crash and burn, eh? The winner was William Temple of Sacramento, California. He said that seeing the world from space was a life-long dream.

Temple will visit space in the Rocketplane XP, a four-seat, fighter-sized vehicle fitted with a delta wing and a V-tail providing good flight characteristics both subsonically and supersonically (it says here). The vehicle is powered by turbojet engines and a rocket engine, allowing it to accelerate to speeds of more than 3,500 feet per second (2,386 miles per hour) and reach altitudes in excess of 330,000 feet (60 miles), providing the sensation of weightlessness for three to four minutes.

The next version, Rocketplane Vista, is expected to take five years to develop and to cost more than it would to send George W. Bush to Pluto. µ