AMD Fusion to arrive in 2009

AND SO to the ludicrously expensive and self regarding Charlotte Street Hotel - bottle of Peroni £5! - to meet the engaging Giuseppe Amato and the equally engaging Sachin Duggal of Nivio.

He's not pictured, and before you ask we have no idea who the lass is in the background. It's definitely not my ex, Eva G.

Giuseppe was in town to introduce the software company Nivio, which has a cunning plan to look after all your data for you and let you use Microsoft software to boot.

In between times, the man - who used to work at Motorola and Hector's House - dilated on the state of the industry and "green footprints" and said Fusion will arrive in 2009.

We asked Amato about AMD's green credentials, and if truth be told, he is quite eco-friendly and drives a teeny weeny car.

That, he admitted, could not be said for his friend Henri Richard, who keeps Ferraris like other people might grow roses. Henri's carbon footprint probably stomps across the planet like Chipzilla's paws.

Amato was quietly confident about the "Barcelona" microprocessor, although he was a bit bewitched, bothered and bewildered by how young Theo Valich managed to benchmark one - he blamed some leaky system integrator.

Samples are out and about and it's almost impossible to keep those krazy katz from leaking left, right and centre.

We'll write about Sachin and his cunning Nivio plan a bit later. µ

* THANKS to an anonymous hack for sending this audio clip from the Tunisian event earlier this year, in which Amato has a message for the world. Here. Why oh why oh why?