Monday, February 18, 2002		Lens on IT

Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, is applauded by New York Stock Exchange Chairman Richard Grasso, left, and Gerald Levin, CEO of AOL Time Warner, as Schwarzenegger rings the NYSE opening bell. He was promoting his new film "Collateral Damage." 

Characters are shown in a scene from the animated film "Monster's Inc." in this undated publicity photograph. "Monster's Inc." received an Academy Award nomination for the first ever Best Animated Feature Film award. The Academy Awards will be presented at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on March 24, 2002.

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Bill Gates shows a software box covered in a heart as he launches Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework, the application development tool and platform for .NET applications, at the VSLive! 2002 Conference in San Francisco. Gates kicked off launch events around the world and hailed the two products as key to the development experience that will drive XML Web services.

R2-D2, the lovable droid from the Star Wars movies, is featured in the Hasbro showroom, at the American International Toy Fair in New York. The 18-inch version is an interactive robot that responds to voice commands, with innovative speech and infrared scanning technology. The robotic fellow even has a cup holder arm (holding a TV remote). Price is expected to be $99.99 and it is due to be released this fall.

— Reuters photos