OpenCL
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Havok and AMD show off OpenCL with pretty pretty dresses
With all the talk about OpenCL and Snow Leopard together and how the spec will allow Apple's upcoming hotness to exploit graphics accelerators, it's easy to lose track of the place where the standard could make its biggest impact: gaming. Yes, OpenGL may have lost favor in that realm in recent years, but OpenCL looks to captivate the hearts and GPUs of gamers everywhere by applying some much-needed standardization to the physics acceleration realm, first shown in public at GDC running on some AMD hardware. Havok is demonstrating its Havok Cloth and Havoc Destruction engines, the former of which is embedded below, and we think you'll agree it's quite impressive. OpenCL allows such acceleration to switch between the GPU and CPU seamlessly and as needed depending on which is more available, hopefully opening the door to physics acceleration that actually affects gameplay and doesn't just exist to make you say, "Whoa."
Mac mini, Apple TV to use new Ion platform?
Tom's Hardware says that Apple will use NVIDIA's Ion platform in an updated Mac mini, and AppleInsider says it could also be used in an updated Apple TV. NVIDIA's Ion platform is a low-cost, small-form-factor logic board that includes both an NVIDIA graphics processor and Intel CPU (among other things). According to AppleInsider, Ion uses the same 9400M chipset used in the new MacBook and MacBook Pro models. We knew that existing iMac and Mac mini models are already using the 9400M as part of the NVIDIA MCP79 platform. Either way, with the 9400M, full-screen HD decoding is built-in. According to Tom's Hardware, the Ion package slated for use with the Mac mini includes an Intel Atom 330 processor. AppleInsider says that performance gains for a new Mac mini based on this platform could require OpenCL, a technology only available so far in builds of Snow Leopard. Tom's expects the new Mac mini to arrive in March, while AppleInsider, says that it could arrive "this month." Fingers crossed. The Apple TV, on the other hand, with its 1GHz CPU, would see a significant boost with Ion. The margins on the Apple TV are already tight, though, and adding more power could break the bank on Apple's "hobby" project. But what if the next-generation Apple TV and Mac mini were one and the same? It's a floor wax! It's a dessert topping! Stop, you're both right.
Apple turns next operating system's 3D prowess up to 11
Apple, not shy of shaking things up in the interface department, has been sitting on its laurels since the release of OS X earlier this decade. Sure, iPod changed the way we think about music and iPhone has completely turned the mobile phone industry around, but the Mac OS has been relatively static in terms of how users navigate within the environment since the release of 10.0. The good news, however, is that Apple is working on a way to change the way we interact with our systems. MacRumors has uncovered information on a patent titled "Multi-Dimensional Desktop" which depicts a three-dimensional environment that looks somewhat like viewing a room from one end. The interface has methods for literally stacking files and minimized windows on top of one another as well as for dragging interface items along the multiple surfaces. An interface such as this would be fairly performance-intensive and the ratification of OpenCL along with the impending release of Snow Leopard could be just the shoes that need to drop for this to become a reality. There is no guarantee that this will ever be seen outside of Cupertino or the PTO, but if Apple does implement this interface design it would bring a whole new meaning to the term "wallpaper." Click the read link for an additional image from the patent application.[Via Engadget]
OpenCL 1.0 ratified; is Snow Leopard now ready for launch?
There's been quiet anticipation for the last 6 months for OpenCL (Open Computing Language), which is an Application Programming Interface standard allowing developers to take advantage of the power of Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) in parallel with multi-core processors. The result? Applications become much faster and responsive. Apple announced in June that support for OpenCL would be built into Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6). The Khronos Group, an industry consortium that creates open-standard, royalty-free APIs, put OpenCL on the fast track as a result, and announced yesterday that OpenCL 1.0 has been ratified by all of the consortium members. Now that OpenCL has been officially blessed by the members of the consortium, could Snow Leopard be close behind? There has been speculation that the latest iteration of Mac OS X could be released as soon as Macworld Expo 2009 in early January. Snow Leopard, along with an announcement of quad-core iMacs, could throw a little fire into what is becoming an increasing chilly Expo. TUAW is attending Macworld Expo 2009 in force this year, so stay tuned for the latest news about Snow Leopard.
NVIDIA dishes about OpenCL
We spent some time on the phone with NVIDIA today in the wake of last night's official release of the OpenCL GPU-processing spec, and we learned some interesting things. NVIDIA thinks OpenCL is going to bring a lot more attention to general-purpose GPU computing, and it's planning on stoking the flames -- not only is it accelerating the CUDA release schedule, it's planning on working with Microsoft on DirectX 11 Compute. Hit the break for some more highlights!
OpenCL 1.0 spec released, GPUs everywhere to get a workout
How time flies -- it was just a few weeks ago that the OpenCL spec was finalized and sent out for final legal review, and now it's here and ready to go. Over 20 partner companies (including AMD, NVIDIA, and, somewhat surprisingly, Intel) have signed on to the parallel programming standard originally proposed by Apple as part of Snow Leopard, and the final spec should allow apps to tap into multi-core CPUs, GPUs, DSPs and even variants of the Cell chip for everything from raw number crunching to interfacing with OpenGL. Sounds hot -- now we'll just have to see how Microsoft counters with the GPU acceleration expected to be built into Windows 7.
OpenCL spec gets finalized, Snow Leopard says "purrrr"
It's just taken a relatively short six months, but it looks like the team behind the Open Computing Language (or OpenCL) have already delivered the final spec for the standard, which puts it right on track for inclusion in OS X Snow Leopard. In fact, the team credits Apple with helping them meet the "impossible deadline," with Intel's Tim Mattson saying that Apple's decision to "support it in Snow Leopard was a huge plus to us," even if it forced them to "divorce our families" and left them "almost dead." The standard itself, which allows for greater leveraging of GPUs and other hardware, isn't quite ready to be implemented just yet, however, as it still has to go through the final stage of being vetted by all 20 partner companies for patent issues and whatnot. Once that's done, which will take a "minimum" of 30 days, they'll release the actual spec and begin the usual round demos.[Via Ars Technica]
Windows 7 to feature GPU acceleration like Apple's Snow Leopard?
A first true glimpse of Windows 7, Microsoft's Vista successor, is T minus 1 day and counting. So far we know very little. Oh sure, it supports multi-touch and takes 1,000 engineers to code but the real details will emerge from Tuesday's kickoff to the PDC 2008 developer conference. As detailed by TG Daily, the PDC track notes dedicate 22 of the 155 tracks to Windows 7 with 2 further dedicated to GPU acceleration under the titles, "Unlocking the GPU with Direct3D," and "Writing Your Application to Shine on Modern Graphics Hardware." Interesting times given Apple's announced OS X Snow Leopard support for OpenCL GPU acceleration in partnership with new best buds, Nvidia, and Intel planning to kill off the GPU entirely. Somebody has to be wrong.[Thanks, Jeelz]
