NVIDIA Announces the SHIELD Android Gaming Console
NVIDIA has a new entry in its SHIELD line of products with the simply named SHIELD. We already have the SHIELD Portable and SHIELD Tablet, but the SHIELD is an Android gaming/TV console that can stream TV shows, movies, and games at up to 4K resolutions. The SHIELD runs on the new NVIDIA Tegra X1 processor, which features a 256-core Maxwell GPU and an eight-core 64-bit ARM CPU, along with 4K support at 60Hz. It is NVIDIA's most powerful Tegra processor yet.
The SHIELD supports 5.1/7.1 audio over HDMI, features an HDMI 2.0 port so it can output 4K at 60Hz, has two USB 3.0 ports and one micro-USB 2.0 port, and includes 802.11ac 2x2 MIMO. It also has Bluetooth 4.1/BLE, 16GB of internal storage, a microSD slot that supports up to 128GB cards, and a Gigabit Ethernet port so it can be hard wirded. Oh, and the GPU features 3GB of VRAM, so it certainly doesn't lack in that department.
This Android-powered console is the gateway to NVIDIA GRID, the company's game streaming service that it calls the "Netflix for Games." It is powered by a team of GeForce GTX GPUs to deliver games to you at 1920x1080 with 60 frames per second. More than 50 games can be streamed with GRID, like Batman: Arkham Origins, Metro: Last Light Redux, and more, with new games added each week. Additionally, GRID can purchase and stream games coming out later this year, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Batman: Arkham Knight.
Along with NVIDIA GRID, the SHIELD can play the hundreds of Android games already available, including over 50 titles optimized for the SHIELD itself. Games like DOOM 3: BFG Edition, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, and Crysis 3 are among those 50, with NVIDIA promising fast speeds thanks to that Tegra X1 chip. To play all these games, each SHIELD comes with a SHIELD controller. A remote control can be purchased separately, as well as extra controllers and a vertical stand for the SHIELD.
Source: Press Release
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Khronos Group Unveils the Vulkan Graphics API
The Khronos Group has taken the wraps off its next-generation OpenGL API and have given it a name: Vulkan. Vulkan, previously known as glNext, is a low-overhead API to enhance multi-threaded 3D development, so different threads can prepare batches to send to the GPU at the same time. Developers will now have more control over creating commands, with things like memory and thread management handled by the developer instead of the video driver. This will let the driver do less work than it does now, which could help overall performance. Vulkan is made with modern hardware in mind, with complex GPUs and CPUs that have multiple threads to handle more load.
Vulkan, like OpenGL, will work across operating systems and hardware vendors, so everyone can benefit from what it offers, including mobile users. One thing different between OpenGL and Vulkan is how the latter handles shader programs. OpenGL would require every driver to have a full shader compiler for things written in the GLSL shader language. However, Vulkan takes a page from Direct3D, and has the shaders compiled into SPIR-V, which is then what the drivers will use for shaders. SPIR-V is an update to SPIR 2.0 and has been developed alongisde Vulkan. SPIR-V combines graphics and computation; so regardless if its a graphical shader written using GLSL, a computational shader using OpenCL C, or any other language, SPIR-V compiles them all and is the only thing the video driver has to use.
Valve and other developers will show off early engines built using Vulkan during GDC 2015 this week. The final specification and drivers for Vulkan won't appear until later this year. Even with the advent of Vulkan, OpenGL isn't going away, as Vulkan is a lower level control that may not be a good fit for everything used by OpenGL. It's kind of like DirectX 11 and 12, where both will exist at the same time based on which developers need what aspects. However, as seen yesterday, AMD's Mantle is effectively going away, since both DirectX 12 and Vulkan do what Mantle did, just not restriced to only AMD GPUs.
Sources: Khronos Group and Ars Technica
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Sony Virtual Reality Headset to Launch in Early 2016
Sony has announced an updated design and hardware specifications for the PS4 powered virtual reality headset known as Project Morpheus. The hardware updates center around the viewing apparatus with a larger 5.7" screen operating at 1920x1080 with a refresh rate of 120Hz. The field of view has also been increased to 100 degrees with latency lowered to 18 milliseconds. Project Morpheus has an expected release date sometime in early 2016 with no price announced.
Source: Engadget
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Enlighten 3 Lighting Engine Demonstrated at GDC
Geometrics, a company owned by ARM, revealed its next generation lighting engine, Enlighten 3, at the Game Developers Conference. The third iteration of the software "offers a unique method of implementing advanced dynamic lighting inside of digital content, which not only improves the image visually as compared to the older Enlighten technology, but also offers significant performance gains." Developers will be able to create realistic lighting effects in their games while also giving a "greater amount of control over the direction, angle, and lighting level as a result." As part of the engine, Geometrics has also released a tool called Forge to make it easier to include the new features in games. Forge is currently compatible with the Unreal Engine 3 and 4 with plans to expand to other engines in the future.
Source: Toms Hardware
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Wave-Particle Duality Imaged for First Time
Even though Einstein is best known for his theories of relativity, it was his paper on the photoelectric effect that earned him his Nobel Prize. A central concept to this paper was that light exists as both a particle and a wave, which was actually a matter of debate for centuries as different experiments can show it as one or the other. That limitation of experiments to show either the wave or the particle nature has continued until recently as researchers at EPFL have finally designed an experiment that shows both.
To finally catch light as both wave and particle, the researchers turned to electrons to capture the image. First a laser pulse was fired at a nanowire, causing its electrons to become excited and radiate light around the wire as a standing wave. Next the researchers fired a beam of electrons near the wire, because as they pass through the light, they will speed up or slow down. The image the researchers took showed the standing light wave, confirming the wave nature, but at the same time showed quantized energy packets. This indicates that the electrons were interacting with photons, the quanta or particle of light.
This is the first time the paradoxical nature of quantum mechanics has been directly demonstrated by an experiment, and will definitely impact fundamental science. It could also have applications with future technologies, like quantum computers, with its ability to image and control quantum phenomena.
Source: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
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HyperX Releases FURY DDR4 Memory and Additional Predator DDR4 Kits
HyperX, the high-performance product division of Kingston Technology, has just released its FURY DDR4 memory line. The latest product line from HyperX offers value oriented consumers with high performance, maximum reliability, and great aesthetics. The FURY DDR4 memory line is compatible with the Intel X99 chipset, is available in 2133MHz, 2400MHz, and 2666MHz frequencies, comes in 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB kits, and features a low profile, black heat spreader color and matching PCB. FURY DDR4 memory operates at 1.2V for maximum power efficiency, is completely factory tested to ensure reliability, and comes with a lifetime warranty that includes free technical support.
Along with the release of FURY DDR4 memory, HyperX has expanded its high-end Predator DDR4 family, which was recently overclocked to a world record, with 32GB and 64GB kits in order to cater to performance driven enthusiasts.
Source: Press Release
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Protecting Computer Chips with QR Codes
We have all grown used to QR codes, most likely, as these codes are used in a variety of places to provide useful information or links to whoever pulls out their smartphone. They may be getting a new use in the future though, thanks to researchers at the University of Connecticut who want to use them to secure computer chips.
Believe it or not, but there are counterfeit computer chips being made out there, possibly with the purpose of making money but also to compromise security systems. Just a few years ago over 100 cases were revealed by a Senate Armed Services Committee report and fixing the issues of the counterfeit, Chinese electronics cost some $2.675 million. To try to prevent that from happening again, the Connecticut researchers suggest encoding vital statistics about computer chips into QA codes that are placed on the chips. By encrypting the data and compressing it all into the code, so an Internet connection is not required, the chips can be authenticated.
To further improve security, the researchers used a random phase photon-based encryption system to make the image hard to duplicate without knowing the appropriate codes. Instead of the white and black designs we may find around us, the resulting image can be microns in size and resemble a night sky with a few dots of pixelated light.
Source: University of Connecticut
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Radeon R7 260X iCafe OC Graphics Card Introduced by Sapphire
Sapphire has officially introduced its latest graphics card offering, the Radeon R7 260X iCafe OC, that is aimed at valued oriented builds. This graphics card includes a full length, dual-slot cooler and offers a cooling solution that features a copper core base, a plethora of aluminum fins, and an 80mm fan. The Radeon R7 260X iCafe OC comes with 896 Graphics CoreNext stream processors, a 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, core clock speeds of 1050MHz, and 2GB of memory clocked at 5GHz. The card is powered by a single 6-pin PCIe power connector and includes one DisplayPort 1.2a, one dual-link DVI, and one HDMI 1.4a.
Source: TechPowerUp
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ECS Announces LIVA Short Film Contest
ECS, a motherboard manufacturing company based out of Taiwan, has announced its first ever worldwide "How do you LIVA" short film contest. The contest is centered on the company’s LIVA X desktop, a Mini PC that has been available for roughly two months and features an incredible amount of technology packed into a small and efficient package. The contest is open to virtually anyone and seeks to find the most creative individuals who can portray in just 90 seconds how LIVA X can make life better. Participants in the "How do you LIVA" short film contest are competing to win a grand prize of roughly $4774.87 and an invitation to participate in Computex 2015 in Taiwan.
Details about the ECS LIVA short film contest, including contest stages and additional award information, can be found on the official contest website.
Source: Press Release
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AMD's Mantle API Nearing Its End; Not Dead Yet
AMD's experiment with its Mantle API may be nearing its end, as a recent blog post by AMD urged developers to focus on DirectX 12 and next-generation OpenGL (glNext). Raja Koduri, Vice President of Visual and Perceptual Computing at AMD, wrote a blog covering the future of Mantle and APIs in general. Koduri went over the levels Mantle reached, with five game engines and ten premium applications making use of it, but also focused on the future for Mantle. And the future, it seems, is rather bleak.
AMD will no longer release the Mantle SDK to the public, but Koduri did not say that Mantle is completely dead. It will live on, albeit in a seemingly reduced role. The company will be making a 450-page programming guide available later this month as a sort ofsmall consolation prize. AMD hopes the guide gives developers the chance to see what Mantle could do and possibly generate ideas to be used in the future for other APIs.
The upcoming Battlefield: Hardline will still make use of Mantle, with AMD providing EA all the resources it can to make it a success. Koduri also said the openness of Mantle will broaden, but full details of that will come this Thursday at GDC 2015. Even though the Mantle SDK won't see a public release, AMD will still make it available for partners that register in the co-development and evaulation program to figure out APIs in the future. For everything else, there's DirectX 12 and glNext.
Mantle may be at its end, and while it never saw the major support the likes of DirectX and OpenGL garnered, it has been successful in some aspects. One in particular was getting DirectX and OpenGL to innovate and get with the times. AMD saw an inefficiency in how DirectX was using the CPU, which Mantle corrected. The upcoming DirectX 12 addresses that and other shortcomings, so in that regard Mantle was a success. GlNext hasn't been fully unveiled yet (should happen this week), so we'll have to see exactly what all that incorporates, but it's supposed to be a complete reworking of OpenGL to make it modern.
Source: AMD Gaming Blog
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Mushkin STRIKER SSDs Now Available
Mushkin first unveiled the STRIKER line of solid state drives at CES 2015. The STRIKER line is powered by the Phison PS3110-S10 quad-core SSD controller, offering read and write speeds up to 565MB/s and 550MB/s, respectively. The drives are available in capacities of 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB from authorized retailers such as Newegg. Director of Product Development Brian Flood described the drives stating, "STRIKER is aptly named for its purpose: to mark its place as the premier high-performance solid-state drive series. The STRIKER will allow its users to experience highly-accelerated application load times, boot performance, multimedia editing, and general usage."
Source: Press Release
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Google Plans to Enter Wireless Carrier Market
Google is finally addressing the rumors that it was going to become a wireless carrier by confirming the speculation at the Mobile World Congress earlier today. Senior VP Sundar Pichai said the company would enter the market on a "small scale" as a mobile network virtual operator (MNVO). As an MNVO, Google would purchase access from larger carriers like Sprint and then sell its own plans. Google will treat the new project as an experiment similar to the Nexus phone, with plans to expand the service likely contingent on its success. Pichai also mentioned that Google will launch its first drones as part of Project Titan later this year. Project Titan and Project Loon, which uses balloons instead of drones, are efforts to help spread Internet access to the more than four billion people without it.
Source: Mashable
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Unreal Engine 4 Now Free
You read the title correctly, Unreal Engine 4 is now free for everyone to download, and future updates will also be free. Previously the engine was available by a $19 per month subscription, but now anyone can use it and the various resources about it. This includes access to the source code. All Epic Games requires is a 5% royalty on gross revenue after the first $3000 is earned by a shipped game or application.
The reason behind this strategy change, as explained in the blog post linked below, is that Epic Games has been so impressed by the creativity of those using UE4 so far, that the company chose to remove the "last barrier to entry." When the company asked for projects to show off at this year's GDC, it received over 100 that were "good enough to show," but had to pick just eight. Current subscribers are going to be issued a pro-rated refund for their most recent month's payment, and everyone who has ever paid will receive a $30 credit to the Unreal Engine Marketplace.
Source: Unreal Engine
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Improving Radio-Chip Efficiencies
Efficiency is important for just about all electronics, and that is not going to change any time soon. In fact if we do see the Internet of Things become a reality, efficiency is going to be key to connecting all of our various devices and appliances. To that end, researchers at MIT have developed a way to significantly improve the efficiency of radio chips by reducing off-state leakage.
Semiconductors are interesting electronic materials as they possess both conductive and insulating properties, which can be switched on and off. Because they are not perfect insulators, the transistors made of them can leak some energy when they are in their off-state. To improve the insulating properties, the researchers push a negative charge into a wire running across the transistor, as this stops the electrons that would otherwise leak out. A charge pump is used to create the negative charge.
As you may have guessed, this negative charge does take some power to produce, but at the cost of 20 picowatts, some 10,000 pW can be saved. If devices are going to start having sensors and transmitters built in to build an Internet of things, such efficiency will practically be a necessity.
Source: MIT
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