Hasta La Gadget!

This week at the annual computer graphics conference known as Siggraph, NVIDIA has let loose information on their next-generation NVIDIA QUADRO K6000. This is NVIDIA QUADRO release is the new most powerful graphics card on the market – so says NVIDIA, bringing the world’s largest graphics memory with 12GB onboard. This isn’t the sort of processing power you’ll be using for anything less than the most power-hungry tasks on the planet.

Faced with managing extremely large data sets and time constraints, NVIDIA is aiming to satisfy the most current demands of product creators everywhere from graphics-intensive big-screen films to car manufacturing. Showing examples in both Layout and Animation & Simulation, NVIDIA has made it clear: the memory capacity involved in the K6000 allows previews of scenes with a much more final vision than has ever been offered before.

“It’s going to allow artists to preview their scenes much earlier in the pipeline. In this case, with the K6000, it’s all interactive.” – NVIDIA

“The added memory and other features allow our artists to see much more of the final scene in a real-time, interactive form, and allow many more artistic iterations.” – Guido Quaroni, Supervising Technical Director at Pixar Animation Studios

In car manufacturing, NVIDIA aims to push reality-based design processes to a new generation as well – time restraints and massive amounts of data are needed here as well. Especially when full-on reality-based previews of vehicle renders are needed to avoid costly mistakes once the manufacturing process begins.

“I am now able to load nearly complete vehicle models into RTT Deltagen and have stunning photorealism almost instantly. Instead of spending significant time simplifying the models to fit into previous hardware, we can now spend more time reviewing and iterating designs up front which helps avoid costly changes to tooling.” – Dennis Malone, associate engineer, Nissan North America

The third of three places where NVIDIA aims to take command is with massive geological datasets. In the ecology survey universe, like the automotive world, users need to know what’s under the ground before they get there – the rendering of these possibilities is one of the most intense at this point in our collective history.

“Compared to the Quadro K5000, the Quadro K6000 tripled the performance when running jobs on Terraspark’s InsightEarth application. With jobs running in mere minutes, we can run more simulations and get better insight into where to drill. In this business, drilling in the wrong place is a multi-million dollar mistake, and the Quadro K6000 gives us the edge to make better decisions.” – Klaas Koster, manager, seismic interpretation, Apache Corporation

Sizemic exploration is what we’re looking at here. Faster simulation means faster imaging and faster analysis in the end.

The NVIDIA QUADRO K6000 will be available this Fall worldwide from both leading OEMs and resellers. If you’re aiming to bring on a massive display wall for broadcast-type applications or digital signage, you’ll be glad to see 2 DisplayPort 2.1 ports and 2 DVI ports on its back that can be run simultaneously.

• 12GB ultra-fast GDDR5 graphics memory lets designers and animators model and render characters and scenes at unprecedented scale, complexity and richness
• 2,880 streaming multiprocessor (SMX) cores deliver faster visualization and compute horsepower than previous-generation products
• Supports four simultaneous displays and up to 4k resolution with DisplayPort 1.2
• Ultra-low latency video I/O and support for large-scale visualizations

When pressed on how this product would continue to roll beside the gaming-aimed card family GeForce – specifically with cards such as the GTX TITAN, NVIDIA made it clear: these are two separate families, but they can co-exist as a friendly bunch.

“The Quadro family is targeted at professionals – while you can certainly play games, the real value is for professionals on a variety of verticals. For that Geophysicist that like to play Assassin’s Creed, could he have a good time doing that? Absolutely.” – NVIDIA

This unit will be available in, as NVIDIA says, an “October timeframe” from groups like Dell, HP, and Lenovo and with systems integrators like BOXX Technologies and Supermicro.

NVIDIA QUADRO K6000 becomes new world’s most powerful graphics card for professionals is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
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We know that the next big thing in the world of consumer electronics will most probably be wearable technology – the likes of Google Glass will definitely make quite a splash in the industry, if you ask me. Well, there is a place for the likes of Google Glass, but do remember that wearable tech could have so much more potential. Case in point, Sony has just announced the launch of a head-mount image processing unit which is capable of receiving and outputting endoscope image signals, as well as controlling video images, and these can subsequently be displayed in 3D or 2D via an accompanying head-mounted monitor. This head-mounted monitor can also be picked up as a separate purchase.

The medical fraternity is one that will appreciate this head mounted image processing unit, especially those who are involved in the world of laparoscopic surgery. In this procedure, an endoscope is inserted via multiple keyhole incisions in a patient’s abdomen, letting the surgeon confirm video images that are shown off on a monitor in real time, and it has become a common procedure since it minimizes the strain on patients when compared to open surgery. Sony’s head-mount image processor will come in handy for sure, where it is equipped with a 3D head-mounted monitor and will play nice with a 3D surgical laparoscope. This is made possible thanks to the incorporation of Sony’s advanced 3D and display-related technologies, where it can realize a standard of 3D images which will be able to meet the demands of medical professionals.

This new Sony unit maximizes the technological advantages of OLED (organic light-emitting diode) panels, allowing one to enjoy extremely detailed image representation of the target area. Some of these characteristics will include high resolution, superb reproduction of blacks, excellent video image response times, as well as precise color reproduction. A couple of panels have been fitted inside the monitor, where each one is meant for the respective eyes. Independent HD images will then be displayed on the left and right panels, where there will be no visual crosstalk, so that you can check out the target area in high definition glory complete with faithful color reproduction and highly-precise information relating to depth. We do look forward to see what else technology can throw up in the world of modern medicine.

Press Release
[ Sony announces head mounted image processing unit copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

It can be difficult to know what’s real and what’s fake when it comes to digital art these days. But don’t torture yourself worrying about it now: Here are some of the most photorealistic 3D renderings on the web. Each one is completely synthetic; every single detail generated by madly talented 3D artists. Enjoy.

Read more…

The tech world may be hoping for Apple to unbox some wearable technology in the near future but who cares about the iWatch when an NFC ring is a thing? NFC fans — you know, these sort of folk — hankering for the convenience of having the wireless transfer tech always on their person should point their eyes at this U.K.-based Kickstarter project.

The NFC ring is designed to be used in conjunction with NFC-enabled gadgets — such as smartphones and tablets, NFC door locks and so on — so the wearer can perform tasks such as unlocking their phone, unlocking their front door or sending their contact info, personal website or Bitcoin address to another smartphone user by either fist-bumping or using an open-palm gesture.

Provided you’re happy to wear a bit of bling, the relatively slimline ring gets around some of the awkwardness associated with bumping and grinding NFC phones together to do data transfers (aka ‘phone sex‘). Being passive NFC, it also doesn’t need any battery power to work. And all the programming is done via apps, including third party apps if you want to use it to unlock your phone.  The NFC ring creators have also made their own open source software for writing actions to the ring.

The ring actually has two NFC inlays, with a larger ‘public’ area designed to worn at the top for sending things like contact data via a fist bump gesture, and a smaller ‘private’ area designed to be worn so it can be concealed in the palm and only activated via an open palm gesture. This area is intended to store more sensitive data such as front door and phone unlocking info, says creator John McLear.

The dual NFC design is intended to help keep a ring owner’s most sensitive data from being slurped by nearby NFC readers. But it’s worth pointing out that jewellery rarely stays put so NFC ring bearers are likely to end up spending a lot of time checking their precious is correctly aligned. Or drunkenly failing to send contact info to the person they are trying to chat up in the bar, and trying to unlock a non-existent front door instead. That’s a whole new level of geek faux pas.

The NFC ring is basically a more convenient (i.e. wearable) version of the NFC tags that are sometimes shipped with NFC smartphones. But since awkwardness is a barrier to more widespread NFC use, anything that helps reduces friction is a welcome development for the contactless fraternity.

The NFC ring is fast approaching its Kickstarter funding goal of £30,000 — with close to 1,100 backers pledging almost £29,500 so far with 27 days left on the campaign. The creators say rings are due to ship in late October, if all goes to plan. Cost per ring is around £25/$38 but the creators have also released a CAD design so the basic ring form can be hacked, customised and 3D printed. They are then offering cheaper pledges to just ship the NFC inlay for fixing inside these 3D printed rings.

It’s worth flagging that the “normal size ring” (which is ~7mm wide) doesn’t work with all NFC phones — notably the Samsung Galaxy S4 and BlackBerry Z10 won’t play nice. For those devices the creators warn “you will need an alpha size ring”, which they add is “really only for chaps with big fingers”.

Following its successful Kickstarter campaign, Adapteva flashed the production versions of its Parallella “supercomputer” boards in April, penning in a loose summer delivery date. Today, the company reports that the first “beta” units have begun winding their way to backers who pledged at the DEVELOPER, 64-CORE-PLUS and ROLF levels. Other backers should receive their boards by summer’s end “after some final refinements.” For those who missed the crowd-funding window, you too can get a Parallella, as Adapteva has now opened up general pre-orders for the 16-core version on its website. While all Kickstarter-bought boards will bear a Zynq-7020 SoC, new pre-orders are configured with a 7010 as standard, though you can upgrade to the 7020 if you lay down a little more dough. However, newcomers will be treated to “Gen-1” boards, which will offer slight improvements over earlier versions, such as reduced power consumption and an added serial port three-pin header. You’ll find the basic 16-core board going for $99 over at Adapteva’s store, with an expected October delivery date. The company tells us the 64-core version will also be available for public consumption, with pre-orders beginning in Q4 this year.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: GitHub (Gen-1 board specs), Adapteva store