It’s finally time to take a peek at BlackBerry 10‘s first big smartphone presentation here in the United States with the Verizon iteration of the BlackBerry Z10. This device is an all-touch smartphone – that feature a given on most other mobile operating systems, but a relatively new concept for BlackBerry – and works with Verizon’s rather speedy 4G LTE network. What we’re looking at here on day 1 are just the basics: what’s different from the international edition?
In our original BlackBerry Z10 Review, Chris Davies spoke about both the hardware and the software in great detail. Lucky for you, not a whole lot has changed since that device was ready for action nearly 2 months ago. Here with the Verizon version we’ve only got the addition of big red’s 4G LTE connectivity compatibility and a couple of Verizon account apps.
With My Verizon Mobile and Backup Plus Contacts you’ll now have the ability to work with your Verizon bill and monitor the data you’ve used during the month. You’ll be able to back up your contact list with Verizon as often as you’d like. And that’s it.
This version of the BlackBerry Z10 uses the same 2 megapixel camera on the front, the same 8 megapixel camera on the back with LED flash, and the same processor under the hood. Inside you’ll find the Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 dual-core processor, the same that exists in every version of the Z10 that exists thus far – this same processor is used in such phones as the Samsung Galaxy S III (USA edition), the Motorola DROID RAZR HD, and the HTC One X (USA edition). You’ll also find the first, most updated, and only version of BlackBerry 10 mobile OS on the market.
Up front you’ve got a lovely 4.2-inch 1280 x 768 pixel LCD display, complete with the third-densest pixel arrangement on the market. While the HTC One wins at the moment with 468 Pixels Per Inch, and the HTC DROID DNA is in second (with the Xperia Z and GALAXY S 4) with 441 PPI, the BlackBerry Z10 stands alone as holding the only display on the market with 355 PPI. Of course at that level of density, it’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between the lot with the naked eye, but it’s always fun to compare!
The BlackBerry Z10 stacks up against the HTC One and iPhone 5 – the battle is on!
Have a peek at our hands-on photos above and below, keep your eye tuned to our BlackBerry Z10 tag portal for more information on this device and see the timeline below for our adventures with BlackBerry 10 up to and including this week!
Watch the commercials and you’d assume all cars are only designed for long, sweeping roads on scenic mountain routes and by sun-blessed beaches. As plenty of drivers have discovered this winter, however, snow, ice, and similarly treacherous conditions can make getting behind the wheel far more intimidating. SlashGear joined Ford in the cold of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, to see what good behavior we could coax from the Ford Escape, Fusion, and Explorer Sport when the conditions get bad.
The core advice for winter driving hasn’t changed much over the years, but more than a few people ignore suggestions to switch regular tires to their deep tread counterparts, and wouldn’t have a clue what to do with snow chains. Thankfully cars themselves have got smarter along the way, with a growing number of electronic driving aids that can work around the limitations of both the road and the driver.
Ford’s chosen test ground would be an icy nightmare for most drivers, a range of different conditions including loose and impacted snow, treacherous ice, and the sort of gritty combinations that make many backroads so dangerous when it gets cold. As for the technology, Ford starts with all-wheel-drive (AWD) on many cars, but its front-driven models also get a boost courtesy of electronic magic like Curve Control and Torque Vectoring Control.
Introduced first on the 2012 Focus, Torque Vectoring Control monitors grip levels on each wheel and can dynamically shift the torque – the rotational force produced by the engine – to whichever side of the car has the best grip. Ford claims it can “virtually eliminate” understeer in regular driving, while in more wintery conditions it can counteract patches of ice or snow which rob the car of grip, without significantly reducing the speed of the vehicle.
There’s dangerous roads, and there’s mis-reading the road conditions and tackling them incorrectly. That’s where Curve Control steps in, a cornering technology Ford debuted back in 2010, and which it intends to have on the majority of its range by 2015. Enter a corner too quickly – Ford’s sensors track that 100 times per second – and Curve Control can shed 10mph from your speed in the space of a single second, by adjusting the four brakes and trimming engine torque.
Curve Control works in the dry, but it’s far more impressive when you’re trying to navigate a car round a suddenly icy corner. Ford’s system works by comparing how much the driver is turning the wheel with how much the car is actually turning, kicking in when the understeer becomes too great.
These are more than just blinking lights in the instrument binnacle, too: you can feel Curve Control and Torque Vectoring Control doing their work. Pushing the Escape SUV too hard through the icy corners of Ford’s test course, for instance, and the power shifting between the wheels to guide it back onto the line was noticeable through the seat and the wheel. You can feel the car correcting itself; when we turned off the traction control altogether, the difference was clear, with corners instantly turning into slides at speeds where, with the electronic brains in place, we’d previously sailed serenely round.
The technology works on Ford’s FWD cars, but it’s even more impressive in the AWD models. In a FWD Fusion, for instance, the car will automatically prioritize two-wheel drive in regular conditions, for the best fuel economy, but instantly switch in the all-wheel drive when grip starts to disappear. Corners on the ice track which we ended up going sideways on with traction control turned off, we were able to comfortably take at 40-50mph with Curve Control and Torque Vectoring Control switched on.
Step into the Explorer, meanwhile, and there’s even more control possible over the safety and stability systems. The seven-seater SUV exclusively gets Ford’s Terrain Management System, a knob in the center console which allows the driver to switch between four road conditions: normal, sand, mud/rut, and snow. The mood of the car changes noticeably when you do, the Explorer feeling calmer and more considered in the snow mode as the electronics ramp up their role. It’s not the mode for eager drivers, certainly, with the safety systems particularly intrusive, but it makes a huge difference in how confidently you can take on treacherous roads.
That’s not to say the Ford technology is anathema to fun. Just as it the various traction systems show their worth in getting you safely round in snow and ice at real-world speeds, at a more eager pace – and on the safety of a closed course rather than public roads, of course – you can start to have some real fun, relying on enough grip to get around corners while also letting the tail of the car swing out. As Ford told us, the electronics mean “you can take an unskilled driver, and turn them into a skilled driver.” When you’re on ice we struggled to walk on, it feels more like magic.
Ford currently offers eight models with AWD, while eleven offer Torque Vectoring Control. So far, the C-MAX Energi and Hybrid variants, the Escape, the Explorer, the Flex, and the Taurus offer Curve Control.
The opportunity to design a new, next-generation Corvette doesn’t come along too often, particularly when it’s the iconic Stingray, and so GM has wasted no chances in putting together a car that demands performance benefits from every aesthetic decision. SlashGear caught up with GM at the New York International Auto Show to take a look at the 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray coupe and convertible and talk authentic design – inside and out – with the execs responsible for guiding the changes in the new model.
From the outside it’s clearly a Corvette at first glance, but take a longer look and the evolution of the design becomes clear. The 2014 car is 4mm lower than before, as well as being wider and 15mm longer; the wheelbase has increased by an inch, pushing the front wheels forward and giving the car a better footprint and handling, in addition to making it look more composed and aggressive. New lights front and rear, as well as a new collection of vents, perforate the bodywork, which has a new blend of creases and sweep-lines.
Importantly, the design elements aren’t done solely for the sake of appearance, but also invariably serve a performance element too. “You want a compelling design, you want a strong aesthetic” GM’s Kirk Bennion, Exterior Design Manager for Corvette, told us. “We try to do things where, okay, this gives us a new look that we like, we think it’s attractive, but if we can also benefit with some functionality then it’s a double win. We like to do that with Corvette especially.”
So, the front grill and the hood vents aren’t just for show, but sit at either end of a new, ducted extractor that feeds cool air across the radiator. That itself has taken on a whole new angle: where Corvette radiators of old went from upright to leaning back, Bennion explained, the 2014 model actually tips its radiator forward, into the flow of air. Each of the grill blades in the hood sits at its own, specific angle for the best flow.
That’s not the only trick ducting. The 2014 Stingray sees the return of intakes on top of the rear arches, sitting on the long swathe line that runs from the back of the car, down the shoulder-line, and blends in interesting angles with the hood and arch creases. They’re not for cooling the brakes, but instead are the rear trans and diff coolers, which are just visible through the upright outlet vents at the back of the car. They also saw GM’s engineers take on the challenge of delivering a huge eight cubic meters of air per minute through each intake, while simultaneously avoiding debris. Side vents – finished in carbon-fiber – are also fully-functional, delivering a reduction in drag as well as cooling benefits.
Like many other recent cars, the 2014 Corvette Stingray makes ample use of LED lighting; however, GM has taken a few new approaches in how it implements those lamps. Up front, there’s a new single, bi-functional headlamp with daytime running lights replacing separate fog lamps. That’s something we’ve seen on models from Audi and others, but GM has played with the positioning and angles of the LEDs to make the lighting more consistent.
“We wanted to avoid ‘carnival light’ spacing” Bannion told us, referring to the tendency for LED lamps to look like a string of individual bulbs rather than a solid bar of light. “We really worked hard to keep the LEDs close together, to diffuse the light.” To do that, the LEDs are actually downward-firing, into a diffuser lens that smooths out the individual brightness of each into a consistent whole. They’re set next to a stack of amber LEDs for the turn signals, which also blend together into a solid lozenge of light, and everything is embedded into a black stainless steel assembly which creates interesting reflections depending on the angle from which you’re looking at the car.
That same attention to detail is continued at the rear of the car. GM has stuck with the dual-element tail lamps that have been a feature of Corvettes since 1961, but it has used the same downward-firing LED technology as on the headlamps for some extra visual flourish. “The technology here again is indirect LEDs, so the LEDs are horizontal, they’re throwing the light down into the cavity, for even-lit appearance. They kinda avoid having the spottiness” Bannion explained. “Also, with the lamps being three-dimensional, is very new for the car as well.”
The result is a car that treads the line between classic and contemporary, just as GM expects a Corvette Stingray buyer to demand. “They’re still dual-almond shape, but we really felt we needed to break tradition, have a car that’s more distinctive, more unique at night” Bannion pointed out. “There’s a lot going on with lighting technology right now, and you can see manufacturers are doing more and more to have their cars be seen, or be seen as exclusive with the night-time signature.”
It’s when you’re inside that the changes are most obvious, however, particularly if you’ve ever found yourself behind the wheel of a previous-gen Corvette. The dashboard and seats are less of an afterthought compared to the exterior, Helen Emsley, Interior Design Director for Performance Cars at GM, told us. So, the 2014 dash is more like a jet-fighter cockpit, surrounding the driver in an arc of controls and gages. Those gages have been redesigned for the new Corvette Stingray, with a choice of digital and analog views in the 8-inch instrument binnacle, and variations according to which of the three driving modes – touring, sport, and track – the car is currently set to.
Just as the exterior design has sought to make aesthetic details serve a functional purpose, so part of Emsley’s focus with the new Corvette has been to make the interior more authentic. “This is a Corvette. If it’s metal, if it’s aluminum, it should be real – it is real aluminum. If it’s carbon fiber, it’s real carbon fiber,” she explained to us. “It was very important to us that we show real, authentic materials.”
That approach has continued over to the passenger seat, with Emsley saying that GM wanted to make the 2014 Corvette Stingray just as much of an experience for the person not driving. So, the “co-driver” gets a separate interior, in Emsley’s words, a second cockpit arch with their own speed gage and heating controls. Materials all round have taken a step up in quality, with hard surfaces replaced by soft-finish plastics and contrast-stitched leather. In fact, GM has even cooked up two new, exclusive leather colors for the Corvette: black may well be the most popular, Emsley concedes, but the new beige and new red finishes are expected to draw some buyer attention, along with the existing black & grey and black & dark brown options.
Everywhere you look there are thoughtful design decisions, showing just how much consideration the GM team has put into the interior of the new car. Recognizing that many Corvette buyers want to replace the standard seats with more sports-focused alternatives, Emsley points out, GM will offer a choice of two styles with the 2014 model: either the normal touring seats, or special sports seats as a cost-option. More mundane – but no less important – considerations like storage have been addressed in clever ways, too, like a sizeable storage cubby hidden behind an 8-inch motorized drop-down infotainment display.
The Stingray convertible – which made its North American debut at the New York show – is certainly beautiful, but those who opt for the coupe also get a choice of roofs. Three targa tops are on offer: the standard, carbon-fiber roof which is painted to match the body; a premium version which is left in exposed carbon; and a polycarbonate version which is translucent, allowing more light into the cockpit. There’ll also be various body/performance packages, such as the Z51 with its tall rear spoiler – helping reduce lift – and larger wheels.
All in, it’s a suitably considered approach to what’s undoubtedly a muscle-car icon. “When you think of the opportunity, every time you get to do a new next-generation Corvette, you realize that there has to be certain calculated moves in order for it to be seen as the next-generation, and that’s why we felt we needed to make some of these changes” exterior design chief Bannion told us. Throw in a new LT1 6.2L V8 engine capable of 450 HP and 450 kb-ft of torque, and you’ve got performance that matches the great looks, too. The new 2014 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray will go on sale this fall, in both coupe and convertible versions.
This week the folks at Chevrolet have revealed the 2014 Camaro Z28 (or Z/28 if you prefer), a beast of a vehicle with a 7.0L LS7 V8 engine with no less than 500 horsepower ready for road-thrashing action. This machine works with 470 pounds-feet of torque under the hood paired with a six-speed Tremec TR6060 manual transmission. The look of the vehicle is all classic Camaro with a smooth-yet-sharp set of aesthetics for this years battle with the best.
Inside this next-generation automobile you’ve got a set of hardware that’s ready and willing to be compared to the more powerful Camaro ZL1. As Chevrolet let us know this week, you’ll find that the Z/28 is 300 pounds lighter than the ZL1, this thanks to a series of changes in the makeup of the car. From its lighter wheels to the thinness of the rear window glass panel, this car has been polished to perfection. Even the air conditioning has been made available only as a stand-alone option for your ability to keep the weight low.
Chevrolet has also noted that this 2014 model has averaged three seconds faster than the ZL1 in tests they’ve conducted thus far.
While the new Camaro Z/28 is not intended to compete in a specific race series, it is solely focused on track capability. In initial testing, the Camaro Z/28 is three seconds faster per lap than the Camaro ZL1. That extra speed comes from three areas:
• Increased grip: The Z/28 is capable of 1.05 g in cornering acceleration, due to comprehensive chassis revisions • Increased stopping power: the Z/28 features Brembo carbon-ceramic brakes capable of 1.5 g in deceleration, and consistent brake feel, lap after lap • Reduced curb weight: The naturally aspirated Z/28 weighs 300 pounds less than the supercharged Camaro ZL1, with changes ranging from lightweight wheels to thinner rear-window glass
Once you’re past the tweaks and pushes, you’ve got a fabulous set of Recaro racing seats inside that complement a set of aesthetics across the entire vehicle that make it appear ready for any of your most race-ready road-blasting adventures. You’ve got a flat-bottom steering wheel, blacks and grays with bright red accents – mostly in the stereo and speedometer areas – and an overall look that reads: SPEED.
The engine, again, is of course the monstrous heart of this amalgamation of Camaro bits and pieces – here you’ve got your hand-assembled 7.0L (427 cid) V-8 made from top-end parts as follows:
• Titanium intake valves and connecting rods, and sodium-filled exhaust valves • CNC-ported aluminum cylinder heads • Forged-steel crankshaft and main bearing caps • High-lift camshaft • Hydroformed exhaust headers • 11.0:1 compression ratio, and a 7,000 rpm redline. • 10.5-quart, dry-sump oiling system
You’ve got what Camaro engineers describe as “the very best components in the industry” used here in the chassis of this high-performance vehicle, including 19-inch diameter wheels and tires, forged aluminum wheels that is, wrapped with “massive” 305/30ZR19 tires. This vehicle uses the ultra-high performance Pirelli PZero Trofeo R tire, the first production implementation of said technology – one that they say they believe is now the widest front tire on any production car – hot and large!
You’ve got Brembo Carbon Ceramic Matrix™ rotors as well as fixed, monoblock calipers. You’ve got 394 x 36 mm front rotors matched with six-piston calipers up front and 390 x 32 mm rear rotor paired with four-piston calipers. This setup saves another 28 pounds (12.5 kilograms) compared to comparable two-piece steel rotors.
And that’s not all! We’ll continue to run down the full layout of this lovely vehicle as it hits the road later this year. Chevrolet dealers will be getting the Camaro Z/28 “later in 2013″ while the vehicle will be appearing in track events throughout the USA in Spring of 2014.
This week at the 2013 New York International Auto Show we’ve had the opportunity to have a hands-on experience with the next-generation Buick Intellilink infotainment system. This system has been revealed as coming with the 2014 LaCrosse as well as the 2014 Regal, both vehicles working with nearly identical implementations of infotainment and media playback throughout. It all begins on an 8-inch touchscreen display that sits front and center of the vehicle, able to be accessed by the driver or the copilot with ease.
Buick’s next-generation IntelliLink infotainment system works with wireless connectivity for your mobile devices, customizable options galore, and an easy-to-use user interface from start to finish. And it’s all builds on a hearty connection of both safety and security with OnStar. If you’re an OnStar user, you’ll be able to access city-by-city weather reports and ultra-simple embedded navigation using their “traditional Blue button” – rather handy.
You’ll be working with connectivity to a selection of apps for music, starting with Pandora. With Pandora you’ll have a collection of custom-built radio stations with new music coming in by the day – you’ll also be working with a set of 60 “favorites”, starting with radio stations outside of Pandora. These stations can be AM, FM, or XM, and you’ll have plenty of space left over to store “favorites” in contacts, destinations, and music from media aside from radio.
You’ll be able to connect with your media and your apps for control of the many various things IntelliLink works with using your touchscreen or by controlling your system with your voice. IntelliLink employs natural language voice recognition allowing you to control most anything you’d be able to control with your finger. You can enter destinations, browse media, safely place calls, play music, and control a variety of other functions as well.
If you’re a fan of using your touchscreen interface, you’ll find the controls to be rather familiar. You can do what Buick calls a “fling” through your lists, swipe up and down, and drag all around – basic control cues you’ll have learned well by now due to your everyday use of your smartphone or tablet devices. You can also control your music, set destinations, and more with IntelliLink’s connection to your smartphone – this done with a USB cord or Bluetooth wirelessly.
Of course the audio experience you’re going to have with the output this IntelliLink system is controlling depends entirely on the vehicle you’re driving. With the 2014 Buick Regal you’ll be working with a new nine-speaker Bose sound system including “strategically placed” tweeters and a fabulous subwoofer – you’ve got an acoustically optimized interior as well. With the 2014 Buick LaCrosse you’ve got seven standard speakers including the, again, “strategically placed” tweeters as well as a subwoofer all coming together to complement a quiet, acoustically optimized interior – with optional 11-speaker Bose Centerpoint Surround Sound being available as well!
Have a peek at our Buick tag portal for more information on the IntelliLink system as it appears in more vehicles through the future, and don’t forget to check the rest of our Car Hub for auto action from here until forever!
This past week we’ve had the opportunity to have a peek at one of the many new features involved in the NVIDIA Tegra 4 processor technology family: Chimera computational photography. The NVIDIA Tegra 4 (and Tegra 4i) SoC works with what they’re calling the “world’s first mobile computational photography architecture”, and today what you’ll be seeing is one of the several features NVIDIA will be delivering to smartphones that utilize their processor. This first demonstration involves “Always-on HDR” photography.
What you’re seeing here is a demonstration done by NVIDIA at the official GTC 2013 conference. That the GPU Technology Conference, a multi-day event we attended with bells on – have a peek at our GTC 2013 tag portal now for everything we got to see – with more coming up in the future! The demonstration shown here is of a technology originally revealed earlier this year at NVIDIA’s keynote presentation at CES 2013 – head back to the original reveal post to see a whole different angle!
Here a high dynamic range scene has been arranged behind a device running the Chimera photography experience with an NVIDIA Tegra 4 (or perhaps 4i) processor inside. While a traditional HDR-capable camera takes two images one-after-another at different exposures and fuses them together, NVIDIA’s Always-on HDR feature works to take away the two negative bits involved with traditional HDR by allowing the following:
• Live preview through your camera’s display (on your smartphone, tablet, etc). • The ability to capture moving objects.
With traditional HDR, if you’ve got someone running through the scene, you’ll get even more of a blur than you’d normally get because you’re effectively taking two photos. With NVIDIA’s method you’re capturing your image 10 times faster than you’d be capturing it without a Tegra 4 working to help. Because of this, when you’ve got a Tegra 4 processor in your smartphone, you’ll be able to use a flash in your HDR photos, use burst mode to capture several HDR shots in quick succession, and you’ll be able to capture HDR video, too!
We’re very much looking forward to rolling out with the Tegra 4 on smart devices soon – until then, we can only dream of the colors! Check out the full NVIDIA mobile experience in our fabulous Tegra hub right this minute!
Yesterday, Apple released iOS 6.1.3 unto the public, and it came with a couple of big updates as well as some general bugfixes and performance improvements. However, it also patched up some of the exploits used by the Evad3rs dev team in order to jailbreak iOS 6.1, which means that if you update to iOS 6.1.3, you’ll lose your jailbreak.
Of course, some iOS 6.1.3 users can still jailbreak thanks to Redsn0w, but it’s limited to devices running Apple’s older A4 chip and it’s a tethered jailbreak, meaning that you have to plug in your iDevice to your computer every time you reboot it, which can be a pain in the rear end most of the time.
However, if you’re currently on iOS 6.1.2 and are either jailbroken or have plans to jailbreak in the future, don’t update to iOS 6.1.3 — at least for now. Evasi0n team member David Wang (a.k.a. Planetbeing) says that he and the rest of the dev team don’t yet have a fix for the iOS 6.1.3 update, and they aren’t sure if there will ever be one.
Of course, you may be thinking about that pesky lock screen vulnerability that’s present in iOS 6.1.2, and while I do care about security, there’s probably no reason to be worried about it. If someone got a hold of your iPhone, the chances of them knowing that elaborate scheme of swiping and tapping gestures to get past the lock screen are low. Of course, there’s always that chance, but you’d probably have a greater chance of getting struck by lightning if anything. Oh, and another lock screen vulnerability has been discovered in iOS 6.1.3, so you’re screwed either way.
Plus, iOS 6.1.3 doesn’t consist of a lot of new features anyway. Besides the lock screen fix, there are improvements to Apple Maps specifically for Japan. When’s the last time you were in Japan? Have you even been to Japan? Probably not, so it’s safe to say that you don’t need the Japan maps improvements, or any of the other new things in iOS 6.1.3 for that matter. (Japan residents need not apply to this.)
In the end, it’s best to play it safe and stay away from new updates if you’re jailbroken or have plans to jailbreak. Heck, I’m still running iOS 5.1.1 and I’m chugging along just fine like the rest of the iOS crowd. We may eventually see an untethered jailbreak for iOS 6.1.3, but it could be awhile, and if history is any indication, it may be even more difficult to jailbreak iOS 7 than any other version in the past.
This week at NVIDIA’s own GPU Technology Conference 2013, we’ve been introduced to no less than the company’s first end-to-end system: NVIDIA GRID VCA. The VCA part of the name stands for “Visual Computing Appliance”, and it’s part of the greater NVIDIA GRID family we were re-introduced to at CES 2013 earlier this year. This VCA is NVIDIA’s way of addressing those users – and SMBs (small-to-medium businesses) – out there that want a single web-accessible database without a massive rack of servers.
What is the NVIDIA GRID VCA?
The NVIDIA GRID VCA is a Visual Computing Appliance. In it’s current state, you’ll be working with a massive amount of graphics computing power no matter where you are, accessing this remote system over the web. As NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang noted on-stage at GTC 2013, “It’s as if you have your own personal PC under your desk” – but you’re in a completely different room.
You’re wireless, you’re in a completely different state – NVIDIA GRID VCA is basically whatever you need it to be. The first iteration of the NVIDIA GRID VCA will be packed as follows:
• 4U high. • Sized to fit inside your standard server rack (if you wish). • 2x highest-performance Xeon processors. • 8x GRID GPU. • 2x Kepler GPU. • Support for 16 virtual machines.
You’ll be able to work with the NVIDIA GRID VCA system with basically any kind of computer, be it a Mac, a PC, mobile devices with Android, ARM or x86-toting machines, anything. With the NVIDIA GRID VCA, your remotely-hosted workspace shows up wherever you need it to. Each device you’ve got simply needs to download and run a single client going by the name “GRID client.” Imagine that.
If you’ve got a company using NVIDIA’s GRID, you’ll have access to mega-powerful computing on whatever machine you’ve got connected to it. One of the use-cases spoken about at GTC 2013 was some advanced video editing on-the-go.
Use Case 1: Autocad 3D and remote Video Editing
On-stage with NVIDIA’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang spoke James Fox, CEO of the group Dawnrunner. As a film and video production company (based in San Francisco, if you’d like to know), workers at Dawnrunner use Adobe software and Autodesk. As Fox notes, “Earth Shattering is what gets talked about in the office.”
Fox and his compatriots use their own GRID configuration to process video, head out to a remote spot and show a customer, and change the video on the spot if the customer does so wish it. While processing video of the monster sizes Dawnrunner works with, still needs relatively large computing power – “Hollywood big” we could call it – NVIDIA’s GRID can make it happen inside the NVIDIA GRID VCA.
With the processing going on inside the VCA and shown on a remote workstation environment (basically a real-time window into the GRID), you could potentially show real-time Hollywood movie-sized video editing from your Android phone. In that one image of a situation you’ve got the power of this new ecosystem.
Use Case 2: Hollywood Rendering with Octane Render
Of course no big claim with the word “Hollywood” in it is complete without some big-name movie examples to go with it. At GTC 2013, NVIDIA’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang brought both Josh Trank and Jules Urbach onstage. The former is the director of the upcoming re-boot (2015) movie The Fantastic Four (yes, that Fantastic Four), and the latter is the founder and CEO of the company known as Otoy.
Both men speak of the power of GPUs, Trank speaking first about how people like he, the movie director, use CGI from the beginning of the creation of a film with pre-visualization to bid it out to studios, getting funding before there is any cash to be had. Meanwhile Urbach spoke of how CGI like this can be rendered 40-100 times faster with GPUs than CPUs – and with that speed you’ve got a lot less energy spent and far fewer hours used for a final product.
With that, Urbach showed Otoy’s Octane Render (not brand new as of today, but made ultra-powerful with NVIDIA GRID backing it up). This system exists on your computer as a tiny app and connects your computer to a remote workstation – that’s where NVIDIA’s GRID comes in – and you’ll be able to work with massive amounts of power wherever you go.
Octane Render allows you to use “hundreds or thousands” of GPUs to be used by renderers in the cloud. Shown on-stage was a pre-visualization of a scene from the original Transformers movies (which Otoy helped create), streamed in real time over the web from Los Angeles to the location of the conference: San Jose.
What they showed, it was made clear, is that the power of GPUs in this context cannot be denied. With the power of 112 GPUs at once, it was shown that a high-powered Hollywood-big scene could be rendered in a second where in the past it would have taken several hours. And here, once again, it can all be controlled remotely.
Cost
There are two main configurations at the moment for NVIDIA’s GRID VCA, the first working with 8 GPU units, 32GB of GPU Memory, 192 GB System Memory, 16 thread CPU, and up to 8 concurrent users. The second is as follows – and this is the beast:
GPU: 16 GPUs GPU Memory: 64 GB System Memory: 384 GB CPU: 32 thread CPU Number of users: up to 16 concurrent
If you’re aiming for the big beast of a model, you’re going to be paying $39,900 USD with a $4,800-a-year software license. If you’re all about the smaller of the two, you’ll be paying $24,900 USD with a $2400-a-year software license.
Sound like the pocket-change salvation you’ve been waiting for? Let us know if your SMB will be busting out with the NVIDIA GRID VCA immediately if not soon, and be sure to let us know how it goes, too!
This week the folks at NVIDIA have been revealing bits and pieces of their GPU roadmap with Tegra and GeForce GPU action left and right, moving forward with their newest mobile superhero code-named SoC “Parker.” This SoC comes after the still code-named “Logan” and will, if the naming scheme holds true, be Tegra 6 down the road. Along with this reveal came word of a code-named system called “Kayla” – a processing beast that, when it’s ready for action, will be extra-tiny and extra-powerful beyond anything we’re capable of today.
Parker is the newest in a line of code-named Tegra processors, coming after Wayne (Tegra 4) and Logan (Tegra 5, more than likely), and bringing on the innovations of past generations and/or outdoing them with the following firsts:
• First with Denver CPU. • First 64 bit ARM processor coupled with NVIDIA’s next-gen Maxwell GPU. • First to use FinFET transistors.
According to NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, this is only the beginning. Huang noted that “In five years time, we’ll increase Tegra by 100 times, though Moore’s Law would suggest an eight-fold increase.” With Logan we’ll see the first mobile processor on the planet to work with CUDA. This processor will also bring Kepler GPU power and OpenGL 4.3 – and it’ll be in production by early 2014.
Parker, on the other hand, is still in the pipeline. While we may see it out by 2015, we can’t be sure until NVIDIA gives the real word.
Then there’s Kayla. With NVIDIA’s Kayla, we’ve got what’s been described by Huang as “Logan’s girlfriend.” This device is around the size of a tablet PC at the moment, and is beastly enough already to run real-time ray tracing. As Huang said, “this is showing the kind of demos we used to do on massive GPUs.”
Inside Kayla you’ll find CUDA 5, Linux, and PhysX processing. All of this runs on a rather tiny ARM-toting computer – and it’s coming sooner than later. Have a peek at the timeline below for more Tegra and GeForce GTX action from NVIDIA as GTC 2013 continues – hit up our tag portal for more action as well, we’ll be here the whole conference long!
And don’t forget to check our massive Tegra hub for more mobile processing action than you can handle – more big blasts coming up quick!
This week NVIDIA’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang spoke up at their GPU Technology Conference on the future of the mobile processor known as Tegra and has teased what will likely be called “Tegra 5″. Running through what we’d already learned about the Tegra 2, Tegra 3, and the upcoming Tegra 4, Huang let us know that the next code-name “Logan” would be breaking boundaries once again. The next Tegra processor will, according to Huang, do “everything a modern computer should do.”
Speaking on how they created the idea of a single energy-saving core – seen first in the NVIDIA Tegra 3 quad-core processor – with 4-PLUS-1 technology, sleeping with this one sleeper core for low-powered tasks. Huang spoke also of the first software-defined radio – Deep Execution Processor – and the Computational Camera using both the CPU and the GPU with the sensors of the mobile camera – introduced on the Tegra 4.
Inside Logan we’ll be seeing CUDA 5 and Kepler. This is the first time we’ve seen a mobile processor incorporating CUDA, and also the first time a Kepler GPU will be coming to the mobile universe. This processor will also be bringing on full CUDA 5 as well as OpenGL 4.3.
Interestingly enough, Huang mentioned that Logan – this next generation – will be coming out at the beginning of next year. As we’ve heard from NVIDIA not too many weeks ago, Tegra 4 and Tegra 4i will not be coming to market any sooner than the second half of 2013. In other words, we’re looking at some rather rapid movement between the two generations, without a doubt.
Have a peek at the timeline below as well as the GTC 2013 tag portal for more information on Tegra and the ever-expanding GPU universe of NVIDIA in many great and rather exciting ways! We’ll be here the whole conference long!
Be sure to tune in all week in our massive Tegra hub as well!
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