Jon Peddie Research has posted an online poster of The History of 3D in Computers. From gigantic wonders of the world to handleheld supercomputers—Movies and Games feature better and better graphics, while devices become smaller and smaller. A great time line presentation of the progress of 3D from the 1949 MIT SAGE air defense system to the present Nokia N95, the first mobile device with 3D shader hardware.

Symbian, the consortium that develops the mobile operating system of the same name, plans to add in APIs for multimedia applications, a bearer mobility capability and technology for greater code density on ARM processors to the OS over the next 18 months. Two of the multimedia APIs come from the Khronos Group, OpenSL ES and OpenMAX IL, said Andy Moran, head of enterprise at the London-based company. Symbian intends to implement OpenGL ES, another Khronos Group API for full-function 2D and 3D graphics, enabling mobile TV, videoclips on a phone and so on.

The Khronos™ Group has publicly released provisional versions of the OpenMAX™ AL 1.0 and OpenSL ES™ 1.0 specifications to enable widespread developer feedback and rapid industry implementation of these new standards that are designed to bring portable, state-of-the-art audio, video and image acceleration to mobile handsets and embedded devices. Both specifications are expected to be finalized by mid-2008. Read the press release.