Imagination Technologies, the leader in mobile and embedded graphics technologies, reports that the first branded consumer electronics products utilising its advanced and market-leading shader-based graphics core, POWERVR SGX, are now shipping. POWERVR SGX, Imagination’s OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG compliant graphics acceleration technology, is already on sale in devices from Aigo, Kohjinsha, Sharp and others.The first mobile phone handsets with POWERVR SGX will start shipping in Q4/2008 in Japan.

There is a new basic summary of resources and steps for getting started using COLLADA as a digital content creator or as a software developers. The guide shows you the steps to take if you want to use COLLADA to import/export data from tools or if you want to implement COLLADA in your application.

Metismo has confirmed the availability of 3D support within its Bedrock platform in partnership with Imagination Technologies. Bedrock can now enable a J2ME game utilising the JSR239 OpenGL ES API to be developed. Bedrock’s Cross Compiler can then be used to translate the J2ME to native C++ and OpenGL ES on a range of handsets including Brew, Apple iPhone, Antix Game Player, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

Vivante Corporation announced that is the first OpenGL® ES 2.0 3D graphics technology provider to submit conformance results that include the Depth Texture extension (OES_depth_texture). Vivante has submitted conformance results based on the GC600 2D/3D GPU IP core for the OpenGL ES 2.0 conformance test, for review. The Depth Texture extension to the OpenGL ES 2.0 application programming interface (API) enables dynamic shadow rendering. Dynamic shadows give applications like 3D Graphical User Interfaces real life animation qualities.

Shapeways from the Netherlands announces their 3D printing private beta. You can upload your 3D design using COLLADA, STL or X3D to the Shapeways website, and within 10 days be holding your 3D creation, they claim. Peter Weijmarshausen, CEO of Shapeways: “We are very proud to invite users to sign up for our (Beta) service. After they join our community they can experience the next generation of product creation, from PC screen to reality.” A video showing the process from start to completion is available.

Khronos updates their Siggraph 2008 information page. With only three weeks left until Siggraph 2008, you are encouraged to signup for any of the BOF’s that you plan on attending. There is no cost, and signing up will result in a better Birds of a Feather get together. Available BOF’s this year include the OpenGL BOF, COLLADA BOF and the Khronos Handheld BOF. You will also find course and presentation information, and Khronos member booth information.

Recently Apple came to the Khronos Group with a proposal to establish the Heterogeneous Computing Working Group, based on OpenCL which Apple had been working on with companies like Intel, ATI, and NVIDIA. While OpenCL is a heterogeneous solution targeting CPUs and GPUs alike, the article concentrates on the GPU side. In a nut-shell, if you have an ATI or NVIDIA graphics card installed, chances are your current computer has 100 or more processor cores in it, and currently, this Graphics Processor Unit (GPU) only handles graphics. Similarly, this also applies to multi-core SIMD CPUs, which OpenCL can harness to yield many times the performance of a sequential CPU programming model. OpenCL is intended to be an API that will let developers use the GPU and CPU for the compute-intensive portions of their application, across many platforms, from desktop to mobile. “It was an idea whose time had come,” says Neil Trevett, president of Khronos and chairman of the OpenCL TSG.

Mentor Graphics Corporation today announced that the Nucleus® Operating System (OS) Multimedia Framework (MMF) has passed OpenMAX™ IL conformance testing on the Atmel AT91SAM9261 platform, making it the first commercial OS to achieve such platform conformance validation awarded by the Khronos™ Group.

BuGLe is an open-source OpenGL debugger. Previously, it has been limited to X11 systems and OpenGL, but the latest release adds alpha support for Microsoft Windows as well as OpenGL ES 2.0. These ports are not feature-complete (particularly the OpenGL ES port), but developers are encouraged to try them out.

The ARM® Mali™-200 graphics processing unit is the first GPU on today’s market to pass Khronos conformance testing at up to 1080p HDTV resolutions. This brings accredited graphics acceleration to the broadest range of consumer devices, from next-generation set-top boxes to mobile devices with TV Out, to high-definition TVs. ARM is enabling its Partners to deliver attention-grabbing screen displays on all next-generation consumer electronics devices used at home and on the move. ARM is dedicated to the support of open standards, enabling positive market growth, and the Mali-200 GPU demonstrates ARM’s continued technology leadership in graphics acceleration.

Announcing the COLLADA Plugfest - July 22- 23rd at the Hotel Sofitel, Redwood City, CA - Sponsored by Intel Corporation

Come join COLLADA developers and test your tool’s interoperability!
Intel is pleased to sponsor a two-day event July 22-23 to help developers test their COLLADA importers and exporters to make sure they can interchange content correctly. Bring your code and your content and we’ll help you show where improvements can be made. Contact Rita Turkowski, rita.b.turkowski at intel.com or Remi Arnaud, remi.s.arnaud at Intel.com for more info.

International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA) have just launched the call for entries for the 5th International Mobile Gaming Awards competition. The IMGA, launched in 2004 is the leading platform for Innovation in Mobile Entertainment worldwide. Each year mobile gaming studios, individual developers, students and researchers are challenged to come up with the most innovative concepts for tomorrow’s mobile games. Deadline for entry is Monday September 22nd 2008 at 6PM Central European time. Don’t wait, get your entry in today!

FX Composer 2.5, the latest version of NVIDIA’s powerful shader development environment, has been released. FX Composer supports DirectX, OpenGL, HLSL, COLLADA FX, and CgFX, as well as the .fbx, .x, .3ds, .obj, and .dae file formats for importing geometry.

Mobile user experience software specialist, Digital Airways, introduces Kaleido 3D, an advanced graphic rendering solution for mobile phones. Building on the Kaleido UI software solution, Kaleido 3D allows 2G and 3G handsets manufacturers to create full 3D user interfaces quickly and cost effectively. Taking advantage of the OpenGL-ES standard, Kaleido 3D responds to handset manufacturers’ challenges in developing sophisticated 3D graphics for user interfaces and product positioning by providing a multiplatform UI framework and a library of pre-integrated customizable and extendable functions all aimed at simplifying the creation of any sort of innovative animation.

Futuremark announces a benchmark product for automotive applications. The benchmark will be designed to evaluate the performance of graphics cores, chips, SoCs, embedded systems and devices used in automotive applications from dashboards to GPS devices. The upcoming automotive benchmark will utilize real-world use cases such as car dashboard, info-system, and navigation workloads based on OpenGL ES 1.x and ES 2.0.