IBM announced the release of alpha level OpenCL drivers for POWER6 and Cell/B.E. Linux systems through its alphaWorks ‘Emerging technologies’ program. The OpenCL Development Kit for Linux on Power is an IBM implementation of the OpenCL Specification, Version 1.0. This implementation is for Power hardware running the Linux operating system and has been tested on the IBM BladeCenter QS22 systems running Fedora 9 and on the IBM BladeCenter JS23 systems running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3.

The Khronos Group has expanded the WebGL section of their public forums, giving an area for users and coders to mingle together. The forums now contain categories for beginner and advanced coders, hardware and software issues for end users, OS and browser specific questions and help, and an area to discuss SDK’s, toolkits and wrappers. The Khronos Group message boards are visited by the developers behind all the Khronos API’s on a regular basis, and offer the best place to give and receive help. We look forward to seeing you at the Khronos forums soon.

Fixstars Corporation, a pioneering company in multi-core solutions announced that it has launched an OpenCL software service. Fixstars provides various services to develop software based on parallel computing framework which has high portability for HPC, desktop and embedded application developers.

The latest version of VMWare Fusion, a virtualization application for Mac was released today. Fusion 3 now offersOpenGL acceleration for Windows machines (OpenGL 1.4 in Windows 7; OpenGL 2.1 in Windows XP) and better DirectX support, which allows for Windows’ Aero 3D effects in both Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Renesas Technology announced the SH7777 (SH-NaviJ3), the third product in the SH-NaviJ Series of system-on-chip (SoC) devices for compact portable navigation and infotainment systems and low- and mid-priced dashboard-mounted car navigation and infotainment systems. It speeds up development through OpenGL ES 1.1 support and offers enhanced multimedia functions such as terrestrial digital TV broadcast support.

Vivante Corporation announced that Marvell has deployed Vivante’s GC-series graphics processors in the new Marvell® ARMADA™ range of application processors. “Marvell is a recognized leader in delivering a range of SoC products with leading edge performance and functionality,” said Wei-Jin Dai, Vivante CEO. “Marvell’s ARMADA application processors showcase the leading edge applications that are possible when best-in-class CPUs are combined with Vivante’s high performance GPUs. Vivante has been working with Marvell and their customers along with the application and middleware ecosystem to bring an immersive multimedia user experience to a new class of consumer devices.”

The Khronos Group has posted an updated version of the OpenCL 1.x Reference card online. This is a free download in PDF format.

Imagination Technologies is working with Futuremark to make the Kanzi UI engine and toolkit available to members of Imagination’s POWERVR Insider developer ecosystem. Kanzi takes full advantage of Imagination’s POWERVR graphics acceleration technologies for both OpenGL ES 2.0/1.1 and OpenVG 1.1.

S3 Graphics announced the OpenCL 1.0 capable Chrome 5400E GPGPU processor. The 5400E features native support of OpenCL, the industry’s best GFLOPS per watt rating including, a OpenGL 3.1 / DirectX® 10.1 graphics engine, ChromotionHD video core for HD video decode including Blu-ray, H.264, and VC-1, a video encode engine, and an OpenVG 1.1 engine. The 5400E is the most versatile GPU for embedded applications requiring longevity, customization, performance, features, and low power. Complete details are available on the S3 Graphics website.

Kerry Johnson, Director of Product Management, QNX Software Systems discusses determining factors when adding software intelligence to products. Embedded developers need to consider the merits of moving from a software solution built entirely in-house to one that uses an off-the-shelf operating system. An option is for developers to look at standard interfaces to ensure future portability such as OpenGL ES, OpenVG and OpenKODE.

ARM announced the launch of the ARM® Mali Developer Center. The Developer Center offers a comprehensive suite of resources for graphics and embedded applications developers working with the Khronos OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0, OpenVG 1.0 and 1.1, as well as other APIs. Accessing these resources as members of the Mali ecosystem will enable developers targeting Mali graphics processing unit (GPU) platforms to bring best-in-class content to market.

Texas Instruments debuts first two devices from its new Sitara family, the AM3505 and AM3517 ARM microprocessors (MPU), and an AM3517 evaluation module. TI’s high-performance ARM MPUs are the first Cortex-A8 processor-based solutions optimized for industrial applications. AM3517 key features builds on the AM3505 with an additional PowerVR(TM) SGX graphics
engine to accelerate 3D graphical user interfaces. The graphics engine can process up to 10 Mpolygons/sec and supports OPENGL® ES 2.0.

NVIDIA is hosting two more seminars over the next few days which cover ‘Best Practices for OpenCL Programming’, and ‘An Introduction to GPU Computing and OpenCL’. The series will cover many topics including C for CUDA, programming to the OpenCL™ API , using DirectCompute and performance optimization techniques. The Webinars are presented by NVIDIA Developer Technology Engineering team and have NVIDIA staff online to answer Questions.

Imagination Technologies reports mobile graphics hit a new milestone this month with over 100 leading consumer electronics products now using Imagination’s POWERVR SGX to deliver advanced shader-based graphics. Enabling over 25 handsets and over 75 netbook and mobile Internet device (MID) products, Imagination’s POWERVR SGX is the driving force behind the delivery of OpenGL ES 2.0 into the hands of consumers.

Albin Olofsson, Tools Manager at the Sony Ericsson Developer World interviews Gordon MacLachlan From Imagination Technologies. Discussion includes OpenGL ES 2.0 and the Sony Ericsson Satio™, an overview of the Imagination Technologies SDK for OpenGL ES development and a demo of the SDK.