AMD has released the April update of the Catalyst Drivers for their graphics cards. Performance improvements include a new OpenCL runtime that will improve performance on APUs and also for PCIe transfers between a CPU and discrete GPU.

AMD announced a new collaboration with MulticoreWare, a leader in software solutions and tool development for multi-core and heterogeneous computing environments, to deliver an advanced set of tools for OpenCL™ optimization. The tools development effort accelerates software developers’ ability to create and optimize software that fully exploits the unique processing capability of AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units (APUs).

OpenCL™ Common Runtime for Linux® on x86 architecture is an OpenCL layered product that improves the OpenCL programming experience by alleviating the programmer from the burden of managing multiple OpenCL platforms and duplicated resources. It is a dynamic shared library that resides between an OpenCL application and one or more OpenCL implementations, such as those developed by AMD and NVIDIA® .

The Common Runtime supports all of the OpenCL v1.1 APIs in a single OpenCL platform consisting of all devices provided by the underlying implementations. This technology provides an integrated environment that can improve application portability as well as simplifying multi-device programming. The Common Runtime has been tested on the IBM System x® iDataPlex™ dx360 M3 with at least one NVIDIA® Tesla™ M2050 running Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.5. In addition, OpenCL v1.1 implementations from AMD and NVIDIA were used in conjunction with the OpenCL Common Runtime.

The Geomatics Engineering departement at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland is now developer OpenWebGlobe for WebGL. OpenWebGlobe SDK lets you create your own virtual globe applications. You can develop your new application in your favorite language like C++, C#, Visual Basic, Python.

AMD has unveiled its lineup of keynote speakers who will address developers at its upcoming AMD Fusion Developer Summit, a list that includes ARM executive John Davies. AMD on Tuesday said that Davies, vice president of technology in ARM’s Media Processing division, will discuss ARM’s history of heterogeneous computing, its market strategy and, most of all, its support for AMD’s OpenCL and other open industry standards.

StreamComputing, an independent trainer for using OpenCL on new processors, is available to give lectures at educational institutes. StreamComputing will visit your institute and give one or two hour lectures to students about how processors of the near future will look like, and work. From GPUs to new CPU-extensions, and from Hybrid CPU-GPUs to mobile processors, and how to program them using OpenCL.

DMP recently launched two new OpenGL ES programming books in Japanese for developers. “This book is an excellent introduction to OpenGL ES to written by the experts at DMP, and provides invaluable insights into the emerging opportunities to create amazing, graphically rich experiences on millions of devices,” wrote Neil Trevett, President of The Khronos Group. “Eisaku Ohbuchi and his colleagues at DMP have been involved in developing the OpenGL ES APIs for more than five years, and are well qualified to help developers learn to use these important standards,” write Tom Olson, Chairman, OpenGL ES Working Group, The Khronos Group. Both books are available through the Khronos Groups online developer books library.

CLBuilder is a developer tool specifically written to help you write OpenCL code. Features include: color syntaxing, built-in error checking on compile, build setttings and many more. CLBuilder run on Mac OS X 10.6.6 Snow Leopard.

SGI has updated the list of upcoming OpenGL training courses. A compete schedule can be viewed here.

DMP has announced a new two day getting start GLSL Programming training course on June 16th and 17th 2011. This course introduces the world of programmable pipeline by explaining basic topics of the GLSL(OpenGL Shading Language) which is a core feature of OpenGL ES 2.x and OpenGL 2.x. The course is offered in Japan in Japanese.

Apple announced Final Cut Pro X at the Final Cut Pro User Group Supermeet at the NAB conference. The new version of the professional video editing application will include 64-bit and OpenCL support.

Sony Creative Software announced the availability of Vegas™ Pro 10.0d. The award-winning NLE now includes improved closed captioning options, comprehensive 3D solutions, support for AMD’s ATI graphics chipsets using OpenCL™ as well as an improved track group workflow.

The Khronos™ Group today announced a new initiative to create an open, platform-independent, royalty-free standard for accessing a wide diversity of advanced input devices including depth cameras, motion-tracking sensors, touch-screens and haptic devices. In response to requests and proposals from multiple members, Khronos has created a ‘StreamInput’ working group that TransGaming Inc. has offered to initially chair. This royalty-free standard will be developed under the proven Khronos development process aiming for a first public release within 12 months. Any interested company is welcome to join Khronos to make contributions, influence the direction of the specification and gain early access to draft specifications before public release. The StreamInput working group will commence work during April 2011. More details on joining Khronos can be found at http://www.khronos.org/members/ or emailing .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Neil Trevett will be speaking at the upcoming Android Builders Summit on April 14th 2011 at 9am.

The AMD APP SDK 2.4 for OpenCL development is now available, providing significant enhancements in performance: reduced kernel launch time, increased transfer speed and reduced latency for PCI transfer, and zero copy transfer for APUs, and introduces support for AMD A-Series APUs. CPU support is extended with the addition of support both for Images and for Double Precision floating point (cl_khr_fp64 extension).