Computers — Open Access Journal is calling for papers. If you have an interest inHeterogeneous Computing Systems and Environment. Authors are invited to submit original contributions on the following topics: Applications, e.g., Internet of Things, heterogeneous computing; Data mining for IoT; Memory systems for heterogeneous devices; Programming models for heterogeneous systems and IoT and Security for low power networks. Guest editors are Dr. Benedict R. Gaster and Dr. Lee Howes.

Unity has released the beta for version 5.5 of its eponymous engine. WebGL 2.0 has been made the default for new projects, bringing it into line with OpenGL ES 3.0 when it comes to rendering and visual quality in browsers. At this time browser support remains experimental.

Over on the ARM blog is a short write-up on Vulkan and Validation Layers. It might be a good time to read the blog and then head over and register for the upcoming Khronos Webinar: Vulkan Validation Layers Deep Dive.

Join the Khronos Group at the Synopsis ARC Processor Summit. There will be several sessions that discuss Khronos APIs and how they contribute to the Vision and Embedded Systems ecosystems, including: Neil Trevett - The Vision API Landscape; Advanced Vision Capabilities for Next-Generation SoCs; Using the OpenCL C Kernel Language for Embedded Vision Processors.

This one-hour webinar provides a detailed review of the Vulkan Validation Layers, how they are architected, how you use them, and why they are so important. The main presentation is followed by a Q&A session. The presentation and Q&A will be conducted in English.

Road to VR sat down with the Khronos Group President Neil Trevett at the Khronos Group SIGGRAPH Party to discuss glTF. There’s a glTF validator (drag and drop) that’s available, as well as this glTF resource page on the Khronos Group’s website.

AMD TrueAudio Next (TAN) is a software development kit for GPU accelerated audio signal processing. TAN SDK Features Fast OpenCL parallel batch convolution engine; Multi-threaded, multi-queue, real-time architecture; Extendable open source API; CPU and GPU implementations for all functions and Sample applications for GPU acceleration of Virtual Reality audio.

The CryEngine roadmap has been released, including specific details about the upcoming CryEngine 5.2 and 5.3. Developers have planned full support for the Vulkan API around mid-october 2016.

StreamComputing is holding a 4-day training course from 24 to 28 October on OpenCL-on-FPGAs using Altera hardware. The goals include: correctly writing OpenCL code for FPGAs, learning to work with Quartus and understanding the important optimisation techniques. Complete details are available online.

Samsung R&D Institute, Bangalore (SRIB) recently hosted the inaugural meeting of Khronos Bangalore chapter to bring visibility to India’s efforts and involvement in the standard APIs. Please visit the Khronos Chapters website for more information.

Google made Street View better, especially on mobile devices, by launching a new Street View renderer in the Google Maps JavaScript API. The new renderer uses WebGL (on browsers that support it) which results in a higher frame rate and better rendering, especially on mobile devices. On mobile devices, the old renderer would display a fish-eye projection of the image, whereas WebGL allows us to present a rendered sphere that looks as it would in reality. For example, the street in the image below is straight, but the old renderer made it look curved on mobile devices. Read more about other improvements.

Silicon Studio’s Xenko Game Engine now supports the Vulkan API. There is a demo where you’ll find a ~3X performance on D3D11/OpenGL and ~6X on Vulkan API.

The Khronos Group continues to sponsor the AEC Hackathon. Next up in Austin Texas is AEC Hackathon 3.6. Stay up-to-date with the schedule, challenges and projects on the official AEC Hackathon site. Learn more about AEC Hackathon from executive director Damon Hernandez.

This tool converts COLLADA (.dae) models or OBJ models to glTF for use with Cesium. You may upload one at a time or multiple models with drag and drop. You can also select a single zip file containing both model and textures or drag and drop them together onto the canvas below. Once uploaded, a self-contained glTF file will be downloaded and a model preview will be shown below.

Red Gaming Tech had an interview with Tom Olson chair of the Vulkan Working Group, and Neil Trevett President of the Khronos Group. Tom Olson commented “We’re really eager to hear from first-generation developers about what kind of experiences they are having.” Neil Trevett wrote “the rate of Vulkan adoption has been faster than any API that Khronos has ever produced.” There’s a lot of good information on many aspects of Vulkan, head on over and read The Vulkan Interview.