New initiatives to drive developer adoption of Khronos APIs and to catalyze open library of example source; Hybrid Graphics to supply free PC version of OpenGL ES to contest entrants
August 25, 2004 – London – The Khronos™ Group today announced two worldwide initiatives to enable and encourage software developers to make full use of OpenGL® ES and other Khronos APIs in compelling handheld applications and games. The OpenGL ES standard is royalty-free and defines subset profiles of OpenGL® to enable small-footprint embedded applications with advanced graphics capabilities and has been widely adopted by the wireless and gaming industries. The Khronos Developer University (DevU) Lecture Series consists of day-long educational sessions in North America, Europe and Asia. The OpenGL ES Coding Challenge is a content development contest offering a series of prizes and widespread recognition to developers who wish to submit source samples that illustrate the expressive power of OpenGL ES on handheld devices.
“The mobile graphics and gaming industries need the strong standards leadership that the Khronos Group is providing to bring the market for handheld and embedded graphics to its full potential,” stated Jon Peddie, founder of Jon Peddie Research, a leading graphics industry analyst and consultancy firm. “We are convinced that enabling software developers to take advantage of OpenGL ES is the next key step in building the mobile 3D industry, and so we strongly support these new Khronos Group’s developer outreach activities and are pleased to be a part of this exciting initiative.”
Khronos Developer University
The first Khronos DevU session will be held in London on September 1st, 2004 at the Hotel IBIS. The lecture sessions are strongly focused on providing useful real-world information for developers and are not marketing sessions. As a one time launch special, the first sessions in London and in Helsinki on September 17th, in conjunction with Hybrid Graphics’ 10th Anniversary celebration, will be completely free-of-charge. Additional cities in the DevU series include Tokyo, Seoul, San Francisco and Los Angeles. More details on locations and sign-up details can be found at http://www.khronos.org/devu/.
OpenGL ES Coding Challenge
Entrants to the OpenGL ES Coding Challenge will be provided with a free copy of Hybrid’s PC implementation of OpenGL ES to provide an easy-to-use OpenGL ES development environment. One goal of the contest is to create a library of shared source code pool for the developer community and so entrants are invited to submit sample code for OpenGL ES games, demos and screensavers. The winners of the contest will be selected by the Khronos Members that participate in the OpenGL ES Working Group for the most effective demonstration of the power of 3D on a handheld platform.
Entries will be divided into three main categories: self-running demos or screensavers; educational “how to” sample code (such as the OpenGL Redbook Samples); and full-fledged interactive games. Prizes to be awarded include a year long subscription to JPR Tech Watch – a leading multimedia research publication valued at $2500 and donated by Jon Peddie, the keynote speaker at Khronos DevU. Also donated is a Wildcat Realizm professional graphics card, donated by 3Dlabs, a Promoter and original Founder of the Khronos Group. All Award winners will be announced at GDC in San Francisco in March 2005. More details can be found at http://www.khronos.org/devu/opengles_challenge/
“The best designed API is just an academic exercise until it is used by developers to create compelling content,” said Neil Trevett, president of the Khronos Group, chairman of the OpenGL ES Working Group and senior vice president of market development at 3Dlabs. “Khronos DevU and the OpenGL ES Coding Challenge strengthen Khronos’ commitment to education and outreach to enable developers and the entire 3D industry to benefit from widely used 3D API standards.”
About Khronos
The Khronos Group is a member-funded industry consortium focused on creation of open standard APIs such as OpenGL ES, OpenMAX™, OpenML™ and OpenVG™, to enable the authoring and playback of dynamic media on a wide variety of platforms and devices. All Khronos members are able to contribute to the development of Khronos API specifications, are empowered to vote at various stages before public deployment, and are able to accelerate the delivery of their cutting-edge media platforms and applications through early access to specification drafts and conformance tests. Please go to www.khronos.org for more information.
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