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Now this is a completely unfounded rumor, but a fun one to think about: Robert Cringely has posted a thought on his “I, Cringely” blog that Intel might simply buy NVidia:

Intel this week cancelled Larrabee, its proposed graphics processing unit (GPU) that was intended to compete with both nVIDIA and ATi (now a part of AMD). The moment AMD bought ATi Intel had to decide whether to build or buy its own GPU to stay in contention. They decided to build, or at least said they had. It’s hard to say how viable Larrabee ever was but at some point it turned from a weapon against nVIDIA to a barrier to Intel buying nVIDIA. So Larrabee had to go, because without that chip Intel presents a much less imposing target for the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission which might oppose a merger on anti-trust grounds.

It is an interesting thought.. Buying NVidia would settle several of Intel’s problems:

• Instant power in the HPC space, with the acquisition of the only currently viable HPC GPGPU solution (Tesla)
• Settle the Atom/Ion lawsuits and investigations
• Make them feature-equal with the AMD/ATI combination
• Cover up the Larrabee debacle

It’s an interesting thought, but I’m not sure Intel has the cash reserves to make such an acquisition.  NVidia currently has a market cap of $8.63Billion, as opposed to Intel’s $109.45Billion, so I suppose Intel could leverage some assets to make it a reality.  What do you think?

via I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Intel Will Buy nVIDIA – Cringely on technology.

Hardware intel, nvidia, rumor

A reflexive announcement today from NVidia, apparently responding to yesterday’s news of the AMD and Cyberlink CES demo of 3D BluRay.  It seems NVidia has been leveraging their existing 3D technology, the 3D Vision system, and has a working 3D BluRay system based on the AVC Multi-View Codec, which can be real-time decoded on select NVidia GPU’s (using CUDA acceleration).

“The performance of the GeForce GPUs is great for decoding the Multi-View Codec (MVC) used in 3D Blu-ray,” said Michael Demeyer, VP of Corporate Products at Roxio. “We are now demonstrating 3D Blu-ray playback with GPU decoding in Roxio CinePlayer BD. The experience with NVIDIA’s 3D Vision glasses is out of this world.”

Of course, consumers will need a compatible 3D Vision display to watch upcoming 3D Hollywood blockbusters in the home. As a result, the world’s leading display manufacturers are readying new 3D-Vision-ready, 1920×1080, 120Hz 1080p LCDs for introduction in 2010, and Acer will be first to market with its new GD245HQ and GD235HZ models that are perfect for gaming, videos and other home entertainment uses, including 3D Blu-ray content.

But, lest you think battle lines have been drawn and it’s going to be NVidia/Roxio vs AMD/Cyberlink :

“3D Blu-ray will be the leading format for watching 3D movies in the home,” said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. “PCs with Cyberlink PowerDVD Ultra and NVIDIA 3D Vision will provide movie lovers the perfect platform for experiencing 3D the way it was meant to be seen.”

So which do you think will win? NVidia or AMD?

via NVIDIA Demos 3D Blu-Ray On 3D Vision – HotHardware.

Hardware 3d, bluray, nvidia, roxio, stereoscopic

Infosthetics has named the winners of the “Most Ugly & Useless Infographic Competition”, and wow were there some simply horrible ones.  Shown to the right is one of the winners, a chart from CERN of the recently activated LHC.

Two circulating beams bring first collisions in the LHC.

“From the press release two days ago, regarding the first (CERN) collisions… I vote this image as the ugliest and most useless visualization online. It may not be the most garish or info-deprived, but when normalized by the money, time, and scientific effort that went into it, I think it’s a clear winner! Based on this image, it doesn’t matter what scientists learn from the LHC, because nobody will understand any of the resulting visualizations… I can only imagine the conversation: “Don’t you see? The blue dots only reach the giant red bars, but the pink dots reach clear through the green bars out to the purple bars… and we have unit-less axes everywhere! Grand unification theory, here we come!”

Source: cern.ch

Submitted by Jeremy Belldina.

The other winner is a mysterious chart entitled “In-Chart Encryption”.  See all the entries on their website.

via Most Ugly & Useless Infographic Competition: The Winners – information aesthetics.

Graphics bad, contest, infographic

DailyMail has tracked down a group of “light graffiti” artists called Lapp-Pro (of Lapp-Pro.de) who create some stunning works of art that exist solely within the camera lens.

A host of light sources, from flash lights and bike lights to blinking LED lights, are used to 'paint' a picture straight onto the camera lens.

Also known as light drawing or light painting, these arresting images are created with long exposure cameras in the dark. Sometimes the exposures run on for longer than an hour.

via Pictured: The incredible light graffiti created as a host of light sources shine straight onto the camera lens | Mail Online.

Graphics art, photography

The Dave Matthews Band, Ben Harper, Relentless7, and Gogol Bordello all participated in a huge concerts across the US that were recorded by inconcert3D and will now be presented to the masses at theatres nationwide!

Shot in Digital 3D–which renders a cinema quality comparable to that found in this fall’s other big 3D releases (A Christmas Carol and Avatar)–the format essentially brings viewers onstage, giving them a stunning 360◦ view of each live performance. Filmed by inconcert3d at critically acclaimed music festivals this summer, the performances include Dave Matthews Band–the highest-grossing American act of all time–at the 2009 Austin City Limits Music Festival in Texas, Grammy-award winning artist Ben Harper and Relentless7 at the Mile High Music Festival in Denver, and internationally acclaimed Gypsy punk band Gogol Bordello at All Points West Music & Arts Festival in New Jersey.

It’s a limited run show, beginning this Friday (December 11th) and running through December 17th, and will never come to DVD (so they say), so if you want to see it you’ll have to go to the theaters.

UPDATE: Contest is over, see the lucky winners here!

But thanks to the kind PR people working the event, VizWorld can give you some memento’s to help you savor the memories!  Simply post a comment anywhere on VizWorld between now and Friday at 5pm (Central), and be entered to win one of four Dave Matthews Prize Packs.  The Prize Pack consists of:

• 1 T-Shirt
• 1 Dave Matthews Band Poster
• 1 Lenticular, with a Lanyard so you can wear it and look like you got backstage.. (Don’t worry, it’ll be our little secret)

So, the rules:

• Comments imported via BackType Connect (so Reddit comments, Digg Comments, and Tweets) don’t count.
• Trackback’s don’t count either.
• Obvious spam comments will be deleted & ineligible to win. (So don’t try to enter the contest & advertise your various enlargement meds at the same time)
• You’ll need to come here and leave a valid comment and leave enough information for us to reach you! That means you need to either authenticate before you comment (FaceBook, Twitter, GMail, we support several) or leave a valid email address to accompany your comment.
• Enter as often as you like!

So come on and enter now!  Read the full announcement, see the trailer, and see more pictures of the Prize Packs, after the break.

Read more…

Graphics, Hardware, Science 3d, concert, contest, feature, stereoscopic, theater

ColorSchemeDesigner.com is a nice javascript-based website that allows you to quickly and easily design web-safe color palletes with a variety of designs.  Full support for mono, complement, triad, tetrad, analogic, and accents are supported, along with Vision simulations for various types of color-blindness.  Color selections can be previewed with a template light and dark site for a quick sample, and easily exported to RGB schemes, Photoshop ACO palettes, GIMP GPL palettes, and more.

Color Scheme Designer 3.

Graphics colorblind, colors, Website

Feeling the heat from the recent free releases of the Unreal3 and Unity engines, Havok has decided to roll out their own “Indie Developer Programme”, however it’s a bit difficult to determine what exactly they are calling an “indie” developer.

Designed to enable independent game studios to execute their creative visions using Havok’s premium, developer-preferred middleware technology, the Independent Developer Program helps studios minimize the overall risk and high cost associated with internal creation of the tools and technologies required to power today’s sophisticated video and PC games. Krome Studios is the first to license Havok tools and technology under the Independent Developer Program.

In the press release they make reference to Krome Studios as an independent developer, however with their recent work with LucasArts game “Star Wars the Clone Wars: Republic Heroes”, a 400 person staff and classification as the largest software developer in Australia, I’m not so sure that’s indie.

Press Release via Havok Reveals Indie Developer Programme | Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Graphics havok, indie, sdk

Attendees of the upcoming SIGGRAPH Asia can stop by Lightworks’ booth (F01) for a quick glimpse at the new versions of Lightworks Author and Lightworks Artisan.  In addition to this being the 20th anniversary year for Lightworks, the software has some impressive new features like realtime ray tracing, screen space ambient occlusion, and support for multiple lights in CgFX.

David Forrester, CEO of Lightworks commented: “Lightworks exhibited at the inaugural Siggraph Asia in Singapore in 2008 and we are delighted to be supporting this year’s exhibition in Japan. This is the first time that Lightworks has exhibited in Japan, and we are looking forward to this opportunity of meeting directly with companies in this important marketplace and to showing them some of the extremely exciting new developments that we are introducing in this, our 20th anniversary year.”

Full release after the break.

Read more…

Graphics artisan, lightworks, siggraph, software

Gizmodo turns up this infographic showing every nuclear explosion (for military or research purposes) since 1945 on a map, correlating the size with the power of the explosion and the color with the offending country.

In this map, which takes into account all the documented nuclear tests since 1945, two things really stand out. The few days in 1945 that saw the only use of nuclear weapons on humans register, when measured on the unfeeling scale of kilotons, as two small blips, aberrant in their location but unremarkable in their size. Then you see the key: The scale is not linear. If it was, the larger explosions would cover most of the map. That's the thing with nuclear weapons: It's easy to lose your sense of scale when it comes to how powerful they are, or what havoc they can wreak.

via Our Century of Fallout: Every Nuclear Detonation, Mapped – Nuclear Weapons – Gizmodo.

Graphics infographic, nuclear

Brian Burke of NVidia just posted a link to an impressive photo on TwitPic (shown above).

Fun Photo of the Week: Tom Petersen, Director of Technical Marketing at NVIDIA, proudly showing off his new Maingear Shift PC, equipped with two, count ‘em two GF100 cards! His smile is positively illuminating!

The GF100 is the first Fermi card, so for those of you who say it won’t do gaming…

via Fun Photo of the Week: Tom Petersen, Director of Technical Ma… on Twitpic.

Hardware fermi, nvidia