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Another day, another Fermi rumor.  This time, Toms Hardware brings us news posted over at VR-Zone of the Fermi-based GeForce GTX480 and GTX470 cards:

GeForce GTX 480 : 512 SP, 384-bit, 295W TDP, US$499

GeForce GTX 470 : 448 SP, 320-bit, 225W TDP, US$349

Internal benchmarks reveal that GeForce GTX 470 is some 5-10% faster than Radeon HD 5850 and similiar [sic] for GeForce GTX 480 over the Radeon HD 5870.

Also, the VR-Zone forums are playing host to a picture from Turkish Website DonanimHaber, purportedly of the first Nvidia-made GeForce GTX480.

Are they real?  We’ll know in 7 days.

Update 10am: VRZone has revised the figures like so:

GeForce GTX 480 : 480 SP, 700/1401/1848MHz core/shader/mem, 384-bit, 1536MB, 250W TDP, US$499

GeForce GTX 470 : 448 SP, 607/1215/1674MHz core/shader/mem, 320-bit, 1280MB, 225W TDP, US$349

* The intended GF100 has 512 SP clocked at 725/1450/1050MHz with 295W TDP. It should still be released in the future but just not now. For this launch, GTX 480 has 480 SP with clocks lowered to 700/1401/1848MHz at 250W TDP.

I hate to say it, but the Fermi is starting to look a bit disappointing from a Graphics angle.  I’m sure it will rock at GPGPU (mostly thanks to the double-precision support), but for graphics it’s not looking any better than ATI’s offerings (even lacking a bit, if you bring in the 5890).

via More GeForce GTX 480, GTX 470 Details Leaked.

Hardware fermi, nvidia, rumor

TechEYE.net has an article up claiming to have an inside source on the Intel Larrabee engineering team that claims news of Larrabee’s death has been greatly exaggerated.

“We were literally hundreds of people, Intel picked some really big hitters and a lot of those people are still hovering around waiting for Larrabee to come online again,” he said.

And when it does resurface, don’t expect it to be poorly bunged together, either. According to our source, some disgruntled ex-Larrabee project employees had been actively spreading fud and lies, leaking bad information to press about Larrabee’s technical capabilities.

Frankly, the article doesn’t say anything we don’t already know.  I don’t think anyone in their right minds believes it is truly dead, and even Intel claimed that it was first going to transition it to a parallelism SDK before returning to the original hardware strategy.  The fact that ‘hundreds of people’ were involved doesn’t mean much, and that they’re ‘hovering around waiting for Larrabee to come online again’ means (to me) that it has been shelved temporarily and hasn’t changed since the SC09 demo.

The real question is will Larrabee come ‘out of the gate’ ready to stomp AMD & NVidia, or will it be playing a distant second (or third) fiddle to existing GPGPU technology?

via Intel’s Larrabee to do a Lazarus | Chips news | TechEye – All the technology news unfit for print.

Hardware intel, larrabee

Brickyard VFX is working with Toyota and NASCAR for a new ad campaign called ‘Sponsafier’, where you can go to www.sponsafier.com and design your own NASCAR car and select a driver.  The three ads features three hilarious designs (a medieval dragon driven by a knight in chainmail armor, a pink kitty-car, and a lonely guy giving a shout out to his girlfriend).  Sadly, the cars are not real but were designed by Brickyard VFX and motion-tracked over footage of the track.

Brickyard created CG versions of each of the hero cars, complete with high-resolution texture maps, using photos, HDRI and lighting data from the shoot to match lighting and details. They also created additional cars (Little Debbie, Window World and NAPA) and integrated them all in to the spots to augment the racing scenes and add camera angles and turntables that helped to sell the stories.

“Three cars on a racetrack isn’t much of a race,” said Brickyard lead 3D artist David Blumenfeld. “When we added CG cars around to make the race more competitive.”

See all three spots here, and then design your own car at Sponsafier.com.

via Brickyard VFX Sponsafies Toyota NASCAR | CGnews.

Graphics advertising, brickyard, nascar

Motionographer brings us a pair of new campaign commercials from IBM aimed at making it known how much data exists in the world around us, and how IBM products make it possible.  Harness the talents of James Frost of Zoo Films and Motion Theory, they push the increasingly popular “data aesthetic” genre to new heights.

See the full credit list at Motionographer, and watch the videos:

• Data Anthem
• Data Baby
• Behind the Scenes of Data Baby

IBM’s Data Films | Motionographer | Motion graphics, design, animation, filmmaking and visual effects.

Graphics commercial, ibm, motion theory, zoo films

CNNMoney has a short video starring Elaine Politis and Ariel Gonzalez of Second Life’s Beachfront Realty, discussing how they grew the business from a pair of $250 investments to the company it is today.  Large enough, in fact that Ariel quit his job as an IT Manager for Merril Lynch to work in Second Life full-time.

Some details from the video:

• $295 per island, split into pieces that cost approximately $17 per lot, resold at $25
• They own 150 sims

If my math works out, that’s approximately 17 lots per Sim, with an average profit of $8 per lot.  150 sims * 17 lots/sim * $8/lot = $20,400 .  If that’s a monthly figure (the $295 is monthly maintenance on a private island, after the $1000 setup cost), then I believe I understand how people make a living in Second Life.

Second Life’s real estate barons – Video – Business News.

Science second life, virtual worlds

Dreamworks Animation hasn’t even released “How To Train Your Dragon“, and is already releasing teaser trailers for the next animated superhero flick “Megamind”.

In the November 5 release, super villain Megamind (Will Ferrell) defeats his archrival Metro Man (Brad Pitt) and the world should be his oyster. But instead, Megamind falls into total despair. It turns out that life without a rival is life without a point for him. So, he creates a new superhero rival, Titan (Jonah Hill). Unfortunately, the new hero wants to be a super villain, too. Caught in the middle, star reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey) asks the tough questions: Who can we turn to? Who has what it takes to stand up to this menace? Who will defend the innocent? Megamind! That’s who.

Sounds entertaining, in a classic Dreamworks Shrek-like backwards way (Supervillian tries to create Superhero, but winds up becoming the Superhero).  See the trailer below, courtesy of ComingSoon.net and Yahoo Movies.

via The Teaser Trailer for Megamind – ComingSoon.net.

Graphics dreamworks, movie

Muhammad Saleem follows up his great “6 Years of Facebook” infographic with another Mashable Exclusive, this time chronicling the road to the 10-Billionth Tweet.

While the site’s growth has certainly been impressive and it has reached the point of non-displacement, there are some interesting hidden truths about Twitter and its users. The following graphic takes a look at Twitter’s path to 10 billion tweets, what we have learned about its users and what they’ve been talking about along the way.

See it after the break, or on Mashable.

Read more…

Graphics infographic, twitter

LabEscape makes a product called “HeatMap Explorer” for converting Excel spreadsheets and SQL databses into interactive HeatMaps for BI uses.  The software to create the maps is a Windows-only package, but offers a web-based Java viewer.  One of the demonstrations on their website is an impressive visualization of Car Fuel Economy that combines a lot of data into a small easily managed space.

A heat map where each rectangle, or cell, represents a car. The size of each car corresponds to its annual fuel cost and the color corresponds the highway miles per gallon. Cars are grouped first by type of car, then by make. Green and blue cars get good mileages, while yellow and red cars get bad mileage. Use the search box above the heat map to search for a specific make or model.

They also have a demonstration of a project portfolio healmap.  They offer a 14-day free trial of the software, which can be purchased for prices starting at $1,295/user.

via Lab Escape: Learning Center > Overview.

Science heatmap, labescape, software

Robin Richards has posted a new infographic that he designed for MeetTheBoss.tv. Last time he created a graphic on the FedEx Universe. This time he wanted to show figures he obtained about McDonalds.

What sets this one apart from all the other infographics we post about on VizWorld is that he posts the working sketches behind the design of the infographic. He talks about the information that he gathered to make the graphic, then he sketches it out, then he goes through a series of mock-ups until he has the refined product.

A graphic for MeetTheBoss.tv for which I could have created another graphic like the FedEx Universe, as there is alot of figures connected with McDonald’s. However, I wanted to take a different viewpoint from the norm. I wanted to look at how the different areas are connected to create the experience we know as eating at McDonald’s – to try and look beyond just the figures of how many people they serve (47 million each day). Have decided to post some of working files to give a little insight into how the graphic was created.

via ripetungi.

Graphics infographic

VFXFairness is creating a special free Online Town Hall to talk about the decreasing standards for workers in the VFX industry, lead by Lee Stranahan who recently achieved some mainstream media fame for his ‘Open Letter to James Cameron: Fairness for Visual Effects Artists‘.  The description for the event:

Effects driven films like Avatar are breaking box office records while visual effects facilities are forced to shut their doors and most VFX workers face long hours, no benefits and little credit.

It’s time to start talking about the state of the visual effects industry — where we are, how we got here and what can be done to move the industry forward in a way that's fair and thriving for artists, facilities and the studios.

We’ve assembled a world class panel with different perspectives and now we'd like to invite you to be part of the conversation. The discussion is open to everyone with an interest in the visual effects industry.

The event is being coordinated via EventBrite, so go ahead and sign up.

via VFX Online Town Hall with Chris deFaria, Jeffrey Okun,… – Eventbrite.

Update: 3:13PM Wow.. Hope you got in if you wanted.

Graphics industry, vfx