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A new video has surfaced on Youtube showing new features, called “Snow Stack”, that Apple has built into their newest Webkit browser engine.  It’s 3D, Hardware Accelerated CSS effects and JavaScript Features.

This video shows “Snow Stack”, a 3D CSS Visual Effects demo built with HTML, CSS Effects and JavaScript in the latest WebKit nightly on Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard. You can try this out yourself by reading the details on www.satine.org.

Apple is currently trying to get these features as part of the CSS & HTML standard.  Between this & the new HTML5 “video” tag, could technologies like Silverlight & Flash find themselves pushed to the side?

See the video after the break.

Read more…

Graphics apple, browser, css, javascript, safari, webkit

News is spreading that Apple, in response to recent problems with the 8600M GT graphics chips in many of Apple’s Macbooks, has pushed to get some kind of acknowledgement from Nvidia about the issue that’s costing them a fortune in support costs.

SemiAccurate is reporting that, according to multiple sources, at recent negotiations between the two companies, discussions became rather heated, in part due to NVIDIA’s apparently arrogant stance concerning its supplier relationship with Apple. Evidently, Apple was expecting more modesty from a company that has cost it so much cash, thanks to a problem it didn’t even acknowledge existed.

But what’s Apple’s alternatives?  AMD? Not likely, since they use Intel chipsets primarily.  Remember all that news earlier about Apple hiring chip designers internally?  That’s right, maybe Apple’s gonna have their own chip in the next round of hardware.

It’s all speculation at this point, but with a name like “SemiAccurate” it has to be true, right?

via Apple/NVIDIA Rift to Spark Major Component Changes?.

Hardware apple, dispute, nvidia

The America Cinema Editors (ACE) board of directors has selected Avid’s Media Composer software for the organizations first-ever ACE Technical Excellence award.  Now, the award won’t actually be presented until February, but the organization is releasing the news now in order to drive some angst towards another company, Apple.

Harry B. Miller III, an ACE board member and head of the org’s technology committee, said Avid “has always had the superior product” among editing software packages, but recently the company has also gone out of its way to solicit feedback from editors and shape the product to their needs.

Apple, by contrast, has been slow to improve Final Cut Pro. Miller said, “Apple and Final Cut Pro doesn’t listen, doesn’t respond, doesn’t solicit our opinion.”

I know several people who have similar complaints about Apple’s slow response with Final Cut, specifically in the lack of HD editing & BluRAY authoring.

via ACE honors Avid’s Media Composer – Entertainment News, Film News, Media – Variety.

Graphics ace, apple, avid, award, finalcut, software

A developer for TapTapTap benchmarked some OpenGL code on the new iPhone 3GS and compared the results to the older iPod Touch 2G with impressive results.  You may wonder why he didn’t compare it against a regular iPhone 3G or original iPhone, but it’s been previously proven that the iPod Touch has a faster processor than the iPhone.

Anyway, his test used a simple OpenGL|ES v1.1 application, so it wasn’t using the new OpenGL|ES 2 features, but the results still showed the 3GS was approximately twice as fast.  Then, to compare the impact of the faster processor alone, he ran the standard Scimark2 benchmark suite.

I ran the test on the Touch and the 3gs with both small and large (cache-blowing) datasets to see how they compared. Here are the results:

iPhone 3Gs:    6.42 Mflops (small dataset)  5.86 Mflops (large dataset)

2g Touch:      5.21 Mflops (small dataset)  4.86 Mflops (large dataset)

In these tests the 3G S comes out about 20% faster than the 2g Touch. Given that the clock speed of the 3G S is only about 12% faster, there is definitely some extra oomph coming from the upgraded processor architecture, but I think it’s pretty clear that the PowerVR SGX’s contribution to our performance increase is substantial.

via Black Pixel » Early iPhone 3G S OpenGL Test Results.

Hardware apple, benchmark, iphone, opengl

Just saw this come in from EVGA, their new GTX285 For the Mac is ready to go.

EVGA is proud to announce the highest performing graphics card for the Mac today; the EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition! With 1GB of DDR3 memory and 240 processing cores, your performance is maximized with graphics-intensive applications like 3D gaming, motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering and animation. Take full advantage of the performance using NVIDIA CUDA and OpenGL applications. Upgrade your Mac Pro system with the EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition today for extreme performance!

Sale price seems to be in the $449 range, available at Newegg and others.

via EVGA | Articles | EVGA GTX 285 Mac Edition.

Hardware apple, evga, nvidia

Apple has just satisfied one of the huge requests for Developers by adding support for OpenGL|ES into the newest iPhone hardware, the iPhone 3G(s).  The new support extends the existing OpenGL support to OpenGL|ES 2.0.  Still not state-of-the-art (3.0 is available), but better.

Hardware apple, iphone, opengl, wwdc

The WWDC Keynote is going on right now.  One announcement is new Macbook pro laptops with some improved specs.  The new laptops seems to include NVidia chipsets, both the 9400M and 9600M (on select models).  This way they get the battery-savings of the 9400M combined with the higher-end features of the 9600M when needed.

Prices and full specs at the link.

Updated Mac laptops unveiled at WWDC 2009.

Hardware apple, laptop, nvidia

Just yesterday we were reporting that Bob Drebin has left AMD and joined Apple, and today there are reports that Raja Koduri, CTO at ATI, is leaving to join Apple as well.  As the Inquirer puts it:

Between PASemi, Bob Drebin and other things we can’t talk about yet, Apple is building up some serious hardware talent. All they need now is a good reliability person and a fire chief, and things will get really interesting on the hardware front in Cupertino. µ

Raja Koduri at Apple – The Inquirer.

Hardware apple, ati

Apple has just hired Bob Drebin, Graphics Product of AMD and previously an Engineering Director at ATI, as a Senior Director.  This seems to indicate, along with previous hires, and Apple is looking to improve their standing in high-graphics, possibly within the iPhone.

Drebin joins a growing host of silicon talent at Apple. The company hired Mark Papermaster, a top IBM engineering manager who took charge of Apple’s iPod and iPhone engineering groups in January. The hire sparked a legal dispute with IBM which designed

via EETimes.com – Apple hires AMD graphics CTO.

Hardware amd, apple

In another press release from NAB, Nvidia has announced that the previously discussed QuadroFX4800 will now be made available to Mac users as an addon.  It won’t be cheap ($1800), but will support the 3-pin 3D Stereo connector and two dual-link DVI connectors.

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 GPU for Mac has a MSRP of $1,799 USD, and will be available starting May 2009 through Apple.com and select Apple resellers and workstation integrators. The Quadro FX 4800 for Mac will also be available through NVIDIA channel partners PNY Technologies (US and EMEA), Leadteck (APAC) and Elsa (Japan).

via NVIDIA Brings Highly Acclaimed Quadro FX 4800 To MAC Market.

Hardware apple, nvidia