nTeresting - January 13, 2012

In this Issue:

·         NVIDIA made big news at CES with Tegra 3 in super phones, super tablets and super cars!

·         Intel had a minor DirectX 11 SNAFU at CES. Too bad they were not using NVIDIA Optimus technology.

·         GPU Computing helps accelerate the analysis of DNA sequencing data in China.

CES ’12 Success

CES was held this week in Las Vegas.   NVIDIA made news on the tablet and smartphone front with Tegra 3, with the following themes:

- New $249 Asus tablet, equipped with a quad-core Tegra 3 mobile processor running Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.

“This just in from the ZOMG! department -- NVIDIA has announced that a 7-inch version of the Transformer Prime will be available, complete with the Tegra 3 processor and Ice Cream Sandwich (wait for it) for $249.”

- Asus’s Transformer Prime tablet, with Tegra 3, is available immediately with Ice Cream Sandwich. Earlier versions can be updated over the air.

“Jen-Hsun Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA, announced that the Asus Transformer Prime is getting its Ice Cream Sandwich update today…. Start mashing that update button!”

- Tegra 3, by using the Splashtop app, can remotely connect to a GeForce GTX-based gaming PC and play the world’s most sophisticated titles like Skyrim.

“If you’re planning to pick up a Tegra 3-powered tablet (i.e. the ASUS Transformer Prime) in the future, Splashtop Remote Desktop HD is an app you might want to pick up. Splashtop Inc. announced today that its desktop cross-device computing software, Splashtop Remote Desktop HD, has been optimized for NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 processor and is capable of delivering 60+ frames per second andsub-40 millisecond latency.”

- The Tegra 3 processor sports three innovations:

       A fifth ninja core, which draws very little power and is able to run background and ordinary tasks with little impact on battery life

       PRISM, a power-saving backlight technology that can cut backlight power consumption by up to 40 percent by modulating the backlight per pixel, frame and scene.

       DirectTouch, which offloads much of the touch panel’s processing to just one of the CPU cores, enabling 6x faster touch processing, lower costs and lower power consumption.

“Well, the Tegra 3 is just full of surprises. Among [Tegra 3’s] other power-conserving superpowers is the ability to reduce the amount of backlighting needed.”

- Tegra 3 is now powering some of the world’s best cars, including three being shown at CES by NVIDIA: the Tesla 3 sedan, the Audi A7 and the new Lamborghini Aventador.

“Well, here's something we were not expecting to hear at today's NVIDIA CES press conference. The company just announced that its Tegra chips will power not just tablets, but in-car entertainment systems. For starters, this will include Tesla's model S, though it's also going to find a home in Lamborghini and Audi (announcement to come, we're told).”

Microsoft demoed Tegra 3-powered device to demo Windows 8 running on ARM.

“During the NVIDIA press conference, Microsoft senior director Aidan Marcuss made an appearance to demonstrate the yet to be released Windows 8 platform running on a tablet powered by the ARM-based quad-core Tegra 3 processor.” Watch the video.

Watch the recap of all the NVIDIA announcements in this video with the Tegra team’s Matt Wuebbling.

Intel Has DX11 Demo Hiccup

Intel integrated graphics has been much maligned over the years. In fact, the best thing to happen to Intel integrated graphics came from NVIDIA in the form of NVIDIA Optimus technology. Intel used CES as a platform to show off Ivy Bridge and its DirectX 11 capabilities…..sort of.

“In a move that casts yet another shadow over Intel’s ability to craft a decent integrated GPU, the engineers from Santa Clara were caught cheating at its CES 2012 press conference last night. Mooley Eden, the general manager of Intel’s PC group, was on stage to show off the the DirectX 11 capabilities of Ivy Bridge’s HD Graphics 2500 GPU — but instead of actually driving a lap in F1 2011, Eden cheated and pressed play on a pre-rendered video in VLC.”

Intel integrated graphics gets great battery life, buts needs to be paired with a GeForce GPU using NVIDIA Optimus technology.

Faster DNA Sequencing with GPUs

BGI, a mega lab headquartered in Shenzhen, China, is using GPUs to accelerate the analysis of DNA sequencing data with phenomenal results.

“The world’s largest genome sequencing center once needed four days to analyze data describing a human genome. Now it needs just six hours. The trick is servers built with graphics chips — the sort of processors that were originally designed to draw images on your personal computer.”

GPU Computing is the use of the massively parallel architecture of the graphics processing unit (GPU) as a computational engine that can be programmed with high level languages and APIs. CUDA is our architecture for GPU Computing and makes it possible to run standard C on our GPUs.