Event Coverage

A Showcase of GPU Computing Beyond Gaming

By Vijay Anand - 1 Oct 2009

Web Computing with GPU

Web Computing with GPU

Next up, NVIDIA had a couple of examples of web computing where GPUs can again play a part. The first is a lot closer to everyone's daily entertainment needs - watching flash videos. Now we know that the GeForce GPU helps accelerate conventional video formats to taxing Blu-ray dual-stream media. However they can't yet accelerate those HD flash videos. Fret not as Adobe and NVIDIA are working together on a GPU-accelerated Adobe Flash player to stream those HD videos off the web without issues that a netbook can truly fulfill its web usage needs and we've a few pictures and a video to showcase this:-

Over at the GPU Technology Conference, we had Johnny Loiacono, Senior VP of Creative Tools Business from Adobe who explained their workings while Jen-Hsun pulled out a head-to-head video demo to illustrate how the Intel Atom platform netbook matches up against an NVIDIA Ion based netbook.

And here's the HP Ion netbook using the NVIDIA Ion platform which Jen-Hsun is holding up. The larger chip on the module is the Ion chipset while the smaller chip is the Intel Atom processor.


Now for another example of web computing with the GPU's involvement is augmented reality. This is name given when a computer rendered overlay meshes with your real-world view and makes it appear as if everything really existed. Ludwig Fuchs, CEO of RTT came on stage to show off a Ferrari customization application that assists making any kind of alterations from accessories to colors on any parts of the car which reflects immediately on screen to visually help their customer.

He took this demo a notch up with an actual tire on stage without any rims, but on the computer screen, it looks complete with a rim set. To kick up the augmented reality factor, he shone a torch on the tire to simulate lighting around it while the PC screen accurately rendered the rims in real-time with lighting accurately. It was a surreal moment to behold.

Here we have Ludwig Fuchs, CEO of RTT and Jen-Hsun getting ready for the augmented reality demo.

And here we see on screen what the computer is rendering in real time with the rims accurately lit while the inset shows the actual video feed of duo with the empty tire.

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