World: r3wp

GPU rendering has been used for production since Pixar's CArs... 
I've seen real-time manipulation of one of the shots ... it was impressive... 
it had caustics, refraction, reflections, all the stuff.  was running 
at full HD.


the only noticeable artifacts, where slightly lower polygon counts, 
slight transparency artifacts (hardware depth is aproximated, never 
subpixel) and some edge alliasing.


IIRC the actual color precision of images was within 10% of actual 
rendered final passes which took several hours per frame on the CPU. 
 so the animators could actually use the reflections and general 
look of the shot right away.

all they did was add a hook for nvidia's GPU 3d lib in their current 
shaders and used renderman interactively.

though in the movie, they do add many passes and compositing (which 
is where all those hours per frame come from)

Max, did you watch the video Henrik linked? It didn't look to me 
like the GPU did that great a job - at least it didn't look to be 
a general purpose solution to getting performance.

it's not like Luxology, and the other industry players, didn't wish 
for a magic bullet solution, but according to this guy and the state 
of the art he saw at Siggraph, it doesn't look like the GPU, by itself, 
is it

Yeah.. I know its strange... but it does try to use the most advanced 
lighting techniques too.  in cars they didn't have such high requirements. 
 so I guess its a question of what you are actually rendering... 
which is what he basically says.


also, pixar was embedding GPU calls within their normal software 
stack, so its possible they where using both the CPU and the GPU 
for different tasks, concurrently.  for things like moving points, 
the GPU is very fast.

I actually saw this on a screen within a visualizer, and it was amazing.

I was a bit surprised by the video, but that was due to my lack of 
knowledge on raytracing and how complex shaders can be, so this could 
mean many-core CPUs like the Larrabee could still be a valid for 
use in heavy 3D rendering.

yeah, I was pretty surprised too - from the general impression I 
had gotten over the last few years following the subject peripherally, 
I was expecting very significant gains

well, maybe with the new trend of combined CPU+GPU on a chip (both 
AMD/ATI and Intel), performance should still improve significantly 
because GPU functionality will be so close to the CPU cores

though I think that that trend may be due to wanting to provide an 
all-in-one solution rather than increasing performance

Map of the Internet:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/online_communities_2_large.png

brilliant

In Androids future you think http://www.flixxy.com/blindtype-touch-typing-method.htm

Who's suing who in telecom world :-) http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/whos_suing_whom.png

Cool.

yep, nice one pekr. looks like a cool guy doing some interesting 
visualisation projects.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/about/

Is anyone suing themselves?

You should patent that idea to not allow it.

;-)

Oracle probably sued Sun before they bought them ....

I remember that happening in our country - a company sued another 
one, but was bought by the opponent, who then "settled" the case.

Ubuntu 10.10 released - http://www.ubuntu.com/

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/googles-self-driving-car-whats-in-it-for-google/2529?tag=nl.e550


Google's self driving cars ... so you can read adverts while the 
car drives itself!

old but interesting ... would be nice to be able to program something 
like this http://www.reactable.com/products/reactable_experience/reactable/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc

it's a modern synthesizer using objects on a multi-touch surface

http://www.reactable.com/products/mobile/
Reactable Mobile

yeah... that looks really cool  :-)

similar .. siftables http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html

Groasis http://www.groasis.com/page/uk/principle.phptransforming 
deserts into forests

I knew the Fukuoka's method since a lot : http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC14/Fukuoka.htm

search for "seed balls"

cool Steeve for knowing for Fukuoka! :) I thought I am the only programmer 
around to know him, yet alone only Reboler

I use a lot of his thinking in sw development too

I know this is outside of Tech a bit, but in a sense, it IS tech: 
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/10/same-person-verified-billions-of.html

Be impressed, be very very impressed...

well, Apple is on the road to world domination.....  all-time record 
sales with a net profit of 4 billion$   !!

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/apple-grabs-20-billion-profit-with-record-iphone-mac-sales/

take from one R3 blog reaction - it seems that Google has the power, 
to suggest Go going into GCC? Call it a power-control - so a top 
company creates language with zero usage, in beta version, and it 
goes into GCC? http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODcwOQ

Have you looked at Go? Someone at Google suggested that it go in 
GCC, but they likely agreed on the language's own merits. However, 
it is definitely too new to have a lot of usage outside of Google. 
I like that they did it this way though - most third-party languages 
that build on GCC build their own separate distros (Gun Pascal, GDC 
and GNAT come to mind). At least Google is working to get it into 
the main distro where it can be used and worked on by as many people 
as possible.

Pekr, with GCC being an open-source project, anyone can suggest contributions.

But being Ian Lance Taylor certainly helps.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/17202/london_stock_exchange_moves_to_linux


Funny mention that MS' Get The Facts website is gone. I wonder if 
this is what Ray Ozzie was talking about, when he talked about complexity.

From above link:

The LSE had made the move, not because they love Linux and open-source 
software for some abstract reason, but because it makes good dollars 
and cents sense. It's cheaper, faster, and the LSE, not some outsider, 
gets to call the shots of its development.


Good points! I personally prefer FreeBSD over Linux for business 
servers.

Adobe demonstrated future of Flash through showcase by AlternativaPlatform 
- http://blog.alternativaplatform.com/en/

funny... that is exactly what CGR is going to be... time to make 
a browser plugin  ;-)

CGR?

Custom Gob Rendering engine.

the point is to allow us to build such an engine right into REBOL.

Most websites glossed over this, but we didn't. Silverlight, once 
touted as Microsoft's answer to Adobe's Flash, has been retooled 
from its original purpose. Microsoft is betting big on HTML5 instead, 
turning Silverlight into the development platform for Windows Phone, 
and that's it. So... Silverlight is dead - long live Silerlight?
 - taken from osnews.com


http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-our-strategy-with-silverlight-has-shifted/7834

Thank goodness I didn't learn it then!