NVIDIA nTeresting Newsletter - 24 August 2012

In this Issue:

· China gets the premium experience of a new quad core Tegra 3 Superphone at a low cost.

· TegraZone app gets its 4 millionth download.

· 300 entered our latest 3D photo contest, and Franklin Flocks rose to the top.

· 3D ready monitors lead to a better 2D experience.

· Dell steps up its game in video production.

· Chaos Group demonstrates interactive, physically-based rendering with the NVIDIA Maximus.

Floats Like a Butterfly, Stings Like a Hornet

Chinese smartphone manufacturer K-Touch has expanded their arsenal with the Tegra 3 equipped Hornet II, and it's causing quite a stir with its low-cost, high-powered design. The Hornet II comes with a 4.5-inch touchscreen, a 1.5GHz Tegra 3 processor, and an 8-megapixel camera, running on Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0).

At the equivalent of $315 USD, the Hornet II stings its quad-core competition, the Meizu MX Quad-core and Xiaomi M2, both estimated to run for more than $450 USD. The buzz it's generated has led industry sources to say:

"K-Touch's pricing for quad-core models will make it difficult for other vendors to set their prices high when they are trying to step into the quad-core segment in China."

TegraZone: 4 Million Strong, and Growing

The NVIDIA TegraZone App is really helpful when you're looking for the best Android games fitted for your device powered by a Tegra processor. But don't take our advice, listen to the more than 4 million people who have TegraZone installed. While the highly sought, often sold out, Nexus 7 has had an impact on downloads, back-to-school Tegra tablet purchases are sure to continue growing the TegraZone audience as students can't study all the time:

"Students tend to be on tight budgets, and a starting point of $200 for an 8GB 7 inch tablet doesn't sound bad at all. It helps that the tablet features a top of the line processor in the Tegra 3, and the beautiful build quality ASUS has made its reputation from."

3D Photo Contest Picks a Winner

As part of our participation at the 2012 National Stereoscopic Association (NSA) convention, NVIDIA sponsored the second annual 3D Digital Image Showcase contest. The contest provides NSA members exposure for their work - as well as a chance to score cash prizes and NVIDIA 3D Vision hardware. You can check out the nearly 300 entries on 3DVisionLive.com.

The images were taken by NSA members, who were invited to submit up to six images for the contest. The grand prize winner was Franklin Flocks for his photo "Burning of the Trojan Horse".

While you're their check out the work of Nick Saglimbeni the first Photo Champion for 3D Vision Live, including his celebrity photos of Kim Kardashian and Stan Lee.

3D Vision-Ready Monitors for 2D Gaming

PC gamers love gaming in 3D. To do that they need a monitor that will kick out a 120Hz or more.

But you may not know that high refresh rates have benefits in 2D as well. High refresh rates mean you can pump out higher FPS on a consistent basis. Not only will a high refresh rate monitor unlock ultra-high frame rates, it also shortens input lag and reduces motion blur for natural movement. You get a competitive advantage in your FPS, Racing Simulator or RTS games with a high refresh rate monitor like the ASUS VG278HE 144Hz Fast Gaming monitor.

Better twitch gaming? I'm in! It is all explained in this video.

Game-Changing Video Production Workflow

Throughout the summer, Dell's been working with video professionals in their advisory panel to solicit feedback on Dell Precision workstations powered by NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics and Adobe Premiere Pro software for video editing.

With strong support from partners like NVIDIA, Dell's commitment to the media & entertainment market has gained traction. Recent examples include The Hollywood Reporter's article "Siggraph 2012: PC Makers Target Media And Entertainment Market" that discusses Dell's, along with other PC vendors, aim at grabbing a bigger stake in the media and entertainment space, citing Dell's video editing advisory program as an example.

1,000+ Viewers a Day Can't Be Wrong

If you missed us at SIGGRAPH a couple weeks ago, Lon Grohs, VP of Business Development at Chaos Group, demonstrates interactive, physically-based rendering with the NVIDIA Maximus next generation technology based on NVIDIA Kepler. Since we posted this NVIDIA Maximus demo video on August 7, an average of more than a thousand people a day have checked it out, so if you're a professional working on interactive 3D rendering using Autodesk Maya and V-Ray RT 2.0, you should too.

Chaos Group provides state of the art rendering solutions for visual effects, film, media and entertainment, and design industries. V-Ray RT is a powerful, interactive raytracing render engine optimized for NVIDIA CUDA architecture that changes the way 3D artists and visualization specialists approach the lighting and shading setup. V-Ray RT 2.0 optimized for CUDA interactive speed in Maya makes it ideal for 3D Look Development and Pre-visualization for film and TV

As Lon puts it, "Our CUDA based V-Ray plug-in for Maya is one of our latest developments to meet the needs of the most demanding VFX and film studios around the world, and with a Kepler-based NVIDIA Maximus system, 3D artists will spend less time waiting and more time being creative."