07:09AM EDT – AMD have a keynote here at IFA this year
07:09AM EDT – The focus is expected to be VR/AR
07:10AM EDT – We’ve got a meeting/interview with Mark Papermaster, CTO of AMD, later today
07:10AM EDT – It will be interesting to see if anything new is being said today, but having a roundup of corporate vision is never a bad thing
07:11AM EDT – Starting with a classic AMD video, showing they’re in a lot of gaming devices, including consoles
07:11AM EDT – Mark has worked with Lisa Su over the past 20 years, back when they were bringing up silicon as part of the same team
07:12AM EDT – He was also at the Zen announcements at IDF last week
07:12AM EDT – ‘A new category of computing is emerging’
07:12AM EDT – ‘We are in this era’
07:13AM EDT – ‘It’s a rapid change of technology, and we interact with this rapid change on a daily basis’
07:13AM EDT – The change of technology changes how we as individuals interact with it
07:14AM EDT – ‘It’s all about the human-technology interface’
07:14AM EDT – Starting with audio and radio, direct to your ear
07:15AM EDT – At IFA, the first Cathode Ray Television was shown
07:15AM EDT – ‘Networks were created, content too’
07:16AM EDT – ‘Audio and Visual brings emotion into the home’
07:16AM EDT – Now interactive technology, such as personal computing and www
07:16AM EDT – Information at your fingertips
07:17AM EDT – The www, social media and apps are all interactive. Information comes faster than before, and it’s all in the interaction as well
07:17AM EDT – A rapid progression of Moore’s Law
07:18AM EDT – Moving into the portable
07:18AM EDT – Phones became smartphones to consume content
07:18AM EDT – ‘I bet most people would recognize within 30m if a smartphone was left at home’
07:19AM EDT – ‘That’s the difference disruptive technology makes’
07:19AM EDT – ‘We are contextually aware with our environment and how we can interact with it via technology’
07:19AM EDT – ‘We’ll do what we have to to get a better experience’
07:20AM EDT – ‘The movies are a good indicator of how AR/VR can change the way we interact’
07:20AM EDT – ‘We stand on the brink of a technological revolution’
07:21AM EDT – ‘It’s all about the fluidity of the technology integration around us, as well as what is useful’
07:21AM EDT – ‘The first stage of this new era is VR, followed by AR/MR’
07:22AM EDT – >I find it interesting Mark is saying MR (mixed reality), which seemed like an Intel term. Sounds like AMD is adopting it readily
07:22AM EDT – ‘There’s still a way to go to photorealism and stronger emotional experiences’
07:23AM EDT – ‘The interface will get easier and easier as the technology improves’
07:23AM EDT – ‘More capability being woven into the fabric of our lives’
07:23AM EDT – ‘We are having a fundamental change with the connection and interaction with technology’
07:24AM EDT – ‘Why is this happening now? We have the enablement of a combination of technologies’
07:24AM EDT – ‘Tremendous capability in compute is now at our fingertips to enable this’
07:25AM EDT – ‘With the advent of open standards and industry engagement, content creation is occurring at scale’
07:26AM EDT – ‘The next stage is affordable hardware, and bringing it into the home via consumer grade pricing is fundamental’
07:26AM EDT – ‘Today, we are there to start this new era’
07:27AM EDT – ‘It requires a relentless pace of technology
07:27AM EDT – >Full presence takes 1PF, interesting
07:29AM EDT – ‘With today’s hardware, you can tell if an actor hasn’t shaved. But you still know it’s a generated image. We need another step forward in capability to reach what ‘Full Presence”
07:29AM EDT – ‘Imagine what you need to see and feel if you were in the audience today’
07:30AM EDT – >If VR was that capable and that ubiquitous, I’m out of a job covering press events….!
07:31AM EDT – ‘Four years ago, AMD saw where the industry was going and invested in high performance compute’
07:31AM EDT – ‘RX 480 brings VR ready graphics processing into a consumer price point’
07:31AM EDT – ‘It will drive content creation as more users have this capability’
07:32AM EDT – ‘This presentation is being run from a Radeon WS 8000’ – a Radeon Pro part
07:32AM EDT – A slide on Zen
07:33AM EDT – ‘we left a gap in our CPU capabilities, and Zen will close that’
07:33AM EDT – ‘Hardcore engineering with a 40% IPC increase’
07:33AM EDT – ‘VR is all about wider workloads and computation in an energy efficient way’
07:34AM EDT – ‘In Berlin next week, AMD is getting an Award about Green Computing’
07:34AM EDT – ‘Substantial GPU and CPU coming with AMD, but there’s much more to come’
07:34AM EDT – ‘We want to do this as a community’
07:35AM EDT – ‘We’ve gone with an open source approach, unlike our competitors’
07:35AM EDT – ‘We want it open to be able to drive the next era of apps and computing for consumers’
07:36AM EDT – ‘Content is King’
07:36AM EDT – Now Roy Taylor coming to the stage, CVP of Alliances and Content
07:36AM EDT – ‘VR is going to make a fundamental impact on all our lives’
07:37AM EDT – ‘We need a vibrant ecosystem to do this with the people who create’
07:37AM EDT – ‘Everyone from film to gaming to development are all creators to AMD’
07:37AM EDT – ‘In April, the first medical procedure happened in VR’
07:38AM EDT – ‘Also, court cases have been decided by VR’
07:38AM EDT – *in VR
07:38AM EDT – ‘VR is exciting, but offers challenges, such as 360 film’
07:39AM EDT – Along with games, VR as a Service and VR Experiences are two other key factors
07:39AM EDT – >VRaaS. Right.
07:39AM EDT – There are already 180+ VR Experiences
07:40AM EDT – ‘The way we used to make content is no longer the same’
07:41AM EDT – ‘VR Experiences tends to use game engines, even though the experience isn’t VR’
07:42AM EDT – ‘At GDC this year, there were a ton of more attendees that weren’t game developers’
07:42AM EDT – ‘Because of film and experiences’
07:42AM EDT – 500+ VR engagements, 251 games publishers, 100 game developers, 100+ movie studios
07:43AM EDT – ‘One element of the future is interaction in social VR, so light fields and digital capture of humans will be essential’
07:44AM EDT – ‘Digital capture will be very important – captures and stitching’
07:44AM EDT – ‘The problem with stitching is that bad stitching takes you out of the moment and away from where the director wants’
07:45AM EDT – Project Loom available on GPUOpen to stitch video in real time
07:45AM EDT – Guests who are using AMD VR are being described
07:47AM EDT – ‘We’ve been working with AMD for years, but we’re so glad we’re using AMD for project creation’
07:48AM EDT – ‘BBC Home is an experience to mirror Tim Peake to help repair the space station, and ESA is interested in using it for training’
07:49AM EDT – ‘Red Bull Air Race, using geo-accelerator telemetry to drive the experience in VR as no-one gets to ride onboard’
07:49AM EDT – ‘The power of the graphics card is key to all this’
07:49AM EDT – ‘Rendering is expensive, can take 36-72 hours per frame’
07:50AM EDT – ‘Today’s renderers are CPU/GPU based depending on the feature’
07:50AM EDT – ‘Radeon Prorenderer is designed to work on CPU and GPU, even competitors hardware’
07:51AM EDT – ‘The open source implementation means that it is rapidly being adopted’
07:51AM EDT – ‘It’s also going to be used in Blender’
07:51AM EDT – >Oh hello… in Blender, eh?
07:51AM EDT – Johnb Macinnes coming on stage after a video
07:53AM EDT – showing a pre-rendered music video
07:54AM EDT – ‘The holy grail is to make a photoreal world’
07:54AM EDT – ‘We and AMD have a share of redefining what is possible’
07:54AM EDT – The music video was developed in UE4
07:55AM EDT – ‘Working with US Navy Seals to make a documentary to be inside the VR as part of the team’
07:55AM EDT – ‘You no longer need to imagine yourself in someone’s shoes, you can actually be there and experience it’
07:56AM EDT – Back to Roy
07:56AM EDT – ‘One of the problems is the ability to edit images in real time… in 8K’
07:56AM EDT – ‘File sizes are enormous, so we took an SSD and mounted it directly onto the GPU card’
07:57AM EDT – ‘Radeon Pro SSG allows editing of 8K RAW at 92 FPS’
07:58AM EDT – Now two people from AP talking about content
07:59AM EDT – ‘Up to 1billion people see AP content per day, but in many ways we’re a 170 year startup’
07:59AM EDT – ‘We want to find new ways to share and tell news, and technology helps us tell those stories’
08:00AM EDT – ‘One example is a full 360 VR CG video is a VR Experience for users to experience Alzheimers’
08:00AM EDT – back to Roy
08:00AM EDT – in 2017, JPR expects headset sales to be 2.7M
08:01AM EDT – ‘The challenge today with VR creators is that the big AAA creators won’t have the range if only 2.7M people have headsets’
08:02AM EDT – ‘The install base is too low, so we must democratize VR and get it into the hands of 100m people’
08:03AM EDT – ‘Before RX 480, a VR GPU card cost $ 350. Now you can get a VR PC for under 700 Euros’
08:03AM EDT – ‘CSL Computers has announced a 700 Euro VR ready PC at IFA today’
08:04AM EDT – ‘The other part of VR is location based VR, either a movie theatre lobby or a dance festival or a shopping mall’
08:04AM EDT – ‘We’re in Europe looking for people to create location based VR, so get in contact’
08:05AM EDT – Handing back to Mark
08:06AM EDT – AMD, in this slide, predicts VR will accelerate and mirror mobile adoption?
08:06AM EDT – ‘AMD is all about imagining the possibilities due to accelerating the immersive era’
08:07AM EDT – We’re a fraction of the size of our competitors, but AMD is back and we’re fluid for the next era!
08:07AM EDT – That’s a wrap!
