Futuremark Corporation to Develop Official Khronos OpenKODE Conformance Test Suite

(Auszug aus der Pressemitteilung)

Saratoga, California USA – December 12th, 2006 – Futuremark(r) Corporation, the world’s leading provider of performance analysis software and services for handhelds and PCs, is pleased to announce that it has been chosen by the Khronos(tm) Group to develop the official conformance test suite for the upcoming OpenKODE(tm) 1.0 open standard. This selection by one of the leading mobile industry consortiums marks a significant expansion of Futuremark’s leadership position in the handheld testing tools arena that will add streaming audio and video

Khronos‘ selection of Futuremark was based on the company’s expertise in providing performance analysis software and services to the mobile and PC industry over the past nine years. Futuremark has been a contributing member of the Khronos Group for many years and has previously developed benchmarks targeted to measure the performance of devices with software and hardware implementations of the OpenGL(r) ES API for embedded 3D graphics. These benchmarks include 3DMark(r)Mobile06 and
SPMark(tm)04 for evaluating OpenGL ES 1.0 and 1.1 performance and SimulationMark(tm) ES 2.0 that licensees can use to measure OpenGL ES 2.0 performance prior to having actual silicon implementations available. Futuremark is also currently working on tools to provide graphics performance evaluation for the OpenVG(tm) API that provides hardware acceleration for 2D vector graphics, including the VGMark(tm)07 benchmark.

„We view OpenKODE as a key cross-platform, royalty free and streamlined rich media foundation for mobile phones as it provides a set of APIs that enable advanced user interfaces and media applications that seamlessly mix and accelerate 2D, 3D, video and audio media types,“ said Tero Sarkkinen, Futuremark’s executive vice president of sales and marketing. „OpenKODE is a significant advance for the handheld industry, helping to transition future mobile products into the most pervasive
media-capable computing devices that world has seen.“

Futuremark’s OpenKODE conformance testing tools will enable mobile device chip makers, handset manufacturers and middleware vendors to confirm that their products conform to the OpenKODE 1.0 media stack specification and will include trans-API conformance tests to ensure that OpenKODE implementations support rich mixing of media types such as real-time video being processed in a 3D application. The suite of conformance testing tools will be made available through the Khronos Group OpenKODE Adopters program and products that pass all the tests may use the OpenKODE trademark. Independently, Futuremark will complement the conformance test suites with a set of tools designed to provide performance metrics for state-of-the-art rich media OpenKODE applications.

„Futuremark is very pleased to help accelerate mixed media applications in the mobile industry by encouraging the reliable availability of OpenKODE that will enable the creation of imaginative new applications and user interfaces that rely on a variety of rich media types,“ said Petri Talala, Futuremark’s vice president of mobile business. „We believe that multi-media on handheld devices will ultimately open up an array of new market and revenue possibilities for the industry, and provide
consumers with exceptional new products and exciting new applications.“

OpenKODE, Khronos Open Development Environment
OpenKODE is a royalty-free, cross-platform standard that combines a set of native APIs into a comprehensive media stack specification for accelerating rich media and graphics applications. OpenKODE aims to make advanced media capabilities consistently available across multiple devices for increased native source portability and reduced mobile platform fragmentation. OpenKODE 1.0 brings together the OpenGL ES and OpenVG Khronos media APIs to provide state-of-the-art acceleration for vector 2D and 3D graphics and provides the new OpenKODE Core API that abstracts operating system resources to minimize source changes when porting games and applications between Linux, Brew, Symbian, Windows Mobile, WIPI and RTOS-based platforms. Subsequent versions of OpenKODE will add the OpenSL ES(tm) and OpenMAX(tm) media APIs to provide accelerated video and audio that is fully integrated with graphics processing.

Khronos also announced today that a draft of the OpenKODE 1.0 standard is available, on schedule, for public review by selected applicants. Khronos invites any interested party to execute a Khronos Reviewer’s Agreement and provide feedback and guidance to the OpenKODE Working Group to ensure that this important standard meet the needs of the industry. More details about OpenKODE and the Reviewer’s Agreement are available at http://www.khronos.org/openkode/.

„Due to Futuremark’s exceptional track record and steadfast commitment to better performing media on mobile devices, we have full confidence in their ability to create an outstanding suite of OpenKODE conformance tests,“ said Neil Trevett, vice president of embedded content at NVIDIA and president of the Khronos Group. „These tests will form a vital piece of the OpenKODE ecosystem as they will ensure that OpenKODE provides a highly reliable set of cross-platform media APIs that mobile
application developers can trust on any platform.“

Availability
The OpenKODE 1.0 specification and the associated Conformance Test Suite being developed by Futuremark are both expected to be available in the first quarter of 2007.