[CES 2012] NVIDIA’s Press Conference at CES this year has some pleasant surprises in store for the masses, mainly with the announcement of the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update being made available to the Tegra 3-powered Asus Transformer Prime from today onwards, not to mention NVIDIA’s involvement in the world of the Android ecosystem. NVIDIA’s CEO Jen-Hsun Huang took to the stage with aplomb, delivering an overview of TegraZone which is the NVIDIA app and site which will highlight as well as prove to be a channel for the best Tegra-compatible content. A demonstration of the Riptide HD game ensued, showing off the merits of Tegra 3 in this version with water rendering and superior post-processing effects. Shadowgun, another multiplayer first person shooter was on display, and while we are aware of the single player part before, the game ran without a hitch at mostly 60fps on the Asus Transformer Prime. Fatal1ty makes a cameo here, obviously beating the opponent easily in the Shadowgun demo without a doubt. Splashtop HD was also introduced, being one of the top iPad applications that paves the way for tablets to remotely control a PC. It is not all peaches and cream though, since the image is compressed and the response time proved to be a wee bit laggy up to being noticeable at times.
We also saw Windows 8 running on a Tegra 3-powered device, and just in case you were wondering whether the nifty gadget above is an actual product, it isn’t. Sorry to burst your bubble folks, but this is a reference device, and who knows that the future might bring, right? The Windows platform is said to be far more “open” for developers as well as third party developers in comparison to the Apple Store, and it is also encouraging to see what the future holds considering how Microsoft has the best development tools out there at the moment.
Last but not least, a touch of class – there will be an upcoming Lamborghini (yes, the exotic supercar make) that will see NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chipset running inside to power the infotainment and navigation systems, so it would be interesting to see whether other luxury makes might follow suit.
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