OpenGL Coming to your Cellphone

Little Hamster writes "SGI and Nokia have signed an agreement to co-operate on the development of a 3D standard suitable for all embedded mobile terminals, based on OpenGL. This could be used for bringing real 3D Games to mobile devices, 3D global positioning systems, 3D representations of buildings or even creating entire interfaces in 3D. You can also find the press release press release here."

Comments

OpenGL? lets make a usefull cell phone first.

[Saahbs]

There is absolutely no need for anything 3D on cell phones. What I would like to see, and so far I haven't seen in Europe, is a cell phone featuring:
- full calendar with appointments, alarms, repeats and no-ringing "timespans".
- nice T9 SMS entry like Sagems (as opposed to "menu bloated" alternate word lookups in Nokia's T9 implementation)
- FM _and_ AM radio tuner
- MP3/OggVorbis playback capability with CF storage
- 300hour standby
- flip-out microphone so people can hear what I'm saying
- amber backlight instead of white/green/blue
- notepad/voicerecord/simple_finance app
- GPRS, HSCSD, Bluetooth

If I could find a set that had ALL of the above I could replace my walkman, mp3 player and a pocket calendar. Unfortunately I have not seen one cell phone that has all of the above. Anybody has seen such a beast in a standard cell-phone form factor?

OpenGL? Sure, 3d menus, crappy 3d games in 160x160, will wonders never cease... arghh

Re:OpenGL? lets make a usefull cell phone first.

[lmfr]

I'm quite happy with my Siemens S35. Callendar w/ appointments, alarms, etc.; nice T9 even in Portuguese; good standby, but I don't use it much so I can't say wether it's good or not; amber backlight; notepad; voicerecording; 348 Kb for data, sms, numbers, voice, images, animations, ring tones, and you can put there any type of file; GPRS and HSCSD (not sure about HSCDS).

No Bluetooth, flip-out microphone, radio, mp3/ogg player, though... But check a new model (S45i) that must have arried or will soon.

But why?

[gusnz]

They won't stand a snowball's chance of running DOOM 3 at full res unless you want them to double as central heating. And OpenGL for a cellphone UI would be overkill, and hard to use -- remember how VRML was going to take over the web?

But I can think of at least one valid use for this - streaming videoconferencing. Why stream 24fps video when you can run facial-recognition software, break a face up into polygons like a game model, and transmit the facial movements to be rendered on a screen. Lots of cellphones now come with cameras built in, so it wouldn't be that great a step up. Or perhaps if it was too cheesy for live conferencing you could have a face "read" text messages to you.

Any more ideas, or is this just another flash in the pan?

I think I shall call you grumpy instead

[SmallFurryCreature]

Okay I tell you why. I own a GBA. Recently I managed get a co-worker with a credit card to order me a backlight for it. With some skills I have not used in two decades(yes I am old) in managed to install the light and even to close it again. It works brilliantly. I now once again spend an awfull lot of time playing on it and might even buy some more games.

So thumbs up for the GBA right? Wrong. You see I work for a company called O2 as the web-developer, the cause I am the only programmer for the moment, for their online presence for the dutch branch. Holland was the first country in wich the XDA, a PDA with pocketpc(I know I know) and GPRS, was available. Apart that it is MS and is a bit underpowered the thing has one major advantage over the GBA, QUAKE!!!!!!! Yes it is tiny, yes the controls suck, but it is QUAKE!!!!!!! I have played doom on the GBA, trust me the two don't compare.

Since the XDA has gprs, and I presume that nokia will also, it has internet. Multiplay anyone? Fragging people why waiting for the plane could make waiting really fun. Only slight problem is that the processor is designed for boring old office type apps and so lacks the oomph needed to play later 3D games. With this move perhaps they will add a simple 3D accelerator as well

Try not to see this new devices as phones with gadgets but as mobile pc with a modem attached and if you only want a phone that can do voice. ehm what is stopping you? Just keep you're old one youre provider will love you since they will really get back the subsidie they made on it.

As for those wanting big screen, buy a nokia PCMCIA gprs/gsm card to play online while on the move.

I hope that someday soon I will simply be able to do quick FPS missions while travelling to work or maybe even a online RPG.

Re:3D interfaces

[Erik K. Veland]

The Quartz Extreme technology of Mac OS X 10.2 leverages OpenGL to offload the heavy display engine to the GPU. You can do impressive graphic compositing this way. Yet the interface is still 2D. Why is this?

Because on a flat surface the human eye best perceives information laid out on that 2D surface. Until we have a perfect 3D display and a revolutionary new input device (a bat?) you won't see 3d interfaces taking off any day now.