Nvision08 – Nvidia’s 3D Future Showcased

NVISION08 is Nvidia’s first trade show and they pulled out all of the stops as they assembled at least 80 companies as partner-exhibitors in their show. The entire San Jose Convention center – both floors – were taken up by NVISION08. The nearby Center for the Performing Arts huge screen used Dolby 3D’s state of the art projectors to show two full-length 3D movies, free for the attendees – “Fly Me to the Moon” and U2’s huge concert in Sao Paulo, Brasil – the “U2 3D” stereo movie.

This is the front of the San Jose Convention center which transformed into Nvidia’s wonderland – complete with a long green – not red – carpet and green fountains.  Unfortunately, they told me they needed to add blue dye regularly to the water as it turned yellow very quickly after exposure to light.   You also cannot see the Nvidia “protesters” who are handing out flyers that are mocking Nvidia’s recent issues with overheating notebook GPUs.   Nearby is the Center for the Performing Arts; the Crown Plaza used by I-Games; across the street is the Civic Auditorium used for Video Games Live; the nearby Fairmont Hotel and the Hilton Hotel next door were used for conferences.  No wonder the Mayor of San Jose proclaimed last week, “Visual Computing Week” for San Jose!  He also introduced the Keynote speaker and welcomed Nvidia and its attendees.

Besides the keynotes, movies and exhibitions, complete with an automotive section at the center of the exhibition hall; there was the HD theater and also a huge Gaming section, with competition going on at the highest level in the GeForce LAN as well as a successful attempt at setting a new Guinness World Book Record for ‘100 plus participants gaming continuously for more than 36 hours’.

Anyone with interest in the hundreds of products presented there could easily get reliable information and actually examine the products – including many future products.