Decked out in their rarely-seen black tuxedos, Jen-Hsun, our CEO, and Chris, a senior vice president and NVIDIA Fellow, were honored for their and NVIDIA’s philanthropic leadership. They announced that their families, the company and a group of NVIDIA partners contributed $100,000 to fund City Year’s work with at-risk students at a local grade school.

Flanked by volunteers, Jen-Hsun (center) and Chris (right) were given commemorative jackets by City Year San Jose/Silicon Valley Executive Director Toni Burke (left).

City Year partners with public schools and teachers in under-served communities to help keep kids in school and on track to graduation. It draws on teams of “corps members”—young people dedicated to a year of full-time service—who provide individual support to at-risk students, focusing on their attendance, behavior and academic performance.

This year marks the fifth year that NVIDIA will partner with City Year for Project Inspire, and our third year of funding the A.J. Dorsa Elementary School, which supports the work of more than 10 corps members directly engaged in helping poor-performing students.

Download GeForce Experience here. Or, install it as part of our latest GeForce 320.18 Game Ready driver, also released today. GeForce experience arrives just in time for the release of our flagship GPU, GeForce GTX 780.

We designed GeForce Experience to help you maximize your PC’s performance in your favorite games so that they look and play better. GeForce Experience delivers on this promise by always keeping you up to date with the latest GeForce Game Ready drivers and by delivering optimal game settings tuned to your PC, instantly and automatically, so that you can spend more time playing games.

Since January’s beta release, GeForce Experience has been embraced by the gaming community. PC Gamer called it “…an incredible bit of software and important for PC gaming moving forward.” In beta, GeForce Experience has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times. More than 30,000 feedback submissions were received from around the world.

Coming to a PC Near You: ShadowPlay
Much of this feedback is incorporated in today’s release, and we now support optimized settings for over 80 games. Plus we have much more planned for GeForce Experience in upcoming releases.

For example, a very cool new feature called ShadowPlay is coming this summer. It lets you capture and share all your greatest gaming moments with friends. ShadowPlay takes advantage of dedicated hardware in Kepler-based GPUs to enable ‘always on’ game capture, shadowing your gameplay without the significant performance impact and large file sizes of today’s capture methods. If you pull off an outrageous mid-air maneuver in “Battlefield 3,” you simply hit a hotkey and your moment of glory is instantly saved and ready to share with your friends.

Your feedback has been enormously valuable in helping us to deliver a great experience. Enjoy GeForce Experience and keep the feedback coming.

Work being done there includes three-dimensional genome sequencing for cancer research, graphics and numeric programming, and design of programming and runtime systems for heterogeneous nodes and clusters.

CUDA Teaching Centers — of which there are 18 new ones — equip tens of thousands of students graduating each year with the knowledge and expertise to take advantage of the parallel processing power of GPUs (see “What Is CUDA?”). They get free teaching kits, textbooks, software licenses, NVIDIA CUDA architecture-enabled GPUs for teaching lab computers and academic discounts for additional hardware.

CUDA Research Centers – of which there are 17 new ones — embrace GPU computing across multiple research fields. They have access to exclusive events with key researchers and academics, a designated NVIDIA technical liaison and specialized training sessions.

Here are some examples of CUDA-related work taking place at some of our newest CUDA Research Centers:

Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo (U.S.)

The CUDA Research Center at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo supports a diverse range of applied research activities that benefit from CUDA technology. Research applications include ocean modeling, computational bioinformatics, cyber-security and parallel computing education. These research efforts have resulted in several papers, and have allowed undergraduate and graduate students in computer science to collaborate with faculty and students in other disciplines. Interdisciplinary, GPU-centric research is enabling better science through improved scale and resolution, which in turn provides excellent teaching opportunities for applied parallel computing.

Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan (France)

The CFD team in the Department of Mathematics, Center for Mathematics and their Applications develops numerical methods dedicated to GPU-computing for general fluid dynamics. Research focuses on real time visualization and human interaction and on challenging industrial problems involving complex multiphase flow applications.

Pennsylvania State University (U.S.) 

Research undertaken by the Research Computing and Cyberinfrastructure (RCC) Unit at Penn State is largely dictated by the needs of its various schools, including the Eberly College of Science, the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, and the College of Engineering. These needs fall into categories such as quantum physics and chemistry, classical molecular dynamics, and computational engineering.

Turkish Air Force Academy (Turkey)

The Turkish Air Force Academy was awarded the National Support Program Grant by the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Council (TUBITAK 1001 #112E281)to study how GPUs can be used in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.  This study aims to produce a solution for the re-calculation of dynamic vector fields by developing parallel algorithms which will be computed on NVIDA CUDA-accelerated GPUs.

Additional new CUDA Research Centers include:

• Applied Technology Operation at SURVICE Engineering Company  (U.S.)
• Duke University (U.S.)
• KTH Royal Institute of Technology & Stockholm University (Germany)
• MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore (India)
• National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (TIFR)   (India)
• Providence University (U.S.)
• Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute  (U.S.)
• Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (India)
• Stevens Institute of Technology (U.S.)
• Universidad Industrial de Santander (Columbia)
• Università degli Studi di Torino (Italy)
• Universität Bielefeld (Germany)
• University of Washington – Seattle (U.S.)

The new CUDA Teaching Centers include:

• B V Bhoomaraddi College of Engineering & Technology, Hubli (India)
• Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics (Belarus)
• Eckerd College (U.S.)
• Huazhong University of Science and Technology  (China)
• Illinois Institute of Technology (U.S.)
• Istanbul Technical University (Turkey)
• Lanzhou University (China)
• Newcastle University (UK)
• Portland State University (U.S.)
• San Diego Supercomputer Center (U.S.)
• Santa Clara University (U.S.)
• South China University of Technology (China)
• The Army Institute of Technology, Pune (India)
• Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste (UNICENTRO) (Brazil)
• Universität Duisburg-Essen (Germany)
• University of Alabama, Huntsville (U.S.)
• University of Washington (U.S.)
• Wright State University (U.S.)

NVIDIA’s GeForce team put on a show at the Maker Faire for the tens of thousands of do-it-yourselfers crowding through the grounds of the San Mateo County Event Center for the weekend event.

The Faire is at the center of a movement of do-it-yourselfers who take pride in mastering the technologies in the world around them, whether that means turning scooters and sheet metal into cupcake cars — complete with sprinkle-adorned hats — or learning how to mix Diet Coke and Mentos into magnificent, and messy, displays of do-it-yourself science.

Hands on: NVIDIANs walked fairgoers through the process of building a PC.

NVIDIA’s GeForce team fit right in, leading attendees through hands-on workshops showing them how to build their own PC, overclock a GPU and turn a PC case into a work of art.

“The reason we’re here is we want to celebrate the spirit of do-it-yourself,” NVIDIA’s Peter Kingsley said as he toted his 20-month-old daughter around the show.  “Building your own GeForce gaming PC is easy, cost efficient, rewarding and a lot of fun.”

In between sessions led by NVIDIANs clad in black and green t-shirts, the GeForce hardware on display at NVIDIA’s booth drew lustful glances.

“What I would give for that PC,” said Chris, as he eyed a machine equipped with three NVIDIA GTX Titan graphics cards.

“I’m a total NVIDIA fanboy,” said David, a freshman at Harvey Mudd College, before diving into a session led by NVIDIA’s Tom Petersen explaining how to tune up your GPU. “All this hardware is first rate.”

Also drawing gawkers: Brian Carter — who runs Bods Mods, a custom PC case shop — hand assembled a robot-shaped PC case out of acrylic over the course of the weekend as fair-goers asked him about his work.

The clear plastic case, and its motorized robot arms, drew plenty of comments as Carter pieced the machine together.

“Amazing, that’s just amazing,” said Andy, who was showing his son, Rob, around the Maker Faire.

Andy, who hand-built his own gaming PC for sessions of “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” was inspired.

“We need to build him one at some point,” he said, gesturing towards Rob, who grinned. “In fact, I think it’s time to get started.”

Mission accomplished.

NVIDIA will be at the Maker Faire all weekend at booth #328. Check our list of workshops and plan your day here: http://ow.ly/l8ODO

That’s the idea behind an amazing technology called Web with Real Time Communications capabilities, or WebRTC, that Google is spearheading. And our Tegra 4 mobile processor will be the first to fully support the royalty-free VP8 video compression format at the core of WebRTC.

Demonstrating our key role in the Android ecosystem, we’re showing how Tegra 4 supports high-definition 1080p videoconferencing on a system running Android Jelly Bean at a buttery-smooth 30 frames per second. With Tegra 4, NVIDIA is the first to offer built-in support for both VP8 encoding and decoding.

That’s four-times the performance of earlier software-only efforts, which delivered only 8 frames per second of video at 1080p. Even more impressive: that performance is accomplished using just half the power, a mark our engineers are hustling to drive even lower.

NVIDIA has been working closely with Google’s Android ,Chrome, VP8 and WebRTC teams to support VP8 hardware acceleration in the WebRTC architecture. The goal: to deliver the best WebRTC experience on Android, Chrome OS and Google TV.

This Tegra 4-powered demo shows off the great work the two teams have done so far.

Drop by the WebRTC pod at the Chrome area at Google I/O to learn more, and to see a demonstration of this technology in action.

You can now pre-order your SHIELD today.

Check out what some of our partners are saying about SHIELD:

“SHIELD is a brand new kind of gaming portable and we’re thrilled to be one of the few retailers who will be carrying it,” said Stephen Weller, director of product management at Newegg. “Our tech savvy customers love gaming and are anxious to get their hands on it. In fact, we’ve decided to move up the pre-order date for those customers who want to be among the first to own a SHIELD!”

“Gamers look to GameStop as their defacto gaming destination,” said Joe Gorman, vice president of mobile at video game retailer GameStop. “As Android gamers look for a place to get the latest and greatest gear, it made total sense for us to carry SHIELD. We believe this handheld console will revolutionize the Android gaming market.”

Here’s where you can pre-order SHIELD now:

• NVIDIA – store.nvidia.com/buyshield
• Newegg – www.newegg.com/buyshield
• GameStop – https://www.gamestop.com/android/consoles/nvidia-shield-16gb/109517
• Canada Computer – http://canadacomputers.com/nvidia/nvidiashield.php

Look for Micro Center to go live with a pre-order page within the next few days. We’ll update this post with a link to it when they do.

In their keynote address, Google announced Google Play Game Services. The new service will deliver real-time multiplayer functionality and cross-platform leaderboards, cloud saves and achievement tracking. To take advantage of the new gaming services, simply sign in with your Google+ account – Google will save your game info to the cloud and allow you to hop between Android devices and continue your game.

To help showcase Google’s compelling cross-device gaming services, we brought a bunch of NVIDIA SHIELD units to the Google Play Initiative Area and the NVIDIA Pod.

Picture this: you start playing the Tegra-enhanced version of Riptide GP 2 on the HTC One X+, but you want to use SHIELD’s analog joysticks to control that supercharged jet ski of yours. Thanks to Google Play Game Services, you can save your game state (including your ranking and achievements/upgrades), pick up your SHIELD, and continue gaming from the exact same spot where you left off.

With Google Play Game Services, you no longer have to worry about playing your games on the “right” device. You can hop between your Tegra-powered smartphone, tablet and SHIELD without skipping a beat.  And you can do it all with built-in multiplayer functionality.

Find out more about NVIDIA SHIELD and sign up for our pre-order at http://shield.nvidia.com.

For more information about Google Play Game Services, head to https://developers.google.com/games/.

NVIDIA SHIELD, the open gaming platform we announced earlier this year, is the latest example of our involvement. These pure Android devices – featuring Tegra 4, the world’s fastest mobile processor – will be showcased at the conference.

In addition, NVIDIA’s Richard Seis, who knows just about everything worth knowing about game development,  will be featured alongside Google’s own experts as part of the event’s “Office Hours” program, with a 30-minute talk on how to support game controllers.

Don’t miss a demo of Tegra 4’s support for Web with Real Time Communications capabilities (WebRTC), a technology that unleashes high-definition browser-based audio and video conferencing without the need for special software or plug-ins. Tegra 4 will be the first product to ship with support for the open VP8 video compression format used by WebRTC. You can see it at the demo pod in the conference’s Chrome area.

Finally, we’ll have an NVIDIA Pod at the event’s Developer Sandbox stocked with NVIDIA-powered devices and a quadrocopter controlled by SHIELD. You can also learn more about our powerful developer tools, including Nsight Tegra, a complete development environment integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio.

If you’re around, drop by and talk to us about how we can help you take advantage of the growing array of hardware, applications and services built around Android.

These pieces, put together by a company full of gaming fanatics, add up to an amazing new open platform gaming portable. It’s the best way to play Android games. And because it’s an Android device, it works with both Tegra-optimized and regular Android games – as well as Android apps.

Project SHIELD is now, officially, SHIELD. The price is $349. Newegg, GameStop, Micro Center and Canada Computers will all carry SHIELD. It ships in June.

SHIELD is a new kind of portable.

Pre-order will go live on May 20^th from the partners listed above, and on shield.nvidia.com. Fans who have signed up to receive SHIELD updates by clicking “Notify Me” on the SHIELD website will have an exclusive opportunity to pre-order starting today.

If you’re an Android gamer, this will fit into your life the moment you open the box.

SHIELD is the one device that taps into the planet’s largest ecosystem of games — spanning NVIDIA TegraZone, Google Play and Steam. Rediscover your Android games with the mobility, control and performance of SHIELD. Connect to your Google Play account to enjoy your favorite movies, music and apps.

And GeForce game streaming, launching as a beta feature, will give SHIELD the power to access your NVIDIA GeForce GTX GPU-powered computer from the comfort of your couch. We’re working on streaming your favorite PC games to SHIELD, including great titles from Steam.

Here’s what you’ll get:

• Tegra 4 – The world’s fastest mobile processor delivers rich graphics and unbeatable performance thanks to 72 GPU cores, four CPU cores and 2GB of RAM
• Console-grade controller – Precise control thanks to dual analog joysticks, a full-sized D-Pad, left and right analog triggers, full-sized bumpers and A/B/X/Y buttons
• Multi-touch display – 5-inch, 720p retinal multi-touch display for high-fidelity visuals
• Integrated speakers – Custom, bass reflex, tuned port audio system – we think this is SHIELD’s sleeper feature
• Wi-Fi – 802.11n 2X2 MIMO game-speed Wi-Fi for game streaming
• Pure Android – Latest Android Jelly Bean operating system from Google, for access to Android games and apps
• There’s more – We put into SHIELD everything we would want in a premium mobile gaming device: 16 GB memory, GPS, Bluetooth 3.0, a mini-HDMI output, micro-USB 2.0, a microSD storage slot, a 3.5-mm stereo headphone jack. See the full spec sheet, here.

To everyone who’s been following SHIELD, thank you. This is going to be fun.

We announced today that Deepu Talla will head the Tegra business unit. He succeeds Phil Carmack, who after 10 years building Tegra from scratch to a three-quarters of a billion dollar business, is leaving NVIDIA to become CEO of one of our partner companies.

Prior to joining NVIDIA earlier this year as VP of Tegra business development, Deepu spent more than 10 years at Texas Instruments, most recently as GM of its OMAP mobile computing business.

At the same time, we announced that we’re combining Tegra’s design team into our larger, engineering structure, which will be now fully centralized across the company.

This new org structure reflects the central importance of Tegra – not only in our mobile strategy, but increasingly in PCs, gaming, auto and beyond.