IFA 2016: Live Blog of AMD Keynote with Mark Papermaster, CTO

07:09AM EDT - AMD have a keynote here at IFA this year

07:09AM EDT - The focus is expected to be VR/AR

07:10AM EDT - We've got a meeting/interview with Mark Papermaster, CTO of AMD, later today

07:10AM EDT - It will be interesting to see if anything new is being said today, but having a roundup of corporate vision is never a bad thing

07:11AM EDT - Starting with a classic AMD video, showing they're in a lot of gaming devices, including consoles

07:11AM EDT - Mark has worked with Lisa Su over the past 20 years, back when they were bringing up silicon as part of the same team

07:12AM EDT - He was also at the Zen announcements at IDF last week

07:12AM EDT - 'A new category of computing is emerging'

07:12AM EDT - 'We are in this era'

07:13AM EDT - 'It's a rapid change of technology, and we interact with this rapid change on a daily basis'

07:13AM EDT - The change of technology changes how we as individuals interact with it

07:14AM EDT - 'It's all about the human-technology interface'

07:14AM EDT - Starting with audio and radio, direct to your ear

07:15AM EDT - At IFA, the first Cathode Ray Television was shown

07:15AM EDT - 'Networks were created, content too'

07:16AM EDT - 'Audio and Visual brings emotion into the home'

07:16AM EDT - Now interactive technology, such as personal computing and www

07:16AM EDT - Information at your fingertips

07:17AM EDT - The www, social media and apps are all interactive. Information comes faster than before, and it's all in the interaction as well

07:17AM EDT - A rapid progression of Moore's Law

07:18AM EDT - Moving into the portable

07:18AM EDT - Phones became smartphones to consume content

07:18AM EDT - 'I bet most people would recognize within 30m if a smartphone was left at home'

07:19AM EDT - 'That's the difference disruptive technology makes'

07:19AM EDT - 'We are contextually aware with our environment and how we can interact with it via technology'

07:19AM EDT - 'We'll do what we have to to get a better experience'

07:20AM EDT - 'The movies are a good indicator of how AR/VR can change the way we interact'

07:20AM EDT - 'We stand on the brink of a technological revolution'

07:21AM EDT - 'It's all about the fluidity of the technology integration around us, as well as what is useful'

07:21AM EDT - 'The first stage of this new era is VR, followed by AR/MR'

07:22AM EDT - >I find it interesting Mark is saying MR (mixed reality), which seemed like an Intel term. Sounds like AMD is adopting it readily

07:22AM EDT - 'There's still a way to go to photorealism and stronger emotional experiences'

07:23AM EDT - 'The interface will get easier and easier as the technology improves'

07:23AM EDT - 'More capability being woven into the fabric of our lives'

07:23AM EDT - 'We are having a fundamental change with the connection and interaction with technology'

07:24AM EDT - 'Why is this happening now? We have the enablement of a combination of technologies'

07:24AM EDT - 'Tremendous capability in compute is now at our fingertips to enable this'

07:25AM EDT - 'With the advent of open standards and industry engagement, content creation is occurring at scale'

07:26AM EDT - 'The next stage is affordable hardware, and bringing it into the home via consumer grade pricing is fundamental'

07:26AM EDT - 'Today, we are there to start this new era'

07:27AM EDT - 'It requires a relentless pace of technology

07:27AM EDT - >Full presence takes 1PF, interesting

07:29AM EDT - 'With today's hardware, you can tell if an actor hasn't shaved. But you still know it's a generated image. We need another step forward in capability to reach what 'Full Presence''

07:29AM EDT - 'Imagine what you need to see and feel if you were in the audience today'

07:30AM EDT - >If VR was that capable and that ubiquitous, I'm out of a job covering press events....!

07:31AM EDT - 'Four years ago, AMD saw where the industry was going and invested in high performance compute'

07:31AM EDT - 'RX 480 brings VR ready graphics processing into a consumer price point'

07:31AM EDT - 'It will drive content creation as more users have this capability'

07:32AM EDT - 'This presentation is being run from a Radeon WS 8000' - a Radeon Pro part

07:32AM EDT - A slide on Zen

07:33AM EDT - 'we left a gap in our CPU capabilities, and Zen will close that'

07:33AM EDT - 'Hardcore engineering with a 40% IPC increase'

07:33AM EDT - 'VR is all about wider workloads and computation in an energy efficient way'

07:34AM EDT - 'In Berlin next week, AMD is getting an Award about Green Computing'

07:34AM EDT - 'Substantial GPU and CPU coming with AMD, but there's much more to come'

07:34AM EDT - 'We want to do this as a community'

07:35AM EDT - 'We've gone with an open source approach, unlike our competitors'

07:35AM EDT - 'We want it open to be able to drive the next era of apps and computing for consumers'

07:36AM EDT - 'Content is King'

07:36AM EDT - Now Roy Taylor coming to the stage, CVP of Alliances and Content

07:36AM EDT - 'VR is going to make a fundamental impact on all our lives'

07:37AM EDT - 'We need a vibrant ecosystem to do this with the people who create'

07:37AM EDT - 'Everyone from film to gaming to development are all creators to AMD'

07:37AM EDT - 'In April, the first medical procedure happened in VR'

07:38AM EDT - 'Also, court cases have been decided by VR'

07:38AM EDT - *in VR

07:38AM EDT - 'VR is exciting, but offers challenges, such as 360 film'

07:39AM EDT - Along with games, VR as a Service and VR Experiences are two other key factors

07:39AM EDT - >VRaaS. Right.

07:39AM EDT - There are already 180+ VR Experiences

07:40AM EDT - 'The way we used to make content is no longer the same'

07:41AM EDT - 'VR Experiences tends to use game engines, even though the experience isn't VR'

07:42AM EDT - 'At GDC this year, there were a ton of more attendees that weren't game developers'

07:42AM EDT - 'Because of film and experiences'

07:42AM EDT - 500+ VR engagements, 251 games publishers, 100 game developers, 100+ movie studios

07:43AM EDT - 'One element of the future is interaction in social VR, so light fields and digital capture of humans will be essential'

07:44AM EDT - 'Digital capture will be very important - captures and stitching'

07:44AM EDT - 'The problem with stitching is that bad stitching takes you out of the moment and away from where the director wants'

07:45AM EDT - Project Loom available on GPUOpen to stitch video in real time

07:45AM EDT - Guests who are using AMD VR are being described

07:47AM EDT - 'We've been working with AMD for years, but we're so glad we're using AMD for project creation'

07:48AM EDT - 'BBC Home is an experience to mirror Tim Peake to help repair the space station, and ESA is interested in using it for training'

07:49AM EDT - 'Red Bull Air Race, using geo-accelerator telemetry to drive the experience in VR as no-one gets to ride onboard'

07:49AM EDT - 'The power of the graphics card is key to all this'

07:49AM EDT - 'Rendering is expensive, can take 36-72 hours per frame'

07:50AM EDT - 'Today's renderers are CPU/GPU based depending on the feature'

07:50AM EDT - 'Radeon Prorenderer is designed to work on CPU and GPU, even competitors hardware'

07:51AM EDT - 'The open source implementation means that it is rapidly being adopted'

07:51AM EDT - 'It's also going to be used in Blender'

07:51AM EDT - >Oh hello... in Blender, eh?

07:51AM EDT - Johnb Macinnes coming on stage after a video

07:53AM EDT - showing a pre-rendered music video

07:54AM EDT - 'The holy grail is to make a photoreal world'

07:54AM EDT - 'We and AMD have a share of redefining what is possible'

07:54AM EDT - The music video was developed in UE4

07:55AM EDT - 'Working with US Navy Seals to make a documentary to be inside the VR as part of the team'

07:55AM EDT - 'You no longer need to imagine yourself in someone's shoes, you can actually be there and experience it'

07:56AM EDT - Back to Roy

07:56AM EDT - 'One of the problems is the ability to edit images in real time... in 8K'

07:56AM EDT - 'File sizes are enormous, so we took an SSD and mounted it directly onto the GPU card'

07:57AM EDT - 'Radeon Pro SSG allows editing of 8K RAW at 92 FPS'

07:58AM EDT - Now two people from AP talking about content

07:59AM EDT - 'Up to 1billion people see AP content per day, but in many ways we're a 170 year startup'

07:59AM EDT - 'We want to find new ways to share and tell news, and technology helps us tell those stories'

08:00AM EDT - 'One example is a full 360 VR CG video is a VR Experience for users to experience Alzheimers'

08:00AM EDT - back to Roy

08:00AM EDT - in 2017, JPR expects headset sales to be 2.7M

08:01AM EDT - 'The challenge today with VR creators is that the big AAA creators won't have the range if only 2.7M people have headsets'

08:02AM EDT - 'The install base is too low, so we must democratize VR and get it into the hands of 100m people'

08:03AM EDT - 'Before RX 480, a VR GPU card cost $350. Now you can get a VR PC for under 700 Euros'

08:03AM EDT - 'CSL Computers has announced a 700 Euro VR ready PC at IFA today'

08:04AM EDT - 'The other part of VR is location based VR, either a movie theatre lobby or a dance festival or a shopping mall'

08:04AM EDT - 'We're in Europe looking for people to create location based VR, so get in contact'

08:05AM EDT - Handing back to Mark

08:06AM EDT - AMD, in this slide, predicts VR will accelerate and mirror mobile adoption?

08:06AM EDT - 'AMD is all about imagining the possibilities due to accelerating the immersive era'

08:07AM EDT - We're a fraction of the size of our competitors, but AMD is back and we're fluid for the next era!

08:07AM EDT - That's a wrap!