- Digitised Humans Come Alive with NVIDIA Graphics

Discovery Channel's "Xtreme Martial Arts" documentary has had some help from NVIDIA with their Quadro FX 3000 card. It was used by 3D body scanning and motion capture studios to create digitised humans with biomechanically correct skeletons and muscle for the documentary.

This fascinating look at martial arts and the human body combines live-action fight sequences with physical and behavioral-based animation to illustrate the science of martial arts by highlighting moves normally impossible to analyse with the naked eye.

I've uploaded a few images here, here, and here for you to get an idea of how this magnificent effect looks. There is also a bunch of Xtreme Martial Arts clips for your viewing pleasure over at Discovery Channel's website. Finally, you can download the full NVIDIA Press Release by right clicking here and choosing "save target as".

- ATI Radeon 9100IGP

ATI have taken the next step and unleashed the onboard 9100 integrated graphics processor. Partners ASUS, MSI, Sapphire, FIC, Shuttle, Soyo, GIGABYTE, BIOSTAR, and Chaintech are all lined up to release 9100 IGP platforms targeted at the pre-built system market. Short-Media take a look at this cheap but effective onboard graphics solution.

The Radeon 9100 IGP is ATI's integrated graphics chip that steps squarely on the toes of Intel's Extreme Graphics chip. The impact that the 9100 IGP will have may not be clear to most; that is until now. The Radeon 9100 IGP is a cost-effective, on-motherboard graphics chip that will change the level of graphics performance for thousands and perhaps millions of pre-built PCs.