IMSI/Design has released its first version of software for Apple’s rival mobile platform, Google Android. The company, which spoke about such plans in executive interviews published here on Architosh, said, “It’s no secret that Android’s momentum has been astounding.” That state by Royal Farros, CEO and chairman of IMSI/Design added, “just as we did in the iPad and iPhone world, we’re the first to bring native 3D DWG viewing to the exploding Android platform.”

The free version of TurboViewer is now available for Android and can be found at the Android Marketplace. For more information on TurboViewer go here.

SketchUp News

Google’s SketchUp newsletter had some interesting tidbits of news. The makers of SU Podium, a rendering plugin for SketchUp for Mac and Windows has a new plugin called SketchUp Walk. The plugin is only available for Windows at the moment but allows users to easily create walk-thru rendering animations of their  SketchUp models.

In more apps news for SketchUp users, 3DOn ARchitecture is a new app for the iPad or iPhone for viewing SketchUp models on Apple’s popular mobile devices. There are three unique modes for viewing your models on this application, which was created just for architects. One of these modes lets you view your SketchUp model while it is superimposed over an image of the site taken from the camera on the iPad or iPhone. To learn more about this application, visit the website now.

Autodesk News

Autodesk has released 123D Make apps at Technology Preview. Autodesk 123D Make was previously only available on the Mac. Now Autodesk’s Technology Preview version is available through a Web browser. 123D Make is a modeler technology application that assists users in creating physical 3D models by creating a pattern of flat panels that be cut out and put together to create your model. You can learn more about 123D Make applications at Autodesk here.

ArchiFlash Details

ArchiFlash runs on iOS for iPhone and contains over 1,160 flash cards covering all multiple-choice sections of the ARE. Besides the flashcard based question format the cards contain timesaving charts, essential definitions, diagrams, drawings, key equations and a whole lot more.

You can choose to study in various ways, including studying by division, study by content (eg: plumbing, wind forces, architectural history, etc) or study by question type (eg: definitions, drawings, charts or diagrams).

01 - NALSA's ArchiFlash 2.0 is fully updated for latest ARE 4.0 architect's exam and runs on your iPhone or iPad.

ArchiFlash 2.0 for ARE 4.0 allows you to shuffle the deck, save your place, bookmark cards and perform searches on terms.

The program runs on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, though it is designed for the iPhone sized format. It requires iOS 4.0.1 or later. The program is 149.99.USD and is available from the iTunes Store. To learn more visit NALSA online here.

To recap this announcement, Graphisoft has announced a new mobile application for Apple’s iPad and iPhone for viewing BIM models using a powerful but easy to navigate user interface, fully controllable with Apple’s Multi-touch gesture technology. Additionally, the company announced a new website with deep Facebook and cloud storage integration.

Graphisoft BIMx – Beginnings

One of the more ironic developments since Apple developed the iPad is that its two largest Mac CAD developers, sister companies Graphisoft and Nemetschek Vectorworks, were apparently late to the iOS development game. But late is a relative term in this specific sense and is measured against their rival Autodesk, which developed an iOS version of AutoCAD at the same time it introduced AutoCAD back on the Mac.

For Graphisoft the decision to development an application for the iOS platform was never a question in itself but rather a series of questions about how to do it specific to the needs of its ArchiCAD users utilizing BIM (Building Information Modeling) around the world.

“As you know Anthony we have had Virtual Building Explorer around for a few years now,” said Akos Pfemeter, Director of Global Marketing, Graphisoft, “and it is a self-running environment enabling anybody to explore a full BIM model anywhere on any desktop.” “It works like a first person shooter game…easy and simple navigation.”

01 - Graphisoft's new BIMx application for Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod touch offers a visually stunning and responsive way to explore BIM models saved in the .bimx file format.

What Graphisoft has done with its BIMx application is essentially port over that code base to Apple’s iOS platform and optimize it for a touch-based user interface. It has also been tuned for performance, making it a very powerful complex BIM model viewer or, in another sense, a powerful 3D model viewer on iOS.

“The Apple iPad is very impressive,” said Tibor Szolnoki, “it is very capable of pushing around quite big models.”

Graphisoft BIMx – Details

Graphisoft’s BIMx application for iPad and iPhone is based on the same code base as its Virtual Building Explorer for the desktop. That application was originally developed in Sweden and acquired by Graphisoft for integration into ArchiCAD in 2010. BIMx is actually a suite of three applications. A desktop (BIMx) application is available for Windows and OS X which enables you to publish BIMx models from within ArchiCAD. And there is the BIMx desktop viewer application, for Windows and OS X, which can be freely downloaded to view BIMx models. Finally, there is BIMx for iOS, a free app that can be downloaded from the Apple App Store after September 20, 2011.

BIMx for iOS is compatible with iPad (1 and 2), iPhone (3GS or 4) and iPod touch 4th generation. Most users will enjoy this application on an iPad the most.

02 - BIMx on iPad in this image. The "joystick" is a dot on the lower right of the iPad's screen. With one finger you move it up, down, left or right to navigate just like in a first-person shooter (FPS) video game.

03 - BIMx has a simple and efficient user-interface with standard iOS options like drop-down menus. In this view the user has rendering setting options. In future versions features will expand.

Graphisoft created BIMx for iOS to extend BIM further noting that many users are now carrying iPads around as their primary mobility computing device. Akos Pfemeter noted that not all of the features on the desktop version of BIMx viewer are on the iOS version of it. But as both applications advance those features should emerge as one unified set relative to each platform’s capabilities.

Today you cannot turn on and off layers with BIMx for iOS. Data extraction from model elements is not yet supported. Some features on BIMx for iOS are unique to that platform. For example, based on the touch interface, double tap on any point in the model and the BIMx app will fly you there. Also there is an icon that appears on doors and a click on it will take you through the door.

next page: Graphisoft BIMx on iPad

Code named “Rogue” the new GPU technology is said to lead the industry in performance. Imagination stated in a press release that six lead partners have thus far licensed the design. Three of these include ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments and MediaTek. Three others have yet to announce. It is not clear if Apple is among the three mysterious licensees.

Imagination CEO Hossein Yassaie said, “The growing commitment of the primary players to our roadmap shows that, having evaluated the options, the overall market and embedded market is increasingly committing to POWERVR as the de facto graphics standard.” Again, Apple is one of those “primary” players in the market.

Apple normally would have released the iPhone 5 this month if it held its annual June refresh timeline. The company however is delayed in the release of the next iPhone (5), yet it is not clear if iOS 5 and iCloud are the sole reasons for this delay.

Apple is an investor in Imagination Technologies. To learn more about the new POWERVR Series 6 from Imagination Technologies go here.

Buzzsaw Mobile allows users to view DWF files, standard office documents and images files, as well as upload project photos to a designated Buzzsaw project site. When used in conjunction with the Autodesk WS mobile app, iPad and iPhone users can view and edit AutoCAD DWG and DXF files and save the changes to a Buzzsaw project site, directly from AutoCAD WS. Buzzsaw Mobile is a key component of the Autodesk BIM 360 (Building Information Modeling) strategy for collaboration and data management for the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC industries.

01 - Autodesk Buzzsaw Mobile runs on Apple's iOS iPad and iPhone.

“Buzzsaw Mobile helps deliver on our Autodesk BIM 360 vision for ‘anywhere access’ to project data,” said Rick Rundell, senior director, AEC strategic technology, Autodesk. “Together with Autodesk Vault Collaboration AEC software, AutoCAD WS mobile app and Autodesk Navisworks software products, Buzzsaw Mobile helps provide building, infrastructure and plant project teams with a complete and more accurate digital view of their project, with access to information across the project lifecycle from whever they need it–the office, the web, or the field.”

The Cloud and Apple iOS

Autodesk Buzzsaw software is a cloud-based project collaboration and document management system (PCDM). It is an industry dedicated system, more like Rform rather than CopperProject or Basecamp. It allows architects, engineers and contractors to focus more on project delivery and less on time costly traditional methods for collaboration and document sharing.

It is interesting to see Autodesk continue to round out its mobile strategy around Apple iOS. Although the company has started to produce some Android apps, the company now has over a half dozen critical Apple iOS apps and they broadly support the heartland of Autodesk’s software portfolio.

To learn more visit them here.

Since its launch in 2010, AutoCAD WS has been utilized by 900,000 users, from professional designers to students. AutoCAD WS has gained swift popularity due to its excellent implementation on Apple’s hugely popular iPad tablet computer, enabling professionals to carry CAD data into the field and work in real-time with colleagues.

AutoCAD WS now supports multiple languages, including Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish. It also now supports Layouts, in addition to the drawing’s “model-space.” You can view and markup layouts the same way on the iOS version as on the Web version. The inclusion of Layouts means that AutoCAD WS 1.2 now supports the DWG files that are generated in Autodesk Inventor. Several of the next features we will mention only apply to the iOS version of AutoCAD WS.

AutoCAD WS 1.2 for iPad and iPhone

Also in version 1.2 is Snap Previews. This feature utilizes a “loop” magnifying function to better enable you to snap accurately to the objects you are intending to work on.

01 - AutoCAD WS 1.2 Mobile's new Snap Preview tool is beautifully executed on Apple's multi-touch devices.

Incredibly useful on both the iPad and iPhone version of AutoCAD WS, the new Brush tool replaces the previous free-line tool and enables better markups and doodles. The Brush tool comes in five standard brush widths. The Feet and Inches function for 1.2 mobile is also added. Finally, a new Copy Tool works like an intelligent duplicator.

To learn more and see AutoCAD WS 1.2 in action on an Apple iPad go here.

Juicy Bits released an update to its 3D camera this month that takes advantage of iOS 4 and the Retina Display on the new iPhone 4. 3D Camera is an app that makes it easy to create 3D photos and share them with friends on Facebook or Twitter. 3D Camera, which earned 4.5 mice (out of five) from Macworld magazine is one of the top 100 photography apps worldwide.

To create 3D images left and right photos are captured using the built-in camera on the Apple devices. The software does the rest to align the images and create the 3D images. 3D Camera creates stereogram images that are viewed without glasses (parallel and cross-eyed) and “wigglegram” images that produce a simulated 3D effect. To learn more visit them online here.

ArchiCAD Training Events

Graphisoft has numerous ArchiCAD 14 training events coming up in France and Austria. Here’s a brief schedule:

• Free ArchiCAD training, Vienna, Austria – Jan 10, 2011.
• Free ArchiCAD training, France, Jan 11, 2011.
• Free Artlantis training, France, Jan 11, 2011.
• ArchiCAD Basic Training, Austria, Jan 11-13, 2011.

Click here to link over to these events and register.

ArchiCAD 14 Released for Switzerland

Graphisoft has also announced that the Swiss version of ArchiCAD 14 has been released. This marks the 26th localized version of the leading BIM software application. To learn more about the Swiss version visit: www.idc.ch/archicad

Macs Only Tests ATI Radeon HD 5870 Graphics Card

The website Macs Only has a test review of the latest ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards, comparing it to the EVGA GeForce (Nvidia-based) card in a 2008 Mac Pro. This is an interesting article for those of you out there that have older Mac Pro hardware and are curious about ATI’s latest GPUs for Mac Pros.

01 - Apple's latest Mac Pros can utilize ATI's ultra fast Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards, but so can older Mac Pros.

The ATI Radeon HD 5870 is the fastest graphics card currently available for a Mac Pro and are shipping options for the current 2010 Mac Pro workstations. The HD 5870 comes with 1 GB of ultra fast GDDR5 memory, which is actually faster memory than the memory shipping in the expensive Nvidia Quadro card options for the Mac Pros. The card works on older Mac Pros but readers should verify their exact requirements with information on the Apple website.

The Maxon Cinebench and Xbench OpenGL scores are interesting. The HD 5870 is not terribly faster than the EVGA GeForce card, which features 1 GB of slower DDR3 memory. The speed improvement is faster however, ranging from OpenGL score improvements from 19-44 percent faster. To read the full article go here.

The gesture user interface on iOS devices has also been simplified to be more intuitive and similar to AutoCAD. The new update will be available on the Apple App Store soon. It is a free update to the free software for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch.

01 - AutoCAD WS 1.1 update.

To learn more visit: www.autocadws.com

There is no doubting that Apple’s Mac division is being upstaged by its new era product lines (with the exception of the iPod division which is slowing down in growth) but one only needs to look at the bigger picture to see it’s all okay with Steve & Company precisely because the “halo effect” from iPhone in particular keeps pushing Mac sales up at a healthy rate. Of course that rate may be slowing as the iPad begins to both produce a “halo effect” and a “cannibal effect.” (more on that later).

So how healthy are we talking about?

Mac Unit Growth

Let’s start with the quarter to quarter sequential growth. In this quarter Apple’s Mac units grew at just over 12 percent, which is a healthy growth rate.  This was the result of shipping more than 400,000 Macs than the previous quarter. Mind you, just a few years ago 400,000 Macs per quarter was approximately one forth the amount of all Macs in that quarter.

Using the touch gesture interface of your iPad or iPhone you can accurately view, annotate and revise drawings wherever you are in the field or remote offices. The application is designed to allow you to work on your favorite mobile devices while you are away from your primary workstation or computer.

AutoCAD WS supports all aspects of your DWG file, including external references, layers and image underlays. You use Multi-touch to zoom and pan and navigate what are otherwise very larger files for a small screened device.

01 - AutoCAD WS for Apple iOS (iPhone and iPad) is available from the App Store for free.

Editing capabilities include the ability to tap and select objects, move or rotate objects and scale them. You can draw new elements with accuracy using Snap and Ortho modes and you can add text and annotations and validate measurements.

Sharing – AutoCAD Files and Project Butterfly

A big feature with AutoCAD WS is its hosted and shared experience. This technology and platform is essentially the Autodesk Project Butterfly project which we did a feature on a few months ago. In order to use the iOS application you must have Web access (either wifi or cellular) and you must have uploaded a DWG file to an online account. Most of the details we covered in our Project Butterfly Product In-Depth feature article would apply here.

You do not need to use AutoCAD to use Autodesk AutoCAD WS software for the Web or for iOS. If you use AutoCAD there will be a plugin so you can send files directly from AutoCAD to your AutoCAD WS online account. When the final version of AutoCAD for the Mac comes out there will be no plugin required as support for AutoCAD WS will be built in. You can upload DWG files that are produced from other non-Autodesk software using AutoCAD WS.

Currently AutoCAD WS is free. System requirements include an Internet connection, Adobe Flash Player 9.124 or higher, Javascript cookies enabled and a major browser like Safari, IE, Firefox or Chrome. You can learn more about it here.

The implications of one such application, titled, “Generating a Three-Dimensional Model using a Portable Electronic Device Recording” has exciting possibilities for architects, civil engineers, surveyors, urban planners and other environmental professionals who all utilize 3D models of environments in their profession.

A combination of GPS data, video, photos and mapping technology and cameras create the virtual experience.

There are more details at AppleInsider and patent application diagrams that are very interesting. Go here to read more.

Architectural Record readers on the iPad or iPhone can flip through pages on their touch-screens as leisurely as they would a physical magazine, says the publication. With the new apps readers can tap on articles to send to social media sites and friends.

“Architectural Records’s audience is architects, and they are digitally savvy and using iPhones and iPads,” said Robert Ivy, Vice President and Editorial Director of McGraw-Hill Construction and Editor-in-Chief of Architectural Record. “We are excited to be able to offer these formats to them, an important step in our continued commitment to applying the latest digital innovations for our customers.”

To learn more go here.

What is goBIM?

According to the goBIM website “goBIM is an iPhone application for navigating 3D BIM models and their associated data.” It is compatible with all the iPhones and will also run as is on the iPad. The program can only handle tiny BIM models thus far but the developer is working to both increase size and performance as it relates to goBIM. 3G and GS models of the iPhone will safely handle 4Mb sized .gbm files. Yes, you read that right. goBIM uses its own file format (.gbm). Apparently the new file type was chosen over, say, .dwf or another common format because it is super simple and text-based and loosely based on the .obj file specification.

goBIM for iPhone is first of its kind for Apple's mobile platform, including upcoming iPad tablet device.

Architosh will dig into the iPhone OS options for 3D file formats later because this is an interesting topic all by itself. In any case, the developer said he will probably make the file format .xml based in the future. Being text-based the .gbm file format is super easy to write exports for. This means CAD and BIM software companies can tap into this format and its API and generate an exporter.

Web-based for Now

At the moment the way you view BIM models with goBIM is by typing in the URL address for where the .gbm file is stored. This is cool but has some limits. Many folks have written into the developer asking for an option to store the files locally on the iPhone in a direct computer-to-iPhone link. The developer mentioned this is possible in a future update.

We asked why there was no exporters for other BIM applications like ArchiCAD and Vectorworks Architect (VWA) and the developer wrote a good reply. In essence, Revit, Rhino and Digital Project are software tools he uses and knows today at a structural engineering firm he works at. However, he is very interested in getting his API into developer hands so they can write the exporters.

This is an application that we really want to watch closely.

To learn more about goBIM visit the goBIM website now.

This has been a busy week for new announcements with the game development show and other items around the web. Apple’s subsidiary FileMaker also chose this week to introduce its new FileMaker Pro 11 database product lineup. FileMaker is the leading database program used by Mac and cross-platform architecture and creative firms according to Architosh’s research.

The new product lineup includes FileMaker Pro 11, FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced, FileMaker Server 11 and FileMaker Server 11 Advanced. FileMaker is also the developer of the hit consumer-friendly database product Bento. Additionally, FileMaker products two Apple iPhone applications solutions, including Bento for iPhone and FileMaker iPhone template which comes with the PHP Site Assistant in FileMaker Server 11. For more information go here.

Khronos Group Intros COLLADA Adopters Package

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, Khronos made a series of announcements, including the delivery of a COLLADA Adopters Package and Conformance Tests.  COLLADA is one of the industry’s top 3D file formats.

The COLLADA 1.4 Adopters Package is complete and under final review prior to public release next month. It contains both conformance testing software and documentation intended to drive rapid evaluation, deployment and acceptance of the COLLADA specification in 3D content creation software. More info can be found here.

Nominations Sought for Annual CAD Society Awards

Every year at COFES in April the Annual CAD Society presents three awards. Nominations for these awards are open for submittal to the Society. The three CAD Society Award categories are:

• Joe Greco Community Award: For outstanding work in improving communication and developing community within the CAD industry. Past recipients have included: Chris Yessios (formZ), Lynn Allen (Autodesk), Kristine Fallon (Kristine Fallon & Associates), Ralph Grabowski (CAD journalist) and many others;
• Leadership Award: For outstanding technical and business leadership in the CAD industry, and focus and dedication to the needs of CAD users. Robert McNeel (of Rhino fame) is a past recipient.
• Lifetime Award: For a lifetime of outstanding technical and business contributions to the CAD industry. Past recipients have included Dean Kamen and Dr. Joel Orr.

Only members of the CAD Society will be allowed to vote for nominations received. To join the CAD Society visit this link.

DAZ 3D and Gizmoz have merged companies recently and are now bringing together DAZ’s 3D technology and Gizmoz’s leading face recognition technology to create the industry’s best personal avatar platform. DAZ 3D has been the software house for DAZ Studio, Bryce, Carrara and Hexagon.

DAZ 3D and Gizmoz join forces to create ultimate personal avatar platform.

With Gizmoz’s photo-realistic head reconstruction technology the two companies can better serve the virtual goods market which is expected to be in the $3 billion dollar range by the end of 2010. To learn more visit them online and read the full press release here.

Unity releases Third Generation of Powerful Game Platform

Unity Technologies has released Unity 3.0, the next generation of its market-leading Unity development platform for 3D interactive content on multiple platforms, including Web, PC, Mac, Wii and iPhone. The company will showcase its latest wares at Game Developers Conference (GDC) this week. (GDC takes place March 9-13, 2010).

Unity and iPad, et al

Unity will be expanding its target platforms for Apple’s new iPad as well as Google Android and Sony Playstation 3. With XBox 360 support announced last year the company’s mantra “Author Once, Deploy Anywhere” vision now includes all major consoles and two of the fastest growing platforms in the mobile space.

Unity 3 with full pixel shaders on iPhone 3GS. The Apple iPhone is fast emerging as the leading most technologically advanced mobile gaming platform in the world.

“Since our first version in 2005, Unity Technologies has been focused on the democratization of interactive 3D and delivering an impressive list of technological advances making it the technology of choice for more than 100,000 developers today,” said David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. For more info.

Spatial Launches Industry Partner Program

Spatial has launched an industry partner program aimed at supporting third-party developers who integrate its Spatial 3D modeling components into their program. Some key customers Architosh readers may recognize include Lightwork Design and T-Splines, Inc.

The program is aimed at bolstering the Spatial community of developers enabling them to understand the technology needs of third-party developers and improving cooperation. An example case is the use of both Spatial technologies with Lightworks. To read the full story go here.

The 2008 Mac touch Concept

Let’s recap the  2008 January details of what we imagined (both Sheehan and Architosh) the future touch-based device would be like. Here were are essentials:

• Apple multi-touch based input
• 11 inch sized screen
• iPhone like front device appearance
• solid state memory (64-128 GB)
• Intel-based primary CPU
• ATI graphics
• ARM secondary processing unit
• modified Mac OS X operating system

In the last two years we have learned quite a bit of information that makes this earlier attempt at imagining the Mac touch incorrect. For starters, as we look at the list above, it is the second half of those bullet points that get very particular and hence very subject to change. Yet some of our concepts about “use” are likely spot on.

One reader's vision of what a Mac touch would look like, pictured here next to Black Mac Book

The Updated View

First of all in terms of a name Apple will likely surprise us this time. iSlate, iTablet, iScreen, Mac touch…unlike the iPhone name, which was obvious, there is no single name that makes perfect sense. One name that hasn’t been bandied about too much is iPad. This harks back of course to the Newton MessagePad, which Steve Jobs despised. The word “Pad” is likely not in the upcoming product name. If we hark back further we can look at Apple’s Juggarnaut Design Investigation which studied a touch-based device this size and that device was given the name WorkCase. There are just so many possibilities…we’ll just have to wait and see!

Getting back to the details we can now make some 2010 revisions to our 2008 ideas. Here is what Architosh believes will likely be introduced today:

• 10 inch computer screen, touch-based (Multi-touch)
• next-generation iPhone OS (which itself is a variant of the basis of Mac OS X)
• ARM-Architecture CPU (in-house Apple design a very real possibility here!!)
• Imagination Technologies GPU (PowerVR variant)

Further Details on Apple’s Announcement Today

We stick to our belief that the new touch based device will be able to serve two very distinguished groups of users who do not need the true-typing experience that can only be found on a laptop. We said this two years ago and we stand by this assumption for this new product. So let’s recap these groups and how the new device fits them:

Group One: Media Consumers

As we mentioned before we believe that “consumer computing is now the place where the ledging edge now exist” and this has only grown stronger since that last article. The new Apple tablet device will be a game-changer in software and a best-in-breed in hardware for this category. Expect more or less all of this:

• Direct Kindle competition: Apple will change the rules about how we obtain and consume the written word (books, magazines and maybe webzines) in much the same way they did with music with iTunes.
• Gaming: Apple’s iPhone is a stunning success in the world of gaming and the new tablet device will continue to push this success even further. Leading edge OpenGL ES  combined with superior best-in-breed GPU hardware (Imagination Technologies?) and innovative API in the OS will propel this device forward.
• Movies, TV and Music: As we emphasized before a wired connection to iTunes on the computer (a la AppleTV) can make the slate device a great movie watching screen in bed or on the couch.

Group Two: Professional Vertical and Education

We also said that light typers need a device that is touch based and is ideal for the field. This means medicine, science, field workers in many industries, including AEC (architecture, engineering, construction) to education. We don’t see Apple emphasizing this today but the fundamental technologies that are there for gaming will make this a great platform for many of these vertical professional applications.

• Architecture, engineering and construction (AEC). This industry needs a great touch-screen with pen-input option platform badly. Viewing a big book is really no different than viewing a big set of construction drawings. Multi-touch opens up so many possibilities.
• Medicine is an ideal place for the new tablet from Apple. Doctors today already use the iPhone and iPod touch for similar use today
• Sciences: field and lab can utilize a touch-based device
• Field workers in all industries today rely on a multitude of platforms but none of them have the promise and capability of the iPhone OS and eco-system of software development and distribution

Closing Comments

Apple’s future will be revealed at 1:00pm EST as Steve Jobs hits the stage in San Francisco. It will be exciting to see what he introduces. We know that Apple has been working on a fifth product category for many years because Jobs said so years ago.

What will really be stunning today is if Apple has based the device on its own silicon design–namely that it has utilized its PA Semi group it acquired a few years ago to design a custom ARM Architecture main processor (CPU). This will mark a big moment for Apple for it will mean that the company is willing to compete with Intel and other semi-conductor designers head-to-head in order to differentiate itself from its competition.

While a home button is present in the center lower region on the upper region we find both an optical sensor and a proximity sensor. A speaker sits along side those. An accelerometer and microphone flanks the home button at the bottom.

You can check out Gus’ article here for a picture. He did a good job of digging up the background on the patent itself, which belongs to three French Apple employees.

It seems clear that Apple intends utilize motion and optical sensor-based user interface technology with its next revolutionary product. We saw an example of this in our report that linked to a video and we are seeing more and more details pour out on its upcoming tablet-like computer.

What’s exciting about this is when we wrote about the Mac touch product concept more than a year ago we talked about such a handheld device being great for field workers…of which the AEC (architecture/engineering/construction) market is a excellent example. Having a tablet computer wherein you can easily rotate BIM models or 3D models of buildings in the field using your body and head would absolutely rock! Apple intends to make more and better use of our bodies for future handheld devices as well as our voices (note the microphone in this patent!). This is all very exciting stuff.

“The Luxology Customer Gallery is a showcase of images produced with Luxology’s modo software that has grown to thousands of images in just a few short years,” said Brad Peebler, president and co-founder of Luxology. “The gallery is constantly updated and the new LuxGallery app is a convenient way for community members and others to remotely explore what other modo designers and artists are producing.”

The LuxGallery app for the iPhone is available for free on the Apple App Store. For more information on Luxology visit them here: www.luxology.com

The financing round also included David Gardner, the CEO of Atari, and Diane Greene, founder and former CEO of VMware. Roelof Botha, partner at Sequoia Capital, and Greene will be joining the board of directors.

Unity is a professional solution that combines a full development platform with the 3D game engine in an integrated software package that enables high performance 3D interactive content including console quality browser games, iPhone and Nintendo Wii games. Unity is famous within the Mac community because the Unity development software was initially created and supported exclusively on the Apple Mac platform.

Today the Unity platform for game development is currently used in world class games such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online by EA, the Quest for R2D2 by Lego, and FusionFall by Cartoon Networks.

Unity for iPhone

Earlier this year Unity for iPhone was released and to date more than 325 games are using the Unity engine to power their iPhone games, including Zombieville USA, one of the top 10 iPhone games measured by units sold.

Sequoia Capital’s investment underscores the significant business opportunity in providing best-of-class development tools for interactive entertainment content creation. Despite a weak economy IDC anticipates continued growth of the gaming market by 14 percent in 2009.

Unity Technologies is pioneering breakthrough technologies in developing tools for content creators serving an expanding but competitive gaming industry.

To learn more about the Unity Game engine read further Architosh reports or visit them online here: http://unity3d.com/

The folks behind Copper Project, the online project management tool, admit they had a few teething issues with version 4.0, but the 4.1 release fixes all that. Plus, the new version is now blazing fast, they report!

A number of optimizations have taken place enabling some aspects of Copper Project to be 700 percent faster than before. It’s possible to setup a project with 10 tasks in less than 32 seconds. Editing, saving and deleting tasks and comments enjoy quick-fire response in the UI (user-interface).

There are new formatting options for your header, logo and login image. You can now “rollup project details” for a neater project presentation, and lastly the many bug fixes. 

If you are new to Copper Project, you can sign up for a 14 day free trial and compare various versions here. Companies using Copper Project include OglivyOne, Allstate, Motorola, Novell, Mercedes, Sony Pictures and many more household corporate names. 

SketchUp News

SketchUp Pro 7 users have a new option for online training with SketchUp Pro 7. The folks at Go-2-School have launched a new training program just for SU Pro 7 users. The online service is called Pro Accounts. 

Google has also updated Google 3D Warehouse. Users will notice a few changes including a new feature in the new RSS reader. If you have a favorite modeler and would like to keep tabs on them inside Warehouse you can now do so via RSS. 

Lastly, the SketchUp folks just hosted their first ever Super Modelers Conference in Boulder, Colorado. This blog posts has pictures and the full story.

Blackberry Desktop Manager for Mac

While apparently a little off topic here, this tidbit is about the business side of things. And while it may be nice to pretend that all creatives like architects, industrial designers and 3D professionals on the Mac are happy to use Apple’s iPhone for all their mobile and telecommunication needs, the fact is many are not or are tied into the Blackberry as a platform where they work. And some just naturally love the Blackberry!

01 - The Blackberry Desktop for Mac is coming.

It looks like RIM is finally on the verge of a native version of Blackberry Desktop Manager for the Mac. It is currently in active late beta form and due to arrive in a month, ready for Snow Leopard or Leopard. 

Goodie features include simple and direct sync to iTunes, Address Book, and iCal. You will also be able to install and manage applications for your Blackberry right from your Mac desktop.