Khronos Group Announces New API Standards

3DLabs has sent word about an important call to action on the adoption of a new API standards initiative that will bring dynamic media capabilities to a wide variety of appliances and embedded devices. The Khronos Group is also beginning a new phase of work on OpenML, the API which will allow developers to more easily integrate audio and video in their applications. The Group is looking for those who develop, market, or specify products that use and generate dynamic media to join the initiative.

Founded in early 2000, the Khronos Group is composed of 3Dlabs, ATI, Discreet, Evans & Sutherland, IBM, Intel, SGI and Sun Microsystems, with a goal of creating open standards to enable the delivery of dynamic media. Previous lack of vendor collaboration made it hard to create interoperability with tools for professional content creation.

OpenML will be a driving force behind the standards initiative. According to 3DLabs, "OpenML is a complementary API to the ubiquitous OpenGL standard, and allows digital content authoring application developers to more easily integrate video, audio and graphics capabilities into their application suites, and makes these applications more portable over multiple operating systems, CPU architectures and add-in hardware devices."

3DLabs asks that anyone interested attend the NAB Developers Conference on April 26 in Las Vegas. Those who cannot may still request to become involved and will be contacted by the Khronos Group. For more information on OpenML and the API standards initiative, visit khronos.org.