RapidMind Inc., developers of the award-winning RapidMind Platform, has announced the launch of educational initiatives helping software developers embrace multi-core processors. This initiative includes a series of web seminars, hands-on workshops and conference events showing developers how to leverage their existing skills and tools to take advantage of the tremendous performance potential of multi-core processors. Anchoring this activity is the RapidMind Developer Portal. Launched in May 2007, the RapidMind Developer Portal is a gathering point for developers in the RapidMind community, and offers a robust set of resources including technical forums, code samples, product documentation, and free downloads of the full-featured Developer Edition of the RapidMind Platform. RapidMind’s series of web seminars kicks off on Thursday, June 28 at 2:00 PM EDT, with a presentation from Chief Architect, Stefanus Du Toit on programming multi-core processors. This webinar is designed to introduce developers who have little or no previous experience with multi-core processor programming to the RapidMind Platform. At the end of this one-hour tutorial, developers will have the basic skills required to immediately begin enabling their applications for multi-core. Additional educational web seminars and hands-on workshops have been scheduled throughout the remainder of the year; session information is available at its Web site. “Developers are struggling to build applications that run on multi-core processors. They are looking for advice, a way to reach out to others in the industry, and perhaps leverage the efforts of a peer who has already solved a similar problem, ” said Dr. Michael McCool, RapidMind founder and chief scientist. “With the RapidMind Developer Portal, they have an environment in which they can interact with their peers, seek advice or offer suggestions.” Previously, applications got faster as processor clock speeds increased, however, software must now evolve to take advantage of multiple cores to improve performance. The RapidMind Platform enables High-Performance Computing (HPC) and enterprise software developers to more quickly and easily build higher-performing applications that for the first time exploit the full capabilities of multi-core processors, including the Cell Broadband Engine (Cell/B.E.) from IBM and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) from AMD and NVIDIA. “The free lunch is definitely over – developers need to change their approach,” added McCool. “However, they can use their existing skills, tools and processes to target Cell and GPU today, and be ready for multi-core CPUs tomorrow. We will show them that they are more prepared for multi-core than they realize.” InnerVision Medical Technologies Inc. is an example of one company that is leveraging the RapidMind Developer Portal as a source of knowledge for RapidMind’s technology and multi-core programming. “In our vision of future medial care, screening for breast and prostate cancer is as convenient and available as measuring blood pressure. We are using the RapidMind platform today to harness the performance of multi-core processors – a key requirement for achieving this vision,” said Tim Davies, founder and chief science officer of InnerVision. InnerVision develops ultra-high resolution, instant-capture, acoustic-based imaging systems for the medical sector. “The RapidMind Developer Portal is an invaluable tool to help our developers understand not only the RapidMind platform, but the challenges and benefits of multi-core technology.” For more information about RapidMind’s upcoming educational sessions, the RapidMind Developer Portal, or the RapidMind Platform, please visit its Web site or contact info@rapidmind.net.