Cuda Programming Contest

[deanjo]

Here is a neat little contest that Nvidia is putting out. The winner gets 5 grand.

MP3 LAME Encoder

Encoding MP3s always seem to take longer than it should. Do you wish you can find a way to make the process run faster?
Now there is a way. Enter this Contest by creating a program that will speed up MP3 encoding on a CUDA-enabled GPU, and the winner will receive a US$5,000.00 cash prize, subject to the Official Rules.
The Challenge
Create a MP3 encoder that runs on a CUDA-enabled GPU (click here for a list of CUDA-enabled GPUs) by taking a modified version of LAME as we provide and modify its source code to allow the encoding to be performed on a CUDA-enabled GPU. Your encoder must be created using the CUDA programming environment and must achieve a speedup in run-time.

http://cudacontest.nvidia.com/index.cfm?action=contest.contest&contestid=2

[deanjo]

Looks like Nvidia also has a contest going outside of the US and Canada as well. Some really nice prizes.

http://www.nvidia.co.uk/object/cuda_contest_april2008_uk.html

The Cuda Challenge is a coding competition that welcomes all types of mainstream stand alone applications or plug-ins, running in Windows, Linux or MacOS environments. We will reward innovative, useful apps that make the best use of the GPU processing power. Here are some suggested areas of focus: Multimedia, ie Photo/Video/Audio processing, Security, i.e. firewalls/anti-virus/Productivity, i.e. file compression and management.

We will reward the best 6 projects with the following prizes:

• 1st Prize: HP xw8600 workstation, Dual 3.33 GHz Xeon 5260,
  Quadro FX 3700 + Tesla C870, 30" LCD HP monitor
• 2nd Prize: Tesla D 870 System
• 3rd to 6th prize: NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 board

Registered participants will receive exclusive product offers

Project submission deadline is July 18, 2008 at 20.00 CET.

For details and the terms and conditions, please click here.

[deanjo]

Well, it's the last day to get submissions for the US Cuda/Lame coding contest in. It will be interesting to see what the coders have been able to achieve.