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‘Pokémon Go’ maker Niantic is helping others create AR metaverse apps
Coachella and 'One Piece' publisher Shueisha are already using the Lightship platform.
Microsoft denies abandoning Xbox One dev kit conversion plans
Microsoft has responded to a report from earlier today stating that the company had abandoned its previously announced plans to make retail Xbox One consoles double as debug-oriented dev kits. "The comments today were inaccurate," a Microsoft spokesperson told Joystiq. "We remain committed to ensuring the best possible solutions for developers and hobbyists to create games for Xbox One. We will share more details at a later date." Doubt regarding Microsoft's plans spread following recent statements from Xbox Advanced Technology Group's Martin Fuller at the Develop conference in Brighton. "We were in the early stages of Xbox One looking at the idea of a retail kit that could be turned into a development kit, and vice versa," Fuller said. "In the end, although that was a very admirable goal, it hasn't happened unfortunately." Prior to the launch of the Xbox One, Microsoft announced that it would remove the barrier separating retail Xbox One consoles and developer kits. "Our vision is that every person can be a creator. That every Xbox One can be used for development," Xbox corporate VP Marc Whitten said. [Image: Microsoft]
Next batch of Oculus Rift development kits shipping
The next prototype development kits for Oculus Rift are now shipping, the virtual reality headset manufacturer announced this week. Sales of the $350 second kit have reached 45,000, an increase of 20,000 headsets since April. Pre-orders for the second kit started in March, just before Oculus VR was purchased by Facebook for $2 billion. The kits are expected to reach developers by the week of July 14. Oculus VR has been busy these last few months. It acquired the Xbox 360 controller design team Carbon Design last week, Steam pioneer Jason Holtman in early June, former Valve VR head Atman Binstock in March and ID Software Co-Founder John Carmack in August. [Image: Oculus VR]
Pre-orders for second development kit of Oculus Rift now live
Oculus Rift, get your Oculus Rift, here! Well, not here, but those ready to take the plunge into virtual reality can now pre-order the second version of the headset's developer kit via the Oculus company site. Nabbing one will cost you $350, and shipments are expected in July of this year. The new kit - and the site stresses this is a kit, not a consumer product - features low-persistence OLED displays at a resolution of 960 x 1080 per eye, as well as positional head tracking via an external camera. The Developer Kit 2 announcement on the Oculus website notes that this opens up such possibilities as "peering around corners, leaning in to get a closer look at objects in the world, and kicking back on a virtual beach." "DK2 is not the Holodeck yet," the company states on the kit's announcement page, "but it's a major step in the right direction." [Image: Oculus]
Oculus Rift running out of stock as some components cease production
Oculus VR can't construct additional Oculus Rift dev kits because some components are no longer being manufactured, an Oculus community manager posted on Reddit. The company is now relying on on existing stock, but that's "quickly running out," the post reads. Oculus is investigating alternate sources for the required materials, but for now the team will simply suspend sales by region as its stock runs dry. Oculus Rift dev kits are currently still on sale in the US, Canada, countries in the EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Switzerland and Norway. There are more than 50,000 dev kits out in the wild, the spokesperson says. There's no word on the existence of a dev kit 2.0 (though it seems Reddit would love one). "We never expected to sell so many development kits and VR only made this much progress with the community's support and enthusiasm," the community manager says. "Even though we never wanted to sell out, it's a good problem to have – thank you!" If those missing components aren't electrical or lens-based, we may have a solution for Oculus: 3D printing. The future of gaming meets the future of manufacturing in one tidy hunk of layered plastic. [Image: Oculus VR]
Designer says Valve is 'days away' from launching VR software dev kit
Valve is reportedly "days away" from launching a virtual reality software development kit. The news comes from Valve designer Brian Coomer, who told BBC that the dev kit would give software developers a standard means of providing an interface for virtual reality headsets, like the Oculus Rift. The report says the kit will launch during Valve's Steam Developer Days conference, which begins on January 15 in Seattle. Coomer added that "there's also technology in development at Valve based around head-tracking and headset manufacture and design," and that Valve is "working with other companies right now but we have not made any specific announcements." Valve has some internal experience with virtual and augmented reality headsets in the past, as former Valve engineers Jeri Ellsworth and Rick Johnson were granted permission to take the Cast AR glasses project with them when they left the company in February 2013. The now-independent Cast AR augmented reality headset went to Kickstarter in October, and earned $1,052,110 from backers in a month. Additionally, Valve added a virtual reality support category to Steam for the Oculus Rift in December. Oculus VR has received more support from Valve these days, as seen in the headset manufacturer's latest model, which we took for a test drive at CES 2014 this week.
Ouya dev consoles start shipping December 28
Production appear to be progressing according to schedule over at Ouya, which has just announced that the development kits for its self-titled debut game console will ship out to qualifying Kickstarter supporters on December 28, just as planned.While every Ouya console that ever ships can be used for software development, these pre-retail units have some unknown differentiating feature, according to Ouya's official site, which calls them "rare drops."The Android-powered console's SDK (or "ODK," as Ouya is calling it) is currently being tested and will become available "when the dev consoles ship to gamemakers." Ownership of an Ouya dev kit is not required to access the ODK, however, as it'll be freely and publicly available online. Conversely, an Ouya dev kit is required to see the console's custom Jelly Bean GUI in its current state.
Cloudberry Kingdom's journey to Wii U: Not as hard as it looks
Cloudberry Kingdom is a co-op platformer with an infinite supply of randomly generated stages designed by an AI system sent straight from the Insanely Difficult level of Hell. It features swirling death balls, disappearing platforms, strings of fire and jabbing spikes, all of which our hero must navigate with the utmost precision if he hopes to survive (and save the princess or something).Cloudberry Kingdom offers five difficulty settings – Easy, Unpleasant, Abusive, Hardcore and Masochistic – and it's coming to PC, Mac, XBLA, PS3, Vita and finally, Wii U.If indie developer Pwnee Studios had to describe working with Nintendo to become a Wii U launch title, it'd put the process solidly in the "Easy" category. An outsider, however, may see it as somewhere around "Hardcore."Director of Business Development Michael Suswal used brute force to break down the barriers of Nintendo contacts, disregarding the suggested Wii U submission process entirely, because that's how he rolls."It is a personal mantra of mine to never follow the system," Suswal says. "So while I learned what the preferred submission process was, I decided to take a more punishing, masochistic route and chopped my way through the maze of transfers and voicemails. To be fair, Nintendo was one of the easiest companies to navigate, though it probably would have been easier to just fill out the form."Perhaps the Pwnee Studios team has a different definition of the word "easy."
BlackBerry 10 developer toolkit released in beta, adds Native and WebWorks SDKs for app-building flexibility
Will BlackBerry 10 be the hallowed OS that heals Waterloo's recent wounds or yet another RIM-shot to highlight its foibles? Only the fickle tide of consumer interest will certainly tell. But while the success and awareness of that new platform undoubtedly rests on the company's shoulders, a great deal of it also hinges upon crucial developer support. To spur things along in that latter department, RIM's released its developer toolkit in beta today. The tools, launched ahead of forthcoming BB 10 devices and the nascent ecosystem that they'll depend upon, are designed for flexibility, allowing third parties to choose between the Native SDK with its OS-specific APIs or the WebWorks SDK for HTML5 and CSS. The company's even gotten a head-start and partnered with the likes of Gameloft, which has already committed to optimizing 11 of its software titles for use on the platform. There's still a long road to US recovery ahead for the ailing BlackBerry brand, so let's hope this latest call-to-arms isn't lost on the dev community. Click on past the break for the official PR.
Microsoft lowers hardware requirements, opens Marketplace to 23 more countries
If there was a theme for today's Nokia keynote, and, by extension, Microsoft's plans for Windows Phone, it's that the OS is being targeted toward lower-spec phones worldwide. The SDK update that'll soon roll out to developers will include an emulator for developers to ensure their apps work on devices like the Lumia 610 that only has 256MB RAM. The company's promising that nearly all apps will work on the cheaper hardware, promising that fragmentation will be kept to a minimum. Any app that runs poorly on the slimmer hardware will be flagged as unsuitable in the Marketplace. Speaking of which, Microsoft has announced it'll be rolling it out to a further 23 countries shortly including China, the UAE and much of Eastern Europe -- increasing the total market reach by up to 60 percent.
SparkFun announces $80 Electric Sheep development board for Android accessories
Looking for an alternative to the Google-approved Android Development Kit? Then you now have another fairly inexpensive option to consider courtesy of SparkFun. It's officially announced its new Electric Sheep development board, which costs just $80 and will let you build your own Android accessories using the Open Accessory protocol. That means it and any accessories built with it will work just fine with your Nexus One, although there's of course no guarantees it'll work with, say, a future Nexus-6 model -- we hear those might be a bit unpredictable. Press release is after the break, and you can find some additional specifics and an order button at the source link below.
Wii U dev kits to be updated to latest prototyping hardware in the coming weeks
Nintendo couldn't have put all those glorious names of third party developers up alongside its Wii U announcement earlier this month without giving those companies at least a glimpse at the actual hardware they'd have to code on. Sega Europe's Gary Dunn was among those to have tinkered with a development kit before we even knew what the Wii U would be called, but he says that Nintendo intends to refresh that hardware to the latest prototype model at some point before the end of July. According to Gary, coding for the new system is pretty straightforward, and though he wouldn't get into specifics about performance, he does expect more details to emerge once Nintendo starts distributing the latest version of the Wii U dev platform. Asked about how it compares to the Xbox 360 and PS3, Sega's dev leader simply said the new Nintendo console is "different."
NVIDIA Kal-El reference tablet hands-on (video)
As if showing up in two of the first four reference devices for Windows on ARM wasn't enough of an achievement for NVIDIA's quad-core Kal-El superchip, it decided to visit us in person here at Computex to demonstrate its splendid graphical prowess. Running Android 3.1 on a 10-inch, 1280 x 800 screen, it gave us a first-hand look at the Glow Ball demo that wowed us in video form just a couple of days ago. What we saw on the dev tablet before us was no less impressive; lighting was being rendered in real time and scattered over a multiplicity of surfaces, while the cloth simulation was, to use a terrible pun, silky smooth. NVIDIA also ran us through a sightseeing tour of the Unreal Development Kit and Lost Planet 2, noting that the PC game took only a couple of months to port over to work on the Kal-El architecture. Unfortunately, no new details were forthcoming about when Kal-El devices might be coming or what developers we should expect to see coding games and other content to exploit the platform's evidently mighty capabilities. For now, we'll just have to sate ourselves with the video after the break. %Gallery-125085%
Globalscale D2 Plug offers HD video, 3D graphics in little Linux / Android machine
So it's not going to replace your big-boy PC anytime soon, but Globalscale's latest plug computer, the D2 Plug, does deliver some decidedly desktop-like traits. The latest lilliputian Linux / Android kit touts Marvell's PXA510, a 1GHz ARMv7 processor that supports 1080p video playback and 3D graphics. According to its makers, the D2 Plug runs on two watts and features 1GB of DDR3 memory, 8GB of NAND flash, an SD card slot, eSATA port and multiple points of connectivity, including two USB 2.o ports, gigabit ethernet, HDMI, and VGA. It measures a mere 6.7 x 3.22 x 1.3 inches, and sports a $249 price tag -- not exactly a small price, but there are plenty of other mini PCs in the sea.
US Army developing Android-based smartphone framework and apps
The US Army is calling upon Android app developers to help make military life a little less stressful -- and, perhaps, a lot safer. Under a new Army framework known as the Mobile/Handheld Computing Environment (CE), third-party developers will be able to create and submit tactical Android apps, using the military's CE Product Developer's Kit. The framework, originally prototyped by the folks over at MITRE, represents the latest phase in the Army's ongoing campaign to incorporate smartphone technology on the battlefield. Any app operating under the CE system will be interoperable across all command systems, and, as you'd expect, will be tightly secured. The kit won't be released to developers until July, but the Army has already begun tinkering with its baseline suite of Mission Command apps, which includes tools designed to facilitate mapping, blue force tracking, and Tactical Ground Reporting. On the hardware side of the equation, the Army is planning to deploy a new handheld known as the Joint Battle Command-Platform, or JBC-P. The two-pound JBC-P is essentially a military-friendly smartphone designed to run on a variety of existing radio networks, while supporting the full suite of forthcoming apps. The JBC-P will be tested this October, and will likely be issued on a wider basis in 2013.
Rumor: Nintendo courting Rockstar for Wii 2 development
The "Wii 2" rumors are raging again, for sure, but now they're in danger of burning out of control -- so let's backtrack. After delivering some spot-on NGP specs days before Sony's official unveiling ceremony, French tech site 01net earned its web cred. That's why the games media took notice (and some even corroborated) when the wonder site reignited the Wii successor rumors last Thursday, and then tossed in some more fuel the following day. This week, 01net has come out with another intriguing report about Nintendo's supposed next console: Rockstar's on board. The site's sources claim that the Grand Theft Auto creator is the first confirmed company to secure a developer unit of the new Nintendo hardware. The sources add that the system, said to be codenamed "Project Cafe," is expected to be released in June 2012. And here's where the rumor starts to grow more wild. Gamekyo somewhat carelessly throws out there that Grand Theft Auto 5 is also rumored for 2012 -- is it? (There's at least been some recent evidence that the next GTA is in the works.) And then, GoNintendo fits it all together: "Rockstar has a dev kit [...] working on GTA V (which is sure to hit PS3/360 as well) [...] hoping to have it available at launch." Eureka? Not quite. But, boy, if Nintendo is on the verge of announcing the one console to rule them all and has a Rockstar logo to flaunt during the presentation? Talk about printing money ...
Intel Thunderbolt dev kits coming this quarter, hopefully ushering in more 10Gbps-capable devices
Intel has just announced it will soon be making development kits available for its new Thunderbolt interconnect. The cable that can carry 10Gbps (in both directions!) has so far only seen itself installed in Apple's MacBook Pro computers, but storage and other peripheral manufacturers are starting to unveil their lightning-scorched offerings this week at NAB and this announcement is sure to give Thunderbolt an extra spur of momentum. What's going to be intriguing going forward is to see whether manufacturers take it up instead of USB 3.0 or install the DisplayPort lookalike alongside the latest and greatest from the USB camp. If you ask us, we can never have enough high-speed interconnects... how does SuperSpeed Thunderbolt sound?
New Xbox Development Kit is cheaper, way cuter
Microsoft has begun offering developers great and small a new model of the Xbox 360 development kit, pictured above. The new hardware's got a lot to offer game studios -- it's got an undisclosed boost in RAM, larger hard drive, built-in flash memory and a less bulky frame than its predecessor. Its most appealing bonus? According to the kit's press release announcement, the new hardware will come at a "significantly reduced price from its predecessor." Wait, no, that's not its most appealing bonus. We're pretty sure the aspect that's gonna lead companies to snatch up as many of these new kits as they can is how darn adorable it is. Look at him! He's so tiny. And he's got an equally adorable, optional Sidecar attachment, which enables debugging and emulation! Oh, just look! It's like he's giving it a piggy-back ride.
Xbox Development Kit arrives with 'significantly reduced price,' Sidecar attachment
What's this, you ask? The next generation of Xbox 360 development, that's what. With a shockingly small amount of fanfare, Microsoft has ushered in a striking new Xbox Development Kit, which is purportedly designed to increase efficiency and reduce cost for Xbox 360 dev teams. Aside from boasting an undisclosed uptick in RAM, built-in flash memory, a more capacious hard drive and a slimmer form factor, this XDK will also be sold at a "significantly reduced price from its predecessor." 'Course, the folks in Redmond aren't saying what exactly that sticker will look like, but those interested in taking the plunge regardless will also have the option to license a Sidecar attachment that enables debugging and disc emulation. We're told that said accessory can be shared among multiple XDK consoles, and in turn, it should lower the overall price to create, test, debug, and release an Xbox 360 or Xbox Live Arcade game. It's still a guessing game when it comes to an actual launch date, but it'll become "the standard kit" when new orders are fulfilled in the future. Feel free to peruse the gallery below if you're interested, and toss out a wild guess as to what that Sidecar will go for on eBay during the next century. Aim high, bub! %Gallery-120383%
ODROID-A tablet fits 1366 x 768 res on a 10-inch screen, dual-core Exynos inside transparent shell
Samsung might not have quite enough Exynos 4210 processors to sell a tablet of its own based on that Cortex-A9 dual-core beastie, but it's found a few to hand over to Korean partner Hardkernel for this here ODROID-A reference platform. It's strictly a dev kit, and as such is unlikely to find its way to your local Best Buy any time soon, but we have to admire the specs on offer. First up is the delightfully dense 1366 x 768 resolution, a rare sight on a 10-inch display, followed by a transparent rear panel that bests anything out on the market right now in terms of sheer sex appeal, and then there are also two MicroSD slots, a HSPA+ modem, HDMI output, a USB 2.0 port, cameras on the front and rear, and a crazy 9000mAh battery. How all this is supposed to only cost $750, we don't know, but then we also don't know how to qualify to get one when it becomes available later this month. So many mysteries. Jump past the break for some hands-on and benchmarking video action.
