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Microsoft woos webOS developers with free phones, training
WebOS developers may not have had much good news in the past few days (apart from a slew of new TouchPad owners looking for apps), but they are at least getting some attention. That includes a message from Microsoft's Senior Director of Windows Phone 7 Development, Brandon Watson, who offered free phones to published webOS developers on Friday, plus all the necessary tools and training to get them started with Windows Phone. Judging from his tweets since, the response has been fairly overwhelming -- Watson says he's received close to 600 emails from webOS devs as of Sunday evening.
CyanogenMod founder joins Samsung Mobile, promises to make Android 'more awesome'
We already knew Samsung loved the guys at CyanogenMod, but we didn't think they'd start absorbing parts of its development team. According to Steve Kondik's Facebook page, the Android facade's head sculptor is setting up shop at Samsung Mobile. Sammy's new software engineer told his fans that although his 'side project,' CyanogenMod, is not affiliated with his employer in any way, he will be "working on making Android more awesome." Makes sense, we heard Samsung's phones were looking for a fresh coat of awesome. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
HTC's bootloader unlock process goes live, Sensation prepares for custom ROM glory
Today is turning out to be a great day for the Android set, what with news of the Google / Moto deal and now -- HTC's unleashing its bootloader unlock tool for the masses. That's right, the company's Taiwanese team of engineers flipped the switch on the service that sees owners of a global SIM-unlocked Sensation working their way towards OEM-sanctioned root access. Unfortunately, stateside owners of the phone's T-Mobile variant, as well as the EVO 3D, will have to sit back and wait while further testing is conducted on their devices. So, what are you ROM fiends waiting for? Head on over to HTC's developer site and let us know your success in the comments below.
HTC Developer site goes live: OpenSense SDK and kernel source offered aplenty
HTC's flipped the switch on its development website, which was designed to be a "one-stop shop" for a wide variety of SDKs and other resources for developers. As promised, the manufacturer's OpenSense SDK -- which includes a S3D SDK for HTC's 3D stereoscopic interface and pen SDK for its Scribe feature -- is now available for download; there's also plenty of kernel source codes to peruse and access. Finally, the Bootloader Unlock web tool, one of the most highly anticipated pieces of software that the company's promised to unleash, only shows as "coming soon" on the site. There hasn't been any official word on when it'll go live, but we're expecting it to happen later this month as the EVO 3D and the Sensation both get adorned with their unlocks. It's great to see the company follow through completely on one of its promises, eh? [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Nintendo 3DS Panda dev model hits Canadian eBay, reminds US how little the dollar is worth
Have $1,929 Canadian dollars to spare? You can swap those loonies for 2,000 all-American greenbacks, or the current bid on a Nintendo 3DS Panda development model, rounding out its final 24 hours on eBay's Canadian auction site. This "like new" device won't be playing retail 3DS or DS cartridges, but it will grant you access to a variety of development functions. The $2,000 current bid is more than a hair higher than the dev hardware's unconfirmed original price of $324, but if you're desperate to rank among the few gamers that rock 3DS dev hardware, logic probably won't reign supreme when it comes time to hit that bid now button. [Thanks, Julien]
appMobi XDK delivers free cross-platform dev environment to Chrome Web Store
The Chrome Web Store welcomed a new arrival today, and it goes by the name of appMobi XDK. While the addition is targeted squarely at developers, it's entirely free and packs quite a doozy -- cross-platform HTML5 software development from within the web browser. As you might expect, the tool is perfect for making applications to run within Google Chrome, but get this... it's also capable of creating native apps for submission to Apple's App Store and the Android Market. Like any competent development environment, it features a full set of debugging tools, along with the ability to test your apps via on-screen emulation and directly from your target device. Hardware integration is accomplished with JavaScript hardware abstraction, which enables access to the camera, GPS, accelerometer and the like. Further, the platform boasts full compatibility with PhoneGap, which means you can easily transition if you've got a project in the works. If you're already hooked, be sure to check out the PR after the break, which describes such goodies as in-app purchasing and secure user authentication, which are made possible with appMobi's cloud services.
PhoneGap 1.0 lets devs write apps for seven platforms (video)
Until now, mobile app developers have followed a pretty predictable MO: develop for iOS first, Android second, and everyone else after that. Since last year, many of you code monkeys out there have been tapping into Nitobi's PhoneGap, a project that makes it easier to churn out apps for almost every OS, all at once. It's been picking up steam, with about 40,000 downloads per month, 600,000 in total, and a steady stream of donations. That all culminated this weekend with the release of PhoneGap 1.0, which lets devs use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to write and deploy apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Bada, and Symbian. That's a long list indeed, but we see one glaring omission: Windows Phone 7. Hit the source link to download it for free and check out the promo video below for an oh-so quick overview. Update: Oops! Looks like WP7 is included! Our apologies, and feel free to celebrate accordingly.
Blizzard's APIs and You: Cool information and tools coming down the pipe
Recently, Blizzard disabled the WoWArmory Facebook application, signaling that the time of the modern WoW Armory is over and we will soon live in an age when new Blizzard APIs will transform our out-of-game experience. And change it, they will. These forthcoming APIs will change the way you interact with WoW outside of the game in ways you cannot even think up yet. How do I know this? That's the power of information facilitation, and some inventive hypotheticals will show you what Blizzard's APIs will do for you in the near future. Over the past few months, Blizzard has been preparing to roll out a new set of APIs that will take internal information from the Armory, the new community site, and more, parse it into easily manageable data streams, and make those streams available to application developers. With these new streams of information, savvy developers can craft web applications, smartphone apps, social media plugins, and anything else under the sun to provide you with new and dynamic WoW experiences on the internet. I know that sounds horribly cliché, but hear me out -- this stuff is pretty cool, and the back end could bring about a new standard for information availability and MMOs. I'm not a developer. In fact, a lot of us in the community are not developers. Writing this story felt like an exercise in obscurity because, frankly, all this back end information isn't in my wheelhouse. As I dug deeper and began to realize the potential of the systems being set up, I fell in love with the idea that Blizzard is opening up easy access to so much information. I thought it would be a good idea to illustrate for those of us who have no idea what APIs are capable of, to break through the programmer/developer talk and discuss what these APIs mean for us, at the end of the day.
Zynga picks up another iPhone developer, Five Mobile now Zynga Toronto
The Zynga blog reports that the huge social gaming company has picked up yet another iPhone developer to add to its growing staple. Five Mobile, a company that's made various apps for iPhone and other mobile platforms, is now part of Zynga and will be renamed Zynga Toronto, tasked with working on mobile apps and services across a variety of different setups and operating systems. This purchase isn't quite as direct as some others we've seen from Zynga, but Five Mobile is still a significant mobile developer and they are now fully integrated into the (huge) Zynga company. We still haven't seen a lot of products out of Zynga's purchases, but you have to think that as soon as the company is done settling down its various departments into their correct roles, the mobile initiative for the company will be bigger than ever, led by iOS apps and games. Zynga's definitely betting big on mobile -- it's already got a lion's share of the market in social gaming, and it's looking to use these developers to translate that audience over to mobile platforms in the future.
Firefall dev diary features Orson Scott Card, reveals planned free manga comic
Here's the latest developer diary for Red 5 Studios' Firefall, which outlines the general backstory for the upcoming free-to-play co-op multiplayer shooter. Red 5's CEO Mark Kern, who served as team lead on a little indie title you may have heard of called World of Warcraft, walks us through the tale of Crystite and a dying future Earth, beset by an alien race called the Chosen. He also introduces writer Orson Scott Card, who talks about how he put the story together for what's "essentially ... a post-double apocalyptic world." Card's also working on a manga with his daughter Emily Card, to be published free on Red 5's website in conjunction with Udon Comics. The manga is supposed to be available sometime before the game is due out later this year.
Google working on video chat for Chrome, Skype cowers in fear
Watch out Skype, Google Chrome is comin' for ya. Not long after releasing WebRTC audio and video chat software as open-source, Google has started to integrate these capabilities into its prized browser. Looking to move past the played out features of Gmail and Google Voice, the company is planning for WebRTC to be a frontrunner for video conferencing and online chatting. The software was introduced as royalty-free, too, even promising to work with other browsers devs (namely Mozilla and Opera) to flesh out the project. This means that anyone building a site can make use of the new tech, and in theory, construct their own personal Skype battering ram. With the company being pro-web apps on all fronts, this is another step forward in its quest to bring the aforementioned technology up to par with native apps. Is this one of many dominoes to fall in the web-based app takeover, at least in terms of Chrome OS? It very well could be, especially if companies would rather see the traffic in-browser vs. within a native app. Now, if only Instagram could make use of that dusty webcam...
Ask the Devs Round 9 mitigates your tanking questions
Ask the Devs is back for Round 9, which deals with the most awesome role in WoW ever -- tanking. Of course, coming from a tank, that might be a bit biased -- but deal with it, healers and DPSers. I've got creatures to keep from punching you in your squishy little faces. Of note this time around is Blizzard's tough time dealing with tanks wanting threat stats (hit and expertise) and the current struggle with making it work. Currently, in cutting-edge content, threat stats are pretty good for initial aggro, but over time, Vengeance does its job admirably and keeps bosses on tanks with relative ease. I think that design decision is hitting the sweet spot, but it begs the question of why even have the threat stats in the first place? Blizzard also discussed the mastery bonuses for each tank. The devs feel that death knights and druids are doing pretty well, all things considered, and that paladins and warriors have a similar problem in "capping" mastery, but that paladins are more susceptible to problems. There is still the sentiment in the community that Blizzard needs to add its own visual threat meters or some type of aggro status, but there is a reluctance on Blizzard's part to clutter up its own default UI -- understandable, but this may potentially be a part of Blizzard's forthcoming (but not discussed) "how to tank" solution. Buried in this discussion, however, was a little tidbit about patch 4.3. Blizzard states that the design for the patch 4.2 legendary, Dragonwrath, has wide appeal to a number of staff-wielding ranged DPS classes. However, it then mentions the "patch 4.3 legendary" and its more narrow appeal. Will we be seeing a tanking legendary in the near future, or potentially another healer item? We do know for sure that it will not be as widespread, class-wise, as Dragonwrath, so we can only sit back and assume. What is interesting, though, is that patch 4.3 also looks to be a raid tier and not a patch 4.1-style dungeon content update. Could patch 4.3 be bringing us the War of the Ancients raid that we have been eagerly anticipating, especially with the return of Nozdormu and his crazy time antics? Only time (heh) will tell. Also, don't expect a new tanking class any time soon. Hit the jump for the full question and answer session.
Samsung shows affection to CyanogenMod, gives its devs a free Galaxy S II (update)
Let's see if we're grokking this: Samsung is not only telling the dev community it's okay to place custom ROMs on its flagship device, it's actually encouraging the practice by handing out free phones? Atinm, the developer responsible for prepping CyanogenMod on the Captivate and Vibrant, took to Twitter to praise the manufacturer for sending him a free Galaxy S II. From the looks of it, Samsung sent the phone to a select number of devs intent on building an official release of CM7 for the GSII. Unlocking bootloaders has already become the new fancy with manufacturers like HTC, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson jumping on the bandwagon, but this is the first time we've heard of a company doling out free devices to the custom ROM community. Does this mean that, instead of enforcing TouchWiz with an iron fist, Samsung is looking at how this practice could actually benefit consumers? We doubt this will be the case for all of the company's future Android phones, but wouldn't you love to live in a world where it was? [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Update: As it turns out, this was not the first time a free device has been handed out to the CyanogenMod community. It's been done at least once before, when T-Mobile gave out a G-Slate in April.
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%
BlackBerry 7 gets an SDK, NFC, AR, other acronyms
BlackBerry 7 OS is coming soon but, to take advantage of all those fancy features like NFC and the digital compass (ok, some of them aren't that fancy), devs are going to need some new APIs -- enter the BlackBerry 7 Java SDK. Creators of BlackBerry apps can go download the beta of the new software development kit at the source link and start whipping up augmented reality browsers and 3D games, thanks to support for OpenGL ES 2.0. There's nothing mind-blowing about RIM's latest update, but we're glad to see the corporate stalwart start to catch up to other smartphone OSes, and it's only a matter of time before Layar and Quake hit the BlackBerry Bold 9900.
Linaro and Samsung roll out Exynos 4210-based Origen development board for $199
You may recall a little group of Linux-loving chums called Linaro, which was formed almost a year ago in the hopes of speeding up Linux development. Today at Computex, the company's taking one step further with the announcement of the Origen development board. Based on Samsung's beefy Exynos 4210 dual core chipset, the kit packs all the essential ports -- including HDMI, USB 2.0 host, SD slot, etc. -- for keen developers to get their hands dirty on, and its base board is also removable to accommodate future chipsets. Potential buyers are told to keep an eye on Insignal, which will soon be offering the basic Origen package for $199, along with optional parts at an extra cost.
The Game Archaeologist jacks into The Matrix Online: Jamming with Ben 'Rarebit' Chamberlain
When we started into The Matrix Online month last week on The Game Archaeologist, one of the comments caught my eye. Massively reader stealthrider wrote: Please, please do a tribute to Rarebit. MxO was his baby, and no one took its death worse than he. He did everything for that game, much of it single-handedly. Everything from playing the canon characters and co-writing the story to fixing hundreds of bugs and even creating a new zone from scratch. Not to mention developing and implementing the story missions, new items, the RP item vendors, and pretty much everything else in MxO's final couple of years. He even implemented and moderated a player-created minigame as part of the official story. He retired from game development in the months before MxO's shutdown. He was that dedicated to this game that he couldn't work on anything else afterward. He's a god among developers, and he is as sorely missed as the game itself. I think this sums up how many Matrix Online vets feel about Ben "Rarebit" Chamberlain. So instead of a mere tribute, we drove the MassivelyMobile over to Chamberlain's house (read: send a polite email request), and he graciously said he'd be glad to reminisce with us. So hit that jump to find out the last word on MxO from the dev who held it together!
Blizzard previews character, guild, and arena team APIs
Blizzard previously announced that certain APIs were going to become available for applications and players to access from the community website. We've finally got a preview of the information feeds that tap into character data in the near future. These feeds can be used in applications, websites, and more for user-created, World of Warcraft ... well ... anything. Blizzard's opening up of these information feeds is pretty cool, and you will likely see some ambitious applications of this data being used in the near future. One of the illuminating aspects of this preview is that after finding the right way to do it, the devs are thinking about opening up quest ID information so that you can see what quests characters have or have not completed. There are tons of applications of that data out there and I'm sure the community is really excited to make use of this API information. Check out the full preview after the jump.
Dev Watercooler: Ghostcrawler discusses the number of player abilities
In his continuing conversational blog series Dev Watercooler, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street (lead systems designer) muses about the number of abilities players have, what the sweet spot is in terms of quantity, the need for all classes to have a viable AoE rotation, and the difference between rotational abilities and situational abilities. From a game design perspective, this might be the coolest Dev Watercooler yet. Read this full Dev Watercooler after the break, or check out the other Dev Watercoolers with Ghostcrawler: Dev Watercooler: Expertise and hit for tanking Dev Watercooler: Interrupts Dev Watercooler: Critical hits
Dev Watercooler: Ghostcrawler talks critical hits (and misses)
The Dev Watercooler, Ghostcrawler's conversational community blog series, continues with a look at the theories behind critical hits. After a bit on the history of critical strikes in WoW, Ghostcrawler gets down to business with an awesome discussion about the homogenization of classes, the issue with healer critical hits, and the pros and cons of homogenizing critical hits across the board.
