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DCEmu.Com is a site that brings you the very latest in Gaming news that isnt console specific and the latest Current Gen news from around the world, Part of the
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July 26th, 2013, 18:52 Posted By: wraggster
 Call Of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard has bought out Vivendi’s share of the business for $5.83 billion.At the same time, an investor group led by Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick and co-chairman Brian Kelly bought 172 million Activision Blizzard shares from Vivendi for $2.34 billion.It all means that Activision is now fully independent of media group Vivendi, with the majority of the company’s shares owned by the public. Vivendi does, however, retain 83 million shares, or 12 per cent of the company. The investor group led by Kotick and Kelly, ASAC II LP, will now own a 24.9 per cent stake. The Activision execs personally committed $100 million combined to their part of the buyout, says the statement confirming the move.“We should emerge even stronger – an independent company with a best-in-class franchise portfolio and the focus and flexibility to drive long-term shareholder value and expand our leadership position as one of the world’s most important entertainment companies,” said CEO Bobby Kotick. “The transactions announced today will allow us to take advantage of attractive financing markets while still retaining more than $3 billion cash on hand to preserve financial stability.”
http://www.edge-online.com/news/bobb...-share-buyout/
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July 26th, 2013, 00:59 Posted By: wraggster
<header style="font: 100 13px/20.79px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; width: 620px; height: auto; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; overflow: hidden; clear: both; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: block; white-space: normal; position: relative; background-color: rgb(242, 242, 242); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" class="post-header"> </header>If you think EA's bottom line is primarily driven by endless Madden sequels, think again. In reporting its fiscal first quarter results, the studio has revealed that its digital businesses -- DLC, mobile and the web -- now generate more official revenue ($482 million) than disc-based games and distribution ($467 million). The company isn't breaking down these figures, although it says that DLC and mobile are the main factors. We do know that iOS plays a crucial role -- EA says that Apple is now its largest retail partner in terms of pure sales. The revenue shift isn't completely surprising when the company is big on flagship mobile games and the free-to-play model, but it suggests that discs are losing some of their luster at one of the world's largest developers..
http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/24/e...that-of-discs/
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July 26th, 2013, 00:40 Posted By: wraggster
[Jorge Rancé] was nursing a sick bird back to health. He found it on the street with a broken leg, which required a mini plaster cast for it to heal correctly. But felt bad when leaving the house for long periods. He grabbed some simple hardware and put his mind at easy by building an Internet connected bird monitoring system. It’s really just an excuse to play around with his Raspberry Pi, but who can blame him?
A webcam adds video monitoring using the Linux software called “motion” to stream the video. This is the same package we use with our cats when we travel; it provides a continuous live stream but can also save recordings whenever motion is detected. He added a USB temperature sensor and attached a water level sensor to the GPIO header. These are automatically harvested — along with a still image from the webcam — and tweeted once per hour using a bash script. He just needs to work out automatic food and water dispensing and he never needs to return home! Bird seed shouldn’t be any harder to dish out than fish food, right?
http://hackaday.com/2013/07/25/monit...-raspberry-pi/
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July 25th, 2013, 01:44 Posted By: wraggster
Whoops this slipped under the radar but it would be a same to miss it: Oculus VR is co-hosting a three-week Oculus Rift game jam for everyone anywhere, and with prizes as juicy as $10,000.
IndieCade is co-hosting and will showcase the best games at the IndieCade Festival in LA in October.The VR Jam, as it's known, shows Oculus' desire to not only produce a VR headset but also to create and support a burgeoning game development scene around it. That's the hard part, the crucial part and what will set Oculus apart, Oculus Rift inventor Palmer Luckey told me earlier this month.The VR Jam starts 2nd August, runs until 25th August and will dish out $50,000- worth of prizes by the time all is said and done. In addition to the fat-sack of cash mentioned earlier, the winners will also be flown to Oculus HQ for a day meeting the team.There's a VR Jam mini-site where you can register yours or your team's interest, and there's more detailed information there too.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/20...ing-big-prizesGood luck!
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July 25th, 2013, 01:38 Posted By: wraggster
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team sold over 100,000 copies to debut at No.1 on the Japanese software chart during the week ended July 21.
Along with the week's only other top ten new entry, Level 5 RPG Youkai Watch, Dream Team helped drive a notable increase in weekly 3DS sales, which rose from 43,000 to 57,000, according to Media Create data published on NeoGAF.
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Software sales
- Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (3DS, Nintendo) - 99.972 / New
- Youkai Watch (3DS, Level 5) - 29.102 / 82.756
- Pikmin 3 (Wii U, Nintendo) - 28.513 / 121.233
- Little Battlers eXperience W: Ultra Custom (3DS, Level 5) - 27.242 / New
- Friend Collection: New Life (3DS, Nintendo) - 26.799 / 1.286.646
- Earth Defense Force 2025 (PS3, D3 Publisher) - 20.255 / 211.968
- Toukiden (Vita, Koei Tecmo) - 12.953 / 199.916
- New Super Luigi U (Wii U, Nintendo) - 12.132 / 37.014
- Toukiden (PSP, Koei Tecmo) - 11.008 / 129.412
- Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D (3DS, Nintendo) - 10.826 / 217.148
Hardware sales (previous week)
- 3DS - 57.025 (43.435)
- Vita - 14.392 (15.662)
- Wii U - 14.280 (22.199)
- PS3 - 11.413 (12.698 )
- PSP - 5.719 (5.830)
- Wii - 1.463 (1.434)
- Xbox 360 - 420 (396)
- Total - 104.712 (101.654)
http://www.computerandvideogames.com...sts-3ds-sales/
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July 25th, 2013, 00:49 Posted By: wraggster
Google's Chromecast is Mountain View's next foray into the television market. In brief, it's a $35 HDMI dongle that mirrors content being played nearby on a tablet, smartphone or computer. Hrm, that sounds familiar. The 2-inch device runs "a simplified version of Chrome OS" and requires separate USB power; connect it to your local WiFi network and similarly connected devices work with Chromecast. It can be ordered right now on Google Play and will apparently ship in one to two days. Of note, the device seems US-only for now, as our UK colleagues are showing a "not available in your country" prompt. Early buyers get three months of free Netflix with the purchase. Additionally, it's also heading to retail (read: Best Buy) on July 28th. Google ended its presentation with a quick word that Chromecast functionality will eventually come embedded in various other devices, and that it's working on getting other countries access "as quickly as possible." No specs were given during the presentation, but its Google Play page lists the device as HDMI-CEC compatible, and it uses 2.4GHz 801.11 b/g/n WiFi. Given the separate USB power required, the $35 nets you a Chromecast device, an HDMI extended, a USB power cable and a separate power adapter.
Apps that work with the device include a "Cast" button that allows users to push video to their televisions and control various aspects remotely (volume, play, pause, etc.). "Once Chromecast is plugged in, you just go to YouTube on your smartphone," Google reps said. "You'll see the cast button in your UI and you press it -- Chromecast will pull the info you requested from the cloud and play it on your TV." Meanwhile, an on-stagedemonstration showed YouTube video being pushed "via the cloud," thus enabling other apps to be used while a video is being viewed on a television screen. Netflix was up next, and it has similar remote control functionality. Google Play movies and television (expectedly) also work with Chromecast, and Google delightedly demonstrated it with Vin Diesel vehicle Fast Five. Finally, Google demoed full Google Chrome projected on a TV and controlled remotely with a "standard $500 Windows 8 laptop." The feature is "still in early days," but a promise has already been made: that users will be able to easily project content to televisions via their web browser.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/24/google-chromekey/
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July 25th, 2013, 00:25 Posted By: wraggster
Only 11 per cent of PEGI rated games receive 18 rating, but depictions of sex are of greater concern than violence
[h=3]Video Standards Council[/h]
More than half of all games released in the UK are suitable for the entire family.
According to a report published by the Video Standards Council (VSC) - the regulatory body responsible for assigning PEGI ratings in the UK - 53.3 per cent of the 298 games submitted in the period between July 30 and December 31, 2012 were classified for children aged 7-years or under. More than 33 per cent were deemed suitable for children aged 3-years of under.
This runs contrary to gaming's apparent fascination with violence and mayhem - a frequent preoccupation of prominent industry figures and the press. Indeed, only 11.7 per cent of games submitted during that period were given an 18 classification, with a further 15.5 per cent awarded a 16 rating.
Give that the period between July and December is season for the industry's blockbusters, which are generally base on more adult subject matter, PEGI anticipates that a full-year report would have seen the 16 and 18 ratings come in, "two or three percentage points lower."
However, analysis of the VSC's ratings criteria shows a relatively severe stance on depictions of sex and nudity.
In terms of violence, the PEGI 16 classification is awarded for, " realistic violence and sustained depictions of death or injury to human characters." Furthermore, a PEGI 18 classification is awarded for, "Gross violence and such things as torture, sadism, horrific depictions of death or injury, motiveless killing and violence towards vulnerable people."
By contrast, a game will receive a PEGI 16 rating for showing the, "the sex act...in a non-explicit manner" or "erotic or sexual nudity." If sex is depicted explicitly then that rating would increase to PEGI 18. Theoretically, the, a game that featured sustained, sadistic violence would receive the same rating as a game that frankly depicted consensual sex on one occasion.
This could prove prohibitive for developers interested in exploring sex and sexuality in games - one of the few de facto taboos that remain for the medium - as the VSC "does not take context into account" when handing out ratings. Once a game depicts an act that falls under the PEGI 18 rating, it cannot be awarded anything less.
The VSC was declared the UK's official PEGI body in July 2012.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...amily-friendly
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July 25th, 2013, 00:19 Posted By: wraggster
We’re beginning to see a lot of momentum building for using Raspberry Pi boards as the basis of your home automation. This latest offering from [Iain Hamilton] combines lighting and audio control through a single web interface. His frontend is run as a web page from the RPi board. It even includes separate layouts for mobile devices and computers in order to maximize use of the screen real estate.
Three buttons at the top of the interface allow him to configure the settings and switch between lighting and audio controls. This audio control screen issues commands to the Spotify client running on the Pi. The Mopidy package takes care of almost everything (as we’ve seen with other single-board computer Spotify servers). Future iterations will offer other streaming services like SoundCloud. [Iain's] home lighting system uses X10 modules for control. He’s using a USB dongle to facilitate control of that system.
http://hackaday.com/2013/07/24/home-...-raspberry-pi/
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July 25th, 2013, 00:04 Posted By: wraggster
Publisher EA has predicted a slight dip in annual sales of its key sports IPs thanks to the upcoming transition to next-gen consoles.
Furthermore, EA president and COO Peter Moore described pre-orders for current-gen EA Sports titles as “soft” in a call with investors last night.
“We're seeing softness, in particular, on our key sports titles on current gen pre-orders. I think consumers anticipate getting the new hardware,” he said, as reported by Seeking Alpha. “We certainly came out of E3 with renewed enthusiasm for new hardware, and I think that's being reflected in current gen pre-orders.
“Probably the exception on that is FIFA, which we continue to see great anticipation around the world. I think pre-orders will start to come in late as consumers start to realize that there may be not enough hardware to go around for every consumer in the world to buy a next gen piece of hardware. But this is as planned, as anticipated. I do see and expect to see some pickup as we get closer to launch.”
Moore added that Battlefield 4 pre-orders are currently tracking ahead of how Battlefield 3 was performing at the same stage.
“Gen3 sports titles would be down year-over-year, slightly, with the exception of FIFA, which we believe will continue to see growth because of the strength of that franchise around the globe and that sport around the globe,” CFO and executive VP Blake Jorgensen added.
“For the year, we're assuming, because some of those titles ship before the Gen4 boxes are out, that the total franchise, both Gen3 and Gen4, will be down slightly and that's built into our guidance.”
None of which means EA isn’t confident about PS4 and Xbox One. Indeed, despite spending much of the call emphasising the increasing performance of digital releases on the Apple App Store and Origin on PC, Moore presented a positive next-gen outlook.
“Consumers are acutely aware that new hardware is coming,” he stated. “Neither company has shared their specific volume targets, but there are outward signs of strong customer demand. Microsoft reports that Xbox One presales are trending ahead of the 360 during the same time period and
PlayStation believes this will be their biggest hardware launch ever.
“So we believe that the key indicators are pointing to a strong launch for both consoles in the holiday window.
“The new systems are spectacular and we expect millions of players will quickly make the transition to better graphics, online features and motion control. Our job as a publisher is to provide an easy migration for the millions of players who choose to transition onto the new hardware.”
Added Blake: “Since the installed base of Gen4 will still be relatively small even through the Christmas cycle or holiday cycle and the bulk of our titles fall in the first 3 quarters of the year, our assumptions are that a relatively small portion of our total revenue will actually be Gen4 this year.”
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ea-cu...xt-gen/0119072
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July 23rd, 2013, 00:29 Posted By: wraggster
When the Leap Motion controller was revealed to the world, it brought with it the promise of a new and unique computer user experience. And, ever since we first got to see what the Leap Motion controller could do -- grant folks the ability to interact with a computer by waving their fingers and fists -- we've wanted one of our own to test out. Well, our wish was granted: we've gotten to spend several days with the controller and a suite of apps built to work with it. Does the device really usher in a new age of computing? Is it worth $80 of your hard-earned cash? Patience, dear reader, all will be revealed in our review.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/22/l...roller-review/
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July 23rd, 2013, 00:04 Posted By: wraggster
Five Rasberry Pi’s are used to drive this four-display video wall. This screenshot shows the system playing back some BBC documentaries. The sync, alignment, and video quality all seem to be spot on which makes it quite easy for your eye to assemble the images into one picture.
Each screen has its own Raspberry Pi which generates the HDMI video shown on the screen. These are fed from one central RPi board which acts as the controller. Video is pushed between the boards using the Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) available through the Linux GStreamer package. Synchronization between the different video boards is taken care of using network time. [Samer] mentions that this system is scalable — each additional screen simply requires one more RPi to drive it.
The team also did some experiments with live video. They added a sixth RPi board with the camera module in order to display a live feed.
http://hackaday.com/2013/07/22/multi...te-video-wall/
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July 22nd, 2013, 23:50 Posted By: wraggster
Develop Ready at Dawn has accused games retail and the pre-owned sector of cheating not only developers but also consumers.
"I think the problem is right now there are retail outlets that are really taking everybody for a ride. You can't make a living at the expense of everybody else,” boss Ru Weerasuriya told Games Industry.
“Unfortunately, they're not just making a living at the expense of developers but also the consumers because the consumers will see less and less games come out if developers can't get revenue to make more new titles and keep going as a business.
"I think this is something we need to curb on the retail side. We're putting the consumers in an awkward spot and we shouldn't have to. Why should they be the ones to deal with a flawed system? They are the guys we do this for. They are the ones who should be able to benefit the most from being able to buy it.
"I don't think we should stop used games, but we should do something about getting part of the revenue back from GameStop and places like that. That's not penalizing the consumers; they'll still get what they want. But I don't know who's going to address it."
Weerasuriya admits elsewhere in the interview that developers and publishers can play their part by shifting to new business models and moving away from the £49.99 triple-A model.
Ready at Dawn’s former credits include PSP brawlers God of War: Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta as well as the Wii version of Okami. It is currently working on The Order: 1886.
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/games...claims/0118956
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July 22nd, 2013, 19:52 Posted By: wraggster
Naughty Dog’s The Last Of Us is the top selling game at UK retail for the sixth week running, matching records set by Black Ops II and FIFA 12.Dynasty Warriors 8 is the highest new entry this week at five, the long-running series’ fourth best launch week after Dynasty Warriors 6, 7 and Dynasty Warriors 5 – Empires, says ChartTrack.Retail promotions for Max Payne 3 prompt its return to the top ten, climbing nineteen places from last week. The Elder Scrolls V: Legendary Edition also received a sales spike, boosting it back into the number eight spot.The UK all formats top ten for the week ending July 20, courtesy of Ukie/GFK ChartTrack is as follows, with reviews through the links and week-on-week sales differences where relevant.1. The Last of Us (-22%)
2. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition (+20%)
3. Mario & Luigi: Dream Team Bros (-8%)
4. Animal Crossing: New Leaf (-9%)
5. Dynasty Warriors 8
6. Far Cry 3 (+4%)
7. Max Payne 3 (+135%)
8. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Legendary Edition
9. FIFA 13
10. Tomb Raider (-1-%)
http://www.edge-online.com/news/uk-c...th-number-one/
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July 21st, 2013, 23:33 Posted By: wraggster
Here is a list of the changes in this version:
- Added support for the second serial port COM2. Originally I had used the IRQ3 line (which COM2 uses) for mouse emulation, so before I could start working on the actual COM2 support I needed to change the mouse emulation. I had used IRQ12 for PS/2 pointer device emulation, and in this version I made IRQ12 to handle the emulation of both, depending on whether the DOS software uses INT33 (serial mouse) or INT15 (PS/2 mouse) routines. This may cause some problems in the mouse emulation in case the new system does not handle all situations properly.
The way the new support for multiple serial ports work is that you can give several -s? parameters on the command line. The first one will be emulated as COM1, and the second one as COM2. In theory it would be possible to emulate two more COM ports as well, but this is not implemented yet. Let me know if you need me to add support for COM3 and COM4.
- Implemented 32-bit version of opcode 0x9A (CALL FAR). This was used by BC Racers game. It is a bit strange that no other game or software has so far used the immediate far call, but it looks like most games either call near routines or call far routines via a jump table instead of hard-coded addresses. In any case, this allowed BC Racers to start up.
- I also fixed another problem in BC Racers, it seems to use the standard VGA graphics mode, but it sets the horizontal screen size (pitch) to a non-standard value. I fixed this simply so that the active area looks correct, but I did not change the actual screen width that gets shown. You may need to give the CLR command, or start the game with a batch file that sets echo off to clear the screen before starting the game. This would get rid of some extra garbage on the right side of the game screen.
- BC Racers also ettempted to use an undocumented Sound Blaster command 0xE7, which I now silently ignore.
- Sid Meyer's Covert Action game used EGA features in a way that assumed the graphics mode change to have reset the EGA registers in a certain way. I noticed that such a reset was missing in my code, and I implemented that. This got rid of the graphics glitches when selecting menu items. This may have caused also problems running different EGA games after one other, as the graphics registers were not reset properly between the games.
- I also fixed a hang in Syndicate intro. This was caused by a somewhat strange code in the game. It goes through all interrupt vectors, looking for two adjacent vectors that point to the same routine. In rpix86 I have coded every interrupt vector to point to it's own location, which is how I keep track of unimplemented interrupts that games may need. The Syndicate intro did not handle a situation where such vectors were not found, and kept looping trying to find those vectors. I fixed this by zeroing the couple of vectors where the game begins looking for such (as I noticed that those vectors are zeroed in DOSBox). I have no idea what the game uses these vectors for, though.
After I fixed the intro hang in Syndicate I spent some time trying to debug the crash in the beginning of the actual game. It crashes because the protected mode descriptor table contains an invalid descriptor. This however is caused by the game for some reason clearing a single byte from the descriptor, thus actively making it invalid. So, the actual cause is probably somewhere around the code that writes this invalid zero byte to the decriptor, but since fixing this requires me to debug and understand the actual game code, I have not yet had sufficient time to do this. I will try to continue this during the following weeks.
I have also some other games to test and debug, thanks for letting me know of the bugs you find! Some problems are reasonably easy to fix, but some will take quite a lot of debugging to determine the root cause of the problem, so it is quite difficult to estimate how long will it take me to fix a certain game. I am also still on vacation and have had some other plans for spending my vacation besides working on rpix86, so that will also make the progress slower.
Thanks again for your interest in rpix86!
http://rpix86.patrickaalto.com/rblog.html
http://rpix86.patrickaalto.com/rpix86.zip
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July 21st, 2013, 00:14 Posted By: wraggster
If your Raspberry Pi is running a bit hot you can add a few hunks of salvaged heat sink, or you can go all out and machine your own water cooling system.
Remember when everyone had a giant desktop computer which was a perfect receptacle for cool lighting effects and somewhat ridiculous cooling systems? Relive that experience with [Phame's] multi-page forum post that serves as the build log. With the exception of the tiny pump itself, this one’s a fully custom job.
The image on the left shows the machined parts being tried on for side. There is a slug which contacts the ICs on the RPi board, conducting the heat to the chambers inside through which the liquid will flow. The upright rectangular enclosure serves as the reservoir which dissipates the collected heat as the water flows through it. The image on the right shows the finished project. It uses the power pins on the GPIO header to drive the pump.
http://hackaday.com/2013/07/20/water...-raspberry-pi/
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July 20th, 2013, 15:21 Posted By: wraggster
NPD numbers show hardware is hurting; time for the Big Three to cut prices in advance of the holiday season
June adhered to the pattern of the last five years for domestic retail sales of video game hardware and software. NPD reported that once again retail sales of console hardware and software dropped compared to the same month in 2012, with total video game sales (hardware, software, and accessories) down 15 percent. The small crumb of comfort is that sales didn't drop as much as they have in some of the previous months this year, where the results have plunged as much as 44 percent over last year.
Looking more closely at the numbers, the bulk of the reduction came in hardware sales, which is what you would expect with new consoles on the horizon. The odd thing here is that despite continuing sales declines, none of the Big Three have dropped prices on existing consoles. That's the usual circumstance late in a console cycle, when hardware's not moving: Drop the price and find a whole new audience. Apparently, if that's going to happen it will occur closer to the launch of new consoles. For a price change to have any significant impact on holiday sales, it would have to occur by October at the latest. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all signaled that continuing sales of existing current-gen consoles are important. A price cut will certainly boost sales, and it's especially important with new console competition appearing at the low end.
"But will lower hardware pricing really boost sales? Just ask Nintendo"
It would be better for the Big Three to get sales moving sooner, rather than later. Perhaps they are worried about eating into sales of next-gen consoles, but those devices have to sell on their own merits. Yes, cutting prices on current consoles means making less money, but the real profit is in software anyway. When you get $5 or more in profit from each software sale, you can make up for lower hardware margins pretty quickly. But will lower hardware pricing really boost sales? Just ask Nintendo.
Nintendo has certainly worked wonders with the 3DS after a slow start. Sure, the arrival of better software was a big help, but does anyone think the 3DS would be selling well at $249? The price drop was crucial to building momentum and getting more software in development.
Can the same thing happen with the Wii U? It's going to be a more difficult task for several reasons. First, the Wii U has more competition at both lower and higher price points (Xbox 360 and PS3 at the low end, and Xbox One and PS4 at the high end) with vastly larger and more diverse software libraries. Second, since Wii U development is significantly more expensive than 3DS development, it will be harder to rally third-party support. Nintendo will have to supply most of the compelling Wii U software with its own products, which is hard. The company has already admitted development of Wii U titles is taking longer than expected, which is why Pikmin 3 is late, for example.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ice-reductions
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July 20th, 2013, 15:14 Posted By: wraggster
Yes, you read that right. A game is in development that will aid the search for the cure to cancer. In your face, The Mirror.
Cancer Research UK has called in mobile developer Guerilla Tea to create a game that will identify new causes for cancer, thus accelerating research into potential cures.
The object of the game, currently under the working title GeneGame, will be to analyse real gene data from Cancer Research UK.
It will be released in the UK later this year and draws on ideas from the GameJam event Cancer Research UK held back in March.
Cancer Research UK has already attempted a similar initiative with Cell Slider, an website launched last October that asks users to classify archived breast cancer samples.
Over 200,000 people have already made 1.6m classifications through Cell Slider. According to the charity, it would have taken its scientist 18 months to analyse the same information.
Cancer Research UK's director of science information Dr Joanna Reynolds added: "With GeneGame, we are being bolder, braver and bigger and we hope that by the end of the year we'll have a game that not only is fun to play but will crucial role in developing new cancer cures sooner – ultimately saving lives."
http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/video...cancer/0118871
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July 20th, 2013, 15:03 Posted By: wraggster
WigWag has developed a home automation kit that combines a Linux-based 6LoWPAN router with sensor units running the open-source Contiki IoT (Internet of Things) OS. Users can add ZigBee, Bluetooth, and other modules to expand the home network, and the WigWam development kit provides shield development boards for use with Arduino and Raspberry Pi SBCs. Users control the devices with a smartphone app (initially Android-based) and associated WigWag cloud service, which lets the devices remotely respond to sensor-based events such as motion detection, rain, noise, etc. Developers can create rules-based scripts for controlling devices using WigWag's open-source Javascript-based DeviceJS development environment. WigWag used a Kickstarter page to fund production and has already tripled its goal
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/13/0...spi-dev-boards
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July 18th, 2013, 23:50 Posted By: wraggster
The Oculus Rift: it's not just for gaming. Erik Torkel Danielsson, one of the co-founders of Intuitive Aerial, decided to put his shiny new Rift through its paces this week by pairing it with his company's Black Armor Drone. The hexacopter is designed for aerial photography, and the payload is pretty hefty -- attached to the rig are two cameras simultaneously recording video and an onboard laptop. The video is encoded by the laptop and transmitted to the land-based computer via WiFi for display on the Rift. It all sounds pretty nifty, but it's not quite a perfect system yet. There's a latency of about 120 milliseconds, which is feasible for FPV flight, but not ideal. That being said, it's still fun to see the Rift being put to new, innovative uses. To watch Intuitive Aerial's first flight, check out the video after the break.
http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/16/i...ift-fpv-drone/
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