Oculus VR, the crowd-funded virtual reality startup, has started making some big moves since it was picked up by Facebook. First off, the company said it would be acquiring Carbon Design Group - the Seattle based firm that helped Microsoft design Xbox's controller and the Xbox Kinect. Today they're announcing the second acquisition: Raknet, a software-development engine for connecting games across an online network. The technology, which Oculus is now making available to developers open source, enables studios to quickly add voice chat, network patching, and secure connections to their product. While the original news of Facebook's acquisition was shocking to many including myself, it looks like the partnership is genuinely accelerating the development of virtual reality.
The company also just announced their first developer event. "Oculus Connect, a developer conference that brings together engineers, designers, and creatives from around the world to share and collaborate in the interest of creating the best virtual reality experiences possible."
In the last two years, we’ve seen more virtual reality content built than in the last two decades, and that’s a direct result of incredible work by the community. With virtual reality’s momentum at an all-time high, this is a unique moment for the developer community to come together to take the virtual reality to the next level.
Oculus Connect 2014 takes place Sept 19 – 20 at the Loews Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. Attendee applications will be available on the Oculus Connect website, www.oculusvr.com/connect, starting on July 10th and attendance confirmations will go out the following week. We’ve reserved a block of discounted rooms at the Loews for registered guests.
Attendees will be the first to learn about upcoming Oculus technology, with sessions and workshops led by Oculus engineers and industry pioneers. Developers at the event will also have opportunities to receive design and engineering feedback directly from the Oculus team in hands-on labs.
Oculus Connect will also feature keynotes from Brendan Iribe (CEO), Palmer Luckey (Founder), John Carmack (CTO) and Michael Abrash (Chief Scientist) on Oculus, virtual reality, and the future of the medium. The full session list will be announced as we draw closer to the show.
You can get the full details on the official Oculus Connect website, www.oculusvr.com/connect. While the conference is open to the public, be aware this is a developer-centric event. Attendance is limited, but we’ll be livestreaming the keynotes for developers around the world who can’t make it to the show.
If you’re an Oculus developer interested in helping to build the future, we’re looking forward to meeting you in person Sept 19th!
Sources:
http://www.oculusvr.com/blog/announcing-oculus-connect-raknet-open-source-and-e3-2014-awards/