Consumer electronics company HTC today announced the Global Viveport Development Awards, an upcoming event that will honor standout virtual reality applications created for the HTC Vive VR headset.
HTC hopes that the competition will inspire programmers and designers to explore the world of VR development, and the company is offering up a $500,000 prize pool for finalists.
Today’s announcement of the Global Viveport Development Awards follows up on HTC’s recent launch of Viveport, an online storefront and showcase for HTC Vive applications. Viveport serves as an alternative to Valve’s Steam, which became a de facto hub for VR games and applications over the last several months.
HTC now offers developers additional incentive to distribute their creations through Viveport with its Development Awards, which will honor winning apps with prominent store placement and advertising, in addition to its promised slate of cash prizes.
Developers are eligible to win awards across multiple Viveport categories, including Discover, Create, Connect, Watch, and Shop. Each individual category has its own standards and prerequisites, and the best apps from each will enter a final round for a shot at HTC’s prize pool.
HTC notes that it will select five finalists from each Viveport category “based on customer engagement and the VR experience.” Nominees will then go on to a final round of competition where an HTC-selected jury will pick the contest’s winners in early 2017.
“I am thrilled to see how Viveport is passionate about creating success for developers,” said Visionary VR co-founder Gil Baron. “The Viveport Developer Awards is an excellent opportunity for developers like us to feel appreciated, and benefit from the global marketing and promotion.”
Contestants can submit their VR creations via Viveport’s online community, and new developers can sign up for Viveport here.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.