Oculus VR announces Mobile SDK and the Gear VR headset at $199
Oculus VR has just gone live with the mobile SDK aimed at bringing developers to the Samsung Gear VR–a mobile device that is essentially someone strapping a Galaxy Note 4 to their face. The mobile SDK represents a year of collaboration with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. to bring 3D technology to mobile.
Interested innovators can also pre-register to purchase the Gear VR now which comes in two versions: a basic $199 no-frills standalone, or a $249 version that comes with an integrated Bluetooth controller.
The SDK includes the full-source code for Oculus Cinema, Oculus 360 Photos, and Oculus 360 Videos under an open license. We’ve done this so that you can jump-start your own VR app development.
Other features of the SDK include asynchronous timewarp, direct front buffer rendering, clock frequency locking, GPU context priorities, Real-time GPU context switching, real-time CPU threading, and direct warped content. For those developers not in the know, “timewarp” is a function of the VR SDK that allows for quicker updating of the VR scene to the movement of the users head—without this the scene would update a little bit slower than the users eyes and this is a prime cause of vertigo. The rest of the features are further quality-of-life improvements which take advantage of Samsung hardware.
The Oculus Mobile SDK v0.40 is now available from the Oculus Developer Center.
Oculus VR moving forward swiftly with new software and development
Since Oculus VR was purchased by Facebook, Inc. the VR company has certainly not been sitting still.
Aside from collaborating with Samsung on the Gear VR, the company has been working on acquiring its way to build a better product. In June, Oculus VR acquired Carbon Design Group, the design firm behind the Xbox 360 controller and the original Kinect.
Then, in July of this year, Oculus VR ran its first developer conference to bring together some of the best minds in the VR innovation space.
The upcoming release of Gear VR promises to be one of the first in a long line of developments from Oculus VR and its parent company Facebook.
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