Author: Sam Machkovech

In the race to the top of virtual reality, Oculus and HTC have kicked off a hardware showdown the likes of which we haven't seen since the "Nintendon't" days. However, the war includes a curious compatibility issue: HTC's current software hub, SteamVR, can be accessible by Oculus headset wearers, but Oculus Home doesn't currently support the HTC Vive.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has publicly stated that "we can only extend our SDK to work with other headsets if the manufacturer allows us to do so," seemingly passing the buck to HTC and Valve in regards to why its Oculus Store games don't natively support the other leading PC headset. Valve has denied this assertion. Either way, we no longer have to wait for the companies to settle their legal and licensing differences, thanks to the efforts of the LibreVR plug-in, dubbed Revive.

Short version: It works, as proven by the above screenshot we snapped of pack-in Oculus game Lucky's Tale running within the SteamVR interface (complete with its "chaperone" boundary lines). The author's test system, which includes a 4.2 GHz i7 processor and a GTX 980Ti, ran all test games without hitches in performance, while other users have reported similarly smooth performance on "VR-ready" Windows 10 PCs.

Game console revisions are pretty standard stuff, combining improved manufacturing processes, smaller form factors, and lower prices to keep sales going strong. However, rumblings about a PlayStation 4K and vague statements about the Xbox One's hardware future make this generation's revision possibilities a lot more tantalizing than usual.

At least on the Xbox side of things, we have one more piece of information thanks to a crafty German user at the famed NeoGAF gaming forums. On Tuesday, "Mike R" noticed two FCC filings by Microsoft, both filed in March, for wireless radio devices. The filing for part number 1683 appears to have clear ties to the original Xbox One's WLAN module FCC filing, as both include a 202kB "user manual" PDF with a "1525" model number designation—and in the old filing's case, that brings up a guide to the Xbox One's legal warnings.

The other FCC filing for part number 1682 has a few differences, including a longer list of attached "exhibits" and a lack of that specific user manual PDF—but it has other commonalities, including another "User Manual (system) rev" PDF that is 213kB in both filings. The 1682 filing has a short-term confidentiality request that expires on June 25, weeks after the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo, while the 1683 filing's confidentiality won't expire until July 29.

After upgrading its supercomputing core in 2015, the National Weather Service is continuing its lumbering slog toward modern systems in a far different way: by saying goodbye to teletype.

After more than two decades of trying, the NWS has finally made every upgrade needed in both the hardware and software chain to remove an all-caps requirement from forecasts and other warnings. The service's Monday announcement kicked off the 30-day transition period that is being given so that customers and subscribers can prepare for the change to mixed-case lettering in all NWS announcements, meaning we'll see the change begin to propagate on May 11.

All-caps messaging was previously required due to the NWS' reliance on teletype machines, which broadcast their text over phone lines and weren't built to recognize upper or lower cases of letters. In addition to removing teletype machines from the information chain, the NWS also had to upgrade its AWIPS 2 software system across the board to recognize mixed-type submissions.

If you've just come here to play one of the cooler story-mystery games in recent history, head to game developer Lucas Pope's website as soon as you possibly can to download the first public demo of his new game, Return of the Obra Dinn, for free on Windows and OS X.

We've been eagerly awaiting a chance to try the game again after enjoying its 15-minute demo at last month's Game Developers Conference. Pope's game-making reputation precedes him, thanks to his one-two punch of the touchscreen masterwork Helsing's Fire and Ars' choice for 2013 game of the year Papers, Please. Still, we had no idea what to expect—especially from a new game so graphically rudimentary, it makes the lo-fi Papers, Please look like a piece of classic art in comparison.

"A lot of the work in making this game has been so that when a player sits down, they don't think immediately, 'why is this game in one-bit?'" Pope said to Ars during a GDC interview. "'I can't fucking see anything. Just give me more colors so I can tell what's going on. I don't care about the stupid art style.'"

SEATTLE—Between world-class transit cities like New York and sprawling, highway-filled metropolises like Houston sits a mobility middle-ground. Sometimes, a dense city quickly grows beyond its means and you end up with a population explosion—with a glut of road-rage issues to match.

What's a person to do if they want to ditch their car in a city full of traffic and parking issues—particularly my hometown of Seattle, which is going through transit nightmares thanks to a tech-hiring boom—but can't depend on lagging buses and trains? For roughly six years, Car2Go (owned by Daimler AG) has offered its car-sharing service in Seattle and other cities around the world as an in-between option. Now, German rival BMW apparently wants in on this action in North America. After a beta trial in San Francisco throughout 2015, BMW's ReachNow service officially launched in Seattle on Friday, and I proceeded to take it for a weekend-long spin.

While the service's weirdest and most intriguing offerings are still a ways off, the basic idea—pay by the minute to cruise in a BMW—has already accelerated smoothly from 0 to 60 MPH. Well, that's except for the time I almost got a moving violation ticket.

Critical backlash against Oculus's privacy policy reached Capitol Hill on Thursday, when Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) demanded that Oculus and its parent company Facebook answer for the data its new headset collects from virtual reality users.

"Oculus’ creation of an immersive virtual reality experience is an exciting development," Franken wrote in an open letter to Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, "but it remains important to understand the extent to which Oculus may be collecting Americans’ personal information, including sensitive location data, and sharing that information with third parties."

The question is, what exactly is Oculus asking to collect—and how much worse is it compared to other online services' EULAs?

This E3 2015 video includes footage of Sam's attempts to build a VR bicycle on his second demo with Tilt Brush. Video shot/edited by Jennifer Hahn. (video link)

History shows that if you want to impress the world with a brand-new way of computing, you better pack in some painting software. MacPaint made us believe in the Macintosh's GUI and mouse. Educational, art-driven software like Hypercard, Hyperstudio, and Kid Pix dominated school computer labs for years. Even the pre-installed sensation that is Microsoft Paint gets mileage to this day, if mostly for comical effect.

These applications weren't just fun to mess with, they also made it fun to learn how to use a mouse—that thing you use pretty much every day. That, above all else, is why Tilt Brush can safely be called the HTC Vive's killer app. It serves the same educational role for motion-tracked controllers.

(video link)

LOS ANGELES—Delays, departures, and public rumblings are enough to make any game series fan apprehensive about a sequel—especially one like Uncharted 4, whose actual gameplay has been kept at arm's length ever since a December 2014 reveal.

With the game's May 10 launch looming, Naughty Dog finally put controllers in hands of the press at a private event last week. While the demo didn't include much plot or dialogue, it emphasized new ways for series hero Nathan Drake to trot the globe—some stealthier than others—and they all felt pretty fun.

Quantum Break is a triumph in sci-fi gaming. Humanity, mystery, and scientific wizardry round out the plot’s best beats, and a jaw-dropping visual engine powers a few truly iconic sequences—ones that may even be cited for the next few years of the “games as cinema” conversation.

Quantum Break is also a mess. There’s not a ton of game to be found here, and it doesn’t take long to figure out why that’s the case. Worse, the developers’ focus on player choice and live-action TV segments offers way too little payoff—and threatens to derail new players before they can sink their teeth into the game’s best bits.

Only in a game like Quantum Break does that type of duality make sense. This is a universe where timelines criss-cross and where player decisions can create plot schisms. The Quantum Break we finally got, after years of teases and delays, floats in a time-frozen world where its two sides stare menacingly at each other: overblown corporate slop on one side of the time divide, and a big universe with a big heart on the other.

Nintendo fans have clamored for years about wanting their favorite game developer to put something out on modern smartphones, and they finally got their wish on Thursday—though only technically—in the form of Miitomo. The company's first-ever official smartphone app launched on the same day as its brand-new "My Nintendo" rewards site, but while the app looks like one of Nintendo's life-sim curios, it plays more like a social network.

Miitomo stylistically compares a lot to its odd 3DS-exclusive game Tomodachi Life, in that it revolves around Nintendo's "Mii" characters and their humdrum, everyday interactions with each other. However, unlike Nintendo-produced titles like Animal Crossing and Tomodachi Life, players get pretty much zero game-like systems to interact with, and they do not create any of their in-game peers or neighbors.

Instead, Miitomo revolves almost entirely around adding Miitomo-using friends to your network and buying clothes. After loading a Mii character into the game, either by importing it from a Nintendo account or by drawing it within the app, players are asked to add friends by attaching a Facebook or Twitter account, and they then come to learn that the app's major interaction is in the form of answering random life questions posed by your own Mii character. Those answers are then sent to any confirmed friends' Miitomo accounts, which they can then "like" in order to earn coin bonuses for both sides.