Month: May 2013

An Open Sourced HTML5 Gaming design engine… cool!

Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source

“Some of the best things in the world are open source — that is to say that the basic code or instructions for it are available for everyone to use for free. Google’s Android operating system, for example, is open to anyone who wants to use it. That provides companies like Amazon and Ouya with the base infrastructure they needed to create unique software for their consumer-electronic devices.

In gaming, open-source code can lead to a lot of experimentation from smaller developers. That is what technology firm Turbulenz is hoping for. The company revealed today that it is making its HTML5 gaming engine, also called Turbulenz, open and available to everyone.

‘HTML5 isn’t about tech demos anymore,’ Turbulenz chief executive James Austin told GamesBeat. ‘With the Turbulenz Engine, it’s powering a new generation of high quality and engaging content accessible instantly online.’

The rendering code is available now to download from Github. Several developers already use Turbulenz to power their 2D and 3D HTML5 games on tablets, on smartphones, and in browsers.

‘The Turbulenz Engine contains an extensive range of features and services for creating games,’ Turbulenz chief executive James Austin said in a statement. ‘The engine was designed to be a complete Internet generation game engine. By this, we mean a game engine that was conceived, designed, and implemented specifically for building games that are played via the Internet using web technologies, rather than as a native application on a console or PC.’

Austin and his team designed Turbulenz with performance and modularity in mind. Basically, that means the engine is malleable and can meet many different developers’ needs while maintaining a decent framerate.”

I’ve seen TV shows on this, it has been discussed… “What if you could print a non-metal gun?” Well, now you can! Scary? Yes. Geeky? Yes.

Photos are available in the article at the link below.

This Is The World’s First Entirely 3D-Printed Gun (Photos)

“Eight months ago, Cody Wilson set out to create the world’s first entirely 3D-printable handgun.

Now he has.

Early next week, Wilson, a 25-year University of Texas law student and founder of the non-profit group Defense Distributed, plans to release the 3D-printable CAD files for a gun he calls ‘the Liberator,’ pictured in its initial form above. He’s agreed to let me document the process of the gun’s creation, so long as I don’t publish details of its mechanics or its testing until it’s been proven to work reliably and the file has been uploaded to Defense Distributed’s online collection of printable gun blueprints at Defcad.org.

All sixteen pieces of the Liberator prototype were printed in ABS plastic with a Dimension SST printer from 3D printing company Stratasys, with the exception of a single nail that’s used as a firing pin. The gun is designed to fire standard handgun rounds, using interchangeable barrels for different calibers of ammunition.

Technically, Defense Distributed’s gun has one other non-printed component: the group added a six ounce chunk of steel into the body to make it detectable by metal detectors in order to comply with the Undetectable Firearms Act. In March, the group also obtained a federal firearms license, making it a legal gun manufacturer.

Of course, Defcad’s users may not adhere to so many rules. Once the file is online, anyone will be able to download and print the gun in the privacy of their garage, legally or not, with no serial number, background check, or other regulatory hurdles. ‘You can print a lethal device,’ Wilson told me last summer. ‘It’s kind of scary, but that’s what we’re aiming to show.’

Since it was founded last August, Wilson’s group has sought to make as many components of a gun as possible into printable blueprints and to host those controversial files online, thwarting gun laws and blurring the lines between the regulation of firearms and information censorship. So far those pieces have included high capacity ammunition magazines for AR-15s and AK-47s, as well as an AR lower receiver, the body of that semi-automatic rifle to which off-the-shelf components like a stock and barrel can be attached.

Those early experiments have made Cody Wilson into one of the most controversial figures in the 3D printing community. In October of last year, Stratasys seized a printer it had rented to Defense Distributed after the company learned how its machine was being used. New York congressman Steve Israel has responded to Defense Distributed’s work by introducing a bill that would renew the Undetectable Firearms Act with new provisions aimed specifically at 3D printed components. In January, personal 3D printing firm Makerbot removed all gun components from Thingiverse, its popular site for hosting users’ printable designs.

All of that opposition has only made Wilson more eager to prove the possibility of a 3D printed firearm. ‘Everyone talks about the 3D printing revolution. Well, what did you think would happen when everyone has the means of production?’ Wilson asked when we spoke earlier in the week. ‘I’m interested to see what the potential for this tool really is. Can it print a gun?’

It seems that it can.”