developer

Street Fighter II developer jailed for withholding staff pay

The head of gaming company Sensory Sweep Studio has landed in jail after not paying his workers a combined sum of $1.2 million.

According to the Associated Press, David Rushton, 57, who operated out of Salt Lake City, Utah, withheld pay from his staff of 211 people.

"We had occasional paychecks that trickled in. Some people were favored more than others," former Sensory Sweep Studio game designer Adam Hunter told the Associated Press. He quit working for Rushton in 2009 and is still owed $12,000.

Sensory Sweep Studio created several games for Nintendo, PlayStation, and Xbox, … Read more

Facebook releases major update to Android developer tools

Facebook released an app developer kit update today that gives Android developers access to pre-built app functions and a mobile ad tool similar to what iOS developers already use.

The update, the biggest for the Android toolkit so far, comes weeks after the social network gave iOS developers a similar boost. It allows developers to create apps that functions more as a built-in part of the operating system rather than as an afterthought.

These features include a friend picker, places picker, profile pictures, and login controls. Developers build apps faster by dropping these elements into their apps. The new … Read more

Facebook hackathon yields apps for your likes and connections

Facebook developers from Taipei, Taiwan; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Moscow have won Facebook's worldwide hackathon, with apps that let users bookmark "Likes," tell stories, and analyze connections.

The social network announced its winners today after holding the competition in 12 cities, including Moscow, where Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made an appearance. Facebook works hard to keep up its hacker culture even as it continues to grow and to face pressure to make money.

As part of that culture, the social network holds hackathons -- all-night programming competitions -- to surface the outside talents and encourage the development … Read more

Samsung official cites serious chip rift with Apple -- report

Samsung's multibillion dollar component supplier partnership with Apple is beginning to unravel, according to a South Korea-based report, which quotes a Samsung official.

Though Samsung makes Apple's newest A6 chip used in the iPhone 5, the relationship between the two companies has changed substantially, according to a report in Korea Times.

"Apple...has made it clear it will no longer use its rival's technology, according to a senior Samsung official," the report said.

The report continues, quoting an anonymous Samsung official speaking about the A6 chip. "Apple did all the design and we are … Read more

Facebook unfriended us, company claims in contract suit

A Facebook developer is suing the social network, claiming the company damaged its business when it abruptly abruptly terminated a multi-year deal that gave the company access to Facebook data.

Profile Technology, a New Zealand-based company that says it created the first ever independent Facebook search engine, said the social networking giant suddenly cut off its access in late 2010, then embarked "on a campaign of destruction" to damage its reputation.

The company is asking for damages with an unspecified dollar amount, but that include compensation for lost profits following when Facebook allegedly cut off its access without … Read more

Microsoft VP: 100,000 Windows 8 apps by January

As of last week, there were an estimated 3,000-plus Windows Store style (Metro-Style) apps in the app store that Microsoft has built for Windows 8 and Windows RT. That same week, a Microsoft sales vice president told Beet.tv that Microsoft will have 100,000 apps for Windows 8 within 90 days after the operating system launches, which is October 25.

Unless that official, Keith Lorizio, vice-president of U.S. sales and marketing at Microsoft, is counting both Windows Store and Desktop (Win 32) apps, I can't see how these missing 97,000 apps are going to materialize … Read more

How Facebook knows which apps you want

Facebook says its app recommendation engine, which runs on your data, has become a major way for developers to get to the millions of users who visit the App Center each month.

In a developers blog post today, Facebook estimates that every month, some 220 million people visit the App Center, which went live in the U.S. in May and globally in August.

"We built the App Center to give the growing audience of app users a central place on Facebook to browse apps. However, given the multitude of apps that use Facebook, recommending the right apps to … Read more

App.net will begin paying out $20K monthly to app developers

App.net, an alternative social network, today rolled out a financial incentive plan to persuade developers to build on apps on its APIs.

Next month, the program will begin distributing $20,000 a month to eligible App.net developers, with payouts to individual developers varying based on user satisfaction with the apps, App.net founder Dalton Caldwell said in a company blog post detailing the program.

"The goal of this program is to financially reward the development of great App.net applications," Caldwell said.

Deciding on a metric to determine which developers deserved the greatest reward for creating &… Read more

Facebook shows iOS developers some love

Facebook released a new developer kit today that will make it easier to integrate Facebook into apps running on iOS 6.

This upgrade, which Facebook says is its most significant ever, means developers can create apps that functions more as a built-in part of the operating system rather than as an afterthought. Facebook said this will drive installs and encourage users to spend more time on apps.

"This integration opens up new opportunities for mobile app developers as you can easily build the foundation for a social app, Facebook log-in and sharing functionality, into your product," Platform Product … Read more