Programmer Kickstarts an updated version of Xiki
Craig Muth, who created the open-source Xiki shell console with GUI features, is now using Kickstarter to raise US$80,000 for a new and improved version of Xiki.

The shell console brings tools, languages, shells and text editors together instead of competing with them, according to Muth. With the Kickstarter money, Muth plans to create Xiki plugins for Sublime and Vim; improve the installer, user experience and integration of the shell; and refactor its core.

“The money will let me dedicate the time needed to bring this next, drastically improved, version of Xiki to the world,” Muth wrote on the Kickstarter page. —Christina Mulligan

Oculus announces Oculus Connect and open sources RakNet
Oculus VR announced its first developer conference, Oculus Connect, to take place Sept. 19-20, 2014 in Hollywood, Calif.

“With virtual reality’s momentum at an all-time high, this is a unique moment for the developer community to come together to take the virtual reality to the next level,” the company wrote on its blog.

The conference will include information about upcoming Oculus technology, sessions, workshops and hands-on labs for developers to receive design and engineering feedback from the Oculus team.

Oculus also announced the acquisition of RakNet, a comprehensive C++ game networking engine. As part of the acquisition, RakNet is now open source and available on GitHub. Features include remote procedure calls, object replication, secure connections, voice chat and real-time SQL logging. —Christina Mulligan

Tablet sales to surpass PC sales in 2015
Gartner has published its latest predictions for global PC, tablet, mobile and ultramobile shipments, and predicts that 2015 is the year more tablets will be sold than PCs. It predicts there will be about 321,000 tablets sold in 2015 compared to 317,000 PCs. While sales are declining for PCs, Gartner says PCs will see a slight resurgence in 2014. The global PC market is on track to decline by only 2.9% in 2014 as opposed to 9.5 percent in 2013.

Other predictions include that PC, tab, ultramobile and le phone shipments will grow 4.2 percent in 2014, sales of mobile phones will reach 1.9 billion, and Android and iOS will see a 30 percent and 15 percent increase in 2014. —Christina Mulligan