News::HTC and Valve's Vive VR system passes through the FCC

Getting certified by the Federal Communications Commission for safe use is a rite of passage for every legal gizmo, and the joint virtual reality project from HTC and Valve, the Vive, recently passed by the regulatory agency. It's a requirement for any product to be sold and typically happens in the run up to consumer release, which backs up HTC's promise of an April launch window for the Vive headset and its Lightroom controller-and-motion-tracking tech. Road to VR writes that certification was expected to face a few challenges given the nature of its laser tracking and possible safety issues. But hey, I wouldn't be writing this if those perceived hurdles hadn't been cleared.

Via: Road to VR

Source: Federal Communications Commission

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News::Steam's Christmas privacy issues affected 34,000 users

On Christmas day, up to 34,000 Steam members were able to view other users' private information, including billing and email addresses, following a glitch triggered by a denial-of-service attack, Valve announced today. On the day of the attack, Valve said that the glitch was the result of a caching issue, and that users were able to view strangers' information, though they couldn't take action on other people's accounts. Valve's update today clarifies the caching issue, attributing it to the DoS attack.

Via: NeoGAF

Source: Steam

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News::'Halo: Reach' runs poorly on the Xbox One

The Xbox One's backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games has largely worked as promised, but there's now one glaring exception. Microsoft has confirmed reports that Halo: Reach (aka one of the 360's biggest titles) runs much slower than you'd expect. While talk of it being "unplayable" is extreme, Bungie's shooter fell from a largely steady 30 frames per second on the original hardware to the mid-teens -- enough to throw you off during intense action scenes. Others report audio glitches, too.

Source: Reddit, Kotaku

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