No time rift: Doom creator leaves id Software to focus on Oculus Rift

Doom creator John Carmack won't have his time divided between id Software and Oculus VR anymore, as he has resigned from the two-letter software company to focus on Oculus Rift.

"John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned," wrote id Studio Director Tim Willits in a statement to TechRadar.

"His departure will not affect any current projects," noted Willits, who made a point to say that work on the studio's proprietary game engine, Tech 5, won't be affected.

"As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well."

Carmack: 'Probably for the best'

Carmack's departure from the software company he co-founded in 1991 seemed to be more abrupt when looking at his Twitter account, @ID_AA_Carmack, a handle that may change in time

"I wanted to remain a technical adviser for Id, but it just didn't work out. Probably for the best, as the divided focus was challenging," he tweeted.

But the move isn't a total surprise. Carmack made the fan-to-executive transition this summer, officially joining the Oculus Rift team as CTO.

Carmack has envisioned an untethered Android future with Oculus Rift being powered by Android and a system-on-a-chip, and sees a lot of potential in the head mounted display.

Now he has a lot more time to act on that.

This may not be the last Quake fans see of Carmack at id's annual QuakeCon event. He teased on Twitter, "If they don't want me to talk on stage at Quakecon next year, we'll just have to fill up the lobby like the old days."

• Must-read: Oculus Rift creator hints at moving beyond keyboards and controllers.

Software Vendors, Take Note: Security Features are as Important as Performance Ones in Purchasing Decisions

by JohnLinkous

In recent weeks, Google has once again stepped up to theplate of information security by demonstrating that they are a responsiblesoftware vendor. First, the company dramatically increased their bounty onvulnerability discovery, incentivizing white-hat hackers to discover black-boxissues within their entire suite of products. Next, Google took a strong standtoward information security awareness, reminding customers to maintain arelatively complex personal password policy for all online services.

Microsoft was not far behind, initiating a bug bountyprogram with substantial payouts – up to $100,000 per discovery – fordiscovering vulnerabilities across all layers of their product stack includingcore security services, OS and browser, and individual applications. Unlikeprevious “BlueHat” programs, this appears to be a perpetual offering, and willinclude both production and beta-release software to help ensure that softwaregoes gold with minimal security vulnerabilities.

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