Oculus VR has announced its Oculus Connect event and a new acquisition

Oculus made a couple of announcements today, including the acquisition of middleware game-network technology provider RakNet, which powers cross-platform voice chat, SQL logging, secure connectivity and more for a number of indie companies and bigger devs, including Mojang and Sony Online Entertainment. Oculus also announced its first developer conference, the Oculus Connect event, which will take place September 19 and 20 in Hollywood, Californian. Oculus Connect will give developers access to sessions with in-house Oculus engineers and other VR industry pioneers, including labs where devs can get direct feedback and hands-on time with their software and Oculus employers. The conference will begin accepting applications from perspective attendees on July 10, and will send confirmations to those accepted the following week.

As the latest Oculus Rift development kits begin shipping, Oculus VR has made a pair of important announcements for up-and-coming virtual reality developers. First, the company will be hosting a new VR development conference later this year. Called Oculus Connect, the conference will feature “sessions and workshops led by Oculus engineers and industry pioneers,” as well as keynotes from Oculus founder Palmer Lucky, CEO Brendan Iribe, chief scientist Michael Abrash and, of course, John Carmack. Oculus Connect 2014 runs September 19-20, and registration begins July 10. Alongside Oculus Connect, the company also announced the acquisition of RakNet, a C++ networking middleware system for game development. Essentially, the system provides developers the essentials for implementing online multiplayer (voice chat, object replication, etc). The system is currently used by companies like Sony Online Entertainment, Mojang and even Lockheed Martin. More important than the acquisition, however, is Oculus VR’s decision to make RakNet open source, starting today. Interested developers can snag it right now from Oculus’ GitHub.