Falcon Army Store is Live

Hey all,

I'm happy to announce that the Falcon Army store is now live!!!

Now you all can start utilizing some of those points you've been earning, on Falcon Army gear, goods, and games

have a look through the store, and start-a-buying

thx, tomnovint

Novint Status

Hey Everyone,

I thought I would write a blog entry to give a high-level, general status update on Novint.

Overall, things are going well. We have been pushing ahead on both sides of our business - the games side of the business (using the Falcon to play video games), and the professional side of the business (our Advanced Products Group, or APG, works on applications outside of games such as military uses of the technology, medical training and visualization, oil/gas visualization, etc).

On the games side of the business, we recently released F-Gen Beta 3 and our first two F-Gen supported games, Left 4 Dead 2 and the original Half-Life. This is a significant milestone for the games side of the business - we have focused most of our development the past year on F-Gen so that we can start to get games out more quickly, and with the first games out, we are well positioned to begin to get a number of additional games out. The first two games utilize F-Gen Tools, which are what provide the force events for the Falcon. We'll need to continue to improve the Tools and add new ones, but releasing the first implementations of F-Gen Tools is a big milestone.

On the APG side of the business, it is going well. We've continued to bring in new contracts and successfully complete ones we already had. There is good potential to continue to grow our professional applications of the technology in the medical fields, military applications, oil/gas applications, etc. I'm optimistic about the growth of the APG in general.

All of that said, the economy is still relatively tough, and about a year ago, we went through a particularly rough patch. We had to downsize the company significantly at that time, and needed to dramatically cut expenses. We have generally gotten back on our feet and I think we are poised to grow, but there are still many challenges in front of us, as a high tech, early stage company. Accounting and auditing fees as a public company on the OTC:BB are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, as an example. I have no doubt that the technological field we are in will be extremely significant, and I am of course still optimistic that it will be us that will bring computer touch on a large scale to computing, but we have had to take a mentality where we have eliminated all expenses that are not absolutely critical. I think this is a good thing to do. Often in the case where you hunker down and focus on working towards growing the company to a break even point, you emerge from the efforts in a much stronger place than you started, and I think that will be true of us as well.

thanks,
Tom Anderson (tomnovint)

Falcon Army Task System is done

The Falcon Army task system is done! This is a big deal for Falcon Army - it is one of the main aspects of the site. To find out more about it, create a Falcon Army account, log in, and click on Tasks in the FA Users menu.

www.falconarmy.com

thanks
tomnovint

F-Gen Beta 2 Officially Released!

Hey Everyone,

We're pleased to announce the release of the F-Gen Beta2 installer. Thanks to you all for your patience in waiting for the update!

There have been many fixes since Beta1, making this new release more solid and stable. Along with all these fixes is comes our all new G-Cube functionality.

You can read some information on F-Gen Manager including notes on the G-Cube Here.

If you are interested in developing F-Gen scripts, you can go through a Tutorial Here.

You can add bugs that you run into for this Beta2 release Here.

You can see some FAQ/Troubleshooting issues with F-Gen Here.

And finally, what you all have been waiting for, you can download the installer Here.

We suggest you uninstall F-Gen Beta1 if you previously installed it, but Please Note if you uninstall F-Gen it will delete all your profiles, so please remember your setings for your profiles so you can transfer them over to Beta2 as Beta1 profiles may not import into Beta2 due to the addition of the G-Cube - sry for this inconvenience. You should not need to uninstall N VeNT Beta1, HDAL SDK 3.0.0, or F-Gen SDK Beta1 if you don't want to.

In terms of tools and games support we have created two different pixel tools. One is simplepixelator.dll that uses getPixel. This is included in the SDK as a very simple example, but please note that if you use this tool in scripts, the getPixel call is very CPU intensive and will bog things down if you try to read a lot of pixels, this tool is intended for simple games with periodic pixel status checks. The other pixel tool can process the entire screen, but due to some Windows development issues, it currently only works in windowed mode. We will post a separate thread on www.falconarmy.com on what the problem is for anyone who is interested.

We are currently working with DickDastardly to use pixel reading with his Left4Dead2 script. The first release of this is recommended (read as required ) to run in windowed mode or windowed without borders, but for what it will add this shouldn't be a problem. This is our next push to get out to you all as soon as it's ready as the first official F-Gen Silver title!

Now we'll be digging into the pixel issues more and we will find an acceptable full screen solution across operating systems. We will also be diving into Shammah's memory reader tool as well as expanding the F-Gen script force support to allow us all to start using F-Gen for it's primary purpose...to get us all more great game support!

We look forward to everyone's feedback on the new F-Gen.

Thanks!

The Novint Team

Pistol Grip Prototype

Hey Everyone, I have some fun pics of a new pistol grip prototype we were playing around with, complete with scroll wheel and some new buttons. We don't have plans to make a consumer version, but it is a fun grip to be playing around with right now.

thx, tomnovint

referral code special

Hey Everyone, for a week, we have a special running where referral code members are selling Falcons for 40% off, rather than the usual 20% off. This is even off our special Christmas pricing!! There is a great deal out there right now for people if you can find someone with a code (they aren't that hard to find ;) )

thanks, tomnovint

F-Gen Overview

I just posted an overview of F-Gen

http://home.novint.com/community/phorum/read.php?6,18444

thx, tomnovint

Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale

Hey Everyone, we have a big sale planned for this Friday, Black Friday, through Cyber Monday, next Monday (11/27 - 11/30). This will be the best sale for the rest of the year on Falcons, so if you have been eyeing getting a Falcon in general, or getting one for the holidays, now is the time to do it!

The Falcon bundle (including the Falcon, pistol grip, Penumbra Overture, and the Orange Box) will retail for...

wait for it...

$99

yes, you heard me right ;) It's our biggest sale ever (while supplies last!) - we're finding that every Falcon that ends up in someone's hands leads to more Falcons being bought by their friends and family from the great word of mouth we get after people try the Falcon, so we're really pushing the envelope for this sale, to get a bunch of Falcons out over the holidays, leading into 2010, and really spur the great word of mouth we're finding we get. Please take advantage of the concept, and give the Falcon a spin.

View the details for the deal here (note that the $99 sale pricing won't be reflected until this Friday, so wait until then to get the deal)
https://home.novint.com/store/promote.php

It's likely going to be a very long time before you see the Falcon at that price again.




There's more good news for Black Friday...
we're doing one of our biggest software releases as well, with a good holiday discount too. Check out the link above on Black Friday to see what the deal is ;)

Novint has a 30 day money back guarantee, for those of you not familiar with the Falcon and want to try it out
http://home.novint.com/novint/guarantee.php

We also have a great referral program. When people get a Falcon they love it. Then they tell their friends. Why not get some extra $$$ for your referrals, to pay off those holiday credit card bills, when your friends pick up a Falcon after playing with yours ;)
http://home.novint.com/novint/referral.php

We just held a contest pitting the Falcon against the mouse in Team Fortress 2, a very popular online First Person Shooter. Few people doubt that the Falcon dramatically improves the experience and immersion of gaming, especially when reading reviews and customer feedback. In the recent contest, however, the Falcon team went 6 and 2 against mouse based teams, which proves that the Falcon can be used very effectively in online multiplayer gaming as well. Way to go Falconers!!!
Here's a video of the Falcon in FPS games
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ1Rz2clLS0
Here's a video of the Falcon in action, with picture in picture, for you online FPS players
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa9H1P-K89s

There are many other genres supported as well.

Finally, one of the most exciting things happening at Novint is our upcoming release of our F-Gen drivers. The F-Gen drivers will allow the Falcon to be used to play any PC game! This is huge for us. We'll still have more of our FalconHD (i.e. hi-def) titles, but F-Gen will allow you to play any of your favorite games with the Falcon. The F-Gen beta version of the drivers will be out before the end of the year.

as always, I answer any questions people have on our message boards, so feel free to post there, or in the comments here on our blog. Perhaps the best way to evaluate the Falcon, is to search the web, and see what actual Falcon users are saying. People that have one almost universally love it and find that it fundamentally changes how they play games. We also have one of the best communities you'll find - a great group of people to interact with, and we want to continue to see it grow :)

thx all,
tomnovint, ceo

Halflife2.Net Grip Contest - Videos/Images

Hey Everyone,

The following is a listing of the videos/images associated with the grip contest entries, which are mentioned in detail in the previous blog posting. Enjoy =)

Winner: gkaee's entry - Sword handle grip




Runner up: Lone Wolf's entry - Pistol Grip with a variety of features



















Honorable Mentions

Moodan's entry - Machine gun grip
























kgwhipp's entry - 3D Scanner grip















The Cake is a Pie's entry - Modified Pistol Grip
















Marler's entry - Revolver Grip













Terrox's entry - TF2 Heavy Head Grip

Halflife2.net grip design contest

Hello everyone, we just finished our judging of the Halflife2.net grip design contest. I’d like to start by thanking Halflife2.net for having us get more involved in their community – We’ve known it as a great site for years, and have recently gotten more involved with the community myself. It has great, intelligent guys running the site, and it is a group we’re very excited to be working with. We’d like to do more event and contests with them in the future.

In the contest, we asked entrants to design a Novint Falcon grip (or handle), to be used with the Novint Falcon. We judged the designs on design appeal and practicality (particularly for where we are in our business, and what we are looking to do), value to end users, aesthetic appeal, effort, and presentation. There were many strong entries – more than I thought we would get. The quality and thought put into them was more than I envisioned as well, so judging was harder than I thought it would be, and people overall did a great job.

In the end, we decided on five honorable mentions, one runner up, and one winner.

Honorable Mentions (in no particular order):

Entry from Mooodan
Moodan’s design was a machine gun type of grip. The reason we liked this one so much was that we felt it captured the spirit of what many people would really like to have in shooters. Novint spends a lot of time on message boards, and we listen to a lot of people’s feedback. Moodan’s design had a lot of detail in it that echoed what many others have described they want to see – this one stood out for the gamer’s perspective and ideas it had. The main issue we see in this design is that it is bulky and could break fairly easily, particularly at the interface to the Falcon. We would have liked to see a description of how the grip could practically attach to the Falcon (e.g. using some type of release system where the handle would come off without damage if tweaked the wrong way). Overall, well done.

Entry from kgwhipp
kgwhipp's design was a non-gaming use of the Falcon, and was particularly insightful as to what the Falcon can do. In essence, the Falcon is a robot, and therefore the handle can be moved and controlled by an application. Kgwhipp’s design took advantage of this fact, and the grip attachment he designed therefore creates a low cost 3D scanner, in which you can scan objects into 3D models into your computer by moving a sensor attached to the Falcon. The presentation on his design was excellent. This is a practical, realistic design that a real business could be developed around. In that sense in particular, it was one of the best submissions. It was an excellent submission, and definitely one of our favorites.

Entry from The Cake is a Pie (his steam name)
The Cake is a Pie’s entry was a grip similar to a pistol grip, however, he designed the buttons to be on the top rather than the sides. Our first impression was that it looked like a great design, but there was some concern that it could have ergonomic issues. However, upon looking further into the presentation, we saw that a real physical clay prototype was developed. That is one of the key efforts in good grip design, and seeing it in his hand showed that ergonomics was both considered, and potentially a feature of the design. Prototypes are critical to this type of design process, and we were impressed with the effort, so this entry was easy to choose as an honorable mention.

Entry from Marler
Marler’s entry was a pistol grip design, with a very classic and stylistic handle. One insight we feel this design has, is in the fact that many different pistol grips can be developed over time, and tailored to specific games. I think this type of grip has a strong place in our longer term line-up, which we envision will include a variety of pistol grip designs, many tailored to specific games. The presentation and drawing, hand drawn and neat and clean, was impressive. Several of the specific design features could be applied across a variety of games. Great design and entry.

Entry from Terrox
Terrox’s entry was funny, and a very clean and well done presentation. We Falconers love Team Fortress 2, as well. It was so well done, we thought it deserved a mention ;)

Runner up:
Entry from Lone Wolf
Lone Wolf’s entry was a pistol grip with a variety of features. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this for us, was the resemblance to prototypes we have done using professional designers. The way the back of the pistol grip is shorter resembles physical prototypes we have made. In our prototypes we envisioned a scroll wheel, similar to Lone Wolf’s track ball. I think this type of grip is in a design category that will be one of our next 4 grips, which pushed it into our runner up entry. The presentation was clean and professional as well. A couple of the design features aren’t perhaps practical, such as the temperature changing module and the pain simulator, but they’re very cool nonetheless. Maybe we actually will find a way to implement those type of features as well. Overall, a strong design and along the lines of where we’re headed, so, well done.

Winner:
Entry from gkaee,
gkaee's entry was a sword handle grip for the Falcon. There were a number of reasons we felt it was the winner of the contest, just edging out the runner up and honorable mentions. First, it is a design that we felt captures a critical direction for Novint. One of the key things we would like to do as a company is give people a sense of immersion across a wide variety of genres. A sword handle represents a class of grip that we feel is important to several game genres, and is therefore is practical and high value in our eyes. It would be a reasonably inexpensive grip to design, which is important. A ball joint attachment was described, which is representative of an aspect of future grips that we envision. This was the only entry with an animated cad model, which was a nice touch in the presentation. We would have liked to have seen more design features in the grip’s industrial and aesthetic design. Also, the bow and arrow enhancement to the grip, although a very cool idea, wasn’t our favorite as the Falcon itself, through its motors, can accurately simulate a bow and arrow in a more realistic way. However, those slight changes didn’t take away from the overall design and presentation, and given it was a design in a different category of gaming grip, it stood out from the rest to become our winner. Congratulations gkaee on winning the contest, and welcome to the Falcon family!!! Let us know what you think, when your Falcon arrives.

You can see images at
http://novintblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/hey-everyone-following-is-listing-of.html

Again, we very much appreciate the interest and participation in the contest. There were many quality entries. Some other entries that didn’t make it into the honorable mentions were great ideas, but didn’t have quite as much polish as other entries. There were also a few funny entries that were appreciated. We’ll be posting images of the entries described here on the Novint blog.

We originally intended to only give out 1 Falcon to the winner (congratulations gkaee!!!), but given how much effort was actually put into these we didn’t feel right not presenting others with something. We decided to give out certificates to the others as follows. There’s no obligation to use the certificates, but for any of those who would like to, we think they’re nice prizes.

Winner: Free Novint Falcon!
Runner Up: $150 certificate towards the purchase of the $199 Falcon bundle.
Honorable Mentions: $125 certificate towards the purchase of the $199 Falcon bundle.
Other entrants: $100 certificate towards the purchase of the $199 Falcon bundle.

Thanks everyone for a great contest, and thanks again to halflife2.net. It was fun to judge
The Novint Team

Novint Falcon in online play

One of the most common questions we get from hardcore gamers is "Is the Falcon competitive in online play?". The answer is 'absolutely'. I've created a video to demonstrate the concept, with picture-in-picture to see how the Falcon is used in those games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oa9H1P-K89s

thx, tomnovint

Novint's games from a 12 year old's perspective

I just posted a thread about our games from a 12 year old's perspective. I think this is a great demographic for us.

http://home.novint.com/community/phorum/read.php?43,15503

thanks, tomnovint

Novint Falcon to control military robots

We put out a nice press release yesterday about how the Novint Falcon can be used to control military robots in a joint project with iRobot

http://home.novint.com/news/press_releases_detail.php?id=386

thx, tomnovint

Keeping in Touch with Novint

Hello Everyone,

I'm writing to summarize Novint's new efforts to keep everyone up to date on all that is happening in the company. There have been a lot of happenings recently, and Novint is growing into new areas, and expanding in others.

One of the challenges for a company like Novint is keeping people up to date on all that we are doing. With how busy everyone is at Novint, it's often hard to find good ways to communicate. Often it is hard to find the time to summarize in a way that is useful, practical, and professional. However, we've begun experimenting on some new methods of communicating that we have been finding effective.


TWITTER
The newest method of communication we're using, that is quickly becoming a primary communication channel for us, is Twitter. One of the challenges in giving updates is finding time to both prepare information and disseminate it. I have been finding that Twitter is a good way to communicate information without a lot of overhead. Each tweet is limited to 140 characters, which keeps it short and simple and forces an natural informality that is nice for many smaller updates. It is a simple thing to pop up a twitter window and post a quick note, and I'm getting into the habit of taking daily events and progress and posting them. I think it is a good way to get out lots of information, realistically, given they are so simple to post. I think it will be a great way for people who are interested in all that is going on at Novint (and also people who want some insight as to what it is like running Novint, which I think is a fun concept) to get that information. For example, when we have our weekly management update phone meeting, I'll continue to tweet the major events of the week as I get updates from Novint's staff. I also tweet on Falcon and game events, message board posts that I find interesting (a great way to keep up on what customers think about Novint without sifting through all the boards yourself), game progress (many customers want to see this info), and anything else of interest to anyone who wants to know about Novint.

To encourage more people to learn about and follow our Tweets, we are going to be giving away a Falcon in which only our twitter followers (i.e. a listed follower in Twitter) are eligible ;)
you can follow us on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/tomnovint

to follow us on Twitter, get a Twitter account, and add us to your following list. It's simple.
We also came across a nice tool for keeping up to date on our tweets and blog postings - very simple to use.
http://www.feedmyinbox.com/
go to the site, and list your email and any sites you want to keep track of (such as our blog, or our twitter page), and you'll be sent daily emails when there are new postings.


MESSAGE BOARDS
Our message boards are very active, and are growing daily. I personally read and answer all message board posts, which is a very big undertaking, but which also fits with the spirit of how we are developing a very strong community, and the importance I see in it. Right now, every Falcon user can have direct access to the CEO - I hope to be able to keep this up for a long time to come (even if we eventually have to set more rules on when/how you can post, but for now it's unrestricted). I see our community as a key area to our growth in the future, which is why we put so much effort into it. If you have a question about Novint and our products, post it and you'll get an answer. I think you will find that we are particularly strong at directly sharing information with people who want to know about it. It's a valuable resource to customers and anyone interested in Novint, and the level at which we do it is very unique even in today's high tech, fast paced world.
http://home.novint.com/community/message_boards.php


NOVINT'S BLOG
In addition to our Message Boards, we have a Blog (obviously :) ). If you only want to know the bigger events for Novint, and you're not as interested in the Play by Play from our Tweets and our message boards, the Blog is a good information channel for you.


EMAILS
Sign up for our email list at
http://home.novint.com/novint/stay_in_touch.php
We don't send many emails out, so it is for important events or messages regarding Novint, without clogging your inbox with spam.

NOVINT FALCON REFERRAL PROGRAM
Want to make money selling Falcons? Want to earn a free Falcon? Want to try a Falcon in your local area before you buy it? Learn more here:
http://home.novint.com/novint/referral.php


SALES INFORMATION
If you're thinking about buying a Falcon, or if you generally want to learn more about the Falcon, our grips, or our games, you can email our new sales email to get more information: falconsales[at]novint[dot]com


CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Customer support is a cornerstone building block we will build the company on. Novint treats people the way we all want to be treated! If you need help with your Falcon or Falcon games, please contact us at customersupport[at]novint[dot]com


Thank you for your continued support and interest in Novint. Post a message board post, if you have any comments/questions ;)

thx, tomnovint

Novint on Twitter

Hey all, I've started a Twitter page to update happenings at Novint on a more regular basis.

www.twitter.com/tomnovint

have a look, and hope people like it.

thanks all, tomnovint

Novint Team Fortress 2 contest

Hey all, we've started the sign-ups for our contest pitting the mouse vs the Falcon. Have a look ;)

Steam TF2 contest discussion thread
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=948653
Steam TF2 contest entry thread
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=966116

Novint TF2 discussion thread
http://home.novint.com/community/phorum/read.php?2,12074
Novint TF2 entry thread
http://home.novint.com/community/phorum/read.php?2,13018

Edge Gamers TF2 discussion thread
http://www.edgegamers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=98346
Edge Gamers TF2 entry thread
http://www.edgegamers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=101380

Halflife2.net discussion thread
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=159860
Halflife2.net contest entry thread
http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=160704


thanks, tomnovint

Big new games out and new project

Hey All, we're very pleased to let you know that two big games now have Falcon support - Last week Counter Strike: Source support for the Falcon was released, and today Battlefield 2 support was released. These are a couple of the biggest online games ever, so we're very excited to have Falcon support for them.

Also, Novint announced today that we got a new SBIR subcontract to develop an XBox 360 rehabilitation application.
http://home.novint.com/news/press_releases_detail.php?id=385

thanks all
tomnovint

Left 4 Dead support is here

Hey Everyone, Left 4 Dead support is officially here!!

http://home.novint.com/news/press_releases_detail.php?id=384

it's one of our most popular games from early testing, so it should be a great game for us.

thanks
tomnovint

International Sales

Hey Everyone, international sales are up on our site. If you live outside the US, you can now buy a Falcon directly off our site!! There is a special promotion through the end of the week, that allows people to buy a bundle with a lot of extra software, and if you search for referral codes to get a discount, you can find them. thx, tomnovint

Falcon in GI Joe

Hey all, I just heard (haven't seen it yet), that the Falcon is in the new GI Joe movie! pretty cool stuff. It's part of a lab where they do alterations on one of the bad guys, I'm told. It's a movie I was planning on seeing, but definitely will see now. This is the Falcon's 2nd movie (Meet Dave, being the first). Hopefully its performance will live up to the first performance - can't wait to see it myself. thx, tomnovint