original image courtesy of alltechrelated
For those of us still backing Microsoft on the MP3 player market, the Zune HD may have a little life left. After a recent firmware update that added support for Dixv/Xvid files natively along with smart DJ and a few other things we may still have hope for something on the horizon. While I love my Zune for playing music and movies, there isn’t really much else I do with it. The App market is so small, I think I can count the apps on one hand while stating the actual names of the 3 apps I actually use. They are all in are games anyway and usually kill time when I don’t have enough to watch a show or movie.
Well, after what seems like forever the Zune HD has finally been hacked. Actually, this hack applies to all Zune models but of course limits the original series.(no Tegra) Up until recently, developers were forced to use XNA for developement. Which in human terms meant no access to 3D, no internet, and no use of the performance features of the hardware. I would think that a developer wouldn’t even waste his time working on stuff using this, which is probably why we really have no apps. Well, finally all that has changed with the OpenZDK development kit. Basically its everything that XNA was not. The new platform will take full use of the Tegra platform and hopefully breakout the capabilities that are bottled up within.
Only 4 days after the OpenZDK was released, a Zuneboards forum member “Netrix” has ported over the original Doom 3D. Although Doom is nothing stay up all night playing, it’s a start for those of us looking to see the true potential of the Microsoft Zune HD. With the full power of the Tegra APX2600 unleashed, we should see some custom vertex and fragment shaders with OpenGL ES 2.0 use. That means better games and possibly some really cool apps. Games is really what I’m concerned with since I have a smartphone for my app addiction. I cant wait to get some console emulation going on my ZuneHD. More to come, hopefully.
via Zuneboards, Engadget
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