Welcome to DeveloperEconomics’ weekly news roundup. In this edition, Blackstorm raises $33.5m for a ‘post-app store”, Razer launches a new fund for VR and gaming start-ups and Kony releases a new survey on the challenges of wearable development. Read on for the full news rundown.

Blackstorm raises $33.5m for ‘post-app store’ platform

Blackstorm has raised $33.5 million for what it calls a “post app store” solution, letting developers share apps outside of typical store fronts. Blackstorm offers a universal IDE designed to create apps that are shared across different distribution channels, such as messaging apps and mobile browsers. The company says its goal is to power “the infrastructure to trade and distribute software to all the post app-store platforms.”

Aruba announces platform to accelerate enterprise IoT adoption

HP’s Aruba has released the Aruba Mobile First platform, which aims to build a dev eco-system around its ArubaOS operating system. Aruba says the platform, which incorporates ArubaOS 8, lets third party devs quickly improve apps or create new ones based on its wireless networking technologies. The platform also collects data from IoT and mobile devices and customises networking functions dynamically in real time.

Google issues Nougat security update

Google has released a security update for Android Nougat. The update fixed a vulnerability that could enable remote code execution on an affected device. However, Google added that it’s had no reports of active customer exploitation or abuse of the fixed issues.

Korean firms consider legal action over Apple’s API policy

A group of Korean financial tech firms are reportedly launching a complaint to state regulators against Apple’s closed API policy around NFC functions. The companies complain that Apple is blocking providers such as Samsung Card and BC Card from accessing the NFC features. A similar complaint was previously lodged by Australian banks with regulators in the country.

PerfectlySoft releases Perfect 2.0 framework for Swift 3.0

PerfectlySoft has released the latest version of its server-side development framework for Swift 3.0. Perfect 2.0 features support for additional datasources, such as Redis and Filemaker, as well as “significant” performance and scalability enhancements. The company says Swift is “evolving extremely rapidly” and its framework helps developers keep up with the changes.

AWS SDK for C++ now available for production use

Amazon has released version 1.0 of its AWS SDK for C++. The SDK has received a number of improvements following developer feedback, including an improved Transfer Manager and symmetric cryptography support. The SDK also now follows semantic versioning so devs can upgrade within the 1.x series without breaking their build.

InfluxDB version 1.0 releases

InfluxData has released version 1.0 of its InfluxDB open-source time-series database. Influx DB was written in the Go programming language and is already being used by companies to monitor network infrastructure, security, container infrastructure, solar panels, and more. InfluxData says the database has been in development for nearly three years.

Box releases updates to attract more developers

Storage platform Box has released a series of updates aimed at developers. The platform now supports annotations, watermarking and new content types. Devs using the JavaScript SDK can now benefit from HD video, 3D models, VR files and 360-degree content. Box is also releasing a UI Kit that makes it easier to integrate elements into their web apps.

MySQL 8.0.0 Milestone Release is available

MySQL have announced that their 8.0.0 milestone release is now available for download. In their blog post, the engineers have outlined the most significant changes, some of which address problems that have plagued MySQL. The source code is available at GitHub.

Razer launches $30m fund for VR, IoT and gaming start-ups

Gaming hardware company Razer has launched zVentures, a new fund for investing in start-ups focused on gaming, VR, robotics and IoT. Razer is looking to fund early-stage start-ups with investments ranging from $100,000 to $1 million. The fund is based out of San Francisco and Singapore.

Survey highlights top challenges around wearables development

Kony has released a new survey looking at the challenges around developing apps for wearables. According to the survey, wearables will be “commonplace” in the enterprise by 2020 and 78% of devs surveyed said they are working on 2 wearable apps or more. Forty percent said the lack of communication between designers, stakeholders and developers is the biggest challenge for wearable development.