CAT | Development

Jun/10

24

Blog round-up 9

0 Comments | Posted by Freddie in Blogging, Debate, Development, Gaming, Mobile, Web 2.0

Live Underground map – complete with trains: Live tube map built using information from the London Datastore.  http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/iandouglas/100005267/new-tube-map-now-with-trains/

ITV News to incorporate social media into news bulletins: ITV will let viewers chat with the journalists via social media.  http://www.seotops.com/itv-plan-to-make-social-media-a-big-part-of-their-news-programmes_1429/

Global Radio aims to engage mobile users with app ads: The station uses success of their apps to interact with listeners.  http://www.nma.co.uk/news/global-radio-aims-to-engage-mobile-users-with-app-ads/3014925.article

Losing the game: Excellent post on the scrapping of promised tax breaks for the games industry.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/06/losing_the_game.html

Utah firing squad death announced on Twitter: Tweets from an Attorney General spread quickly around the world.  http://www.deathandtaxesmagazine.com/utah-firing-squad-twitter-announcement/

· Live Underground map – complete with trains: Live tube map built using information from the London Datastore. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/iandouglas/100005267/new-tube-map-now-with-trains/

· Global Radio aims to engage mobile users with app ads: the station uses success of their apps to interact with listeners. http://www.nma.co.uk/news/global-radio-aims-to-engage-mobile-users-with-app-ads/3014925.article

· Losing the game: Excellent post on the scrapping of promised tax breaks for the games industry. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2010/06/losing_the_game.html

· Utah firing squad death announced on Twitter: the three tweets from an Attorney General spread quickly around the world. http://www.deathandtaxesmagazine.com/utah-firing-squad-twitter-announcement/

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May/10

20

Blog round-up 5

0 Comments | Posted by Freddie in Blogging, Development, Gaming, User generated

The best of the blogs this week…

NYU students raise more than $100k to create Anti-Facebook: Social networking experiment Diaspora will give users complete control over their data.  http://mashable.com/2010/05/12/diaspora

Visa to bring secure online payments to the iPhone: New casing offers contactless payments anywhere Visa’s payWave is available.  http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/18/in2pay-is-the-name-of-visa-and-devicefidelitys-money-grubbing-i/

Creator of Heroes Tim Kring creates new internet conspiracy for good: Tim Kring releases new social networking game where we can all be heroes – in a way.  http://ethrill.net/2010/05/10/tim-kring-what-is-the-conspiracy-for-good-and-i-am-not-a-member-about/

Mass Facebook exodus planned for 31st May: Following anger over privacy issues, campaigners planning official revolt day.  http://mashable.com/2010/05/14/quit-facebook/

Game Changers: Competition for children to design a new level for puzzling platform video game Little Big Planet.  http://www.dmlcompetition.net/kidscomp/lbp

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Jul/09

29

Riding the wave of mobile apps

0 Comments | Posted by matt in Development, Mobile

The idea that digital media evolves via an avalanche of “revolutions” must be attributed to the frenzy with which the press seize upon emerging concepts. Mobile apps are no exception: they are regarded as a transformative power emerging over the whole of the digital landscape, after which nothing will be the same again.

The prodigal success of the iPhone app store is no doubt a catalyst for both this media attention, and for a chain reaction of mobile app production. The revolution is with us,  but, we hear, this frenzied work will soon give way to the lull of traditional format wars (beta-max vs VHS style).

betamax-2

We are probably not going to arrive at some universal format: the hardware on these different mobile devices is always going to vary,  and sometimes innovation has to depart from the norm. The plethora of platforms out there at the moment is indeed a headache for developers who want their app to be available for the whole range of devices, but what should really be of concern is the points at which corporate control over formats can stifle creativity simply for capital gain.

Apple’’s recent denial to give Google Voice permission to be a part of its app store is more than another installment in its saga of opaque decision making. This action is not opaque at all: the motivating factor was clearly fear of competition from a service that can provide an innovative new means of telecommunications.  Of course, Apple cannot stop an app being produced for other platforms, but its denial of access to a significant segment of the market can certainly sap the app”’’s momentum.

With this in mind, it is no surprise that Spotify have been stirring up as much media attention for its new iPhone app, as they can manage. This is not just a matter of good marketing – it is about building a deterrent for the Apple censors, who are currently mulling the app over. The analogy with Google Voice is clear: this is another core competitor with the iPhone”’’s functionality – it allows users to not just stream, but also to cache playlists of music on their mobile device, potentially rendering much of the appeal of the iPod rather redundant.

While Google may be reeling from Apple’’s denial of Voice, they are also setting their sights on a new future of applications.  They are attempting to raise another wave of hype, still waiting on the game-changing revolution heralded by cloud computing.

cloud

In a  recent talk at MobileBeat 2009, Google’’s Vice President for Strategy, Vic Gundotra, painted a picture of the apps market where this recent frenzy of downloading apps is a recent kink in a longer process by which software services are served via the cloud, universally accessible through the browser, the only piece of software a mobile device would need. If he is right, the whole discussion of mobile app format wars could itself become obsolete.

Whether we see cloud apps catch on at quite the level Google anticipates is yet to be seen (a key indicator will be whether the upcoming Chrome OS revitalises the netbook market, and convinces the public that they really don”t need to “have” their applications residing on their systems at all). But the internet is the paradigm of open innovation, and any future that increases the ability to elude censorship has to be a positive development: cloud-served apps would certainly be a step in the right direction.

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Mar/09

23

Game Based Learning

0 Comments | Posted by niko in Culture, Debate, Development, Education, Gaming, Rambles, User generated, Video gaming

Fun end to the week at the Game Based Learning conference in the City of London. Highlights include a cabinet minister who actually gets technology and seems to want to support the industry (Tom Watson), the ever inspiring Derek Robertson from LT Scotland and Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell’s vision for the future of education. The latter caused quite a stir (shaking heads in the audience, grumblings on the twitter feed) as it appeared to envisage children in webcam-equipped cubicles and plugged into heart rate monitors to assess fitness levels. Refreshingly controversial! To say that some delegates had reservations would be somewhat of an understatement.

Derek Robertson and Ian Livingstone presented strong evidence that mainstream games (not ‘edutainment’ or ‘chocolate-covered broccoli’, as someone else called it) are having a fantastic impact on motivation and learning in schools where they are allowed/that are lucky enough to be able to afford them.

Gaming in general is changing, not just by making an appearance in classrooms. We are currently seeing a return of computer games into the mainstream. Nolan Bushnell and Ian Livingstone both made the point that 30 or so years ago computer games reached a mass audience. atari_5200

Then, gradually, games became more complicated and generally more violent, causing the market to shrink dramatically. Game developers and publishers didn’t mind so much because the hard core gamers spent significant amounts of money and kept the industry going. Many casual gamers were alienated along the way, however. Now, of course, Nintendo is beginning to change all that with the Wii and DS platforms. You only need to look at their sales figures to realise that casual gamers hadn’t disappeared, they just hadn’t seen anything they liked for a few decades.

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Aug/08

26

Jump ship to Actionscript 3

0 Comments | Posted by matt in Development

Tech Journal Stardate 310385

Here at OnlineCC’s development studio we decided to take the plunge and delve into the world of AS3. Many digital agencies out there have already made the switch and are currently reaping the benefits. Online has never been one to shy away from new technology and having just finished an era of AS2 development we can safely make the transfer to AS3. Gone are the days of hacking at flash until it would give in to our demands. We have taken AS2 to its limits and pushed boundaries I thought were not possible, but alas its time for change and I for one am glad this day has come. AS2’s extremely lazy parser was both a thorn in our side and a blessing at times. We encountered numerous problems throughout the development phase, plagued by missing movie clips, fonts not properly embedding, and a few thousand undefined variables. This was made worse by the fact that AS2’s API was extremely lacking compared to other major programming language’s wide array of predefined functions.

The ridiculously loose typing and sprawling syntax of AS2 caused significant efficiency and coding standard issues. AS2’s overall lack of structure allowed lazy programmers to write hideous code that would still make it through to compile. Onlinecc’s dev team were born with strict coding standards embedded into our brains and always make every possible effort to adhere to them even if AS2 didn’t. Now that we have had a chance to make the switch to AS3 we can clearly see AS2’s major downfalls. AS3’s strict OO structure allows us to cut down on project development time in the studio immensely. If only AS3 had showed its face earlier in the game there would not have been so many sleepless nights and team programming sessions trying to shape flash to suit our needs. AS3 is now a much more grown up language and extremely similar to Java’s coding practises.

So why should you make the switch to AS3 if your perfectly happy in your AS2 environment? OK lets begin with the major issue of AS2’s rather shabby depth control. This is a notorious subject within the AS2 flash community in which there are numerous different hacks. AS3 solves this with its rather straight forward display list. Depth control is essentially handled by flash now which means you have no need to worry about what level you give your clips.

For me the best feature that really wanted me to move to AS3 was the claim that ‘ActionScript 3.0 offers up to a 10-fold increase in performance over previous versions’. This is down to the fact that Adobe have completely rewritten the ActionScript Virtual Machine for AS3. As we all know flash can run like a mule at times and hopefully this will solve many of our worries during development and design stage.

Another major winner for AS3 is that it has a monumental API in comparision to AS2’s. This is by far one of the greatest reasons to upgrade. I was so sick of having to create functions that should exist by default. Again I reiterate this is really going to save you a ridiculous amount of time during development.

If you’re still riding on the fumes of AS2 I suggest you jump ship now! Its time to get out of your AS2 comfort zone and start programming in a fully object orientated manner. You can streamline your development process with AS3. Say goodbye to your dishevelled AS2 code and welcome in AS3’s clean coding standards. Obviously there might be a steep learning curve if you’re not used to OOP but you can easily overcome this boundary. If you want to step up your game, then make the choice now before you fall behind. Adobe seem to be progressing incredibly within their market destroying the competition with their innovation and forward thinking ideas. This rings true with their progress in Flash Lite 3, Air and AS3 all of which Onlinecc will be taking into full R&D cycles.

And yes I do realise how ridiculously geeky this blog is so to wake you up here is a picture of my cat ninja kicking you in the face!

HI YA
HIIEEE YAAAAAAA

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