Draw Something – Hits 20 Million Downloads & Generates 6-Figures a day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Insane growth numbers surfacing on the latest and very addictive social game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A bit of a “seize the day lesson” to us all in digital agency land. If I had a dollar for every app / social game that I have pitched or said I was going to make…..

 

Reference link:

http://www.businessinsider.com/omg-5-week-old-app-draw-something-hits-20-million-downloads-and-generates-6-figures-per-day-2012-3

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Nokia & DJ/Producer deadmau5 lights up London with awesome 4D projection

As a massive fan of the DJ deadmau5 and an ex-Londoner this footage of the recent Nokia product launch was always going to excite me.

That said you certainly don’t have to be a supporter of either to appreciate the sheer awesomeness of this video. Well executed and totally awe inspiring. Nokia successfully bring together the world’s most advanced 4D technology with great music to create an amazing free light show at Millbank Tower in London.

What happened?

“Each of the 120 metre high building’s 800 windows were covered with vinyl as 16 powerful projectors, stationed 300 metres away on the other side of the river, beamed 3D images onto the structure. Huge butterflies flew across the London skyline and the tower was twisted, pulsated and even fell down. Billed as the “future of live events” the spectacular show was accompanied by music from super producer deadmau5, who created exclusive remixes for the performance — adding the 4th dimension.”

Prepare yourself this is a light show like never before!

@lottienorman

Control real life football players with your smartphone

Not sure if this a PR effort to promote the Sony Xperia play or the new album of Kasabian, but nevertheless it is a pretty awesome execution and a lot of effort would have gone into it.

2 “users” control real life football players by selecting commands on their Sony handsets that are then send to the players who are wearing ear pieces.

I like how the headband lights up when a player gets selected!

It seems a bit lagging at times, but it is a pretty impressive attempt

Check out the video:

@maniac13

Amnesia Connect wins Silver ADMA award

Amnesia was awarded a silver last week at the ADMA awards for Amnesia Connect in the Apps and New Development category.

 

The finalists are below and well done to TBWA for Gold on Pedigree in the same category.

Big effort from Iain, Heiko, Stephan and Dan for the work.

If you have not seen connect before you may well of been hiding under a rock so here it is in action.

Great result and hopefully next year we win gold.

@maniac13

Nokias future phone looks like a teardrop

we have seen how Nokia wants to bend the future of phones with flexible displays and now Nokias future lab showed us a concept video on how it could all work together.

nanotechnology, with a bendable transparent display and a fully touch sensitive casing are only some of the visions that Nokia cooked up.

Check out the video:

not sure if I agree with all of it, but there are some nice ideas in it.

@maniac13

Nokias bendable future phone

We have seen bendable displays in the past from Samsung, LG and Toshiba, but none of them have really put it into a functional prototype.

Now Nokia had their Nokia World in London and Tapani Jokinen, Head of Design at Nokia showed off their bendable phone and how it would react when you bend it different ways.

The user will control this flexible Nokia Kinetic phone by bending, twisting and even squeezing it. Different bends will result in different functions on the phone and he had a good point when he said that it makes it much easier to use in the cold winters in Finland when you are wearing gloves.

Check out the video:

Pretty cool!

@maniac13

Nokia Launches New NFC-Enabled Games

It’s great to see some fun uses for NFC trickling through. It’s taken a while though, with Nokias’ first NFC enabled hand set having hit the market in 2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_field_communication#NFC-enabled_handsets

Nokia have also launched an NFC microsite recently which does a good job at explaining what’s possible:

http://europe.nokia.com/nfc

Other NFC references:

NFC trials in the world

http://www.nfcworld.com/list-of-nfc-trials-pilots-tests-and-commercial-services-around-the-world/

cute little story about a small town in Finland

http://www.nfcworld.com/2008/10/28/397/oulu-the-little-city-with-big-ideas/

Visa mobile payment trials in Finland in 2009

http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/visa-trials-mobile-payments-in-finland/07589

Do you have Sweden’s safest hands?

Cool idea by Swedish agency Åkestam Holst.

I had to Google translate it from Swedish but still reads well… (article from the agencies blog).

“Sweden’s safest hands”, is a contest in the iPhone, which is organised by the Post. The contest is part of a larger e-commerce campaign that is about to record is the safer choice when you send your packages.

The contest is to carry a digital package a certain distance using an iPhone app. This applies to transport package is as safe and secure as the Post.

42 packages have been packed with secret content to a value between 300 and 5000 dollars. Every day at 6, 12 and 18 released a new package. Do you deliver the package intact before anyone else, you win the contents. You decide where to begin and end, so it does not matter where you live in Sweden.

Download the app and compete on posten.se / safe hands

See contest trailer:

Watch it:

Read full article.

@danKrause

Disney’s Appmates – the future of iPad gaming

If you have kids and a tablet you know that your kids love them and you hardly get any time with it yourself.

Disney is going to release their Appmates toys next month and then you won’t get your tablet back at all from your kids.

So what is Appmates? It seems to be a new iPad interface which lets the user (or small and big Kids) control a Cars-themed iPad games using the toys above.

The toy cars have special conductive pads that are recognized by the iPad and interpreted by the app.

As you drive around the virtual environment of Radiator Springs, you’ll hear the character’s voice react to each bump or jostle. Mirrors inside the toy car will reflect light from the iPad through the toy’s headlights, and Mater’s siren as well.

Check out the video after the break

Get Perspective on the iPad 2

Alright, maybe that title is a little esoteric for the subject matter – but check out this coolness below.

This is the kind of 3D I’m excited about – the kind that removes the need for glasses. Sure, it might be hard to create 3D without glasses in a cinema setting where you’re unable to use head-coupling, but for personal devices? It’s great.

On a final note, something needs to be done about the term head-coupled. It’s gross.

Facehuggers, a modern classic example of head-coupling.

~@tali3sin

Angry Birds – for Chrome.

Don’t have a smartphone, iPad or Android tablet? But you do want to play this “Angry Birds” thing that people keep talking about?

Chrome to the rescue!

The folk over at Rovio have ported their smashingly popular game to the Chrome browser, and it’s 100% built in HTML5. Very, very neat.

If you haven’t given this simple physics based bird-hurler a whirl, why not see what all the fuss is about? Won’t cost you a dime, and is playable in both standard and high definition.

Either click the picture above, or this link, and you’ll go straight there. Enjoy!

~@tali3sin

the camera of the future

you might have seen this already, but I somehow missed it in my post here.

I was send the video at the bottom of this post and it blew my mind. Looks like there was a working version of it at CES this year.

This camera (concept) takes the connectivity and application platform capabilities of today’s smart phones and wirelessly connects them with interchangeable full SLR-quality optics.

Check out the video:

their site promises some awesome specs:

BODY

Aluminum and magnesium alloy
Docked display and frame unit Display unit: 127 x 69 x 7.5mm
Frame unit: 164.5 x 76.5 x 28.2 mm

DISPLAY UNIT

5.0" AMOLED display
Viewing area: 110 x 61.9 mm
1920x 1080 pixels
(2,073,600 dots, 16:9)
Cortex-A15 ARM Multi-Core CPU
16GB embedded + microSDHC

ANTENNAS

802.11n
GPS
Bluetooth 2.0
WirelessHD

CONTINUOUS SHOOTING
BUFFER

Approximately 10 fps
20 images (lens detached)
180 images (lens attached)
5 RAW (lens detached)
40 RAW (lens attached)

I am hoping they are going to build this thing and ship it really fast, because I want one.

@maniac13

Here is the reason why BlackBerry bought TAT

 

I was stoked when I read the news a few month back and a few days ago the first TAT apps on the playbook were shown off and they are beautiful and show off what the playbook is capable off.

to note is that the weather app is written in HTML5 and the hardware does all the physics and accelerometer movements – sweet

here they are in action:

 

here is a nice long one for you

Can’t wait for some more stuff from TAT and playbook

@maniac13

The mobile phone of the future

and no, it’s not an iPhone.

This is a concept mobile phone of the future that was put together by Billy May. He gathered community feedback and followed up on some rather mundane visions for the mobile future to bring us the Mozilla Seabird.

The big innovation is the use of dual pico projectors on the side of the handset, which can provide different functionality based on the phone’s orientation: flat on a table they pump out the two halves of a QWERTY keyboard, up on a dock they offer the dual purpose of a large viewing screen above and a seamless projected keyboard below. Other features, like the pop-out wireless pointer / Bluetooth headset are slightly less realistic but no less charming.

unfortunately Mozilla is not planning on building this phone (or any other phone for that matter)

But check out the video – what I like is that it runs Android, but when you dock it it runs Windows 7 – nice!

simply put – I want one!

@maniac13

@eunmac talks Mobile Marketing on Gruen Transfer Sessions

OK, so our ever-so-modest founder, Iain McDonald (@eunmac) is likely to have a whinge about me putting this up on our blog, but I love it so it’s going up anyway.

WATCH: The Gruen Sessions – Mobile Marketing

PS: is it just possible that he managed to surpass me on the hind leg donkey talk-off? 😉

Jen x

The future of the mobile UI is behind a velvet curtain

I have seen concepts from this company before (more about this below) and they always seem to be taking different approaches to the rest of the world.

The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) has yet again showcased a UI they call Velvet – pull out a widget or Google Maps query, and a sheet of your desired result waves with the virtual wind, before stretching out flat for you to more comfortably interact with.

This is what TAT has to say about the Tablet UIs out there and why they are different:

On one hand we have companies that scale phone UIs to tablets. On the other hand we have companies offering the full blown desktop experience scaled down to tablet size. We believe that both of these approaches will result in crippled user experiences. For example, the tablet form factor is perfect for media consumption and this could be manifested in the UI. TAT recognizes tablets as a radically different type of device – personal and mobile yet powerful and creative. We are now on a quest to design fantastic UIs that are optimized for this device space.

Here is the Velvet UI in action

As I said before these guys have some pretty awesome, yet radical ideas – check this augmented reality ID out – TAT augmented ID

I have an Android phone and I have been looking for a decent home screen and I really hope this little beauty will hit the market at some time soon – TAT Home

These guys are definitely someone to look out for in the future – if you want to learn more about them, check out their blog

@maniac13

My Gadget wish list for 2010

In my line of work (and because I love it) I come across a lot of cool gadgets and usually (at least if you ask my wife) I spend too much money on them.

So this year I will follow my moms advice and make myself a list.

Usually I start these lists with the least and work my way up to the best, but I want to start with the device I really really want this year.

1. Samsung Galaxy S

I have been using my 8310 blackberry for too long and for a while there I was carrying around 3 devices to do my phonecalls, emails and browsing and gaming, but the Samsung will be able to do all that.

So why do I want it?

for a start I don’t like the iPhone (don’t get me wrong I think it is a good phone for “normal” users), but it just doesn’t do what i want from a phone.

apart from that here is my  shortlist on why I want it:

* 4 inch WVGA Super Amoled screen (finally a device i can use outside)
* big (as in big capacity) battery – 1500mAh
* 16GB internal memory + extendable with micro sd
* wireless n
* camera capable of 720p video @ 30fps
* support of MPeg4, H.263, H.264, WMV, RV, DivX, Xvid and MKV – no more converting movies
* Samsung Social Hub – no more opening up app after app after app – I just have it all in one inbox – sweet

 

2. Tablet

I had a chance to play with the iPad for a few weeks now and I have to say I am not impressed – especially since Apple announced the AU pricing for it today and again, Australia gets screwed – all you really get is a big iPod

so what do I want in a Tablet?

Mashable’s iPad 3G Review: for Australians and Lazy People

Mashable have a really fantastic review of the 3G incarnation of the iPad – it’s a bit long though, so I’m going to shorten it down to only the necessary information (for lazy people) and throw an Australian perspective in at the end to balance out their US-centric complaints.

Find the review summary, and Australian perspective after the jump.

Adobe responds to Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash”

Kevin Lynch, CTO of Adobe responded to Steve Jobs’ ‘Thoughts on Flash‘ open letter (summary here) with a short blog post late last week.Kevin writes that if Apple tried to cooperate with Adobe a bit more, then they could “provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch”.

Kevin wrote:

However, as we posted last week, given the legal terms Apple has imposed on developers, we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices for both Flash Player and AIR. We are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others.

Read the full thing here.

Steve Jobs’ Thoughts on Flash. Boom.

Today, in an open letter published on Apple’s website, Steve Jobs shared his thought on Adobe Flash and its place (or lack thereof) on Apple devices such as the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

Steve’s “Thoughts on Flash” can be found here. I break down his points after the jump.