Author Archive for Rick

Nike PhotoiD

Published
by
Rick
on June 21, 2008
in akqa, mobile and trends
. Comments

Credit to the guys in the AKQA Mobile team!

Nike PhotoiD has been featured on the Guardian's website and on Cscout as a new mobile marketing trend.

For those who haven't heard about Nike PhotoiD it's a piece of software which analyses the pixels colours within an image and generates a pair of Nike iDs for you based on those colours.

MMS your picture and the word DUNK to 88247.

Not only is it cool but it actually works. I tested it out about 6 weeks ago on some of my friends and they were really impressed.

Stabalized Video Collages

Published
by
Rick
on June 20, 2008
in R&D and video
. Comments

Just genius...Experimentation is a beautiful thing...! More here.

Eyesight Mobile technology

Published
by
Rick
on June 19, 2008
in Uncategorized
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eyeSight

Eyesight mobile technology is based on advanced image processing and machine vision algorithms that utilize the cellular camera together with user hand movements and translate them to commands on the cellular handset.

eyePlay™ enables the user to act as if they hold an object in their hand and perform real-life movements, while eyePlay™ translates that movement to corresponding actions in a game. Now your gamers can actually drive the steering wheel in a racing game. Or throw a shooting star at an enemy. Or shoot a basket in a basketball game. Let your imagination run wild. The possibilities abound.

In a nutshell, Eyesight technology enables you to use real movement to interact with a virtual world!

Mobile Multiplayer Trans-Reality Gaming - part 4

Published
by
Rick
on June 19, 2008
in gaming and mobile
. Comments

The 3rd and final type of game that I was reminded of is Cops & Robbers - The Board Game.

products_clip_image002_0024.jpg (JPEG Image, 313x308 pixels)

The object of the game is to be the first squad car to catch Slippery Sid.

The notorious criminal Slippery Sid has escaped from Jail and is hiding somewhere in the City. Hunted by Police, he is on the move from one hideout to another. You have a Police Squad car and you must try and trap Slippery Sid on one of his hideouts before he escapes to another.

The playing area represents the street plan of the City: these are 25 colored sites where Slippery Sid may be hiding.

The arrows on the road indicate one-way streets and the telephone handsets mark the places where you can get a radio message from Police Headquarters. Some of the radio messages will give you clues about Slippery Sid's hideout.

There is an element of strategy to Cops & Robbers. Despite having more cops on the board they know less and can only gain more information at specific designated places on the board.

Mobile Mulitplayer Trans-Reality Gaming - part 3

Published
by
Rick
on June 18, 2008
in R&D, gaming and mobile
. Comments

pris.jpg (JPEG Image, 493x370 pixels)

The next type of game I thought about when it came to MMTRG was The Prisoner. The Prisoner was a cult British 60s TV series with allegorical undertones and a very thoughtful and considered plot - which is vital.

It follows a former British secret agent who, after abruptly resigning from his position, is held captive in a small village by the sea by an unidentified power which wishes to establish the reason for his resignation.

During the entire 17 episodes, he is never identified by name and the exact nature of his job is never explicitly indicated, though numerous episodes provide clues. After resigning his position, he is kidnapped and held prisoner in a small, isolated, eccentric seaside resort town known only as the Village.

With the concept and setting laid down, such as it is, the natural premise for a mobile game would be to have a contestant 'delivered' into a particular scenario and have the audience, with the help of the Internet, either attempt to track him down or, more interestingly, helping him to escape.

Interestingly, in researching The Prisoner, I found out that ITV is planning to re-shoot The Prisoner for a more modern audeince - what kind of interactive or digital twist they're planning to give to it, if any, is TBC...

Mobile Multiplayer Trans-Reality Gaming - part 2

Published
by
Rick
on June 17, 2008
in Uncategorized
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If you've never heard of Assassins you need to go here and here to find out more.

Last year Streetwars, a form of Assassin, was played in New York City, Vancouver, Vienna, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, San Diego, New York City, Burning Man Festival and Barcelona. Streetwars is a 3 week long 24/7 watergun assassination tournament.

At the start of the game you'll receive the following in a brown manila envelope:

* A picture of your intended target(s)
* The home address of your intended target(s)
* The work address of your intended target(s)
* The name of your intended target(s)
* Contact information of your intended target(s)

Once you receive those items, your (or your team's) mission is to find and kill (by way of water gun, water balloon or super soaker) your target(s).

If you are successful in your assassination attempt, the person you killed will give you their envelope and the person they were supposed to kill becomes your new target. This continues until you work yourself through all the players and retrieve the envelope with your (or your team's) picture(s) and name(s).

Ssassins is an Assassins game hosting site which makes the job of organising your own Assassins game easier and more manageable.

Hot on the heels of Streetwars is the Vitruve Project (a mobile trans-world espionage game) and
Wifi Army (Mobile real world FPS game) - http://www.wifiarmy.com/ - looking forward to getting involved in them both!

Mobile Multiplayer Trans-Reality Games - part 1

Published
by
Rick
on June 16, 2008
in R&D, mobile and trends
. Comments

MMTRG (Mobile Multiplayer Trans-Reality Games) is an evolution of MORPG (Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) fusing the real world with the virtual, digital world via your mobile and GPS. One of these is CitySlikkers and was one of the 10 Android apps I highlighted last week.

City Slikkers - Pervasive Game on the City
CitySlikkers is one of a handful of mobile games that have been devised which integrate the real world with a virtual gaming world via the mobile.

What's brilliant about CitySlikkers is that...

"...the playing community will always be a minority they hereby form some kind of elitist, secret society which is based on knowledge, but not financial or political power."

This elitism is the basis on which William Gibson's 'Spook Country' professes to "secrets [being] the very root of cool."

The game combines elements of strategy, role-playing, sports, social and tactical games, but in contrast to popular MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), the outcome of the actions as well as the new connections made between people, will affect normal life as the everyday city is no longer the same due to the players‘ experience.

City Slikkers - Pervasive Game on the City

CitySlikkers looks brilliant, but I've been thinking about games alot recently - more on that in future posts - but the lure of mobile and the additional dimension it opens up, is fascinating.

With Apple's iPhone 2 offering 3G and GPS and Nokia's N95 and upwards offering the same, being constantly connected and able to be pinpointed on a virtual map via GPS is becoming the norm and with it comes enormous opportunities in changing the game of Gaming.

MMTRG is a blog which documents a list of developers and the games they've dreamt up and news surrounding them - It's worth a read...

Other avenues worth following include location based games, Alternate reality gaming and a couple of games that Blast Theory, based down in Brighton have already evolved:

Uncle Roy All Around You - more info here.
Can You See Me Now
iPerG
Participate
CivilAction - an urban code chase game.

What's key to the last few examples is that at the heart of the games is storytelling. If the story isn't convincing enough then people aren't going to play. If it's believable though then you've got a runaway hit on your hands...As always, making the technology invisible to the player is paramount to success.

Flexible Surfaces - Interfaces of the Future

Published
by
Rick
on June 16, 2008
in R&D, interface and user experience
. Comments

A year ago, before Microsoft Surface, Microsoft created a video suggesting some of the User Interfaces of the future. Some of these are VERY cool:

None though are as cool as OLED flexible surfaces such as these...

FlicFlex:

And Sony's OLED flexible screens:

Top 10 web design styles for 2008

Published
by
Rick
on June 15, 2008
in Design and trends
. Comments

Vintage / Retro Styles
2008 Design Trends

Handwritten Notes and Paper Clips
2008 Design Trends

Grungy
2008 Design Trends

Splatter Ink
2008 Design Trends

Watercolor
2008 Design Trends

Collage
2008 Design Trends

Sketches and Handwritten Fonts
2008 Design Trends

Big Fonts
2008 Design Trends

Script Fonts
2008 Design Trends

Wood Pattern
2008 Design Trends

You can be the judge as to whether they are or not, but nevertheless it's a great list.

Lego extending its devotees through social media

Published
by
Rick
on June 15, 2008
in Social Media, digital strategy and inspiration
. Comments

lego-sculpture.jpg (JPEG Image, 450x470 pixels)

As Jake McKee commented on my previous post, there are some excellent niche communities which, over the years, have created such an active community of members that the brand they've advocated has had to stand up and do something about it.

In the case of Lego, they embraced the online community activity on the Internet and created a 'Lego Ambassador Program' back in February 2005. This, I presume was entirely down to Jake, who at the time was a Lego employee (Jake, please correct me if any of this is incorrect...).

Initially the individuals who were nominated for the Lego Ambassador Program not only had no tangible benefits, but were also a merry band of only 15. Now, with the nominations for the 08/09 Ambassadors having been announced only a few days ago, there are not only very tangible benefits but also a much larger group of Ambassadors.

Brothers-Brick is one of the major contributing communities and blogs which have generated Ambassadors. Over the last 3yrs their blog has grown to one of thousands of subscribers, all of whom have an interest and a passion in Lego from an adult perspective and now they're embracing Facebook.

It's fantastic to see how Lego's confidence and belief in their customers and fans has led to a really excellent Ambassador program which is not only aspiring to the Lego enthusiasts in the community, but offers an opportunity for Ambassadors to shape the future of their favourite bricks and be first to be asked opinions on new up and coming ranges from Lego themselves.

Lego's 50th anniversary celebration video, released to the community: