We’re pleased to announce that our multi award winning application makes it debut on the iPhone, and it’s even better. We have learnt a lot from the Facebook version of the application, and we wanted to bring new features to the iPhone version.

The app brings several new features to MirrorMe, including the ability to work in offline mode and manually detect your face and apply filters, choose how far in to the future you want to age, and extended sharing options. We’ve also optimised our server so online processes should be even faster.

We spent weeks optimising the application and interface to suit the iPhone, and implemented changes such as the offline mode to ensure everyone can enjoy the results of MirorMe, even without a connection.

Available on the App Store priced at £1.19, download it today and let us know what you think.

We increased both our technical and creative boundaries during developing MirrorMe, and with an iPhone version of MirrorMe in development, we continue to do so.

MirrorMe features in the ‘Application and Gadgets’ category along side iPhone apps Bunny Munro by Enhanced Editions,  and the Nike Football Control application. It’s a great honour to be up against such great applications, and shows what great work we’re doing at Ideonic.

The winners will be announced at the awards night in late March. For more information about the MediaGuardian Innovation Awards visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/megas.

I took such a long time to right this blog post but it’s taken me a while to follow up with the great contacts I met and also just absorb all the lessons I learned while on the Digital Mission. In both LA and San Francisco we met many of the major players: Lionsgate, Warner Bros, Sony, Facebook, Apple, to name a few. But we also met many of the smaller creative agencies and start-ups breaking new ground.

To recap, on the 11^th Oct I flew out to LA as part of a select group of 14 of UKs most exciting digital companies. The Digital Mission was organised ‘and might I add excellently’ by Chinwag and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI). The other members on the group were amazing and I learnt just as much from them as I did from the companies in the states; a great mix of digital agencies, animation, gaming studios, technology platforms and video producers.

Digital Mission LA & SF 09 Companies: agency2 – Amaze – Audioboo – etv media group – Great Fridays – Littleloud – MoviesThatRespond – NixonMcInnes – Orangepanda Digital Media – Plug-in Media – Twofour – Type3 – Videojuicer

Once in LA we got to met with the Major movie studios Lionsgate, Warner Bros, Sony each of whom has strong digital strategies planned for the year ahead. We also met with the many smaller (by comparison) creative companies, including G-net and Ant Farm both of whom have done some great work with Gaming Clients including many of the online marketing strategies and poster campaigns you have seen for AAA game titles such as Call of Duty.

In both LA and San Francisco receptions were held in our honour at the Consul General’s residence. In LA Dame Barbara Hay hosted an excellent reception with a great delegation of film, interactive and business experts from across LA – and also the most tasty miniature Yorkshire puddingsJ.

When we arrived in San Francisco late and were rushed off our feet, meeting with many of the top tech companies. We met with Facebook whose office’s, from the outside looks like a school but inside gave off an aurora of true creativity. NDAs were signed at the door, so I can’t say much about what was discussed but it focussed on the Facebook Platform, which was great for us and we are doing some interesting projects on Facebook at the moment and it looks like the platform will only being getting better.

We were also privileged to meet with Johnny Ive the lead designer at Apple – it is said that genius is often linked to modesty, and Johnny totally adhered to that rule. It was amazing gaining an insight into how Apple designs their products and including a focus on user observation over user testing.  We also met with the iPhone team and we’re given a crash course in getting the best out of our iPhone Apps.

We also had a great tour and meeting at IDEO, probably the world’s top design firm and also a company with a name very close to our own – we both love ideas. From the original computer mouse, to bicycles without breaks and the rules of brainstorming, IDEO was a place of great ideas and truly creative approaches. I’m currently reading ‘The Ten Faces of Innovation’ by Tom Kelley, a key member of the IDEO team.

The reception in San Francisco was hosted by Julian Evan. A lively event where I was fortunate to met some great people at the reception including Peter Moore of EA and Xochi Birch of Zuno and co-founder of Bebo. Julian also had a great collection of Welsh Beers, which made the end of the night less memorable than the start J

It was an awesome trip and I loved visiting both Cities and plan to venture back out there in the New Year.  A huge thank you goes out to the people who made this possible:  Sam, Emily, Juliet, Carlo, Sat Darshan, Dame Barbara, Jaclyn, Meagan, Arthine, Julian, everybody we visited and anybody I missed of the list. Thank you very much!

Chinwag’s Photos – http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinwagcom/4013972480/in/set-72157622449349491/

What Next? Well just over a week after being back I’m off again, this time to India (subject to my Visa getting issued in time) to take part in the UK Young Interactive Entrepreneur trade mission. Looking forward to meeting all the great business in the Games and Animation sector in India, expect an update soon.

We have an opportunity for you to join our team as a part-time community manager. The secret project will be released across multiple social networks and an iPhone version is in the pipeline. You will work with us over the next few months to support the release of the product and make sure it gets maximum exposure by taking part in online discussions, submitting it for reviews and promoting it to key online communities.

To apply please complete the application form below, we look forward to your submissions:

(Applications now closed)

GameHorizon Conference 09

 The North’s premier games development conference returned this year with some more insights into the future of the games industry. Technology wise, Andrew Oliver of Blitz Games demonstrated their developments into stereoscopic gaming with a Ninja themed platform game; unfortunately it requires you to wear polarised glasses but worry not 3D TVs should be available in a couple of years.

We were treated to demos of APB from Realtime Worlds and Guillaume de Fondaumiere of Quantic Dream demonstrated the amazing looking Heavy Rain for the PS3. So a lot of great insights into traditional gaming but  the key focus of the conference was the advancements in online/download markets including Facebook and the iPhone – online/download is really allowing smaller developers to break into the games market.

What Comes Next?

Channel 4 Education’s summer conference opening with a fantastic keynote from Zenna Atkins, who you would almost not believe was the Chair of OFSTED. Zenna had an excellent insight into the challenges faced by the UK education system and the need for teachers and people in education to just be brave and innovate. 

Shaun Bailey, Mary Sharpe and Yvonne Roberts gave a great panel, demonstrating the need for more creative and digital solutions to help level the educational playing field especially for those from low income families.

Matt Locke & Alice Tayloralso demonstrated the great projects they have been working on over the past year including BattleFront and Routes. A great conference and no doubt we’ll see some more great projects from Channel 4 next year.

Showcomotion

I returned to the Showcomotion conference for the second year after realising it is about so much more than just TV. Showcomotion is a children’s media conference bringing together people from all sections of children’s media (TV, web, games, etc) and giving them a platform to share ideas. Peter Salmon the newly appointed head of BBC North opened the conference, talking about his passion for the North and excitement about the BBC move to Salford. The conference then continued for 2 days of exciting talks and rather than reinvent the wheel you can check out some great blog posts about on the Showcomotion website.

I believe that is all the conference I will be attending this Summer, so it’s back to the office to begin work on an exciting new project… more news soon.