Action Script 3.0
JavaScript
Lua
HTML5
XML
PHP
CSS
With Googly Face for Android you can put a face on anything. Googly face allows you to take a photo with the device camera or use a saved photo. You're then free to place eyes, ears, hair and noses on the photo to make it come alive. Save your photo out and share it on social networks.
It does what it says on the tin! It's a very simple way to make lists: create multiple lists each with multiple items. Swipe items left and right to mark them as "done" or "not done".
In my current place of employment at Sound Leisure it took me over a year to develop and help design an interface for a jukebox that would win multiple industry awards. The Sound Leisure vhub is now enjoyed in hundreds of venues across the UK with scope for it to be made available in Europe in the coming months. The interface is feature packed with swipe able menus, predictive search, online search, auto correction of artist search and date search. The jukebox can also display full screen adverts in multiple format types.
Last.fm was used to create the first major app for the Sound Leisure Vhub Jukebox. It allows any Last.fm user to check-in and download data about music they listen to. This data is then cross referenced with the music available on the jukebox and displayed to the user. This in reality is like allowing a user to bring their music collection to the venue. Last.fm is also used to track what all Vhubs across the country are playing. The last.fm account in question gets around 2000 Scrobbles per day!
For over 9 years I have been creating a range of interactive content for various types of business. From a driving school (Hazard Perception) to a startup Betting company (Point of Sales software) and everything in between! I've had the chance to work on projects of high profile for some of the top agencies in the UK. My work has included projects for CrimeStoppers, Deal Or No Deal, Turner (Bakugan), last.fm and BarclayCard. In recent years I've worked for a company that develops and builds jukeboxes. My main project has been to develop and help design the interface for their flagship digital Jukebox, The Venue Hub. The interface was written from scratch using Adobe Flash and action script 3.0. The Vhub has been my greatest career achievement and drew on everything I had learnt from previous experience.
The rise in popularity of the mobile "app" and a need to keep my skills sharp has seen some of my spare time taken up with the development of mobile apps. An issue that plagues many developers is which language to learn for developing mobile applications. For apple IOS you need to know your way round Objective-C; for Android apps Java is the primary language. Recently software venders have come up with languages that can be used to compile applications for both platforms and this is what I have invested my time into learning. I opted to learn a language called lua using a platform called Corona which in recent years has really started to gain traction in the App development community. Both my Apps "Googly Face" and "Simple Lists" are developed using the CoronaLabs SDK.
It's what everyone's talking about; HTML5 is the latest iteration of the mark-up language that's used to build websites. HTML5 has a much bigger emphasis on interactivity then its predecessor (html4). Previously developers relied on Adobe Flash to give sites a more interactive element, but now there's a big push towards using html5 instead. By and large, this is because of the popularity of mobile devices, be it mobile phones or tablets and the fact that Flash, in most cases, is not supported on these devices. This site is using some of the new features made available in html5. The music I listen to section for example is using HTML5 canvas which has proved to be popular for developers that want to build games for mobile web browsers.
It's not all been plain sailing though, HTML5 is in fact still in development and still suffers from the same issues that its predecessor did, one of them being Cross Browser Compatibility. Even Mark Zuckerberg made the mistake of betting too much on what HTML5 would be able to do when developing the FaceBook mobile application.
The Adobe Flash Platform is still an attractive means for creating interactive content. While developers figure out how to create various types of functionality using HTML5, its already been done and possible in Flash. Adobe are still investing heavily in the Flash platform, the latest version of Flash now boasts a 3D engine that is capable of console quality 3D games using its stage3D hardware acceleration.
Flash is also a very competitive means for creating mobile applications. Like the CoronaSDK, it to can publish to multiple platforms including the Apple and Android market. One of the advantages it has over Corona is functionality that allows a developer to build native extensions for their application. This means that when Flash doesn't have a specific ability to interact with a certain part of the phone, the developer can write an extension in the mobile devices native language that Flash can then call.
The web is not the only place where the above technologies can be applied. They can in fact be used with peripherals like cameras, joysticks, sensors, lights, and used to trigger a whole range of interactive elements. A technology like the Flash Platform is a prime candidate for creating interactive displays for museums and kiosks alike. My work on the Sound Leisures Vhub jukebox shows this of brilliantly and how Flash can be put to good use for creating large touch sensitive interactive displays.
In the context of website development, I think it was a gentlemen called Luke Wroblewski who first coined the phrase "Mobile first" and its an idea that I agree with. Over 25% of people who browse the internet now do so using a mobile device and by 2015 forecasts show that web-surfing on mobile devices will surpass PC'S. We can detect what a user is using to view a website via CSS elements called Media Queries which allow us to manipulate the sites design accordingly.
This means for a mobile device you might manipulate the content in such a way so that it is single columned and stacked in a way to fit the proportions of the screen better. Most mobile web browsers support html5 and css3 so adding some interactive content is possible.
When a pc browser is detected and the project and the budget is right theres no reason why you shouldn't use Flash.
In alot of cases though, it's about the right tool for the right job. If the project needs to be database driven with content that is updated regularly Flash might not be the answer instead html5 and php would be better.
