As Surface develops who are active with many industry events, we’ve worked with integrating Surface and Surface tags in these environments. One of the downsides though is having to create each tag, assign it to a person, print each one on a Microsoft recommended printer and manually sticking the tag to each event badge. We worked with a printing partner of ours to develop a dry-erase material, full color bleed badge with pre-printed Surface tags that makes Surface an integral and less hassle part of events.

Our CEO Joe Olsen explains more on Phenomblue.tv.

Sean Erickson from our .NET development team headed west to L.A. for PDC last week. Since not all of us could go, we asked him to fill us in on the highlights. Here’s what we missed:

This year’s PDC didn’t have the didn’t have the same wow factor as last year’s, which was sprinkled with major announcements (the Surface SDK, Windows 7 beta and Azure services). The only major announcement this year was the beta release of Silverlight 4 and the roadmap to its official release. But what was lacking in major announcements was made up for with an overriding theme of how to use all the recent releases. It was like they were saying “Here’s what we showed you last year. Here’s what we’ve done to it since then. Here’s how to use it. Now start using it.” And that’s a good thing. A lot of the ideas and concepts from last year are now actually implemented and are available to start using. Here’s some of the coolest.

Silverlight 4
This is what will put Silverlight on a more level playing field with Flash. They’ve added printing support, Webcam and audio integration, the and the ability to host HTML and Flash content inside the Siliverlight plug-in. There’s a new user option to allow out of browser apps to run outside the sandbox (think Air, except you can run the same app on the Web and locally with no recompile). An application can run with access to local file system, launch applications and access drives and sensors. It’s got a 30 percent faster load time and increased performance (it was said to be twice as fast). You can share reference DLLs between .NET 4 and Silverlight 4 with no need to recompile. And this release has full binding and command structure.

SQL Azure
With the changes made since last year, SQL Azure will look and act almost exactly like a local instance of SQL Server. There are still some limitations, but the vast majority of SQL Server users could move to SQL Azure pretty seamlessly.

Windows 7 Sensors and Location
Windows 7 comes with a full API that gives us abstracted access to any sensors on the local machine (GPS, Ambient Light, Accelerometer). A good example of where this would be useful is a map application that defaults to search near your current location. Also, when Windows 7 Embedded comes out for Windows phones, you could add the lat/long to the metadata for any picture taken and have an exact location for every picture.

For even more PDC action, check out these session videos:
Day 2 Keynote by Steven Sinofsky, Scott Guthrie and Kurt DelBene
Silverlight 4 Overview
User Experience

We’d be amiss to ignore game authoring tools when looking into emerging and new technology, so it made perfect sense when interactive developer Chris Crum dove into Unity3D. Originally developed solely for Macs, additional platforms have been added throughout the past few years including Windows, web browsers, iPhone and Wii. Chris did his research and hands-on discovery using the PC/Mac development kit.

Living room environment created in Unity3D.

The Basics
Unity authoring is accomplished via a versatile IDE (which puts much of the Flash IDE to shame) and through scripts (which is where the big boys go to play). There are three programming language options including a variation of Javascript, C# and Boo (a dialect of Python). All of these are based on the open-sourced Mono framework, which is based on Microsoft’s .NET framework.

Unfortunately, the Unity IDE does not include a very good script editor. This wasn’t an oversight by Unity, as they choose not to spend time and resources addressing this but giving users the ability to choose their favorite editor and use it seamlessly. So far, that goal has only partially been achieved, as setting up editors like Visual Studio, for example, can be a nightmare. Luckily, a release is coming most likely within the next month that makes Visual Studio the go-to solution for developers using Windows and programming in C#.

Graphics/Performance
While Unity’s primarily used for 3D graphics, 2D graphics are more than achievable and are seen in nearly every Unity game in interface overlays and menus. Both OpenGL and DirectX are supported, so yes the user’s GPU is being used to handle the heavy lifting of 3D – no big surprise here. Compared to Flash’s Actionscript, Unity Javascript runs roughly 20 times faster.

Asset Importing
Unity supports tons of asset types including 3D models, animations, textures, scripts and sounds. 3D applications like Maya, 3ds Max, Cinema 4D, Cheetah3D or Blender all import seamlessly, and Unity will even detect changes to those assets when they are saved. The same is true for Photoshop files. You don’t even have to save textures down to PNG, JPG, etc. Leave them as PSD files to keep the ability to turn layers on/off as adjustments are needed, and Unity will compress the remaining visible layers down into high quality DXT textures. Of course, PSD files are not the only image file type supported; you can also use JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, TGA, IFF, PICT and many other image formats.

As far as audio is concerned, acceptable file formats are pretty straightforward: if you can play them in QuickTime, you can use them in Unity. This includes AIFF, WAV and MP3 file formats. There are also several video formats supported, including MOV, AVI, ASF, MPG, MPEG and MP4VIDEO, all with configurable bitrates supported.

3D Details
Unity has more than 40 built-in shaders, including basics like diffuse and specular but also more advanced options like lightmapped bumped specular, reflective bumped vertex-lit and many more. There are also full-screen image effects like glow, blur, color correction, depth of field, edge detection, and motion blur.

No 3D engine would be complete without shadows and lighting, and Unity really shines in both. Lightmaps can be used to bake vertex lights into models while dynamic realtime shadows add the final touch. All types of lighting effects are available for use including spotlights, point-lights, directional lights and lens flares.

Other Cool Stuff
Unity has networking capabilities right out of the box, putting multiplayer games, state synchronization, remote calls, www functions and .NET socket libraries right at the tips of developers’ fingers. Debugging is very well done; you can roll through 3D scenes, change variables at runtime and see the cause and effect of various combinations. The whole plugin is 4.5 MB download (smaller than Flash Player) and is streamlined to the point where there’s no need to restart your browser or even reload the page.

Not So Cool Stuff
The web plugin penetration is low compared to Flash, and Chris had a tough time tracking down stats for this. As mentioned, 2D abilities are there but are lacking and may not be amped up for a while. Most examples are in Javascript, not C#, which can deter or slow down some developers. And the decision of which version to use is tricky. The indie version is inexpensive but limited and includes a Unity splash screen, but the professional version can be very expensive.

So What?
As a company that designs and develops software for the advertising industry, Unity is a good fit for our more spatial/environment-oriented projects like virtual walk-throughs.  And it’s definitely worth a look from anyone considering any use of 3D or perspective willing to be an early adopter of a graphically stunning technology (in some ways, not unlike early adopters of Flash Player 10).

Main screen for a cloud application.

Developer Jason McEvoy gave us a what’s what on Azure, a Microsoft solution for hosting services to give us an idea of how we may use this internally or for client projects. Basically, Azure is a set of connected computers that install and run services and supports multiple protocols (HTTP, REST, SOAP, XML). It comes as SDK for Visual Studio 2008 and supports both Microsoft and non-Microsoft languages (RubyOnRails, Python and in the near future, PHP). It uses Simple Data storage (tables, blobs, queues) with authenticated access).

The pluses? Security is tight, comparative to Medium Trust. Everything is done through a web portal, not an FTP. The portal makes it easy to scale applications as needed (see photos), like adding more processing, which fits the pay as you go policy.  You can tie to your Windows Live ID for accounts too.

The downsides? No FTP can be an issue, especially in times when it makes more sense to copy just the files you need rather than pushing the entire site. You can’t VPN into it, which is a problem for companies like ours where you may need access from virtually anywhere outside the physical office.

A cool feature is the differentiation between staging and production environments. You can set a region for your services to reside for times you don’t want to run the website on one side of the country and have the database at the other side of the company. For example, you can specify all your services to run from servers from the Pacific Northwest.

All in all, it seems that Azure is more suited to serve potential client needs than for our internal work. As a company that does both design and development for agencies located geographically far away, hosting in the cloud could be a great option for some project. Internally, the lack of VPN access and the need to rewrite existing processes would keep us from using Azure for much of our internal needs. But we think options are good, especially when you understand what can (and can’t) be done with them.

If you’re a web veteran or even a new but frequent user, you’ve more than likely run across a few sad excuses for video players. If you’re a Flash developer, you’ve probably struggled with many of the problems at the root of said video players. Either way, it’s unlikely you were happy about being on either end. Many of these video player inconsistencies can be attributed to one thing – the lack of a standards based approach to web video development. Fortunately, there’s hope. The Open Video Player Initiative aims to make these user and developer time-wasters a thing of the past by developing a standard approach to web video development.

Our interactive developer Brandon Bone dove into this open-source project and its resources for developing against the initiative’s standards. The official initiative is the brainchild of the folks over at Akamai, with development partners like Microsoft and Adobe (itself a collaboration of industry giants unlikely to be seen again). Unfortunately, this collaboration has failed to provide any real solid ongoing community support at OVP’s main site.

From what Brandon could gather, immediately after the initiative’s conception, the site featured videos and tutorials rich with code examples on how to build a player from the ground up using the OVP framework. This is no longer the case. The site’s video section is peppered with high level talks about the initiative that provide little, if any, development examples. The site goes down pretty regularly, and sadly, it seems to serve as more of a repository for news releases and links than as a hub for information about the initiative. To top it all off, the initiative shares all of its code through the web dinosaur that is Sourceforge.net

It’s not all doom and gloom though. While examples may be sparse, it’s safe to say the code being delivered by the initiative provides a great base for more reliable development of web video players. In fact, the OVP framework is currently being used as the based for Adobe’s own Open Source Media Framework project (previously known as Strobe).

Still, what we find most interesting about the project is the collaboration between Microsoft and Adobe. It’s not an exaggeration to say these two companies have been sworn enemies of rich interactive web development  — a battle that has become more apparent with Microsoft’s rapid development of Silverlight. So why would Microsoft partner on a project with Adobe that obviously benefits the latter’s current domination of online video delivery? There’s no way to be absolutely sure.

The simplest explanation could be that Microsoft would like to get in good with Akamai and their expectations for content streaming while their product is still in its early stages of development. After all, even with Silverlight 3’s long list of new features, it’s still no Flash. This would minimize the number of poorly developed, shoddy looking video players built on their platform. That’s one answer, but it doesn’t account for Adobe’s continued participation.

Consider this alternative explanation. If you’re like us, you’ve more than likely heard of W3C’s plans to deliver HTML 5 as the new web standard. With it comes a fancy new video element aimed at freeing web video from the narrow, proprietary world of plugins — something neither Microsoft nor Adobe can be too happy about. With the both of these companies allotting resources for this project, the two stand a much better chance of denying HTML 5 the chance to decouple web video from plugins by creating a more promising and reliable standard outside of HTML 5.

Either way, we’re pretty excited to see where this rare collaboration goes and what it brings to the realm of online video. Want to know more? Brandon handpicked some resources for you below:

• Open Video Player Initiative
• OVP API documentation
• Open Source Media Framework
• Adobe unveils “Strobe”
• ActionScript 3.0 overview

We didn’t know of a better way to peek into the Phenomblue internship experience than, well, asking our interns to tell you about it. Here’s what our summer 2009 interns had to say:

Laurin
generalist intern
marketing major
Creighton University

Phenomblue’s internship philosophy is unlike the ordinary; I am not filing folders or doing “chores”.  I’m learning and getting actual experience in a fun and positive environment. I actually participate in real life situations that Phenomblue deals with. I knew I was going to like it here and I knew I was going to learn, but I had no idea I would like it this much, learn this much, and be treated so well. From day one I was already learning stuff and doing things — real stuff and real things — not files, not vacuuming, not filling up coffee cups.

In such a complex industry, I needed to get real life experience, and that is exactly what I am getting. To start, I have already sat in multiple meetings and conference calls. I get exposed to some of the industry’s most favored clients and to all the work that goes behind production. My internship enables me to create contacts, discover various connections between people and companies, and it provides me with sample career paths and resumes. I am realizing the opportunities and paths I can take once I graduate. I don’t want the summer to come to an end… and for a reason that I have never experienced before.

Kelsey
art intern
digital design major
University of Cincinnati

I am quite surprised by this laid-back yet extremely productive atmosphere. I expected a bunch of really uptight, serious people (only because I figured the only way to produce this level of work required really serious, no messing around people) and was honestly surprised to have met the complete opposite. That’s what I really like about this place: they know how to do what they need to do, yet they go about it in the way that is most productive specifically for them. In my opinion, for Phenomblue, that means working hard and playing hard.

Because I am a design major, school teaches me a really in-depth range of design methods, but I don’t learn how to promote or sell my designs. That’s where experiencing the work environment is beneficial. Though Phenomblue isn’t a “design firm,” I’ve learned how important design is in every situation. I’ve also gotten more exposure working directly with clients than I expected. Whether it has been sitting in on conference calls, or the fact that I’m copied on pretty much every Basecamp project, I feel as though I have a much better idea of what it takes to work for clients.

Being the fact that this is my first experience in a professional atmosphere, it has definitely set the bar for my future work experience. It has opened my eyes to the opportunity of software development and technology. I now realize that my future isn’t just picking colors and fonts for websites, it’s much more than that.

Microsoft released its first service pack for Surface back in May, and we’ve been working with it on our machines since then. While it didn’t include any physical upgrades (we took that matter into our own hands), it seems that SP1 addressed most of the issues we’d observed. Check a few of the features our developer Evan Johnston found helpful for both development and enhancing the user experience.

When one of our Surface apps was in use at a recent medical trade show, some of the users accidentally exited the application when their sleeves made contact with the access points. This will no longer be a problem, as SP1 includes a single application mode that allows the Surface unit to run only one application at a time. It even bypasses the launcher menu on start-up and goes directly to the application of choice. This is also awesome in situations where you want to limit the user’s access to other applications (for confidentiality perhaps) without having to remove all other applications from the unit.

SP1 improves the user feedback as well with contact visualizations. Users can see where their inputs are being detected and the path of motion when the inputs are moved. What’s cooler is that developers can customize the visualization colors and placement, opening up the creativity and making the interaction even more brandable.

New tagged object routing allows users to quickly switch between applications using an identity tag. One of our first ideas to maximize this new feature? Think of a conference or trade show badge. Simply slap a tag on the back, and when the badge is laid down on the Surface, the attendee can quickly access the apps relevant to them. Nice.

What about updates that are more behind the scenes? A new stress testing tool makes the testing process smarter.  It allows the developer to test by simulating contacts in a fully random approach or in a scripted interaction. The stress load level can be set on a scale of 1-10 in random mode, and the duration of the test can be set in both modes. Simulating massive multi-input scenarios will make stress testing apps more efficient and less labor intensive.

SP1 includes several more update and upgrades that we’re exploring more and more, but these are just a snapshot of what Surface is now capable (or more capable) of. We’re curious to see what other developers think of the service pack thus far, too.

Augmented reality has been a recent darling of the tech and advertising communities, and has been used recently in games, for products like Topps baseball cards and the USPS priority mail box and by brands like Doritos and BMW to supplement campaigns.

It’s not hard to find demos of AR in action online, but very few of them tell you about the technology behind making AR happen. Our interactive developer Jason Bejot looked into a Flash-based AR method, the FLAR toolkit.  This brings AR to anyone with Flash, rather than limiting it to people who have purchased specific software. To implement the FLAR toolkit, you need Flash/Flex, Papervision 3D/Away 3D, a printer and a webcam.

Jason created a demo starring galactic bounty hunter Boba Fett to try out the FLAR toolkit and show the rest of us what it could do. Boba Fett is an unaltered Quake II model from a model pack. Since Papervision handles those files natively, it was ultra easy to throw everything (FLARToolkit, Papervision and Boba Fett) together and have it work. In fact, it took Jason no more than two hours, including producing the code to make Boba Fett walk.

FLAR toolkit is a cool step in AR, but the toolkit has limitations. It’s processor intensive; the Boba Fett demo used 40-60 percent CPU. There’s limited marker tracking, recognizing a low number of markers, no color, and low resolution.  The toolkit library is based on an old version, so it has limited features and isn’t actively developed.  But even with limitations in mind, we still think any development that opens AR and other emerging technologies up to more people is definitely a step in the right direction.

It goes without saying that great design leads to great products and that great design needs a great process behind it. We’re all about working smarter, faster and more efficiently to deliver the best solutions to our clients, and a lot of our projects begin with sketching and prototyping. There’s a bunch of design tools out there that can be used for this, but they’re made for creating final assets, not for the informal and improvisational practice of prototyping. Plus, there’s quite a gap between existing design tools we use for sketching and prototyping and the tools we use for the structure involved with interactive production.

Two great things came out of Mix ‘09: the intro video to Scott Guthrie’s keynote and SketchFlow, a feature of Microsoft Expression Blend 3 for creating sketches and prototypes of interactive apps and content. This feature supports WPF (client based apps) and Silverlight (web based apps) projects with same prototyping functionality. Our director of technology Tom Duggin took a closer look at how this feature can help fuse the design and development process for us and our clients.

SketchFlow may just help us out with bringing prototyping closer to production, and essentially design closer to development. Tom found that SketchFlow integrates well into the Phenomblue workflow, namely one that does both design and development. It also supports the evolution of design as it moves into development rather than struggling with a disconnect between the two.

And the release of SketchFlow is good news for clients too. We’re able to deliver workable prototypes for proposals and client feedback without a ton of time and money. It will allow everyone involved with the project — developers, designers, clients, brand representatives, etc — to communicate ideas on the prototype efficiently and consistently. And that’s a real upside for all of us.

Microsoft released Silverlight 3 last week, and this is the first real competition for Adobe Flash, giving developers another option for delivering interactive content.  Silverlight 2 was a great first step, but the features added with the release of Silverlight 3 bring it up to par with the Adobe framework and make it a real contender in interactive development.

For instance, Silverlight 3 supports deep linking. It uses frames and page controls that can integrate with the browser’s navigation. You can now keep track of navigation history inside the application. The new navigation framework also facilitates SEO since different “pages” in the application can be assigned real URLs, which can then be linked and crawled by search engines.

Another upgrade is the addition of GPU acceleration. When enabled, it lets the video card directly process and render UI elements instead of all in the software. A debugging tool allows developers to see (via color-coding) what elements are GPU accelerated and not.

What about competing with Papervision for 3D interactivity? Silverlight still doesn’t natively support true 3D. There some toolkits for it, but Perspective 3D is as good as it gets. Fortunately, that lends itself to creating some pretty sweet carousels.  Initial feedback from our Adobe team shows that the Perspective 3D implementation in Silverlight 3 creates a much higher quality output than Flash, especially when transforming video.

Silverlight 3 also supports out of browser experiences, something that could really be of use for building and implementing line-of-business applications. Any Silverlight app can be installed to the local machine (Mac or PC) without requiring an additional download and using the same Silverlight plug-in. The developer just has to add one line of code. The user can download by right clicking in the app or you can make a button to initiate the download. And there are no security concerns; the application has limited rights to the machine and still runs in the browser and in the same security sandbox.

Other cool stuff in this new release? Silverlight 3 provides three or four default pixel shaders (as opposed to the bitmaps of Silverlight 2) and the ability to write your own. There’s new audio/video codecs with HD and streaming HD. The addition of assembling caching means you can reference needed assemblies dynamically, which speeds up loading time. This could be really useful when building big apps.

Looks like Microsoft finally has a product to challenge Adobe in this one.

A big part of Phenomblue is defining the cutting edge of technology. So when new applications, products and all other kinds of tech are announced, we’re usually already playing around and figuring them out. With Adobe’s Flex 4, our interactive developer Ryan Phelan checked out this newly rewritten framework to see how it will work with the Phenomblue design and development workflow.

What’s new? Flex 4 has a new component architecture, Spark which is built on top of the existing Halo architecture. Spark was designed make Flex components much easier to modify and skin by decoupling their visual state from their appearance. With the help of XML namespaces, the new Spark components can conveniently exist side by side with their Halo counterparts, allowing easy migration from Flex 3 to 4.

A new interchange format for the Flash Platform – FXG – was created, allowing complex graphics to be described using a declarative syntax. This paves the way for a new application called Flash Catalyst (currently in beta 1) to create Flex 4 projects from Illustrator and Photoshop files by converting graphical representations of components like buttons, scrollbars and lists into actual Spark components. Catalyst also allows designers to define states and transitions for individual components as well as the application itself.

So what? Flex 4 will help our team of designers and developers work better and faster by improving workflow. Designers are given a more pixel-perfect representation of their work while also gaining new control over transitions and layout, tasks that they traditionally rely on developers to perform. Developers are given a much more powerful state syntax for defining the flow of an application and are freed from laboring over design implementation. What happens when the client is responsible for the design assets? As long as the files were created in Illustrator or Photoshop format, we can import them directly into Catalyst without requiring the client to change anything about their workflow. This results in a final product that looks more like the original comp in less time. And who doesn’t appreciate working smarter and faster?

What’s the catch? Catalyst is lacking some features we’d like to see implemented, like more control over the structure and syntax of code it generates, support for custom component templates and tighter integration with Flash CS4. But since it’s still in beta, we’ll let it off the hook and be ready for future updates.

by Evan Johnston, Phenomblue interactive developer

Sometimes when we talk about going the distance for our clients, we mean it literally. This past weekend, I was tasked with the all-important job of flying out to Chicago for a day to help deliver and set up a Microsoft Surface project for one of our clients at the annual Digestive Disease Week trade show. This annual event is slated as the world’s largest gathering for physicians and researchers in the gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery specialties, so we were stoked to have one of our projects on display. I was especially interested to learn that around 65 percent of the attendees were international, meaning the application would be viewed by people from all over the world.

How did the likes of a Phenomblue developer end up at an event for doctors from all over the world? It was the result of months of involved planning and execution in which we provided our client with both an immersive and interactive experience, all built to run on Microsoft’s Surface multi-touch technology.

During the conference, the event attendees would be guided through a 3D experience on the Surface mediated by an actor. The application allowed the mediator to navigate around several different environments using only gesture-based interaction and object recognition. The physical objects were used to simulate the introduction of food and as an avenue for the drug to be administered into the system.

So back to the actual trip. I arrived at the convention center, and the first thing that I see is a shuttle bus with a giant advertisement for the same drug that we wrote the application for. Not only that, I also learned there was a video spot running on the bus TVs, so this was no small campaign. Once I got registered as an exhibitor, it was pretty easy to find the booth to set up the app in: it was a giant 30-foot stomach.

Although the Surface units took up a small part of the entire exhibit, they were main focal points actually set up inside of the replica stomach. For the event, there were two units running side-by-side housed inside of custom stands constructed for this event. Along with the stands, there were domed speakers positioned directly above each unit to help direct the sound downward to the audience.

The setup went smoothly, and the only real issue was with the stands. One of the main considerations when building a stand for a Surface unit is ventilation, as the units put out a good amount of heat. Once a couple of modifications were made to each of the stands — I suggested we drill more holes for ventilation to prevent crashes from overheating— we were back up and running.

Overall, the experience was a very good one and a successful end to many months of hard work for all parties involved. It was very exciting to be involved with a large product launch that would be viewed by individuals from all over the world.

Check out one of our latest projects, a portion of the web site for a leading soft drink. We crafted an immersive brand experience that takes place in the kitchen, designing a modern yet lived-in 3D environment and interactive Flash elements to engage consumers in the experience. Images, video and a case study can be found on www.phenomblue.com.

Remember back in April when we opened the window for summer interns? For only four hours? We were looking for artists, technologists and dreamers. And we got quite the response, with a flood of applicants from all different majors and career paths. We read each application and each entry. Some made us laugh, some made us see things differently, and some made us confused. At the end of the process, two candidates stood out as the combination of artist/technologist/dreamer for this summer’s internship program: Laurin, a marketing major at Creighton University, and Kelsey, a digital design student at the University of Cincinnati.

We are super stoked for both of them to join the Phenomblue team for the summer and expect lots of learning during their time here: both from us and by us. We treat internships as more than a cheap and easy way to get a hot cup of coffee. To us, having interns is as much about our learning as it is theirs. Phenomblue interns aren’t nameless, faceless students killing time here; they’re active participants who help us create interactive brand experiences for some of the nation’s biggest brands. You know the saying about students being the future? We totally agree, and we’re excited to share our expertise, passion and geekdom about tech and advertising with the professionals of tomorrow.

We <3 interactive design/development, and several of our talented interactive developers will be taking that passion with them to 360|Flex next week in Indianapolis. The conference is community focused and brings the best of the Flex community together to share tales, tips and tech know-how on a large scale. Two Phenombluers will be sharing their expertise with sessions during the conference.

Lead interactive developer Ryan Phelan will take to the stage on May 20 with Bending and Flexing, a session about using Adobe’s Pixel Bender technology to trick out applications with limitless effects and transitions. Have you ever wondered about writing pixel shaders with the Pixel Bender Toolkit and integrating them into Flex? Bringing your shaders to life using Flex effects library? Leveraging Pixel Bender’s processing power for non-visual computations? Then Bending and Flexing is a must-attend.

“Pixel Bender was just something I’ve been experimenting with ever since it came out, and I’m interested in finding practical applications for it in Flex projects. It’s still a pretty new technology so there is a lot of room for innovation,” he said. Expect lots of demos and open source code to play with as Ryan shares his Pixel Bender experiments and expertise.

For perspective and best practices on the process side of development, plan to attend Phenomblue CEO Joe Olsen’s session on building a scalable interactive process. Joe’ll focus on building a process that supports the highly collaborative nature of RIA development in today’s market. Looking at Phenomblue’s model as an example, he’ll talk about identifying the right candidates, building a process that supports the development, and ultimately, how to concept, execute, and deliver cutting-edge interactive experiences. The session is geared toward small to mid-size interactive shop executives, producers and development leadership. In Joe’s words, creativity is the fuel, but process is the engine.

Can’t make it to the sessions? Unable to attend 360|Flex? Follow Ryan and Joe on Twitter and check out their blogs (www.rphelan.com and  www.interactivejoyride.com) for thoughts on their session topics and tons more.

There’s been a lot of buzz for Big Omaha this week, and as a supporter of the event, we are stoked that it’s almost here. In case you don’t know why we think Big Omaha is such a big deal, check out what our CEO Joe had to say about it on his blog.

But we’re more than just fans of Big Omaha; we’re actively participating in it. Several of us will be attending, and we’ll also be debuting a new Surface application we developed and designed. Big Omaha attendees will be able to check out and interact with the program tomorrow on site at the event. Like all our previous Surface apps, this one is built for multi-user interaction and we added an additional interactive element by syncing it to Twitter.

Curious? Stop by Big Omaha, search #BigOmaha on Twitter and keep an eye out for updates from @phenomblue and the Phenomblue crew tomorrow.

More than 35,000 people sat eager to hear from world’s second richest person Warren Buffet at the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting in Omaha this Saturday. Phenomblue shared more with the event than headquarters location. The meeting included a video that featured animations by our director of creative operations Jimm Wagner.

In the video, a salesperson gives Buffet a sales pep talk on making the biggest sales of the year every week. The salesperson scans the showroom floor to locate a customer Buffet can sell to. The visual scan needed a futuristic effect, much like a computer’s targeting system that scans an environment and analyzes the data and individuals detected, which is something that Jimm’s skills and experience in VFX and animation could make a reality.

Having your work viewed by more than 35,000 people in person at once? Not too shabby for a Saturday morning!

This spring, we’re celebrating our fifth anniversary and five great years of growth, awesome work and stellar people.

Phenomblue was created in 2004 by Joe Olsen and Jimm Wagner. (Joe’s now our CEO and Jimm’s our director of creative operations.) The two had met years before working at Vente Inc., a firm specialized in gathering consumer data for e-mail marketing. They wanted to do something fun with their skills while working for themselves and joined forces as Phenomblue, initially as a VFX shop. Two years in, the opportunity arose to do development work in addition to the design for the sleep drug Rozerem. This super successful project earned us a name in the market as shop for both great development and design. A few projects later, and we were at the leading edge of the Internet’s transformation from an information network to a major media and entertainment medium.

So 1,824 days later, the dedication, creativity and skills are still thriving but some things have changed. The biggest difference since Phenomblue’s inception is a change in focus from 3D animation to software engineering, a change that’s allowed us to be involved in some B-I-G branding projects. In fact, we work on more major brands annually than every advertising agency in Omaha combined. Joe credits Phenomblue’s growth and success to vision, risk and hard work.

“I think to succeed in our business, you’ve got to have a vision, risk everything on that vision and then work your ass off to get there,” he said.

What can you expect from us in the next five years? Phenomblue will continue to be bigger, broader more badass. And as we celebrate this milestone, we also are super grateful and appreciative of all of you who have played a part in the past five years and into our future. Now who brought the birthday cake?

At last night’s Technology Celebration Banquet, we were recognized by the AIM Institute as Technology Company of the Year. CEO Joe Olsen accepted the award on behalf of the Phenomblue team, several of who were in attendance.

The award is reserved for an outstanding technology company for excellence in innovation, revenue, product/project deployment, continuing education programs, community service and strategic partnerships with area firms and educational institutions.

Phenomblue was selected for our work with many companies within the community to provide cutting-edge IT solutions and for bringing untold amounts of business into the city from all over the country.

Thanks to the AIM Institute, Infotec and all of our clients, partners and supporters!

After our team’s killer win at the Miami PhizzPop Design Challenge, our team was set to take on the challenge for the finals in Austin during SXSW. Just one week after competing in Miami, the final challenge was announced, and our team of Jason Bejot, Tom Duggin and Ryan Phelan went to work.

This time, the challenge centered around creating a more sustainable Austin, incorporating a web application, desktop application, public installation and mobile application. After researching the Austin community and some productive brainstorming, the team came up with Core: a community-based initiative that provides the information, resources and action plans that will enable and empower people to make the fundamental decisions and lifestyle changes for living greener lives.

The team created a challenge — the Austin100 — to engage Austinites in the Core community. The people of Austin have 100 days to earn 100 points by making green lifestyle choices for a chance at 100 prizes. The Austin 100 utilized a web application to register and manage your account and points, and Microsoft Tag technology was implemented to simplify logging the green behaviors. A mobile application was also incorporated to encourage and facilitate ride sharing. A public installation enabled the Austin community to track the community’s progress using real-time data visualization. Finally, the entry included a desktop application to monitor your home’s energy usage in an effort to motivate energy efficiency at home.

While our team didn’t take home the grand prize, the PhizzPop finals was a great exercise in creativity and technical ability. We were excited to compete against some of the industry’s heavy hitters and see what a little friendly competition (and many long nights at the office) could create.<–>

A few of us made the trek to Austin for SXSW Interactive recently, and we brought some of our work with us to show and tell. We debuted Genesis, a new Surface application we designed and developed from the ground up, at the Silverlight/Microsoft demo area several times during the conference to receptive attendees, vendors and conference speakers.

So what’s Genesis? It’s a chroma-depth 3D application that allows users to create their own universe. Add, move and manipulate planets, scatter stars and space particles and create as many suns as you think your universe needs (but watch out for the laser-shooting UFO). As a Surface application, Genesis is controlled by touch, and multiple people can interact simultaneously, making the experience social as well as engaging.

People from both the Interactive and Film festivals stopped by to check it out and to sport the never nerdy 3D glasses. Genesis was a hit with all ages and technology levels: creative directors, developers, filmmakers and SXSW volunteers interacted side-by-side. The intuitive user interface allowed users to quickly get into the experience. Many users got a kick out of the ability to destroy their creations, and we got a lot of questions about how and why we created the program.

We built Genesis to see explore what’s possible with Surface and spark more creative, innovative ideas. We used WPF 3, created a proprietary physics engine, and used a WPF viewport and directional light to rotate and color the planets and suns (which are 3D models).

Genesis is just one of the proofs of concept we’ve been working on — others include the Kyodai Ken Sushi Bar — and we’ve got several in progress or just beginning development for clients. Check out Phenomblue.tv for video on how we’ve explored and pushed the limits with Surface.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OMAHA, Neb. – For four hours on April 1, 2009, college students can vie for a spot in Phenomblue’s summer 2009 internship program at 040109.phenomblue.com.

Nationally recognized multi-platform digital creation company Phenomblue combines digital design and technology to create experiences that push the boundaries of consumer engagement. They’re looking for technologists, artists and dreamers to apply.

The window to apply for this cutting edge opportunity at one of the nation’s leading interactive shops will only be open from 8 a.m. to noon tomorrow. Those interested just need to visit 040109.phenomblue.com during this timeframe and answer the questions.

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This morning at SXSW Interactive, our CEO Joe Olsen participated in a panel called Violating the Warranty on Your Touch-Computing Device with industry leaders from Microsoft, Clarity, VectorForm and Manifest Digital. Our Surface machine made the journey with us to Austin and played a role in the panel as well, demonstrating what touch computing can do.

The panelists discussed how they’re currently using Surface and touch computing, a phase of technology that’s really in just beginning to be explored, implemented and discovered. There isn’t a manual or Cliff’s Notes for developing and designing on Surface, something all the panelists and many of the audience could attest to. And violating the warranty? Joe talked about how working with a new technology means diving in deep and not being afraid to take things apart and even pushing your hardware to its breaking part.

Check back soon for video of the panel.

As a company who values developing and encouraging talent, we’re fortunate to be based where young professionals come together as a community. So we’re excited that our CEO Joe Olsen will be sharing his experience as a young professional at the March 5 Young Professionals Summit in Omaha.

Joe will be presenting a session geared for managers, HR directors and company leaders entitled No One Wants to Work for You. It’s no secret that Omaha is a tough market for retaining talent, and many of the most gifted young professionals move to larger markets seeking work that complements their lifestyles. Developing core values that support the lifestyle and personal growth goals they demand is a key factor in this community’s successful businesses. As a successful leader of many young, creative professionals, Joe will share his experiences and our core value system at Phenomblue as an example of how we’ve addressed this migration from a financial and security focus to a lifestyle support focus.

All of the team here at Phenomblue can attest to the values that Joe will present. With some of the most creative young minds in the advertising industry, the firm is a rising star not solely because of the work we do, it’s the culture of the business that propels our success.

If you can’t make it to the presentation, just give us a shout. We’d be more than happy to share the values that make us happy with you.

At Phenomblue, we’re constantly aware that each project we work on has its own story to tell. It’s a mentality that carries over into other things the team works on, too. Our art director Jonathan Tvrdik flexes his brain outside the Phenomblue office by creating films. These activities hone his composition and technical skills as well as keep him on the cutting edge of new technologies and possibilities.

This weekend, Jonathan’s short film Amerigo the Brave was screened at the Omaha Film Festival to great reviews. A review in The Reader called it the best of the 20 films they screened and listed him (along with Alexander Payne and Dana Altman) as one of Omaha’s best hopes for a homegrown feature film industry.

The film takes place in 1946 Brooklyn and centers on circus owner Amerigo Cortina, his blind wife Josephine and their new star from Germany, Jacob Diefendorf (who Amerigo lets slip may or may not have been a Nazi). It was the first time Tvrdik had entered this film festival.

Congratulations to Jonathan and all involved with this film. This success is proof that the art of storytelling, even in a fiction setting, helps with the business of delivering brand-minded narratives to consumers.