Whilst covering the final round of the 2010 MotoGP season at Valencia in November, I was lucky enough to score an amazing interview with Sergi Sendra – he’s the Director of Dorna Sports TV Production, and I’d spent a while organising the interview so that I could publish a feature across my various MotoGP sites on the story of just what it takes to produce the international MotoGP TV feed.
He was a great guy, incredibly helpful, and it was a fascinating hour or so of learning a great deal about a subject close to my heart.
It’s a nice long read, and if you’ve any interest in MotoGP or TV production, then I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Here goes…
Read the rest of this entry »
If you’re a MotoGP fan and an iPhone (or iPod touch) user then one thing that you really should put on your device is the MotoGP 2010 game.
It’s a fantastic 3D experience featuring the 17 riders from the 2010 MotoGP grid including Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa, and comes with the official bikes and all 18 tracks which make up this year’s calendar. There are a host of other excellent features too which make this a must-have for both gamers and MotoGP fans. Championship mode allows players to compete for the 2010 World Championship, with two camera angles giving amazing views and acceleration controls that replicate the lean angle of the bikes through accessible handling. Racing like a professional allows players to unlock all 18 circuits, and the game’s iPod library support function allows an individual soundtrack to be created.
When you put a game like this on your iPhone it’s very easy to just dive in and enjoy the experience, but given my interest in things like design and what happens to bring the sport and everything that goes with it to the fans I wanted to find out a bit more about the game and what it takes to create and deliver such a piece of work. So I had a Q&A with Tone Brennan from I-play, the producer of MotoGP 2010 Game for iPhone and iPod touch.
It’s a fascinating insight into just how much goes into developing and delivering a game, and a reminder that it’s very easy to take this kind of work for granted… Read the rest of this entry »
Lots of people slag off Twitter.
They’re idiots of course.
But they do.
And sometimes you can accept that there’s differing levels of usefulness, triviality and purposelessness to the phenomenon in an already crowded world of communications and technology.
Nonetheless, any MotoGP fan should find themselves very grateful that Twitter exists this coming weekend, when the world’s first genuinely virtual sporting event takes place on the service – a completely virtual MotoGP weekend played out in the absence of the *real* Japanese GP (which has been postponed until October due to the travel chaos caused by the Icelandic volcano eruption).
It’s not a real race of course – but it’s definitely going to be a great exercise in fun and entertainment, and a genuinely sweet and fun way to lift everyone’s spirits.
Already attracting the notice and apparent cooperation of high profile MotoGP media figures, the event is spearheaded by a Twitterer/Tweeter called @twitgp – who is promising a weekend of full sessions, celebrities and typically MotoGP fun.
If you’re not already on Twitter, then you should be – so get signed up and get following (there are plenty of MotoGP riders and personalities already on there that you can follow) and search for and follow @twitgp – who you can also find on this URL: www.twitter.com/twitgp
You can also search for news about the event using the hashtag #twitgp
It sounds like a big load of fun: A great idea and a great cure for the blues that the race postponement has caused. So join up and join me in following this sporting and technological first!
And to help give you stories to look at and people to chat with why not also follow some of my sites – and me – on Twitter: @batifans , @teamaspar , @garethbouch , @scottredding45 , @peretutusaus
I could have written something on the day of the iPad launch but I couldn’t really be arsed.
I was busy, everyone was talking about it anyway, and most of the talk was either pro or anti hysteria.
My thoughts at the time haven’t really changed though, and reflecting on how things are gradually moving ahead with the iPad, I thought I should get round to writing them down…
The hype – there was a lot. Seriously. Rolling news channels, all kinds of online sites, newspapers and magazines. And offline. Someone was going to be disappointed. Lots of people actually. Mainly those who were either daft enough to expect something impossibly miraculous, or those who were cynical enough to want the launch to be an anti-climax.
Was there too much hype? Yep – certainly in terms of justifying the actual specific product as it stood on the day. HOWEVER, and it’s a very big however – I can’t help but think that in a few short years that hype *will* be felt to be justified. And everybody will have forgotten about the exact iPad on the launch day. The hype won’t be justified by what the iPad was on that day but by what it became over the following months and years.
And there’s a very good parallel / precedent.
Two in fact…
Say hello to the iPod and the iPhone…
Read the rest of this entry »
Something I was working on quite intensively throughout December has finally come to fruition, with the Teletext Holidays iPhone application becoming available in the iTunes App Store.
Working closely with software development gurus Vivorum.com I designed the interface and sorted all the graphic and branding elements, and have to say I’m mighty happy with the result.
The interface is a very cool purple glossy experience, totally square with the brand’s “art of less” philosophy and has beautiful slick usability touches, such as swiping from deal to deal with a flick of the finger and a nifty “Saved” function whereby you can store off holiday deals (from the daily updates) to review later. Each deal also contains a handy button that instantly uses the iPhone to call the travel agent.
And each time the user launches the application they get a different inspirational image and brand message.
It’s a really nice piece of work, and it was a great experience working closely with Teletext and Virorum on it. I reckon it’s a huge and healthy jump in Teletext’s delivery and continues to move them from ‘analogue’ to very very very ‘digital’. And for me, an enthusiastic iPhone user, it was a revelation to get deep and dirty into imagining and delivering a completely new kind of user experience for a famous UK brand about which people tend to have very firm preconceptions.
There’s an info page on the application here – and the iTunes App Store link is here.
It’s a free download, and a great way to scout around for your next holiday deal.
