Infographic: Want your new game to land in the US Top 10? Infographic: Want your new game to land in the US Top 10? You have 72 hours to spend $56,000 Start strong, says Trademob After spending months or years of your life developing a mobile game, it's natural to think that it'll be appreciated by the world and instantly recognised for its genius. But time and again, great games launch onto the App Store and spend weeks struggling to break into the Top 10. Trademob's taken a good hard look at what it takes to achieve a Top 10 rank in the App Store, and the results are surprising. According to its data, Trademob states that an app "must achieve a high number of downloads within 72 hours" to crack the Top 10 - with the last 24 of those 72 hours being the most significant. Further, it's estimated that you'd need 80,000 installs to break into the US Top 10. Swings and roundabouts The good news is that to actually hit the mark, you only need to splash out on half as many installs. Click for full scale image
Hello Sony. Goodbye Nikon. The Story of why I am Switching from Nikon to Sony. “‘To take an interesting photo, some may choose to carry around a lot of metal and glass and mirrors and silicon. I choose to carry around less metal and glass and silicon. Oh, and no mirrors.’ – Me, quoting myself.” – Trey Ratcliff Oh, Nikon… Sad Emoticon Nikon, you’ve been good to me over the years. It’s not you. Sony a7R and NEX-7 Review Here’s my detailed review of the amazing new Sony a7R Full-frame Mirrorless camera (check prices) as well as my review of the Sony NEX-7 (check prices). Disclosures about SonyNone! Is the Sony NEX-7 Really the Best??? UPDATE: I still love the Sony NEX-7 but I recently upgraded to Sony’s a7R Full-frame Mirrorless camera that is nearly identical in size and weight to the NEX-7. Yes, the NEX-7 is the best for my kind of photography. Above: After weaning myself off Nikon over the past 4-6 weeks, I had no hesitation at all whipping out my Sony to get this shot a few nights ago. Is the Sony NEX-7 WAY better than the my previous camera, the Nikon D800?
Developing and Using the Narrative-Story Simulation as a Teaching Tool Background This article describes the use of narrative-story simulations for the topic of agricultural safety. The principles used can easily be adapted to other common topics taught by Extension. It is better to have studied, worked, and debated the choices and decisions encountered in the simulation than to encounter them for the first time in real-life. Narrative theory states that humans are primarily storytellers, thus people respond favorably to messages presented in a narrative framework (Morgan, Cole, Struttman, & Piercy, 2002). In discussing narrative simulation development, Cole (1997) noted that each story segment presents a probable scenario that requires a series of judgments among alternative actions and provides immediate feedback about the consequences and correctness of the actions selected. By interacting in small groups, participants reveal to each other their wisdom, attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and misconceptions as they proceed to resolve the simulated event.
In the Collaborative Economy, the Crowd Has Built a Car | Jeremiah Owyang What if I told you the next affordable, long-range, fuel-efficient vehicle might be assembled in your garage or built by your neighbors? That's what I was surprised to hear when I learned about the Wikispeed auto project. Above Image: The orange Wikispeed SGT01 Roadster: crowd-funded, crowd-designed, crowd-produced, hitting the streets in small batches now for $25k, oh, and it gets 100 miles per gallon. Wikispeed is a business that crowdsourced designs, production, development, and has created a SAE-registered, road-legal-approved car, the Wikispeed SGT01 Car, now on sale in limited quantities. I had the opportunity to meet Joe Justice (pic) of Wikispeed at the Aspen Institute, a center dedicated to the advancement of thinking. Above: Wikispeed cars boast modularity, where individual components are assembled by crowd and shipped to a buyer's garage to assemble. What's Wikispeed? Like Wikipedia, a global set of experts are People are participating, in various levels of commitment.
Toyota Production System The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an integrated socio-technical system, developed by Toyota, that comprises its management philosophy and practices. The TPS organizes manufacturing and logistics for the automobile manufacturer, including interaction with suppliers and customers. The system is a major precursor of the more generic "lean manufacturing." Taiichi Ohno, Shigeo Shingo and Eiji Toyoda developed the system between 1948 and 1975.[1] Goals[edit] Waste of over production (largest waste)Waste of time on hand (waiting)Waste of transportationWaste of processing itselfWaste of stock at handWaste of movementWaste of making defective products The elimination of waste has come to dominate the thinking of many when they look at the effects of the TPS because it is the most familiar of the three to implement. Origins[edit] This system, more than any other aspect of the company, is responsible for having made Toyota the company it is today. Principles[edit] Continuous Improvement[edit]
Apportable Today we are thrilled to announce that we’ve closed $2.4 million in seed funding from Google Ventures, Morado Ventures, Salesforce.com, and other angel investors. What is Apportable? The Apportable SDK cross-compiles Objective-C applications to Android, without extensive changes to the original codebase. So how does it work? Instead of translating the app to Java, Apportable cross-compiles the Objective-C code to machine code that runs directly on the Android device’s processor (no VMs were harmed in the execution of our code). Does Apportable convert source code to Java? Absolutely not. My application is very complicated and has intense performance requirements. Our platform has been used with some very complex code bases. What APIs are available when using Apportable? How does Apportable’s UIKit work? The current UIKit implementation uses Android’s views to render content, however we have a hardware accelerated QuartzCore backed version coming out soon. Can I use Java? Yes.
The Bottom Up Era Skill Gaming Jarrod Epps, founder and CEO of cashplay.co, looks at skill gaming and why it’s win-win for gamers and developers It’s the ultimate power-up for developers: a monetization method that not only allows them to make more money from their games but also make those titles more attractive to gamers. Skill gaming is rapidly becoming one of the video gaming industry’s key discussion points, especially as big brands such as Virgin Gaming and Xbox cash in on console-gaming cash tournaments. But what is skill gaming? As usual, it’s start-ups that are using skill gaming to truly innovate and disrupt. Where is the commercial challenge for developers? For one thing, there’s no shortage of competition. Compounding this, improving multimedia quality in the web browsers we use every day and the explosion of smartphones and tablets, mean the majority of people are carrying fully fledged gaming devices around in their pockets and handbags. How are developers monetising their games now?