AnDevCon (“Android Developers Conference”) is set up as a series of tutorials and lectures.  Developers choose the sessions to attend and provide feedback, which determines who is invited back to teach at the next event.  I’ve lectured at 4 of the last 5 AnDevCons, and always learned something, as well as taught something.   At this conference, I really enjoyed Mark Scheel’s talk on “Exploring Google Glass”.

A picture taken with Google Glass of a lecture on Google Glass

The picture above of the Google Glass lecture was taken by my friend Mike Wolfson, using his new Google Glass hardware. This is a screen snapshot of Mike’s picture, showing the EXIF data visible in the Chrome browser.  As you can see, the camera is listed as “Glass 1″.  The photographer, Mike, taught his own class on “Android Tools” at the conference, and his must-have book on the same topic (published by O’Reilly) comes on the market any day now.

I also really enjoyed Larry Schiefer’s insightful talk on Renderscript. Larry is the CTO of the software company Hiques, based in Texas, that does custom Android development. Renderscript is a C-like technology that makes it (slightly) easier to use the GPU chip for computation.  It has been something of an orphan technology since Google launched it with the Honeycomb release of Android, and then promptly deprecated the 3D graphics API half of it one release later.  It is good to see Renderscript’s compute API get a little more attention.

As well as the lectures, AnDevCon featured an exhibition hall.  Immersion had a booth in the hall, and developers packed in to experience the latest haptic demonstrations.

The Immersion Booth was usually packed with Developers

And that brings us to the product announcement at AnDevCon.  Immersion announced that our Haptic SDK is now integrated with 3 development frameworks.  For developers who use Marmalade, or Unity 3D, or YoYo’s GameMaker Studio, this a real boon, saving development time and money.  Haptic effects can now be easily integrated into a game directly from the development framework.  More details are at http://ir.immersion.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=768070

If you were at AnDevCon V in Boston, what were your impressions of the conference?  If you have a game developed in one of the frameworks mentioned above, what is your impression of the new integrations?  Please post your comments below.

Peter van der Linden, Chief Android Technology Evangelist

World’s Greatest Detective: “I wish to draw your attention to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Inspector Blindly-Oblivious: “But the dog did nothing in the night-time!”

World’s Greatest Detective: “That was the curious incident.”

That strongly reminded me of the 2013 Google I/O exhibition, which wrapped up last week. For months beforehand, everyone, including me, was speculating about the hardware, software and product announcements expected at the show. I predicted in a blog post new products we might see:

• The Motorola X-phone
• With great haptic effects
• Running the new Key Lime Pie release of Android.

What actually happened was very different! Google I/O 2013 had:

• No word of any X-phone
• No new hardware of any kind
• Nor was there any new release of Android.

It was a curious incident of a multi-national giant that didn’t announce products during the event. Or did they? Well, the products that were announced are a very big deal indeed for developers; just not what we were expecting.

Here’s what Google announced at I/O 2013, along with what they mean for the developers:

* Android Studio IDE.  Current thinking is that Google will support Eclipse+ADT along with Android Studio, allowing developers to choose between IDEs. Studio has much better support for rendering layouts from XML files. Android Studio is based on the open source community edition of the award-winning Intelli-J IDEA software. That software is the best Java development environment, but it costs $700 per seat, while Eclipse (nearly as good) is free. Now Google has found a way to build on the best IDE, and provide it for free to Android developers. This is a clever way for Google to address the “developer tools” advantage that iOS currently enjoys.

* A new standard format for images, WebP.   The new format  can do both lossy and lossless compression, and reduces to about 25% less than PNG or JPG files.   Like JPG files, WebP uses the values of adjacent blocks of pixels to predict values of the current block, and encodes only the differences between the prediction and the actual values. (Google acknowledges similarities with the Lempel Ziv compression work from 1977). That provides many streams of zeroes which compress handily. Since few open source tools currently support WebP, Google has provided the source for a couple of command line tools to convert to/from the new format. The storage advantage and flexibility of WebP are compelling, and mobile developers will quickly convert to use them. Facebook has already begun converting user JPG uploads to WebP format.  There are solid financial reasons to reduce storage space and network load.

* A new video codec, VP9.   For decades, the computer has been hamstrung by patent and license restrictions for video recording and playback. But demand is growing hugely. According to Cisco, video data will be 55 percent of all consumer Internet traffic within 3 years. The VP9 codec announcement holds out the promise that Google has “cut the Gordian Knot“ of unusable technology by replacing it wholesale. This huge topic really deserves a blog post of its own (only it can’t have one, unless you post comments saying you’re interested in learning more about it).

* Game Infrastructure.   Google announced some significant new infrastructure for game developers.  ”Google Play game services” is a centralized system supporting gamers running on Android, iOS, and desktop browsers.  Game services will save the state of a game in play to the gamer’s Google Drive (separate from their existing disk quota), and allow resuming of the same game on a different device. It will also facilitate connections between multiple players, both in-game, and outside the game in the form of high score boards (leader boards).  Google+ accounts will be used to support restricted-membership groups, for e.g. team play, beta testing, or privileged features.  Google+ hangouts can now share text, icons, video and still images.  Hangouts will be supported on Android, iOS,  inside Google+ on any platform, and as a MacOS X app.

The author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Conan Doyle, once joked that “Silver Blaze” was his “thirteenth favourite Sherlock Holmes story”. I have to admit that the Google I/O of 2013 is my thirteenth favorite Google I/O show, of the six that have been held so far! Let’s go and get our hands on the new stuff right now, devs!

We want to hear from you. What was your takeaway from Google I/O 2013? Did the announcements impact you, surprise you or bore you? How do the above announcements impact you as developers? Feel free to post in the comments section below.

Peter van der Linden, Chief Android Technology Evangelist

This was constantly repeated during the keynote, and was the driving force behind all of the updates we were about to hear. For a software developer, Google I/O represents more than just a conference – it is an unveiling of the future that guides our development. The overall message from this year’s Google I/O was centered around enabling developers to create amazing, fresh experiences, and it definitely meshed well with Immersion’s own UX-driven development.

This year, Google presented a wave of tools and new experiences that left so many developers speechless. For Immersion, this includes (but certainly isn’t limited to) Google Play Game Services, Google Maps, Developer tools, and the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy S4 running AOSP.

Google Play

Gaming has always been very important to Immersion. Since the days of the console, we have always strived to make gaming a much more immersive and realistic experience. When games made their way to smartphones, we treated the smartphone as a gaming controller. Beyond this, the smartphone platform enabled new types of games that allowed us to take gaming up a notch with haptics.

Today, Google presented Google Play Game Services – a service that enables achievements, leaderboards, cloud save, and real-time multi-player gaming. Needless to say, we are extremely excited to see what types of games developers create using this service infrastructure and that we can improve by providing even more creative experiences with haptics.

Google Maps

Maps was presented as a major improvement over the current Google Maps implementation.  Aside from a complete redesign, Google essentially rebuilt Maps from the ground up to enable a more personalized experience. For example, each user is able to have their own Google Map with a personalized set of frequent POIs. Additionally, discovery of new destinations are even further improved by also including reviews from Zagat, built into the main Map display of the application.

My favorite aspect of the next version of Maps is the use of crowd-sourced photos to enable virtual photo tours of remote sites in such high quality that you feel like you are there. The immersive characteristics of this easily catch our eye as it creates a sense of realism – from thousands of miles away.

Developer Tools

One of the biggest hindrances to writing apps for Android has always been testing across a variety of device sizes and types. With the latest Android Studio, developers can now quickly see how their apps will look on a wide array of supported devices through Google’s very own Intelli-J adapted IDE – made for Android app development. From the short demonstration I saw, this tool looked extremely clean, quick, and provided all of the most useful information for an app developer, as well as for a UX designer.

Additionally, the Developer console was far improved to enable increased app downloads worldwide. With an analytics dashboard built into the Developer console, developers are now able to see where they are missing potential markets. Coupled with the analytics are optimization tips that interpret some of the analytics information and provide a summary of what we can do to gain further adoption. 

Samsung Galaxy S4 on AOSP

Each year at Google I/O, the device giveaway is mostly what the developers are waiting for.  Developers are eager to find out what the new standard Android development device is.  While there were no new device announcements this year, that didn’t mean all of the developers weren’t drooling at the thought of the newly released Galaxy S4 running AOSP. Samsung’s latest flagship means gorgeous hardware for developers. Running AOSP means a true Google experience from head-to-toe. The two put together creates the most desirable type of device available for developers to test and run their apps on.

Wrap-Up

The Google I/O keynote was about much more than devices this year – it was about how we, as developers, can use the newly minted tools that Google has provided us to create new and powerful experiences and solutions for people worldwide. At Immersion, we follow this same mantra. Whether we actively work with every product in the world or not, we actively strive to apply great UX to great products. The keynote today unveiled many mechanisms for many of their products and platforms that enable developers to do just this – and that is what makes us excited for the future. 

At the end of the keynote, Larry Page said something that resonated with me:

 “We should be building great things that don’t exist” – Larry Page

Ricky Bhatia, Senior Software Developer

This blog post tells you how to enable Developer Options on the Samsung Galaxy S4 device.  The technique also applies to  other Android devices that ship with or can be updated to the Jelly Bean 4.2.x firmware, like the Google Nexus S phone.   Jelly Bean 4.2 introduced a whole raft of new features, like wireless display mirroring, and giving multiple users their own home screen and apps.  You can see a complete list at http://www.android.com/whatsnew/ (for a limited time).  But the very first change that many developers will hit on the S4 and other devices, is the way you enable “Developer Options”.

All post-2.0 Android releases have a section in the Settings App titled “Developer Options”.   As the name suggests, this section allows you to configure all kinds of choices useful to developers.  The most important one is “Go into debug mode when a USB connection is made” but there are other options that will make aspects of the hardware reveal more about themselves.  I occasionally like to enable “Show surface updates” to make the device flash in a way that live wallpaper just cannot do.    ”Show layout bounds” is another good one to set on your brother’s phone when he leaves it out in plain sight.  I can’t do justice to these with a static screen snapshot, but they usually cause the brother to want to put you in a headlock.

The point is that users who are not developers can get into trouble if some of these developer options get switched on.  They won’t usually know how or where to switch them off again.  So Google decided to make it a bit harder for non-developers to stumble into this part of the Settings app.   They did this in an unusual way – with a secret handshake.  Read on for the details.

The secret handshake to enable Developer Options

THE SECRET HANDSHAKE

On Android devices starting at API level 17, Android 4.2, the “Developer Options” section is not shown as one of the sections in the Settings app. To make it appear, you have to launch the Settings app, and tap on “About phone”.  Inside the “About phone” section is a list item labeled “Build Number”.   Tap on that selection 7 distinct times.   After 3 taps, each tap shows a new toast message encouraging you to keep going (see attached screenshot).  After the last tap, it shows a message saying “you are now a developer”  and hey presto, the “Developer Options” will now be visible as one of the sections at the top level of Settings.

Once you can see the “Developer Options,” you can set flags like “Stay awake while charging” and “USB debugging”.  That last one enables you to use ADB to access the device.  That in turn allows software development, debugging, and side-loading of apps.  And that’s the secret handshake for enabling “Developer Options” on phones with API level 17, Jelly Bean 4.2.x, or later firmware.

There’s a PS to this blog post.  If you tap the “Android version” item repeatedly and quickly, you get this Easter egg on the screen.

What’s it for? Nothing, really. Make up your own rationale. I like to think it’s to remind us to enjoy life, smile, and consume a few jelly beans from time to time. Please post a URL below if you can find this easter egg code in the Android Open Source Project.  Cheers!

Peter van der Linden, Chief Android Technology Evangelist

Naturally, the audience asked him what the laptop was, if it wasn’t a computer. His reply made us all rethink our assumptions about wearable computing. The presenter was Marcelo Coelho, speaking recently at the FITC designers conference in Toronto.

“That is a TV screen and a typewriter!” declared Marcelo.

We all got the drift about what Marcelo was saying. Just as surreal artist Rene Magritte’s famous painting is not actually a pipe (it is a graphical representation of a pipe, but you can’t stuff it with tobacco or smoke it), the MacBook Pro can be thought of as two pieces of hardware jammed together. Marcelo is telling us to expand our thinking about what a computer looks like and does. Get outside the box, figuratively and literally.

Much of Marcelo’s past work has been in wearable and touchable computing. He is currently working at the MIT Media  Lab. His website  features some great examples, a few of which Marcelo presented in his talk. I particularly liked the art exhibit “Six-Forty by Four-Eighty.” Many will recognize 640 x 480 as the basic VGA (Video Graphics Array) resolution, popularized as the lowest common denominator of analog video standards. Marcelo recast that as an interactive lighting installation of a few hundred colored pixel tiles in a darkened room. The tiles can be rearranged and repositioned by viewers, and they change colors when touched. Instead of a notice saying “don’t touch,” this artwork has a notice inviting viewers to reconstruct the display in more pleasing forms, at the level of individual pixels. It’s about moving pixels off a rectangular screen, and putting them where they can be handled.

The exhibit draws attention to usually inconspicuous hardware, and sparks fresh thinking about designs.  

Six-forty by Four-eighty exhibit.

The connection to haptic technology is clear – developers are invited to think deeply about the way we interact with computers, and look for new ways to make an emotional connection with users.  I’m glad to see current computing paradigms being challenged, and to hear more about people who work at the intersection of design, ergonomics, art and technology. Perhaps reviewing some of Marcelo Coelho’s projects will inspire you to think about using touch technology to awaken a positive emotional response from your app users. Please comment below if you “get” what’s going on here.

The famous Magritte “not a pipe” painting is currently on display on the second floor of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is in the “Miracle Mile” section of Wilshire Boulevard near the La Brea Tarpits. And even I know enough not to walk into a tarpit like that.

Peter van der Linden, Chief Android Technology Evangelist

Photo credit: Jason Eppinks via jasoneppink.com

Whenever I travel to a different time zone, I try to get my bio-illogical clock back in sync quickly (that means staying up ’til the local evening time). In Berlin, I did this on my first day by spending some hours at the zoo. The Zoologischer Garten Berlin is the oldest zoo in Germany, and the most popular zoo in Europe.

I took this picture of a house fly in the zoo gift shop just for fun, intending to blog about it as if it were one of the exhibits in the zoo, har-de-har-har. But looking at the picture, I see it also has a background postcard with the puzzling slogan “I [hexagon] TXL.”  What does that mean?

The Musca Domestica or common house fly catches up with his reading in the zoo gift shop.

I’ll get back to that curious postcard in a bit. Before I ease your curiosity, I want to describe a Droidcon Berlin talk given by Duncan Burrell of Ford Motor Company. Duncan spoke eloquently about an API from Ford that allows Android developers to bridge their apps to car hardware. In-car APIs are of particular interest because they are a natural candidate for haptics to provide touch feedback, freeing the drivers to keep their eyes on the road. The big surprise was that Ford has two in-car APIs – and they are completely separate from, and unrelated to, each other.

The API that Duncan presented is an Android library that lets developers delegate their input (button presses, menu selections, GPS readings, etc.) to the more capable entertainment player in the car (the “head console” in Detroit terminology). This API also supports redirecting app output (audio or screen) to the head console. The idea is to let the app do all the things it did before, but when in a vehicle, take advantage of the higher quality peripherals. This API is branded under the name SYNC AppLink, and the Ford documentation is at https://developer.ford.com/.

Duncan did not describe the second Ford API, but briefly characterized it as an R&D work in progress. The open source library was rolled out a couple of months ago under the name OpenXC. It uses a small hardware module (an Arduino kit works fine) to support a read-only interface to the car’s internal sensors for engine, steering, braking, fuel injection and other devices. This API allows your app to process data from the car’s operation. The idea is to provide richer data, allowing interested drivers to understand more about the car’s performance. OpenXC is documented at http://openxcplatform.com/.

Duncan went on to present a series of slides calling out key differences between the car industry and the smartphone industry, among them:

• Cars have a production life of 3 to 5 years. This is needed to amortize the huge cost of tooling. New technology thus takes years to show up in cars.
• Smartphones have a production life  of 1 year, and new technology (like NFC) is rapidly adopted.
• Cars are subject to extensive legal regulation covering safety and use—this varies by region, and must not be subverted by a mobile device.

His conclusion is that car makers should create flexible platforms to bridge the two worlds—hence an API that allows the smartphone to transparently delegate I/O to better peripherals on the car console, but not control the car directly. What kind of new apps will appear? One slide showed the top four apps, which were real-time traffic reports, nearby parking, nearby fuel stations, and weather forecasts. None of these require input from the car, and I’ve already seen all of them working two years ago in South Korea. Ford has no intention of running its own app store. Apps will be acquired through current channels, and function with or without a car. This looks like a safe approach, where success hinges on how convenient and lightweight developers find the new SYNC AppLink API.

The moment you’ve been waiting for! Let’s finish up by revisiting that “I [hexagon] TXL” postcard in the zoo gift shop. Like the Ford AppLink API, this requires local knowledge. TXL is the international airport code for Tegel – currently Berlin’s main airport. The hexagon part reflects the terminal at Tegel, which is laid out in the shape of a hexagon.  This gives some amazing space advantages, allowing you to pass through passport control and pick up your luggage literally at the end of the jetway, instead of a long forced march of the kind you get at, say, Frankfurt airport. The postcard has the equivalent message to “I [heart] NYC” but tailored to Berlin. And our friend, the fly? He has the greatest freedom of any of the animals, to wander within the zoo. He demands the least attention, but can only be observed by the zookeepers, not controlled or trained. In this sense, the fly is an analogy to the Ford R&D vehicle introspection OpenXC API. And there you have it: planes, trains, and automobiles, all in one place at the Berlin Droidcon.

Peter van der Linden, Chief Android Technology Evangelist

Photo Credit:  Ryan Lane via flickr

The South Wing of the Santa Clara Stadium. If you think the tiered buttressing is overkill, remember this stadium is in the San Andreas earthquake zone.

In some ways, GD magazine has some surprising points in common with the stadium that is still under construction:

• Both are world class facilities for professionals to “show off their stuff”;
• Both are aimed at fostering enjoyment of gaming among a large group of people and fans;
• The stadium and GD magazine come from long traditions, but their best work is undoubtedly in the future;
• The operators clearly subscribe to the (usually right) “if you build it, they will come” theory;
• Most of all, this is a place where tectonic shifts can cause you to re-evaluate everything you took for granted.

What made me really appreciate GD magazine was an in-depth article in the February 2013 issue, titled “How to make Touchscreen controls feel better than a gamepad.”  Written by game studio founder Tim Rogers, the article boldly argues that “buttons are doomed; touchscreens are the new game controllers.” This audacious statement could be justified in one of two ways. Read on to learn how!

One way to make the pro case that “touchscreens rule” is to point out that mobile phones have become the highest volume platform within the computer industry, and all of the current generations of smartphones have touchscreens. Voila! Touchscreens are the new game controllers because they vastly outnumber last year’s game controllers.

The other way of arguing the case that buttons will be replaced by touchscreens, is what software engineers would call a “bottom up” approach – to exhaustively examine all the data, and put together a summary leading to that conclusion. And in fact, that is the approach that Tim Rogers takes. Tim presents a detailed analysis of 7 popular games and their input methods. His data ranges from Pong (a game from 1972 – ask your grandfather about it – in spite of the name, the game has no discernible odor), to Angry Birds of 2009.

Tim Rogers’s article in GD really deserves an independent reading, so I won’t spoil it for you here. But I will close with these two pro-tips:

1. Most game development professionals in North America are eligible for a free subscription to GD Magazine. See http://edge.halldata.com/site/CMP002695GDnew - to get yours today.
2. Santa Clara Stadium is a finalist to host Super Bowl 50 in three years time. If we start queuing at the construction site today, we could get tickets.

Do you agree with Tim Rogers that buttons in games are doomed? What is your favorite feature in GD magazine? Are you ready to camp out for tickets at the 49ers new stadium?  We want to hear it all! Feel free to post your insights below.

Peter van der Linden, Chief Android Technology Evangelist

I thought about all of the above before I attended this year. But the reality was something different for me. I went to Austin to experience SXSW Interactive. So, my time was spent listening to speaking sessions and checking out the Gaming Expo. There were many great talks and games at SXSW, and many used touch and feel metaphors. This makes sense when our sense of touch is so important in our daily lives.

But let me tell you about the one session that struck me the most, and why. It was called “Building the Touchy-feely World of Tearaway.” In this session by Rex Crowle from Media Molecule, Crowle talked about the touch interface design of his game and how he wanted the game to feel very “tactile.” He wanted to also give his users God-like manipulation of the many in-game elements through both the game controller and touch screen interactions.

And Tearaway’s paper artwork definitely lends itself to folding, tearing, gluing, crumpling and other paper interaction metaphors.  But let’s face it, I’m a technology evangelist for touch feedback, (a.k.a. haptics), and no matter how much he talked about his “tactile” game, I couldn’t feel it.  And this is why Crowle’s talk struck me the most out of all the sessions I attended.

I mean, I felt what he meant, but the only tactile thing about the game is that you use your hands for control. And that’s what you do with virtually all video games, right?

I felt robbed, frustrated as well, that I could not actually feel this incredible paper world.

You see, there is no tactile feedback in this PS Vita game. Unlike Sony’s PlayStation DualShock controllers that actually do give PlayStation games some real feeling, the PS Vita doesn’t have any tactile feedback capability. And that’s a shame for a game like Tearaway.

Mr. Crowle, I liked your SXSW talk and your game. Media Molecule does awesome work, and the Tearaway interface is nicely interactive; more so than most.  But for the record, this PS Vita game only satisfies two of my senses and touch is not one of them.

If Tearaway ever comes to a more tactile gaming platform, like the PlayStation or even
Android mobile (using the Immersion Haptic Library). I truly hope Media Molecule takes the time to give real tactile feeling to this very creative game.

What do you think? Are there any other games or apps you wish had more feelings and incorporated haptics? Tell us about it below.

“I’m walking, yes indeed, I’m walking…” The old Fats Domino song resonated dully in my mind, as I walked the entire length of the Mobile World Congress exhibition last night. There were thousands of fellow attendees walking along with me at closing time, as we crossed from the side of the exhibition with the software booths to the side of the exhibition with the public transport. The maps along the way even warn you roughly how long it takes to traverse the nine giant halls.

Mobile World Congress is the world’s largest mobile phone exhibition and conference. It’s held annually in Barcelona, Spain, and just about everyone working in mobile software or hardware goes there – about 67,000 people in all, this year!

In spite of its vast size (and consequent walking challenges), I like Mobile World Congress. Why? Many new products are announced and launched here in the nine exhibition halls. It’s a chance to catch up with old friends, and make new ones. Everything comes together in one gigantic place, and the Immersion team is here in full force. If you’re here among the buzz and excitement, come find us in the App Planet Hall in Booth F49. Much of my day is spent demonstrating our touch sense technology to Android developers, and answering their questions—such as how to include our haptic library in their games.

Many of the people visiting the Immersion booth have fascinating stories, like these three Barcelonés who are working on an original app combining retail with social gaming. We talked for a few minutes, discussing how haptic technology could increase their user engagement, and each of us was left with new insights and ideas.

3 skilled developers from a Barcelona start-up

It’s not just the professional developers who amaze me. I talked with an IT consultant for the banking industry who was interested in haptic technology for a mobile game that his eight-year-old daughter had designed. The daughter has a passion for sailing, and found a way to express that passion in a game app. The father was helping her storyboard her ideas, and the two of them together are going to take it just as far as they can go. An interesting game design without shady characters, destruction or monsters - I’ll buy that app for sure!

Mobile World Congress is definitely a place where your preconceptions are challenged and your horizons expand. But I have to go now. I’m due back at the booth, and it’s at the other end of the exhibition complex. Come and visit booth 8.1F49—we’re also doing a giveaway everyday, including Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Tab, Note 2, Android pins and must-have Android beanies. As the veteran rhythm ‘n blues songster from New Orleans said:

“I’m walking yes indeed, I’m talking ’bout you and me,

I’m hoping that you’ll come back to me”

Peter , Chief Android Technology Evangelist

This elegant building has graced the canal side of Amsterdam for over two hundred years.  For most of that time, the city burghers has dedicated the building to serve the public as a center of art, culture, and learning. The tradition continued this week, as the building hosted the FITC Amsterdam conference. FITC ­Future, Innovation, Technology & Creativity ­ is a worldwide series of conferences to inspire and connect the digerati (net-literate cyber elites). I was there to present on ”Design Principles of Haptic Technology.”

My presentation was about the design principles of haptic feedback, how and when to use haptic effects, and what they add to an app. As you can see from the picture below, the room was full to capacity with an enthusiastic audience. I had written my talk to present the design principles in highly visual form, to make it accessible to designers accustomed to thinking that way.

Call me reckless, but I decided to gamble on the goodwill of the listeners by calling for a couple of volunteers to help me stage a demo. It really tempts fate to do any kind of demo without practicing it several times, but the volunteers were wonderful, the Demo Gods (for once) smiled upon us, and it all went perfectly. The audience reaction was superb; the same reaction you see when a trapeze artist works without a net and executes a skinners move!

There isn’t enough space here to describe the principles that I outlined. However, many of the Immersion team will be in Barcelona all next week at the Mobile World Congress show. This is the biggest mobile exhibition and conference of the year. If you will be at Mobile World Congress too, please come and visit the Immersion team at App Planet Hall 8.1, Booth F49 (Stand 8.1F49).

At our booth, we’ll be hosting an exciting raffle contest. Play a fun new interactive haptic app to win an Immersion haptic Android pin and enter for a chance to win our daily Grand Prizes. Each day, we’ll select 26 winners from the raffle participants. The Grand Prize winner will receive a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Tab or a Samsung Galaxy Note 2—the other 25 winners will receive one of our awesome Android fleece beanies. Follow us on Twitter (@HapticsDev) or like us on Facebook to get updates!

I’ll also be co-presenting a similar version of the FITC talk at the WIPJam event  on Thursday. Please come say hello, and if everyone is as enthusiastic and good-natured as the FITC audience, we will again challenge the Demo Gods together!

Peter van der Linden, Android Technology Evangelist