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Nokia’s Asha mobile phones have been designed with young, aspirational and urban people in mind. They are intended to get their owners online, connect them with their friends and keep them entertained with apps, games and more.
So, has that vision been realised at the grassroots level? Millions of Nokia Asha mobile phones have been sold around the world but who are the people who have brought them and how are they using the devices?
Finding out more about some of the Asha mobile phone owners, and the stories they have to tell, was the aim of a Nokia project called Asharama.
Camera crews spent three weeks in late May on the road visiting countries such as Thailand, India, Mexico and Egypt to meet the proud owners of Asha phones.
Instead of a formal interview or giving them detailed questionnaires, they were just asked to describe that they liked about the phone and how they felt about it.
The answers were honest, unscripted and revealing, and can now be seen in a series of 12 videos called ‘Me and My Asha.’
Here are the first six videos and we’ll bring you the other six videos in part 2 in the next few days.
Ana Laura, an Industrial design student in Mexico City
Click here to view the video on YouTube.
Arnav, a New Delhi graduate, loves biking and rapping
Click here to view the video on YouTube.
Jean in Bangkok enjoys taking photos
Click here to view the video on YouTube.
Mitzy in Mexico City hopes to be a dentist or a vet
Click here to view the video on YouTube.
New Delhi’s Kajal, enjoys reading and playing sports
Click here to view the video on YouTube.
Palm, student in Bangkok, and dreams of being a singer
Click here to view the video on YouTube.
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When you’re looking to create a game for the Windows Phone platform, it’s probably a good idea to talk to somebody who’s already done it. Ocous LLC, the people behind MMO game Age of Sorcery have created a strategy-based game where people fight each other online in a mystical world.
If you’re looking to create a successful mobile game, you may think you’ll need teams of people to do it. It’s not necessary, says Nina Hu, developer and co-founder of Age of Sorcery:
“Located in the Seattle area, WA, we are a very small team. There are just two developers; me and my friend, Alfred, also a co-founder. We both do all the feature design, write the code, do the testing and we have several designer friends who help with the graphics and illustrations (Stephen Cousins is our chief designer, one of the best). This is something we do in our spare time.”
“And when we say spare time, it took up every moment of it. In total, it took us eight months to create Age of Sorcery, after work, during the nights and during most weekends. Moreover, most of the time was spent on implementing the server components to support players from all over the world to play together. If you were looking to do this full time and the game doesn’t have to run against a server, you might have a working game in no time at all.”
But why create a MMO game in the first place?
“There are tons of MMO games designed for desktop, but there aren’t many MMO games that are customised for the mobile and touch devices, especially on Windows Phone. We are a group of people who love MMO games and therefore decided to write one for the device that we use every day. Unlike many other mobile games that run locally, we want to build a game that you can play with real people around the world on your mobile device,” she says.
“When you have some spare time, you can expand your empire or go out for a hunting trip with your friends. You can have the entire empire and all your friends in your pocket and take them with you anywhere you go. It’s a game that not just gives you 5 minutes relax time and then be forgotten. Age of Sorcery is a game you can play for a very long time and over 80% of our players have been playing the game for months since the release.”
Nina also explains why she chose to develop for Windows Phone and not another Operating System.
“One of the reasons we chose to develop on Windows Phone is because Nokia chose this platform”.
“Having used Nokia phones for the past 10 years, I just love Nokia’s phones so much. It’s a brand that I have trusted for a decade. Combining that with the huge percentage of mobile market in Asia and Europe, we saw huge opportunity to get into those markets.”
“Windows Phone is also such an easy to use OS. We like it very much and use it on a daily basis. Therefore, we wanted to create a great MMO game for people just like us. And, with Windows 8 platform on the horizon it’ll be so much easier to port Age of Sorcery to both Windows 8 and the new Windows Phone 8 platform.”
“But don’t worry, Age of Sorcery will run on both platforms – new and old, side by side.”
When developing a game for Windows Phone platform, it’s important to have the right tools (and a little bit of knowledge in the matter).
“We wrote this game in Silverlight, the SDK is easy to use. The development tooling experience is simply the best in my opinion. Anybody with passion on games and are familiar with C# language can create a game like this.”
As you’d imagine with a MMO multiplayer game, it requires you to interact with other players, each with their own online identity. This means there’s a need for a server.
“AoS is a server based game. That means you need to connect to the server to play, as with all online multiplayer games. We’ve recently needed to upgrade our server as the old one was becoming full. We now have over 100,000 players with over 20% of them are online at the same time.”
Creating a game is by no means the end of the process. Nina explains that listening to the people that use the game is absolutely vital.
“I can’t emphasize enough how important and valuable the players’ feedback is. Since this is the first time we’ve written a game, it’s very hard to get everything right at the beginning and the support from the players has been incredible. It’s because of the feedback we’ve received from them that’s got us to this current stage. Our players are so talented and the features they suggested are awesome, we just hope that we have enough time to implement them all”.
Nina finishes by telling us of what we can expect to see in the future.
“Our future plans include adding new features, like treasure hunting, boss fight, arena competition, etc… and most importantly porting the game to Windows 8! I can’t wait.”
If you’ve not downloaded Age of Sorcery yet, then make sure you give it a try – it’s free. It runs on the Nokia Lumia 610, Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800 and the Nokia Lumia 900.
What do you think of Age of Sorcery? Are you thinking of developing a game and found this useful? Or, have you already created a game for the Windows Phone platform? We’d like to hear from you. Use the comments below to get in touch.
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Recently we asked you to participate in a poll to see if you prefer to pay for apps, or download them for free. It’s now time for the results, so join us as we take a look at them.
Well, I don’t think we’ve ever had a poll where the results have been an almost 50-50 split. But, we do now.
When it comes to downloading apps, it seems that you – our readers – don’t have a preference either way. Although paid apps with no ads wins by a whisker, scoring almost 52 per cent. This leaves free apps with ads receiving 48 per cent of the votes.
These results are interesting, as I thought the results would be further separated.
If there’s anything for developers of apps/games to learn from this poll, is that whatever you’re doing, stick at it for now. People, or at least our readers, aren’t majorly concerned either way.
What do you make of the results?
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I like Mondays. Yes, I know that’s controversial, but it means I get a chance to share some gems like these from around the interwebs. Grab a hot drink, sit back and enjoy.
How cool is that pic? Tim Tadder took a bunch of bald dudes, some buckets of water and clever lighting and created some amazing photographs. Water wigs…who would have thought it? Made me smile, that’s for sure. Tempted to shave my head and try this, but I just know I’ll end up looking like a soggy dog. Fancy trying it for me?
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Can you cook? Do you want to learn? Who needs cooking lessons with actual messy food and actual oil, why not just use a virtual spatula and virtual steak and shrimp? This makes me smile, because – really – what’s the actual point? Surely when you’re cooking a steak you know when it’s done without a virtual guide telling you. It’s undoubtedly very clever, but for me (and this is only my opinion, of course), this wins the prize for a pointless use of technology. Unless they can tell me how to flip a pancake properly.
Regular readers will know I have a penchant for superheroes, and Batman in particular, so imagine how much it made me smile when I saw this collection of scratch art featuring the Caped Crusader and villains. Scratch art is, as you all know, is the removal of a layer of material with a sharp tool to reveal a contrasting colour underneath. And when those colours reveal comic book characters, it lights up my life.
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A quick bonus video for you now, as this playing card realism drawing deserves more than a place in the quick grin section:
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Quick Grins
Flight of the Conchords crowdsource in the best possible way for the best possible reason.
Before you eat your next small 2 calorie mint from a plastic box, watch this video.
Token Lego story – Rivendell recreated by a teen with a huge collection!
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What’s made you smile this week? Anything I missed that should have been included here? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments, or by using the #MakeMeSmileMonday tag on Twitter.
[Image credits: Tim Tadder, DigInfo TV,Geek Tyrant ]
Category: NOKIA EUROPA | Leave a Comment
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Purity just got even more pure. The Nokia Purity Pro Wireless Stereo Headset by Monster was unveiled this week at IFA in Berlin as the latest in our fast-growing line of audio accessories.
As the name suggests, these new headsets offer a wire-free connection to your phone. Music transfer is by Bluetooth and the headsets feature one-touch pairing with your smartphone using NFC. Standard Bluetooth pairing is also available.
These are Nokia accessories, so vivid colours are, of course, part of the mix. The Purity Pro headsets are available in red, yellow, white and black.
The crisp, clear sound quality delivered by the Purity Pro is enhanced by Monster’s active noise cancellation technology. This includes feed forward and feedback technology for ambient and percussive noise cancellation.
The noise cancellation and Bluetooth activates automatically when the headset is unfolded, and switches off again when you fold them up after use.
Monster, the company behind the sound of ‘Beats by Dr Dre’, first collaborated with Nokia on the original range of Purity headsets introduced last October. The perfect partner for Nokia Lumia smartphones and Nokia Music, they recently received Plus X awards for quality and design.
Monster CEO Noel Lee said: “With our Purity Pro, users can now enjoy unprecedented audio performance and advanced capabilities, with all the added benefits of a pure and seamless wireless connection.”
The Purity Pro headsets will be available from Quarter Four 2012 and will cost approximately €299.
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Od dziś w ofercie Play dostępny jest nowy modem Huawei E369 Huawei E369 to mający zaledwie 8 mm grubości, nowoczesny modem, który wyróżnia się przede wszystkim wyjątkowo eleganckim wyglądem i niewielkimi rozmiarami. Ten idealnie nadający się do Ultrabooków, sprzęt pozwoli ściągać dane z prędkością do 21,6 Mbps. Prosta obsługa oraz automatyczna instalacja pozwolą cieszyć się [...]
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No i znowu sensacyjny tekst na Spidersweb z Gruszką w rolach głównych ;-( Skoro zostałem wywołany do tablicy i niestety tradycyjnie już w przypadku tego serwisu nikt nie zapytał o moją opinię na opisywany temat, pozwolę sobie przedstawić mój stronniczy punkt widzenia. Po pierwsze nie rozumiem jak autor mógł wpaść na tak szatański pomysł, że [...]
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Tylko przez 3 dni (piątek, sobota, niedziela) możecie kupić gry studia EA za jedyne 3,69 zł. Wystarczy z przeglądarki w telefonie wejść na adres http://m.play.pl/ea i zakupić grę. Opłata zostanie doliczona do rachunku. Uwaga! Przy zakupie koniecznie korzystajcie z przeglądarki systemowej. Grę można pobrać tylko w zasięgu 3G. Opłata za transfer zgodna z cennikiem/pakietem. [...]
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Tylko przez 3 dni (piątek, sobota, niedziela) możecie kupić gry studia EA za jedyne 3,69 zł. Wystarczy z przeglądarki w telefonie wejść na adres http://m.play.pl/ea i zakupić grę. Opłata zostanie doliczona do rachunku. Uwaga! Przy zakupie koniecznie korzystajcie z przeglądarki systemowej. Grę można pobrać tylko w zasięgu 3G. Opłata za transfer zgodna z cennikiem/pakietem. [...]
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Od dziś w ofercie Play dostępny jest nowy modem Huawei E369 Huawei E369 to mający zaledwie 8 mm grubości, nowoczesny modem, który wyróżnia się przede wszystkim wyjątkowo eleganckim wyglądem i niewielkimi rozmiarami. Ten idealnie nadający się do Ultrabooków, sprzęt pozwoli ściągać dane z prędkością do 21,6 Mbps. Prosta obsługa oraz automatyczna instalacja pozwolą cieszyć się [...]
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