After becoming the PLATINUM sponsor for Adobe Camp Brasil, BlackBerry is now offering 200 free PlayBooks for you to have a chance to take home one of the best tablets in the market.
Yes, that’s correct! We just received the following letter from the BlackBerry Alliance Team in Latin America. What are you waiting for?
More details: http://blackberrygamesdevtools.com/

COMPLETE LETTER:

Dear Developer,

Join us on February 16th, 11:00 am EST, for an interactive session covering everything you need to know about native games development for BlackBerry. This session will take an in-depth look at key information needed for creating native games for BlackBerry, the BlackBerry NDK 2.0, development resources, as well as tips on how to monetize and sell your games on BlackBerry Tablet OS and BlackBerry 10.

Industry experts will be available to share key lessons and you will have the opportunity to get your questions answered through an interactive Q&A.

Raffle and Prizes

RIM will be flying three lucky winners to San Francisco (CA) to attend the
Game Developers Conference. Selection will occur during the webcast so be sure to attend. There’s more! The first 100 registrants to enter the webcast will qualify for a free BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet. Don’t worry if you’re not one of the first 100. We have another 100 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets to give away.

Learn more and Register Today:
http://webcast.streamlogics.com/audience/index.asp?eventid=49961053
Details on webcast topics and prizes are provided on the registration site.

Don’t forget to check out our central site for BlackBerry Game Developers at http://partners.blackberry.com/web/guest/games, providing you with the information and resources you need to get started.

If you have any questions, please contact alliances@blackberry.com

Regards,
BlackBerry Alliance Team, LATAM

(Main copy by AT&T Corporate Communications)

Demian Borba injured his finger while surfing in San Diego, and never thought that one week later his puffy, red finger would inspire an idea for the widely recognized mobile application, “Action X-Ray.”

Demian, CEO of interactive agency Action Creations, and his Lead Developer, Douglas Saisho, decided to travel to Las Vegas to compete in the AT&T Developer Summit Hackathon, hosted during CES 2012 in January. While driving from San Diego to Las Vegas, Demian and Doug brainstormed ideas for an app that could run on AT&T’s new mHealth APIs. After seeing so many friends posting their injuries on Facebook, Twitter (and being proud of them), Demian looked down at his swollen finger and was inspired to create an application that would allow users to report and share their physical injuries with friends and doctors via text, photo, video and voice. “It will help doctors better understand your health over time,” explains Demian, “and you can also save how much it hurts.”

The AT&T Hackathon invited mobile app developers to a day-long developing session where they were given free access to AT&T’s new APIs, as well as guidance and expertise from AT&T’s app development experts. The top three teams, selected at the end of the session, were given the opportunity to pitch their ideas to about 3,000 developers during AT&T’s Application Developer Summit the following day.

Demian describes the Hackathon environment as intense and competitive. “It’s about 150 developers sitting in a room together, typing all day long.” Despite the pressure, Demian and Doug were able to finish writing the app in the given time, and “Action X-Ray” was voted the winner of the Hackathon by votes from attendees of the Developer Summit. Demian and Doug took home $20,000 cash and an opportunity to spend three days at an AT&T Foundry to access additional coaching and resources, among other prizes.

The Action Creations team says they will use their earnings to invest in “Action X-Ray” production, and use the assistance from AT&T to bring the app to market. “I think we can say we’re good at it”, Demian said. “We’re going to keep doing it.”

For the 1st Place the team received:
• $20k Cash Prize
• Featured in AT&T TV commercial
• Video Interview with Andrew Keen posted on TechCrunch
• Six (6) month membership in Alpha API program where we help setup networking events where you get to rub elbows with significant peers
• Three (3) days of AT&T Foundry business and technical support
• One month feature in AT&T Promotional Widget (platform dependent)
• “Back-Stage” meet and greet with Developer Summit Band Nickelback
• Microsoft Xbox 360 + Kinect for the entire team

Big thanks

Big thanks to our families and friends for the constant support, for AT&T for putting together an amazing hackathon, to RIM (BlackBerry) for believing in our team and providing great support, to Adobe for working so hard on AIR and to FDT for creating an amazing IDE that made our coding speed get incredibly fast. Thanks to everyone who believed in Action Creations no matter what, we did it!

App icon:

Videos

Video #1: Hackathon Summary

Video #2: Demian Borba Full Pitch to 3000 developers

Video #3: AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega announces the winner

Video #4: Developers at the Hackathon

Video #5: Interview for CrackBerry.com

Video #6: Winners interview for TechCrunch.com

Video #7: TV Interview on NBC Universal SD

We hope to see you soon at our Adobe Camp Brazil 2012 Hackathon!

On August 8th, Action Creations hosted the second monthly BlackBerry Developers Group meeting in San Diego. This month the primary topic was Developing for the QNX operating system. We also raffled off more BlackBerry swag and BlackBerry devices to a few lucky attendees.

 
The source files for the presentation can be found on GitHub.
 

LOCATION

The meeting was hosted at the UCSD Extension’s new
University City Center facility:

6256 Greenwich Dr.
San Diego, CA  92122
Phone: (858) 534-9999
Fax: (858) 246-1031
View Map and Directions

At the conference, data was presented showing the number
of applications available in each platform market:
- The iPhone leads the way with 365,108 apps
- Android takes second with 238,089
- The iPad comes in at 99,052 apps
- And the BlackBerry market with 37,176 applications

  
The full video can be viewed below:

12►

On July 11th, Action Creations hosted the first meeting of the new BlackBerry Developers Group San Diego. We raffled BlackBerry swag and BlackBerry devices, as well as, discussed the latest BlackBerry news and info over pizza and sodas with our attendees. This meeting was also combined with the
San Diego Flash Users Group meeting.

LOCATION

The meeting was hosted at the UCSD Extension’s new
University City Center facility:

6256 Greenwich Dr.
San Diego, CA  92122
Phone: (858) 534-9999
Fax: (858) 246-1031
View Map and Directions

Seriesfecham, a very popular action sports webcast series in Brazil, was previously utilizing a service to host their show. As the series quickly grew in popularity, the producers decided that they needed to shift to a self-hosted website that was customized to fit their needs, as well as the personality of the webcast. They were looking for a highly manageable, blog-styled website that would allow them to post all of their current episodes, frequently upload new episodes, stream the live recordings and communicate with the live viewers. The producers also wanted the capability of adding new webcast series in the future as they are considering expanding their topics as their popularity continues to grow. Given the client need for a blog-style CMS and our expertise building WordPress powered web applications, we knew that we would have no trouble at all in making our clients dream a reality.

OUR APPROACH

We decided that it would be the best method, across the board, to power this project with a custom WordPress build. This would allow us to set our client up with everything that they would require to fulfill their vision of a manageable, interactive webcast application. For the live streaming and chat room functionality, we set up station on the client’s server where the client is able to log in and have full control over the event through a separate admin panel.

launch site

“We will be able to put a ‘voice’ and a ‘face’ to the usernames that we see every day”, says Demian Borba, one of the community leaders in Brazil.

Users can also win a license of one Adobe Creative Suite Design Premium CS5. Click here to visit the project.

We also created static and interactive banners to be placed on web sites and blogs.
Please refresh this page to view random users on the banners below.

AVA Brazil was started by a Brazilian surfer living here in the United States. With a great amount of experience dealing in the distribution of sunglasses in Brazil, they eventually partnered with a traditional Brazilian eye-wear company that has been serving the industry for more than ten years.
AVA Brazil wanted a simple eCommerce website for their product launch in the US. They also wanted a very modern design to match the sporty look and feel of their product, as well as a CMS functionality with the ability to update products and post content in a news feed.

OUR APPROACH

Considering our client’s need for both a news feed and overall CMS functionality, we decided it would be the best option to build the website in WordPress. We incorporated a few Flash features for interactivity, as well as created fall-backs for users without Flash enabled devices. For the shopping cart solution, it worked out best for us to simply connect to a PayPal shopping cart. Since our client is relatively new to the US market and has a limited amount of products available, this was the most cost-effective option for them.

launch site

Here at Action Creations, one solution to this dilemma is through developing mobile applications with AIR, using the packager in Adobe Flash. With this approach, you can use the same engine in ActionScript 3.0 (same code) and export different file types targeting different mobile platforms (iOS, Android and BlackBerry Tablet OS), as opposed to developing for each platform’s native language. Doing this saves both time and money while producing the same, consistent end result across platforms.

 
In this article, we will share with you the process we followed to meet this challenge.

The Client

ASP (Association of Surfing Professionals) is the governing body of professional surfing. Crowning the world champions of surfing over 31 years, they sanction the following tours: ASP World Tour (consisting of the ASP World Title Race, the ASP PRIME events and the ASP Star events), ASP Women’s World Tour, ASP World Longboard Tour and ASP World Junior Tour. With over 4 million viewers, ASP is dedicated to showcasing the world’s best surfing talent in a variety of progressive formats and has revolutionized the way the world watches surfing via webcasts.

Our Process

Strategy – We were asked by ASP to build an application for the upcoming ASP World Tour, a set of events that reaches over 4 million viewers. A viewership of this size required us to develop an application that would be available to as many mobile platforms as possible. Therefore, we built our application in Flash Professional (for visual elements and compilation) and FDT (to write all the code) and then exported it to the various mobile platforms. This strategy allowed us to both build the product using only one programming language (ActionScript 3.0), and then export different files to be installed on iOS devices (iPhone/iPad), Android smartphones/tablets and the new BlackBerry Playbook.

Content Planning – ASP came to us envisioning an interactive mobile application where viewers could get involved in the ASP World Tour by rating their favorite surfers’ heats and communicating with the commentators. They wanted a simple but visually appealing way of voting for the competing surfers. ASP also anticipated having the information from their competition (such as judges scores and current heats) be updated dynamically and frequently. After communicating and planning out the structuring with ASP, we started building both the basic wireframes and the physical layout of the application.

 
Design – During the wireframing and design stage of our process, we faced the challenge of providing the user an ample amount of interactivity on a single screen while maintaining a clean and eye-catching interface.

Here are a few screenshots of our app to illustrate how the design matured during this process:

 
Development – We developed the Surf Vote app completely in ActionScript 3.0 using three Adobe Flash Professional files and coding in FDT. We used three separate FLA files so that we could cater to the different resolutions and export settings of the iPhone, Android and the Blackberry Playbook. The code from FDT was shared by all three FLA files. Once the project was ready to be exported, the three different files were rendered and sent to their appropriate markets. For the iOS market, a .ipa file was required. For the Android and Blackberry Playbook markets, .apk and .bar files were required.

Exporting – Each FLA, after compiled, produced a different file for each platform. Then, a signing process was needed for each individual platform. For instance, to export for the iPhone or iPad, a certificate provided by Apple is required. For the Android platform, the exporting process is even simpler – you can utilize a self-generated certificate. Lastly, for the BlackBerry Playbook you need to be approved by their AppWorld program (this approval process holds the same level of complexity as Apple’s approval process). After the certificate is in place, it’s just a matter of hitting the PUBLISH button in Flash Professional to get the necessary file to be submitted to the app stores.

Submitting the app to the markets – To submit the app for the Android Market, the approval process is almost instantaneous, taking only a few minutes to be available for its entire audience. With Apple and BlackBerry, the process takes a longer period of time. The wait period of application approval can range from 2 days to 20 days, and there is no guarantee your app will be approved. Luckily, our Surf Vote app was approved by Apple in less than a week and it is now available for download.

With mobile app development, developing cross-platforms with an effective development strategy is crucial. If you are planning to submit your app to the different mobile platforms, plan to develop it in Flash. Simply make the small necessary adjustments to your visual assets to fit the different mobile resolutions. Flash takes care of the rest for you.

Test the App

To download the app and start voting on the World Tour waves, make sure a heat is live on the ASP site, and then visit the links below to install the app on your device:

App for the iPhone: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-surf-vote/id445524333?mt=8&ls=1
App for Android: https://market.android.com/details?id=air.com.aspworldtour.aspsurfvote&feature=search_result

Because we developed our application in Flash, it was simple to later create a desktop application as well, using the same code (with minor visual updates). This application works on Mac, Windows and Linux computers:
App for the Desktop: http://www.actioncreations.com/asp/surfvote/

Have fun voting!

ASP (Association of Surfing Professionals) is the governing body of professional surfing. Crowning the world champions of surfing over 31 years, they sanction the following tours: ASP World Tour (consisting of the ASP World Title Race, the ASP PRIME events and the ASP Star events), ASP Women’s World Tour, ASP World Longboard Tour and ASP World Junior Tour.

To 2011 ASP World Tour, they envisioned an interactive mobile application where viewers could get involved by rating their favorite surfers’ heats and communicating with the commentators. ASP wanted a simple but visually appealing way of voting for the competing surfers. They also anticipated having the information from their competition (such as judges scores and current heats) be updated dynamically and frequently.

ASP came to us with their vision of an application for the upcoming ASP World Tour – a set of events that reaches over 4 million viewers. A viewership of this size required us to develop an application that would be available to as many mobile platforms as possible.

OUR APPROACH

With mobile app development, developing cross-platforms with an effective development strategy is crucial. After much thought, we decided that the most cost and time effective approach to targeting the widest range of mobile platforms would be to build the application using the packager in Adobe Flash. This method allows us to build the application with one technology/language and then export that file to the various platforms, saving both time and money while producing the same, consistent end result.
launch site