FiaFo

FiaFo is a UK based digital innovation studio. We design and build client and self venture products and services.

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New team jersey for @fiafoltd #happymonday #earlystart ⛅️ (at FiaFo)

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I've got to say, this has to be one of the best places I've ever been for a meeting! So, I was lucky enough to visit a local, exclusive wine merchant today - all in the name of research for our up and coming project of course! Honestly, I was like a kid in a sweet shop, in total awe of the display of some the most exquisite wine, glassware and high-end storage system available in this country. The demonstration of the bespoke spiral staircase leading to an underground wine cellar simply blew me away! All thanks to Chris from http://www.cmwines.com who kindly offered his time and provided me with incredible insights from his 34 years experience in fine wining! As for the reason of my visit? Well, like I said, it has a lot to do with our next smart product that we will be launching soon. Stay tuned, all shall be revealed!

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Here's a little work in progress of one of our up-and-coming products - can you guess what it is yet? 

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Personal Expression

As a company we want to blog more. We want all our team members to blog, express and share more. We keep saying "We should blog about that!" and yet, we're all pretty lousy at following through and blogging.

Why? I wish we had the answer. When you run and work in a small tech business, we're all so invested in building great products and making sure we keep improving on our core skills it is easy to reflect and ask; "Who has the time?".

Time is a huge factor, but not one that really, truly, honestly stops us from sharing and expressing through our blog. I think it has more to do with 'confidence'. We're a small team of product designers, software developers and electrical engineers. We love what we do. Discussion with each other is easy and internally sharing what we discover and learn is common place. But when it comes down to transferring our recent discovery into a blog post, we freeze. Confidence appears lost in an ability to write something (we believe) meaningful and enjoyable to an external audience.

Here and now, I'm declaring that we do not need to feel pressured to 'write a blog post'. The rise of Twitter and Instagram has proven less can be more. So from now on at FiaFo the pressure is off to 'blog'. Instead we're going to try and instill a spirit of sharing.

This hopefully means less time worrying about how to write something, and more time simply sharing the stuff we're all already publishing in Instagram feeds, Twitter discussions, You Tube channels etc etc

To facilitate this new spirit, our blog is now powered by Tumblr so the act of cross posting and thus sharing is made as easy and integrated as possible. Each of our individual blog themes have also had a revamp in readiness. It may take time for us to run with this, but this is at least a challenge for us to go for it!

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Motion and transitions are now common place in UI design. Done well these 'animated' details provide meaningful event feedback and serve to focus attention and continuity.

This video highlights key principles in the area of animation. Animation by Cento Lodgiani illustrates the 12 basic principles of animation as defined in "Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life", a book by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, two of the animation masters at Disney's during the Golden Age of animation, referred by Walt Disney as his "Nine Old Men". Topping the list of "best animation books of all time" in a poll at AWN, it is still used as reference on and source of inspiration for character animation.

Additional resource: http://the12principles.tumblr.com

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Tether - the wireless leash to your Mac.

OK, so it's been a while since I blogged about our work, there's a perfectly good reason for that - we've been busy, incredibly busy! 

While we were tinkering with Smart Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) devices for our hardware projects (More on this in my next blog), we discovered a really useful feature on proximity sensing using the BLE capability in your iPhone and Mac computer.

By running the Tether App on your Mac and iPhone, your Mac can now 'sense' if you're nearby with your iPhone. So to capitalise on this wonderful 'spider-sense', the App will automatically lock the computer for you as soon as you step away, but come back into range and it will unlock your computer securely without you having to enter the password manually - neat hey?!

Well, we think so, which is why we decided to release this useful tool to all you Mac and iPhone users out there! 

Here, check it out: http://www.hellotether.com/

As for you Android users, I am afraid you'll have to wait a while longer. The chipset in most Android phones don't support this 'proximity' feature, but new handset with Android 5.0 will (apparently). Likewise for Windows computer owners, we'll get on to you, eventually - promise ;)

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Working on a solution for handling data tables responsively.

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#mecano #drwho #exterminate #mosi #mfmcr

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Absolutely useless! #mosi #mfmcr

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#mosi #mfmcr

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C360 aka ‘George’ ready for action at Makers Fayre in MOSI #mosi #mfmcr #c360

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Those of you who have been following our blog posts will know that fiafonath is a motor racing enthusiast (He hasn't passed his driving test mind, but that's another story). Upon his return from his trip to Le Mans, he thought he'd have a go at re-creating some of that french culinary magic by constructing his own baguette for lunch - see for yourselves.

I can personally verify that he wolfed it all down in the time that I typed up this blog post. Anyone got any indigestion tablets handy?

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The Sims 4 a Little too Unsuitable for Russia?

(image: honeywellsims4news.tumblr.com)

Everyone is excited for the new instalment of the Sims 4, but Russia thinks it's a bit too risky for the younger audience.

Fans of the game took to social media to protest about the age restrictions, which is suspected to have been placed due to the recent laws in Russia against same-sex relationships.

The Sims 4 is a video game created by Electronic Arts, a very high end gaming developing company. In the Sims, players are able to create individuals, or families, and must satisfy the desires and needs of said individuals and families. They are completely and utterly in control of virtual people.

During gameplay, there are usually very few specific objectives, for gaining "points" for special rewards, but players are generally encouraged to experiment and explore. And, if the player wishes, virtual loving relationships may be orchestrated between two Sims, of either gedner.

The news of the rating was tweeted by the official Russian Electronic Arts Sims account, and despite their feelings towards the Sims 4, EA Games have said that they will not be changing the game in any way.

(image: wired.co.uk)

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Google Have Their own Self-Driving Cars!?

(image: theguardian.com)

Google are starting to build their own line of self-driving cars.

However, the car sounds massively scary. It will have a stop-go button, but no controls, steering wheel or pedals. How is this car supposed to drive without controls!? Google have seemed to take this fear into account, and they have the vehicle look like a smart-car with a "friendly" face; to make it seem non-threatening and help users accept self-driving technology.

Co-founder Sergey Brin revealed his plans plans at a conference in California, stating that Google were "really excited about this vehicle" and they're hoping to "really push the capabilities of self driving technology". He added that the cars had the ability to "improve people's lives by transforming mobility".

Although this is a massive step forward in the world of technology, some researchers working in this field are investigating potential downsides to driverless car technology. For instance, they believe that the cars could make traffic and urban sprawl worse, as people will most likely accept longer commutes as they do not have to drive themselves.

(image: bbc.co.uk)

So far, the self driving cars had covered 700,000 miles of public roads in autonomous mode, and Google are now tackling the tricky problem of busy city streets. The company plans to build a fleet of around 200 of the cars in Detroit, USAM with the hope of using them as an autonomous technology test bed.

Nobody knows exactly when the cars will be ready, but Google is aiming for them to be ready in a year. But with the advanced technology, I doubt it'll be that quick.

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Leap Motion's New Tech can see Your Joints

(image: engadget.com)

The Leap Motion controller is a little motion sensor, and as simple as that sounds, it's anything but easy to use.

The hand-sensing tech has the tendency to lose sight of where your fingers are, and almost every application that uses it has its own learning curve. Leap have decided to change that by launching their own public beta for their next generation (V2) tracking software. The free update makes some big promises, including improved resistance to sunlight and infrared interference. It has better tracking algorithms and, best of all, the ability to track individual joints.

The update's software allows the device to track controllers that aren't directly seen by its sensors. A flat hand could easily be seen by a V1-equipped computer, but in a vertical orientation, all but the lowest hanging digit disappeared. Unlike the V1, V2 can track all five fingers. It sounds simple, but it's a game changer: developers can now implement more delicate pinch and grab motions.

(image: mashable.com)

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Skype's New Translator

(image: engadget.com)

Last week, at Code Conference, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella brought his Skype team onto the stage to prove that his company's got the next big thing.

The product was taglined with "the pre-beta of magic," and it was called Skype Translator. It was able to turn your real-time conversation into a Star Trek-like universal communicator, which is a huge leap for online communication. You'll be able to speak to a long-distance friend who speaks a different language, or a client for your business; the service adds the other person's translations for you in subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

Although this is brilliant if you're in a long-distance friendship, it's not an immediate translation; you will have to wait until the other person is done speaking before the service starts translating away. There have been similar demonstrations in the past, but the key point here is that the beta service is due to be out by the end of the year, and will be on all devices that run Skype. The company isn't committing to specific language support yet, but it likely will be a matter of which ones Skype is able to do the best at launch.

(image: recode.net)

I have Skype, and a lot of my friends I have met from Twitter are from other countries, and it could be a lot easier to communicate with Skype translating our conversations to one another.

I'm excited to hear how this goes. I will be keeping up with updates.

[fiafo]

Asus - "The Next Incredible Thing"

(image: techradar.com)

Computex kicks off on today, and Asus have said that they had a real treat for us all. But not just any treat.

"The Next Incredible Thing," which sees the conclusion to Asus's journey "in search of incredible." Their new video is not immensely illuminating as to what that thing is going to be, other than the implication that it will have a stylus and be quite thin. So it literally could be like any other tablet, phone, laptop, etc.

There was a video released that gave you the clues of their new product being thin and with a stylus. But that's all it gives. It's still a charming little 22 second video, but a lot of people will be getting impatient. We want to see what the conclusion is to the "search of incredible". We shall see what happens.

(image: tweaktown.com)