A new version of the development platform Unity has been announced, adding support for Android and the PlayStation 3, on top of the existing support for iPhone, Wii and the Xbox 360, as well as boasting numerous upgrades to the engine itself.

Matmi has used Unity for a couple of projects now, and so this news is incredibly exciting to us.  Not only are we looking forward to the new features that Unity 3.0 will have, but also to the chance to get our games to an audience that has just grown by tens of millions of people.

It’s exciting to think that we can bring the same game to pretty much every major platform going, whether through the App Store, Xbox Live Marketplace, or just via the web.  Unity seems to be the platform that just keeps on giving!

Unity 3.0 is going to be showcased at GDC this week, and we’re looking forward to hearing what they have to say.

On Sunday night at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, the stars of the silver screen gathered to hand out awards at the 82^nd Oscars ceremony.  Award shows don’t really get much bigger than the Oscars, but I must admit that I don’t really tend to pay attention to them, and they tend to just slip me by.

Not this year though.  This year, I was pretty well up on who had won what and who was going away empty handed – or at least how many awards Avatar didn’t win – and this piqued my interest enough that I looked up the information I didn’t already know.

So what was different?

Well, simply put, Twitter was different.  Many of the people I follow on Twitter were distinctly more interested in the Oscars than I was, and via a process of osmosis, I picked up enough information to be curious about the rest.

The Oscar effect is pretty well known – that winning movies tend to see an increase in box office numbers – but the Twitter effect is much harder to quantify.  I found myself privy to conversations and comments about the awards that I’d never really had access to before.  People weren’t talking to me about the Oscars, but they were talking around me about them, and that was enough.

As a digital media agency, social networking is something we’re constantly thinking about, and it’s great to see just effective it can be.

Last week Penny and I were given the enviable task of representing Matmi at the prestigious Design Week awards ceremony at the Park Lane Hilton in London (ooh err).

Everybody knows a girl never turns down the opportunity to throw on her gladrags, the venue was beautiful, the menu was mouth-watering and we got to share a few drinks with one of our fabulous clients, Neil from Vimto, as our redesign of Vimto’s UK website was shortlisted for a digital design award.

Sadly, we didn’t win…but the awards in general seemed a little ‘art school-centric’,  I think Matmi’s wild, cutting edge digital design was a little too out there for this particular crowd!

We didn’t waste the opportunity to have a celebratory dance and drink though – getting nominated for something as big as Design Week is an accolade in itself.

We had a great time, and since we were seated with our friends from a certain sticky sweet agency in Lancashire, there was amusement on tap for the night, aided in part by a £96 bottle of Absolut vodka (no northern prices on the alcohol front unfortunately – the ice was free though…) and a very cheesy 90′ s disco. I can’t remember the last time I danced to Ebeneezer Goode by the Shamen; turns out it’s not really a good look in a floor length evening dress.

Anyway, I think the gals did a fabulous job of representing Matmi – roll on more awards please!

Meetings are like buses; you wait for ages and then two come along at once.  If Apple wasn’t enough, we also had the CTO and founder of Netlog, Toon Coppens.  Netlog might not be a household name in the UK, but it’s Europe’s largest social network, with more than 58 million subscribers, so a visit from the head man is a pretty big deal.

We went over to visit Netlog’s offices in Belgium in October last year, so we were pleased to get the chance to return the favour.  We talked about social gaming – and introduced him to a couple of British staples, the meat pie and the pint of bitter, which he seemed quite keen on.

All in all, it seemed to be a pretty successful meeting, so keep watching this space for more Matmi and Netlog news.  If our collaboration on High Dive and Ho Ho Ho Yellow Snow is any indication, it should be a beautiful friendship.

When a platform holder comes to visit a developer it’s either for something really, really good, or really, really bad.  It could also be a formality, but that was nowhere near as snappy, so we left it out.  Anyway, in this instance it was a good thing, as Apple wanted to talk to us about our future plans for the iPhone.

We already knew that Apple liked Monster Pinball, but it appears that our back catalogue is a hit with them too, as is our MD’s brain – although that’s hardly surprising given our years of experience working in the realm of digital engagement.  There was also some discussion of working on something for a devices other than the iPhone, but exactly what is we’re keeping under wraps.  We’ll give you a clue though; it starts with an ‘I’.

Obviously, we were pleased as punch that Apple came to see us, we got to show them our new offices, including our new mural, and had a chance to talk about future developments.  It’s also a great feeling to have your hard work recognised within the industry, kinda like what we imagine winning an Oscar must feel like.  We’re looking forward to seeing how Apple and Matmi can support each other in the future.

With all the talk of iPads and Androids, it’s easy to forget to forget that Microsoft has been in the mobile business for some time now, which is something that the company is eager to remedy with a new version of its Windows Mobile platform.

Built with ease of use in mind, Windows Phone 7 pulls together many of Microsoft’s existing products and services such as Xbox Live, Zune and the Bing search engine, and arranges them into ‘hubs’ of related content.  “We wanted the software experience to fundamentally focus on what is most important to each individual user,” said Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore at the launch.

According to research firm Canalys, Microsoft currently commands around 9% if the current smartphone market, putting it in fourth place behind Symbian, Rim and Apple. “This is obviously a huge step forward,” said Canalys’s Pete Cunningham. “Microsoft have really struggled with windows mobile 6 and 6.5 and have been losing market share off the back of it.”

However, he said, the firm could not “rest on its laurels”.

“Although it looks good today and competitive today, the other firms haven’t revealed their hand. It doesn’t launch for another eight or nine months and that’s a long time in the mobile world.”

It was triumph for Lily Allen at the Brits last night as she snagged the award for ‘Best Female Solo Artist’, beating the likes of Leona Lewis and Bat for Lashes to win the prestigious accolade.  As well ‘Best Female Solo Artist’, Lily was also nominated for ‘Best Single’ and ‘Best Album’, which we hoped she would win as well, but she was sadly pipped at the post by JLS and Florence & the Machine respectively.

The official Lily Allen game – ‘Escape the Fear’ – has been played by  people all around the world and our stats show it was a pretty darn effective tool for getting Lily’s music heard.  In countries where the game did well, the single did well too. Not that that was much of a surprise, after all, that was kind of the point, wasn’t it?

At the last count, the game had been played by four million people, with an average play time of 4.5 minutes, with the single ‘Escape the Fear’ playing the whole time.  If our maths is write, that’s about 18,000,000 minutes of ‘air time’ or a little bit more than 34 years!  Yes, years!

Obviously, we’re very happy about Lily’s success here at Matmi, as we’re all big fans; and whilst we’re not going to take all the credit, we’re pleased that we – and the game we made – were a part of getting Lily’s music heard all over the world, and contributed, in some small way, to her winning this award.

At the last count, the game had been played by four million people, with an average play time of 4.5 minutes, with the single ‘Escape the Fear’ playing the whole time.  If our maths is right, that’s about 18,000,000 minutes of ‘air time’ or a little bit more than 34 years!  Yes, that’s right, we said years!

Not that she mentioned us in her speech mind you, but hey, you can’t win ‘em all.  If you want to try the Lily Allen game for yourself, just click here.

Click for a bigger version

We decided that the upstairs office – affectionately called ‘The Treehouse’ by it’s inhabitants – was starting to look a little drab, and needed a lick of paint to brighten it up.  But being who we are, a common or garden magnolia wasn’t going to make the grade.

Instead we turned to local graffiti artist TJ Dolan to transform a whole wall into a unique mural.  TJ managed to create something that is very ‘us’ – bright, colourful and maybe a teensy bit crazy – and we couldn’t be happier.

The Treehouse has really come alive, and we got to support a local artist in the process.  That’s a win all round in our books!

Barcodes are a part of everyday life, and their utilitarian design reflects this through and through.

Barcodes need not be so drab and humdrum however, as these custom barcodes from Japanese firm D-Barcode show.  All these barcodes work, and as companies need to find new and interesting ways to be competitive, whose to say that charming barcode art might become common place?

Source: Gizmodo

We’ve got plenty of admirers here at Matmi; aside from the fact that we’re all so pretty, our games and websites are enjoyed by millions of people all over the world.  Still, even we, who have grown accustomed to having affection poured upon us*, are not immune to the charms of a suitor like Apple.

Way back in the dawn of time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth – or about six months ago – Apple got in touch with us about possibly using Monster Pinball in some of its advertising.  Obviously, we were very pleased to be asked, and supplied Apple with some high-resolution artwork.

Fast-forward a few months and nothing had appeared. We assumed that Apple had forgotten about us and turned its attention to some other conquest.  That is, of course, until a Valentine’s e-mail (pictured above) dropped into our inbox.  Notice anything interesting about it?

No?

Look again:

They do love us!

All joking aside, it’s a real treat to see our Monster featured in official Apple advertising.  We knew we’d made a good product, and it’s a treat to see that Apple think so too.

*This may be an exaggeration