Yes, we're very excited to tell you we are working very hard on our next release that will be launched in a couple of weeks time. The updates are major on several levels.

The website will get a major make-over and will be integrated more with the scene community. We will also be supporting more Nokia devices, but more importantly the iPhone app will be unleashed too. And last but certainly not least, we will have free public accounts, so anyone can create and publish their very own scene!

More details will of course follow in the weeks to come, so stay tuned...

Ronald Lenz of 7scenes is giving a lecture and a masterclass at Parsons in NYC this week. After a meetup at Parsons in june '09 (during the Picnic NYC Salon) with David Carroll, Colleen Macklin and Mike Edwards we all knew there was a strong connection in the way we approach the city using mobile technology. So this week we will also be exploring how Parsons and 7scenes can collaborate in the future.

Here's more on the program:

PRESENTATION: Wednesday October 21, 6:30, 10fl Lab

"Locative Media, Games and Learning: Research and Recent Projects" Presented by Ronald Lenz, Creative Director, 7scenes and Head of Locative Media at the Waag Society  

The Waag Society develops creative technology for cultural and social innovation. The focus of Waag Society as a medialab is divided in five domains: healthcare, culture, society, sustainability and education. In the Locative Atelier, the enriched relation between humans and location is researched and this can create new forms of interaction. The activities of the Locative section have knowd a considerable growth in recent years. Waag Society has an (inter)national reputation in this field and is initiator of many new projects.   7scenes is a web-based application created by the Waag Society to quickly design and deploy location based games to mobile devices featuring text, image, sound, video and easy to design game mechanics. The map is the design and play interface, no programming is required! This is an excellent resource for game, interaction and urban designers interested in experimenting with big urban games and locative media.   

WORKSHOP: Thursday October 22, 3:00, room 1100

Master Class and Workshop: open to all interested  

A hands-on opportunity to experience the design and play process in 7scenes.  

http://locativegames.wordpress.com/
http://7scenes.com/
http://waag.org/

We're very happy to release some of our new features today and announce what we are working on and will release in the very near future. Today's major update is primarily focussed on new web features that improve working with and communicating about scenes.

Here's an overview:

Scene page
The scene page has undergone some major improvements. Here's what we added and changed:

• Page layout: you now have much more freedom in customizing the look and feel of your scene page. We've added the options of adding rich story elements that also support html. Additionally you can add your own background image and create your own icon. Also note at the top of the scene page, the direct link to the linked project and a details overview. Click on a tag to do an automatic search.
• Map: the scene page now has a small map widget to give you an impression of the locations of the places. Click on the map to go to a larger view.
• Share: scenes now have a direct url for you to use when you want to point people directly to the scene (in an email for instance). You can already see that widget that you can embed are coming soon.
• Activity: we added an activity tab, so you can see the latest traces and media uploads. Here you can also see if a scene is live.
• Play: we have grouped several functionalities under the 'play' tab. Here you can upcoming events, events you are invited to and events you can play as a web-player. But there's more: for multi-player scenes we have added the option for directors to allow others to create events. This means that you for instance could organise game events of games others have made.
• Events and traces: we have made a stronger distinction between events and traces. Events now have the option for single click playback. All results shown at the same time, so you have a better overview of the experience of the entire event. You can also still play back every single trace so you can zoom in on individual experiences.

We also improved our menu structure so it's easier to start created scenes within your project. There is now a 'direct' tab in the main menu. We also re-arranged some menu tabs - for instance we located the event and trace playback in the map screen.

We suggest you play around with it all these new features and of course update your scene page!

Upcoming features
There are still some web updates in the works. We will release widgets that you can embed on your own websites (like how you embed a youtube movie for instance) within the next two weeks. Also we will do an update on the main page, so you will have a better way of browsing scenes and projects.

Last, but most definitely not least we can share with you that we are working very hard on both the 7scenes iPhone app and mobile browser app. We are well on our way and hope to release these well before we enter the new year! Will keep you posted.

Waag Society, 7scenes and Layar hosted the Augmented City Lab at this year's Picnic festival. A full day event with presentations, panel discussions and prototyping sessions exploring the design aspects of the new city that is emerging. Speakers include Ben Cerveny (Stamen, Vurb), Kevin Slavin (Area/Code) and Raimo vd Klein (Layar) and prototyping technologies included 7scenes, layar, irfid and laser tagging.

For a full report please visit www.augmentedcity.org.

Global Gincana has entered its second phase in september '09. The project that connects Brazilian and Dutch students by exchanging cultural mobile games was a great success both in Sao Paulo and at Picnic Young. Global Gincana is a collaboration between Waag Society and Mobilefest and more details about the project can be found at www.globalgincana.org, www.waag.org and www.mobilefest.org.

The workshops that took place in Sao Paulo and Amsterdam collected the national and personal highlights of Brazilian and Dutch culture that were assembled into mobile games located at the Ibirapuera park and the Westergas Fabriek area.