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It IS Rocket Science Mobility and Digital Bridges - a natural partnership Los Angeles. April 2nd, 2001. The Interactive Institute, Mobility Studio, a Swedish Multidisciplinary Research Lab today announced a partnership with Digital Bridges Ltd., the worlds foremost creator of entertainment services for the wireless Internet. Digital Bridges will become a Studio Partner and collaborate with researchers in projects involving gaming and interactive entertainment over the new medium of the wireless Internet.
The wireless Internet is poised to become the most important media delivery channel of the 21st century. Providing online access through mobile devices - mobile phones being the most prolific example - the wireless Internet allows users to access services, including e-mail, information, even entertainment, no matter where they are. This fundamentally changes the way people can interact online. Coupled with the mobility of the devices, is the powerful communications and connectivity of the devices, allowing massive communities of users to interact with each other within an on-line environment. With the appropriate technology, it is entirely possible for people in different countries across the world to play the same game no matter what network they use or what handset they have. Even different languages are no barrier, with users in different countries receiving their local language through their handset.
This allows entirely new types of entertainment applications to be created, based around massive communities of users, all interacting within the same game. The possibilities offered through this new, worldwide, portable channel are unlike those found in any other type of medium that exists today.
The rapid advances in mobile technology mean that within a very short space of time, the wireless Internet will also offer services, such as streaming video, location based services (where the users handset can accurately track his/her actual position) and local peer-to-peer (Bluetooth) networking, which will create ever more attractive services and applications for mobile device users across the world.
Recent market research shows that by 2005 there will be 198 million mobile phone users playing wireless games in Western Europe and the USA. This represents a total market value of over $6bn within the next four years in these two markets alone. Unlike every other games platform, the wireless Internet offers access to an extraordinarily broad mass-market, in which the users do not have to make a conscious decision to purchase a games machine, rather the wireless entertainment services will add value to the device.
Oskar Juhlin, Director of the Mobility Studio, said, The Mobility Studio is examining issues around the concept of mobility, and particular, the study of users, and the development of new concepts around entertainment. Digital Bridges and its UNITY platform, provides us with the technical infrastructure and worldwide distribution to achieve the goals that we want to.
Mark Ollila, Senior Researcher at the Interactive Institute, said, Horse racing may be the sport of kings, rugby the game they play in heaven, but God watches cricket and s/he uses a mobile phone to get that information. The partnership with Digital Bridges will allow us to keep pace with what is happening today, while we can focus on the new social entertainment experiences that will no doubt appear in the short future. We are interested in new concepts and paradigms around the social behaviour of people, in different situations, in different locations, in different scenarios and all around entertainment.
Kevin Bradshaw, CEO and founder of Digital Bridges, said, Digital Bridges believe that the wireless Internet is a global medium - like no other. Our UNITY technology was designed specifically to allow people all over the world, to interact with each other through mobile devices. It is already present and active in over a dozen countries across the world and we hope to double that over the coming months. We are already a world leader in the creation and distribution of wireless games. We are looking at how the Mobility Studio of the Interactive Institute can work with us in the future with their user oriented studies, and how the new concepts they create can be commercialised, worldwide. The merging of multidisciplinary professions like this provides us with an exciting opportunity to see new concepts, and understand why they make a difference. Most importantly it allows us to remain on the absolute cutting edge of fun.
ENDS.
Notes to Editors:
Digital Bridges Ltd.
Digital Bridges was created in 1998; its goal is to be the world leader in the creation and delivery of entertainment services for mobile devices on the wireless Internet. The company brings three major assets to the new medium of wireless communications: delivery technology, distribution and publishing capabilities and content design experience. Digital Bridges UNITY platform is fast becoming the world standard for the creation and distribution of wireless games and entertainment services. Already deployed and active in over a dozen countries, with 20 network operators, UNITY is making wireless gaming the killer app for the mobile Internet. In addition to creating games internally, Digital Bridges work with a number of the largest names within the games and entertainment industries to bring their expertise and imagination to the world of wireless games.
UNITY
UNITY generates and delivers interactive entertainment content. It is capable of supporting many thousands of simultaneous users in multi-user, multi-language online sessions, with each user receiving content automatically optimised for their chosen device. Whilst currently in use to deliver services to the first generation of WAP-based mobile handsets, UNITY supports all future device and network technologies, including GPRS, UMTS, all future extensions of the WAP protocols, Java and all client device operating systems such as Symbian, PalmOS and PocketPC. UNITY has been adopted by a number of key partners throughout the telecommunications infrastructure and content provision sectors to create what is already a de facto standard for the creation and supply of games and entertainment services to mobile device users worldwide.
Contact:
Interactive Institute AB
Oskar Juhlin,
Studio Director - Mobility,
T: +46 8-783 24 / M: 070-379 39 64
M: [email protected]
Eva Jansson Regn�r,
PR Manager,
T: +46 8- 783 24 55 / M: 070 - 527 24 50
E: [email protected]
Digital Bridges Ltd.
Brian Baglow,
PR Manager,
Digital Bridges Ltd,
T: +44 (0)1383-723234 / M: +447747-792247
E: [email protected]
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