Sesame Workshop, Nokia and Vectorform have teamed up again to reimagine storytelling after a successful debut of “100th Day of School.” Three new titles, “Abby in Wonderland,” “Big Block Party” and “Color Carnival” tackle early reader skills, colors, recipes, and problem-solving. Featuring the natural-feel of page-swipe, musical fun, and full-screen illustrations, early reader help comes to life to capture imaginations no matter where you find time to explore.

The books also include optional narration with read-along text that highlights each word to aid understanding. And, of course, Elmo helps lead the way, keeping kids engaged with questions and comments about each page of the story–Just give him a tap and see what he has to say! Tips for parents are also included to help children learn and develop independence skills.

Dive into a reimagined storytelling experience, and let us know what you think!

Vectorform is pleased to announce the arrival of Galactic Alliance 2 to the iTunes Marketplace, now available for download on the iPad. Sequel to the chart topping Galactic Alliance (2010), Galactic Alliance 2 has taken the great features of its predecessor, mixed in some more Vectorform magic, stirred in retina optimized graphics, and ended up with an experience that is simply out-of-this-world! Pun intended.

Mollie Harms, Game Producer at Vectorform, wrote “GA2 explores the variety of groups of enemies more than its predecessor. Each enemy has a faster version as well as a version that is often seen in tight packs. While these variations maintain the same base characteristic as the core creep, they challenge the most tried and true strategies.”

For more information about the making of the game, check out Mollie’s posts on labs.vectorform.com.

Galactic Alliance Press Release.

Click here to download.

In collaboration with Nokia and ESPN, Vectorform designed and developed what Information Week’s Eric Zeman calls the “Killer Windows Phone App” with the sports fan in mind. Noting our adherence to Microsoft’s Metro UI aesthetic, Zeman agrees with our decision to present the sports fan with scores content right off the bat, stating “I don’t know about you, but when I hit up a sports-related website, the information I am generally looking for most is scores”. Beyond scores content, Zeman praises Vectorform’s implementation of Microsoft’s “Metro” design principles, noting the applications navigation functionality that allows users to “…really drill down quickly”, and move through news, videos, and social content from the most notable ESPN commentators.

Giving the ultimate nod to Microsoft, Nokia, and Vectorform, Zeman states, “…the ESPN Hub is one service that truly sets Windows Phone apart from other platforms”, commenting specifically on the Hub’s breadth of content noting what sports fans everywhere agree upon: the Nokia ESPN Sports Hub “…encompasses far more than just news and highlights”. Calling the Nokia ESPN Sports Hub, “…a good incentive for smartphone buyers to seek out Nokia’s excellent hardware”, Zeman tends to agree; For the Sports fan, the ESPN Sports Hub available on Nokia Lumia smartphones truly sets the bar as the premier mobile sports experience.

Read the whole review here.

Steve Aylward, General Manager for Commercial Health & Life Sciences at Microsoft US with Patrick Samona, Vectorform’s Director of Health Solutions.

To make colon cancer screening more broadly accessible and cost-effective, the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) partnered with Vectorform, Microsoft and Intel to develop the Virtual Colonoscopy (VC) Viewer, a multi-touch, HPC-cloud-based virtual colonoscopy viewer that allows physicians to interact with a 3-D rendering of a patient’s colon. In 2010 VC won top honors at RSNA, and last week we were proud to accept the 2012 Microsoft Health Users Group Innovation Award at the HIMSS Annual Conference and Exhibition.

Congratulations to everyone involved on your latest achievement!

Customize your dashboard at the touch of a button in the all-new 2013 Dodge Dart, a collaboration between Chrysler and Vectorform.  Experience the most technologically advanced car in its class, the 2013 Dodge Dart which features the award-winning 8.4 inch Uconnect Touch Media Center. Users are able to personalize their experience with the 7 inch reconfigurable TFT, allowing them to select from an analog or digital speedometer, turn-by-turn navigation and personalized information, all with simple controls on the steering wheel.

Engadget was fortunate enough to enjoy the Dodge Dart Re-Birth experience; you can read about their findings here.

 At Vectorform our hard work is fueled by our creativite, fun, and energetic work environment. Utilizing a vast array of unique individuals and their diverse skill sets, Vectorform produces emerging technology solutions for a variety of companies. Our strength lies in challenging and focusing our collective talent to adapt to our clients’ ever-changing needs.

In order to meet the distinct needs of each client, Vectorform seeks qualified individuals capable of thinking outside the box. Employees take part in group meetings, impromptu brainstorming sessions, and are encouraged to tinker with any new tech to achieve the creative solutions we’re known for. Candidates should also possess strong problem solving skills, and the ability to work well in an open team discussions.

To keep those creative juices flowing, Vectorform employees participate in numerous activities; Ultimate Frisbee, Kinect parties, in-office gaming challenges, Magic: The Gathering tourneys, and various board games keep the team invigorated and energetic. New games and technology are also looked at on a regular basis to see how new features and mechanics are being used, and more importantly, how they can be adapted or improved upon.

Vectorform offers employees a generous list of perks including:
•   Competitive wages
•   Medical, dental, vision, and life insurance
•   Paid vacations and holidays
•   Social working environment
•   Game days and tournaments

For more information about the positions available at Vectorform, visit careers.vectorform.com. We may have openings not listed on our careers site, please contact our Human Resources Manager, Brian Deleon (bdeleon@vectorform.com), for our most current openings.

 

 

 

Last week, Vectorform’s Jon Pielak and Ed Wrenbeck sat down to talk about the impact of Apple’s newest release, and how it will change the way we interact with technology.  Ed, being the former lead iPhone developer of Siri was able to open our eyes to the future of voice recognition software.

His insight and knowledge of Siri has earned Jon’s recent blog post quite a bit of attention. By noon Friday the number of unique views spiked up to 70,000; needless to say we were geeked (pun intended). Be sure to check it out, and feel free to contribute to the discussion taking place in the comments section.

A special thanks goes out to John Gruber (@gruber), a Mac enthusiast, who writes a blog called Daring Fireball . Thanks again for spreading the word John, you rock!

This past week Joe Engalan, Woody Floyd, and Frances Calandra of Vectorform attended the 2011 BUILD conference in Anaheim, California. Accompanied with a plethora of swag, those in attendance received a Samsung prototype PC running the Windows 8 Developer Preview.

The BUILD conference highlighted many of the upcoming features of Windows 8 and showed developers the future of their software.  Microsoft re-designed their flagship operating system to be optimized for the tablet form factor, giving it a complete Metro UI overhaul. For more insight and the team’s first impression of Windows 8, check out Kevin Foreman’s post on Vectorform labs.

Videos and keynotes from the conference can be viewed here.

NYT R&D wanted to create an experience on the Microsoft surface that would complement their living room of the future. Their vision was a reading experience on the digital coffee table that would replace the physical newspaper in a family’s morning routine. Using The New York Times Reader API, originally designed for Windows, Mac and Linux, our application  gives readers a NUI based experience to scroll through their favorite topics: i.e., sports, weather, politics etc. Each topic is represented by a “card” featuring an image related to each subject. On choosing the topic, the user can then select a story of interest and browse through the content using natural user interface multi-touch controls.

It’s not exactly “the last kitchen table you will ever need”, but reading the morning news just got a heck of a lot easier.

Watch the video below for a quick demo.