Jason Wong

i5labs started working with Helium Report at the beginning of this month. They are the premier guide to destination clubs, a luxury vacation home option for the well-to-do. We’ll be integrating Ruby on Rails into their website, from basic forms, to content management and e-commerce.

What’s interesting for me, is that this was the first time (to my knowledge) that I’ve been pitted against offshore firms. i5labs bid against a firm in Bangalore, and one in China. While we are the more expensive option, they were looking for immediacy, the ability to turn on a dime, and spending less time in the QA cycle. Additionally, I spent a lot of time on the ground with them doing pre-sales work, as opposed to being just a technical vendor, to help them understand the more technical aspects of web marketing, and bring them support from that angle.

Check out the first Zubio chair massage kiosk (first of hundreds, hopefully) at the San Francisco Shopping Center, on 5th & Market. Schedule a 10 or 20 minute accrupressure massage on the touchscreen and swipe your credit card (it also takes gift and discount cards)!

This is i5labs’ first touchscreen project, and the first ever touchscreen on Rails! We implement Rails wherever possible and it’s working out fantastically. The code is base is tight (<2000 LOC) for the functionality we’re providing, and issues are easy to diagnose.

As with design for the PSP, there are dimensions to creating touchscreen software that make this a different beast than the standard web application. We had to consider software maintenance and updates to multiple kiosks, plans in the event of an internet connection failure, use by non-technical employees, and more. The Zubio specialists need to focus on massages, not on hacking.

How do you keep the process running smoothly? Dummy-proof the system as much as possible. Our startup sequence boots up the computer, starts the server, database, and browser, and then kicks the machine into kiosk mode. All the specialist has to do is press a couple buttons!

A server resides at the kiosk location, which allows it to continue functioning if net access goes down. Software updates to all kiosks originate from a single location. Since remote access to this central server is available, on-site time is minimized.

The hardware for the setup is all off the shelf—making the technology affordable and accessible. Dell or eMachines are around $300-$400; a USB credit card reader is less than $50; and a touchscreen runs a few hundred (dependent upon vendor and volume). The most expensive portion of this project is the expertise required to get the software online the first time. Subsequent touchscreens setups can cost under $1,500. Cheap!

That’s it from our end about this project. If you’re in the neighborhood, try a massage—it’s incredible! If you’ve done any similar projects, give me a holler, I’d love to hear from you.

PlanetMoon’s first Playstation Portable game, Infected launched last November!

It’s Christmas time in New York City. A strange virus has appeared in the city, turning seemingly normal people into insane, violent Infected. Rookie Officer Stevens is one of the first victims of the Infected. But unlike others, Stevens is stangely immune and doesn’t lose control. The mysterious Dr. Schaeffer discovers that Stevens’ immune blood can be used to destroy the otherwise unkillable Infected. Schaeffer creates a special “viral gun” that fills shells with blood from Stevens’ arm and blasts them straight into the Infected, causing them to splat spectacularly.

This game brings a couple twists to the first person shooter genre. The first is the the concept of the viral gun- you weaken zombies, and then when their energy is low enough, hit them with the gun, creating “splat chains” of zombie death.

Well, Jason, how else is this different than any one of other bazillion Playstation Portable games out there? If you check the game credits, i5labs gets props for the web development. It’s the first handheld game which utilizes Ruby on Rails on the server. Sweet.

The PSP’s WiFi allows multiplayer action. When a game’s done, upload your stats, and the people you beat carry your virus (or the one you’re carrying). Using an XML feed from Gamespy we provide rankings, vital statistics and maps of who you’ve defeated, where your virus has gone, how the top ranked players and their viruses are fairing, and more. The virus maps are generated dynamically using rcairo, and all of the data is gathered from XML feeds from Gamespy.

The biggest design challenge for us was really working within the limitations of the PSP. Beyond size limitations, the PSP processor isn’t nearly as fast as a PC’s, and the browser’s proprietary, with javascript, tagging and compatibility limitations. If you’re going to be creating a site for the PC and PSP, you’ll NEED to create two different versions, or the PCs will get the short shrift.

Working within those limitations, development doesn’t have nearly the same constraints. The sticky wicket is scalability. There’s over 6 million PSPs, and only a few hundred games. So a hit game could swamp servers. In addition to that, we’re dynamically rendering maps. Cache what you can, real time render what you must.

Today, we launch i5labs, an agile web development firm. Our technology of choice is Ruby on Rails.

To pay the bills and strut our stuff, we perform web development services, but much more quickly than the traditional J2EE and .Net firms. That keeps the lights on. At night, we will incubate a number of products (I need genius to hit me… NOW. Wait, wait… NOW. Ok, maybe a little bit later, then.)

In a few ways, we’re similar to ionami, but in so many ways, we’ve evolved. Stay tuned.