Ball-IT's Blobo Sparks Interactive Children's Game Show In China
Oulu, Finland-based Ball-IT's product, blobo, is a golfball sized soft ball that can sense movement, rotation, magnetic fields, and even pressure. You can compare it to a Wii controller or Playstation Move, yet because of its size it offers unique opportunities available for gameplay-- such as throwing the ball up in the air or placing it in a players pocket to sense macro physical movements like jumping or running.
The device has seen the creation of a children's TV show in Finland, but Blobo is now being taken to China, where the Shanghai Media Group's children's channel, Toonmax, is turning it the game system into an interactive TV show. On the show kids take each other on in front of a live studio audience, who watch their avatars compete on a large screen. Meanwhile the viewers at home can play blobo at the same time using their computer and compare their results with the TV contestants.
Juha Rytky Of Ball-IT.com
I interviewed Juha Rytky, the CEO of Ball-IT, in Slush last week. Ball-IT has developed a very cool solution combining a physical object with some motion control technology to become a game control for different platforms. With the recent success of Nintendo Wii, they have decided to go after several platforms such as mobile phones as well as the PC market.
There's definitely a lot of potential in their technology and a working demo of the product without any glitches whatsoever did play a part in making up my mind. Just as Juha tells in the video, they are currently looking for a set of partners to take their products worldwide - something which in my opinion will determine how successful they will be.
