Almost 1000 people have registered to take part in Duncan Speakman’s Subtlemob project – and we’re having great fun being his technical support team. The project has featured in The Guardian, Grazia and the Evening Standard to name but a few… Our server almost crashed last night as hundreds of people attempted to download the 50MB audio file for London, but fear not because Rackspace Cloud Files

Cloud Computing came to the rescue! We thought our original provision would be sufficient, but it wasn’t, so now the MP3s are hosted on a dedicated whatsit up in the cloud somewhere and are screaming down the thingamajiggers faster than mustard. This is what they say “Cloud Files from The Rackspace Cloud is an offering which allows users to store data on the Rackspace infrastructure, from 1 byte to 5 Gigbytes.”

Subtlemob site

The Twittersphere is slowly catching on, so all you tweeters make sure you use the hashtag #subtlemob and spread the word. We’ve still got London, Bristol and Liverpool coming up. Download the audio file, grab partner and get on board for a magic piece of crowd theatre.

And as Dan Course himself said after the pioneering Bristol subtlemob earlier this year “Suddenly the world seemed rosier, I was wrapped up in a bubble for 20 minutes, and, um, fell in love with a complete stranger…”

Step forward Mr Rhys Thomas, new Thought Den employee and pumpkin-carving PHP extraordinaire. He’s currently working a 3 month trial (baptism of fire?) with us down at the Paintworks. In only two weeks he’s already played for our adopted football team – Team Rubber – been out on the piss with Mobile Pie, worked late, gone home early, cycled Dan’s bike to Sainsbury’s and visited the Pervasive Media Studio at midnight.

Rhys Thomas - Thought denner

His first project build was Subtlemob – take a look, it’s all going down this week.

Now he’s working on amends to Parashoot, the film industry’s Base Camp – we’re about to make it even more kick-ass with a nifty mobile phone feature.

Exciting week or what! Thought Den have a new employee Rhys, a Halloween surprise for everyone later this week, but also we’re trialling a new Bluetooth box with the Old Vic!

This project is in conjunction with the Bristol’s Old Vic and is aimed at enhancing peoples’ theatre experience, post-show.

thoughtden-bluetooth-box

Specifically we will be using it on Luci-Gorrell-Barnes piece, The Tragic and disturbing Tale of Little Lupin to pass out a phone wolf ring-tone to the attendees.

However, there’s even more exciting future potential for a few more ideas based with the theatre, especially since our RNCM piece.

Also, there’s the potential if you feel your event could do with a more pervasive edge to it.

Thought Den are very proud to have launched the new subtlemob 09 site. For those who don’t know what a subtlemob is yet (which could be most of us!), here’s what Duncan Speakman (the producer) has to say about them.

‘as if it were the last time’ invites you to take part in a secret event this November. You’ve seen the people freeze in train stations and the mass pillow fights, well this will be a more subtle experience.’

Thought Den were involved with the (more…)

It’s been another scorching week here at Thought Den & Team Rubber towers! The Fire Kills game has been released, a project we’ve been working with them on over the last month. It’s an embed-able Flash game which asks users to ‘take the Fire Kills challenge’.

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