Masabi » Mobile

MBTA & Masabi on Untether.tv

Will — Fri, 11 May 2012 15:10:12 +0000

mbta & masabi on untether.tv

Our announcement with the MBTA made it onto Untether.tv! Click the link below and skip to 9:20 to watch the video discussion about the new mTicketing system:

http://untether.tv/2012/this-week-in-location-based-marketing-75-the-hunt-for-revenue/

Masabi Video Interview – mTicketing Revolution on Track

Will — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 10:33:19 +0000

masabi video interview – mTicketing revolution on track

A video interview with Masabi CPO, Giacomo Biggiero, was recently published on airrail NEWS.

Appearing alongside Jonathan Williams from Cubic Transportation Systems, Giacomo talks about Masabi’s successes in launching our mTicketing technology in the UK, as well as how mobile innovations such as NFC could transform the passenger experience in the future.

Masabi Developer Team Invades Mobile World Congress

Will — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:00:48 +0000

masabi developer team invades mobile world congress

It’s always nice to get out of the office from time to time, and what better way to do it than by going to Barcelona! Masabi’s development team flew out to Barcelona in February to attend Mobile World Congress 2012. The visit was designed to offer the Masabi developers the opportunity to meet people from all over the world working in mobile, see how the commercial side of the mobile industry operates, and attend developer meetings to see what’s on the horizon for handsets and apps, and this is how we got on…

arriving in barcelona

We flew out to Barcelona on Monday afternoon and arrived safely at our hotel in time for a delicious meal at Sinatra’s near Las Ramblas, during which we discussed what our ideal handset would be like. Unfortunately, we could not make the show in time to watch our CEO, Ben Whitaker, take to the main stage to talk on how mobiles apps are changing the world, speaking in a panel alongside representatives from the FT, Telefónica, Tripadvisor, Qualcomm and others. Ben also made it into the Show Daily on the Wednesday of the event. Click here and turn to p.14 to view the article online.

inside the show

The next day, we set out for the Congress, navigating our way across the city on the metro. Unsurprisingly, the show this year was bigger than ever, with around 60,000 attendees from over 200 countries, and all of the best-known mobile brands were drawing crowds onto their vibrant exhibition stands. Although, Apple was notable in its absence.

As tradition dictates, Tuesday is the busiest day of the event, with plenty of keynotes, seminars and developer conferences to occupy the masses. After a bit of queuing (which we sadly could not bust with our mTicketing apps!), the team was granted entry to the BlackBerry developer conference, where we learned about all the great new features planned for BB10 and the new Playbooks. We were especially intrigued by the variety of runtimes that will be supported on the upcoming BB10, making it an incredibly versatile development platform. As well as featuring the existing Java and native BB10 runtimes, BlackBerry’s new platform will include HTML5 support and a runtime for Android apps!

To top off a great talk from BlackBerry, we were all given a free Playbook!

In the afternoon, a handful of us managed to get into the Samsung developer conference. They had a big presentation on the variety of things you can do with the stylus, a gadget they have brought back into fashion with the Galaxy Note, but what we really found impressive was the great looks and almost Android-like graphics displayed by their new range of Bada handsets.

amazing mobile technology

Later on in the day, we had a wander around the Fira to check out some of the technology on show from the big names in mobile. Here’s a rundown of the main things:

Nokia – showcased a 41 Megapixel camera, capturing amazing quality photos on such a tiny handset.
BlackBerry – great speaker presentations on the stand, including one from Ben on transport mTicketing as the catalyst for mCommerce.
Android – the stand was as colourful and fun as ever, with app developers, a slide, free smoothies and even a robot that made you a customised cover for your Nexus.
Samsung Galaxy Note – a huge screen and amazing battery life and great versatility make this Ben’s new favourite phone.
Sony Playstation Vita – a device more powerful than the PS3 and it fits inside your hand. It can also run augmented reality games and map your face onto your avatar using the front mounted camera.
Windows Phone 7 – a cool competition from Microsoft saw you race your phone against their Windows Phones to see which was faster at completing certain tasks, and if you managed to beat the Windows Phone, you won €100. A quick look at the results board showed only about two people managed to beat the WP7 phones for speed. (Unhappy losers were thankfully consoled with a free t-shirt.)
NFC - lots of companies were demonstrating NFC as a centrepiece this year. The transaction times have improved and the technology is gaining more traction in payment and transport.
Quad core processors – incredibly rich and detailed gaming graphics running on the latest smartphones were on display on all the big handset manufacturer stands to show the power of the new quad cores processors that have entered the market.
Special mention goes to a Vancouver based company for building an awesome Heads Up Display device that fits inside your snowboarding goggles and gives you readouts on your speed, location, etc. and links to your phone via Bluetooth so you can play music and answer calls while knee deep in powder.

culture vultures

We rounded off a great stay in Barcelona with a meal in an authentic Spanish tapas restaurant and a trip to the Sagrada Família – the iconic cathedral designed by Gaudí that has been under construction since 1882.

The visit to MWC was a really edifying and valuable experience for the whole team. We got to see a side of the industry that we would not normally be involved in, and we also got a first-hand view of some of the upcoming technology that could influence our work in the near future. Moreover, it was a fantastic opportunity to meet and network with other companies and developers doing fascinating things in mobile, and we hope to follow up on some interesting leads!

Get in touch to learn more about our team trips and other developer opportunities at Masabi.

Chiltern Railways mTicketing App by Masabi One of ‘Best of British’

Will — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:57:23 +0000

chiltern railways mticketing app by masabi one of ‘best of british’

To celebrate Mobile World Congress 2012, which kicks off on Monday in Barcelona, The Appside have published a free report called Best of British Apps, in association with UKTI and the ICT Knowledge Transfer Network. The report highlights 50 innovative apps developed and/or published by UK companies in recent times.
Included in the list is the Chiltern Railways mTicketing app, developed by Masabi.

Here’s why the Chiltern app made the list:

Another local startup, Masabi, has been quietly breaking new ground in mobile transport ticketing, working with a number of rail operators in the UK to allow their passengers to buy tickets on their phones.

The Chiltern Railways app is a very good example. The m-tickets are bought as barcodes, to be stored on the phone and shown to ticket inspectors and/or scanned at station barriers.

The app saves recent journeys and details to speed up the purchasing process, and there is an additional incentive to use the app: no booking fees.

We’re really proud that the Chiltern app was included in this ‘Best of British’ list in the run up to MWC 2012, and we can’t wait to be out in Barcelona meeting other developers and mobile technology innovators!

Download the Chiltern Railways app here or text CHILTERN to 88600.

Best of British Apps: 50 innovative mobile applications from the UK

Get in contact with us or leave a comment below to learn more about the Chiltern Railways mTicketing scheme.

Masabi, Chiltern Railways & Atos Scoop Rail Business Award

Will — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:09:53 +0000

masabi, chiltern railways & atos scoop rail business award

A concerted effort from Chiltern Railways, Atos and Masabi saw the companies claim victory at the recent Rail Business Awards 2012 in the Information Technology Excellence category. The accolade was awarded for the trio’s work in delivering the first ever live mTicketing system for a franchised Train Operating Company, which lets customers buy tickets on their phone using the Chiltern Railways app and travel straight away.

The Rail Business Awards is one of the UK rail industry’s most prestigious awards ceremonies, and recognises excellence for business, technology & engineering, safety & security, stations & trains, creativity, and individual achievement.

Rail Business Awards judge Tony King praised the market credibility of the group’s mTicketing scheme, which was launched in May 2011, and also commended the fact that it is available on both smartphones and regular mobiles, thereby providing the best experience possible to the largest number of customers.

Here’s what our very own trophy looks like:

Click here to read the full article on the award win.

Thanks to the Rail Business Awards 2012 for organising such a great night!

If you would like to learn more about our mTicketing work with Chiltern Railways and Atos, feel free to contact us or post a comment below.

Masabi CEO Named as Top Transport Innovator

Will — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:24:24 +0000

masabi ceo named as top transport innovator

Masabi CEO Ben Whitaker was named by New Transit Magazine as one of the transport industry’s most influential innovators in their Power List 2012: Innovators & Pioneers, published on Tuesday 7th February.

The list honours certain individuals across the transport sector who are introducing new ideas from an inventive technological or entrepreneurial standpoint, as well as those whose activity stands out as being beyond the significance of their own specific role within an organisation. Here’s an extract from the article on what they had to say about Ben:

“…[T]he efforts of Ben Whitaker, founder and chief executive of Masabi have helped revolutionise the way in which rail tickets are purchased and used via mobile phones. His system is now in use by half the [UK] Train Operating Companies.”

Click here to read the full article.

If you are interested in finding out more about the work Masabi has done to revolutionise the transport industry, please contact us or leave a comment below.

Masabi’s Role in Open Source and the Wider Community

Will — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:30:09 +0000

masabi’s role in open source and the wider community

At Masabi, we use open source software as a key part of our app production toolchain. One of the great things about open source is that you can inspect the source code to see exactly how the software works. And if it doesn’t do quite what you want, or has a bug, you can fix it. And once you’ve fixed it, you can submit the change back to the open source project, so all of the users of the software benefit.

We recently did just this with an annoying bug in Jenkins. Jenkins is a piece of software we use to build our apps in different configurations, and we discovered that the list of available configurations was mysteriously omitting entries. We tried searching online, and while we found someone with a similar problem, we couldn’t find a solution, or even a good workaround. So, we decided to apply our skills as software developers to the problem.

Jenkins is hosted on Github, which is both an open source project host and a developer community. Being on Github made it really easy for us to download the original source code for Jenkins, and after a small amount of poking around we found the bug. The programmer had decided to use timestamps as a unique key, which meant any time there was more than one entry with the same timestamp, all but one of them was discarded.

We rewrote the problematic code, tested the fix on our system, and submitted it to the project maintainer. Github made this as simple as a few clicks on their website – there’s even a web interface for editing files. Within a few hours the project maintainer sent us a message to say, “Seems perfect”. Then a couple of days later our fix was merged into the main project, meaning all of the users of Jenkins will benefit from it in the future.

Open source software is a hugely valuable part of Masabi’s development ecosystem. For a growing technology company, open source projects like those hosted on Github are a great alternative to proprietary software because they’re inexpensive and usually very effective.

What we really like about it, though, is that it gives larger companies like us the opportunity to repay the development community by contributing to a global project, which potentially helps out other people and gives something back to companies still making their way in the world.

This blog post is an example of the sort of thing we do nearly everyday for open source projects, but wider example can be found in the work we did back in 2008 on improving Frontline SMS – an open source SMS hub aimed at the not-for-profit sector that allows people to send and receive SMS messages in bulk from a desktop client.

If you have and questions or comments about our work in open source, feel free to contact us or leave a comment below.

Graham Parks
Mobile Application Engineer

How to make a Windows Phone 7 app in 5 minutes

Will — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 14:31:19 +0000

how to make a windows phone 7 app in 5 minutes

With a future release of the UK rail ticketing app for Windows Phone 7 (WP7) coming up, we wanted to familiarise ourselves with how to provide pre-release versions to clients for feedback. In addition, we wanted to find out in advance how to submit a WP7 app to be made available to the public, as this would uncover any hidden roadblocks that might affect our lead times when publishing the app for real. Expect us to blog about the process of submitting a live app at a later date – at the moment we’ve just been testing the beta process.

the 5 minute app

So to discover how Microsoft have approached this part of application development, we first wanted to make a simple and fun application which served no real purpose other than to test out the process. There was never any requirement to launch this app live, but it obviously had to do at least something, so I spent just a few minutes quickly making the ‘oblongs!’ application. The original aim was to simply make it draw a square on a canvas at the point where the user touched.

To get the simple application up and running quickly I just went to the usual New Project wizard in Visual Studio and selected a new Windows Phone Application. You can also do this on the free Express version for Windows Phone 7.

This sets up the structure of a basic application with a single Page, containing the standard application and page title sections (the small and large headings respectively), and a large blank ‘Grid’ object. At this point I simply just set the grid’s background colour, and then made a ‘MouseLeftButtonUp’ event listener (which visual studio makes incredibly simple), and then moved over to the C# file where the real magic began. I then wrote this in my event listener:

private void ContentPanel_MouseLeftButtonUp(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e)

{

Point pos = e.GetPosition(ContentPanel);

Double width = ContentPanel.ActualWidth;

Double height = ContentPanel.ActualHeight;

Rectangle r = new Rectangle();

r.Width = OBLONG_SIZE;

r.Height = OBLONG_SIZE;

r.Margin = new Thickness(pos.X-(OBLONG_SIZE/2), pos.Y-(OBLONG_SIZE/2), 0, 0);

r.Fill = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Red);

ContentPanel.Children.Add(r);

}

It’s really nothing fancy, but was just enough to ensure that there would be some level of interaction, but ultimately remaining little more than a glorified ‘Hello world!’ application.

Our initial go at it led to a slight problem where the squares weren’t actually appearing where the user tapped, so we updated it to fix this bug and added some random colours to make it more exciting, giving us this:

private void ContentPanel_MouseLeftButtonUp(object sender, MouseButtonEventArgs e)

{

Point pos = e.GetPosition(ContentPanel);

Double width = ContentPanel.ActualWidth;

Double height = ContentPanel.ActualHeight;

Rectangle r = new Rectangle();

r.HorizontalAlignment = HorizontalAlignment.Left;

r.VerticalAlignment = VerticalAlignment.Top;

r.Width = OBLONG_SIZE;

r.Height = OBLONG_SIZE;

r.Margin = new Thickness(pos.X-(OBLONG_SIZE/2), pos.Y-(OBLONG_SIZE/2), 0, 0);

r.Fill = GetRandomColour();

ContentPanel.Children.Add(r);

}

private Brush GetRandomColour()

{

Random r = new Random();

int value = r.Next(5);

switch (value)

{

case 0:

return new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Red);

case 1:

return new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Blue);

case 2:

return new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Green);

case 3:

return new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Magenta);

case 4:

return new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Orange);

case 5:

return new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Yellow);

default:

return new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black);

}

Here’s a quick demo of it in action:

publishing the app

As a bit of background, different platforms have different approaches to the process of getting development versions of applications on to test devices. For example, when distributing pre-release versions of an Android app you can sign them with a self signed development certificate. These certificates are used to verify the authenticity of the application author. Once signed, any phone can load it via their phone’s web browser, email client, etc. (so long as they’ve set their device to allow applications from “untrusted” sources).

In contrast, iOS developers are required to first create certificates through Apple with which applications can then be signed, but then the user is required to install the certificate and application via iTunes only.

Differences aside, the turnaround time for getting from a developer’s computer onto a device for both of these approaches is in the region of a few minutes at most.

For Windows Phone, it’s sadly not quite as simple as Android, but also didn’t initially appear to be as involved as Apple. Once we got further in, though, it became apparent that it was neither easier nor harder than either, but definitely different.

distributing as a beta

Microsoft offer a “Beta Distribution option” when going through the app submission process. When you pick this, it bypasses the longer process of Microsoft verifying that the application meets their requirements, but in return makes it available to only up to 100 users, identified by their Live ID. So we proudly uploaded our 5 minute ‘oblongs!’ app, selected this beta option, and set my own personal Windows Phone’s account as a recipient.

At the time of submission they claimed the application would be available within two hours – not as fast as Android or iOS, but not the end of the world either.

Another thing that became apparent at this point (which as a busy developer was quite convenient) was that the application signing is done by Microsoft automatically after uploading, and it wasn’t expected that I, the developer, do this manually. With the application uploaded, I got back to developing the rail application, secretly keeping an eye on the clock for my two hours to be complete.

Those two hours turned out to be more like 24, and from looking on the internet this was not uncommon.

go live!

An email arrived after four or so hours with a download link, but the link didn’t work and just returned a very generic message and rather human unfriendly error code (805a0194). However given more time, once it was available, the process was very simple indeed.

The email contains a link to be used on the phone which launches the ‘Marketplace’ app on the phone, and was displaying my application. It appeared like any other publicly available application, with the standard pivot offering reviews, screenshots, etc.

some other things we learned:

Once uploaded and approved (approximately 24 hours later), the time required to add new users to be able to access the application was nothing more than adding their email address via a form in the ‘App Hub’ and it was made available to them immediately. This will be very useful for us, as we naturally have clients wanting pre-release versions of the app on multiple devices, but they won’t have all the devices to hand.

Details of the app including description text and screenshots are available via a website to people that know the link. While it’s quite improbable that anyone might guess the link, it’s worth being wary of uploading anything particularly sensitive, like unannounced applications or development currently still under NDA.

In the interests of security, we did also check and can confirm that even though the link may be guessable, it is not possible for unauthorised people to actually download the app.

Rather annoyingly you aren’t able to offer an ‘upgrade’ to an application in beta. You have to explicitly remove the old version and then make a new submission. This might appear a minor inconvenience, but there were two issues for us. Firstly that you can’t use it to test any migration of stored application data (if for example, internal data structures have changed) as it will be wiped when the app is removed. Secondly, you’re potentially in for another 24 hour wait! It would be nice if, as the platform matures, Microsoft could make the upgrade process available for beta applications. While we are obviously able to test upgrades on our development machines, experience has taught me that you might get real world cases that behave differently to a finite list of test scenarios that we tested against.

Overall the experience was definitely a positive one. Microsoft allow up to 100 recipients for a beta application which is plenty for its intended usage. Also, the removal of the requirement of manual code signing was certainly welcome, as this can be confusing to developers who’ve not come from a background of having to sign code before.

I’m definitely feeling more confident with the process now, and I’m glad these lessons were learned in advance of the day the client was expecting a preview.

We’re really looking forward to the release of our first ever Windows Phone 7 app so stay tuned on this blog and our Twitter @Masabi_com for more news! Alternatively, contact us to learn more about our development ecosystem.

Steven Gurr
Mobile Application Engineer

A Guide to mTicketing – Transport Ticketing Webinar

Will — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:27:58 +0000

a guide to mTicketing – transport ticketing webinar

Masabi’s CEO Ben Whitaker presented a live webinar about mTicketing technology on Wednesday last week (11th Jan) to hundreds of transport industry leaders. If you missed it live, you can still catch Ben and the rest of the presenters by clicking on the link below.

Click here to watch the webinar.

You can also find out more about mTicketing by meeting us at Transport Ticketing 2012 or by emailing us on contact@masabi.com

Masabi at Transport Ticketing 2012

Will — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:16:05 +0000

mticketing takes centre stage at flagship event

Transport Ticketing 2012 kicks off the New Year as the first major event in the Masabi calendar and it really is a ‘must attend’ for those interested in mTicketing. This year, Masabi is exhibiting, speaking and sponsoring, and we’re looking forward to meeting some of the transport industry’s most influential figures to discuss the latest developments in mTicketing technology.

“As increasing amounts of people use public transport every day, it has become critical to look at new means of ticketing which are cost-effective, scalable and – above all – user-friendly. Masabi has pioneered a mobile ticketing revolution in transport, proving themselves to be world leaders in the next generation of ticketing and fare collection. Make sure you join us at Transport Ticketing 2012 in January to gain practical insight into the new technologies that are changing the global ticketing landscape.” – Tim Headley, Marketing Manager, Clarion Events.

webinar – the guide to mobile ticketing

In the build up to the event, at 15:00 GMT on Wednesday 11th January, Masabi CEO Ben Whitaker will join Thomas Ableman from Chiltern Railways and Stephen Stonall Henningsen from Movia in a free webinar providing an overview of mTicketing and the potential it holds for transport operators. Following the presentations, there will be an opportunity to participate in a live Q&A session with Ben and the other speakers. Click here to view the mTicketing webinar agenda and sign up free of charge.

mTicketing presentations at transport ticketing 2012

At the event Ben will be speaking on a panel debating the merits of smartcard ticketing, alongside; Nigel Eggleton, Veolia TransDev Blazefield; Chris Shoukry, The ALCO Group; Mike Cowan, MasterCard; and Mick Davies, LASSeO. You can catch Ben and the rest of the panel at 16:00 on Thursday 26th January. Click here to see a detailed agenda for the talk and the rest of the event.

Earlier on that day, at 09:50, Chiltern Railways Marketing Manager, Thomas Ableman, will present a talk entitled ‘The UK’s first mTicketing scheme for railways – realise the financial potential of mobile ticketing’. The presentation will discuss the business case behind the mTicketing technology developed in partnership with Masabi & Atos that is now live on the train operator’s routes, as well as the key steps towards a practical implementation of mTicketing on transport networks.

exhibition and demonstrations

Masabi will also be exhibiting at the event and will be demonstrating a range of mTicketing services now live across multiple transport operators. Feel free to stop by and see our technology in action!

We’re really looking forward to Transport Ticketing 2012 and hope to see you there!

If you’re going to be at the event and would like to meet, please contact us to schedule a meeting.

Transport Ticketing 2012 takes place in London, 24th-26th January – click here to register for the event.