Another busy week at the Studio, and unfortunately it was Becky's last one with us. We recently put a call-out for a new full time assistant to man the desk, promote the work of our residents and generally keep us on the straight and narrow. Until the recruitment logistics are neatly taken care of by Verity, I'm back holding the fort for the next two weeks.

Last week, nu desine put the AlphaSphere through some precompliance electromagnetic safety testing. This involved blasting the instrument with radio-magnetic waves to ensure the electronics are stable. We're pleased to report that it passed with flying colours. In other news, Adam demonstrated the instrument at the Founders Forum in London, and both he and Liam played at the Architectural Association summer party in Shoreditch.  Friday brought news of a major contract with a prestigious Japanese importer of musical instruments, their pro-audio arm will be selling the AlphaSphere in Japan.

Red Wasp had a sale on their android app last week. They are currently working to expand their game Call of Cthulhu to include six more levels and launching a freemium version with in-app purchasing of extra levels.

Victoria has been developing partnerships with organisations in Recife, Brazil, in relation to running a future Playable City exchange programme. This programme will build on learning from The Playable City Sprint, which took place last February in collaboration with the British Council South-East Asia.

Verity and Victoria met with Simon Mellor, the new Executive Director of Arts at Arts Council England, giving him a tour of the Studio and introducing some of the work of Watershed, iShed and the Studio residents. He went on to visit local organisations Spike Island and Arnolfini as a part of his exploration of the Arts community in Bristol.

Verity was also a judge for the New Media Category of Wildscreen’s Panda Awards. She is sworn to secrecy about the winner but assures us that the quality overall was very high and that all the finalists would make worthy winners. The shortlisted nominees for all the Panda Award categories have now been announced and can be found here.

Calvium's Jo Reid is planning three new app development workshops in Bristol and Falmouth for arts organisations and museums that will take place in the early Autumn, supported by Arts Council England.

Stand + Stare ran a workshop for the Bridges Project based on their Theatre Jukebox. This was the first in a series, funded by the Arts Council and run through the Trinity Centre. Each person in the group who attends  the course will develop a story for the Theatre Jukebox based on the loose theme of bridges.

Vanessa has been helping Splash and Ripple with some of their R&D.

Verity, Clare and Matt went to the UWE Creative Industries degree show to scope out new talent in pervasive media. If you are a new graduate with brilliant ideas you can find out more about our residencies here: http://www.pmstudio.co.uk/join-the-studio