It's been a week of conferences, amazing events and exciting news in the Studio. This week were we joined by two lovely new people; the first Nicola Richardson started on Wednesday as a Development Assistant. She’s had a busy few days meeting all the residents and getting all settled in. Throughout her time here she’ll be developing case studies of some Studio residents; tracking their journey to the studio, residencies and beyond.

We also welcomed final year PHD student Nick Donovan who joined the Studio on a week’s residency to develop his interactive installation. His installation explores the virtual spaces we inhabit by the physical exploration of real spaces. This week he’s met all the Residents and has been focusing on heightening the experience and developing the interactive potential of his work. It’s been lovely having him in the Studio and we’re sure we’ll be seeing more of him in the future. You can follow him on his twitter account here.   

Vanessa spent the week in Portugal for a range of workshops and events around Open City thinking. The first facilitated by Clare was a Smart City Workshop. It helped to develop scenes and ideas for a new short film by Geoff Taylor and Sam Kinsley commissioned to parody technology company’s corporate videos, and depict how technology might be used by real people in future Guimaraes. The second was James Bridle’s amazing aerial balloon mapping workshop ‘Walking the Sky’, where participants walked around Guimarães sporting a bundle of massive balloons with cameras attached to it. The imagery will then be used to create aerial maps. The mapping project is part of the Open City programme for Guimarães and its focus is: Altering both the map and the reality of the city through interventions, artworks and new perspectives. You can find out more here.

On Tuesday Verity spent the day at the NextGen roadshow at @Bristol which set out the plans for next generation broadband in Bristol and showcased creative innovations such as the company Choc Edge who 3D print using chocolate!

Clare and Jo have submitted two exciting panels for SXSW Interactive. Hacking the University: Adapt or Die and Platforms for haunting: the talking dead. Voting for panels opens on August 13 and we’ll be reminding you where to vote for them nearer the date.

Calvium had some good news when The Guardian App King's Cross, London Streetstories built using their system AppFurnace was featured on the App store this week. On Tuesday Jo spent the day at the Mobile Culture 2; a gathering of people from the mobile and cultural sectors discussing topics such as developing new revenue streams from mobile, improving audience engagement, making sure you select the right technology partners and how to effectively build and roll out apps

Over at nu desine Liam, Del and Kaspar have been holding down the fort while Adam and Sam have been away. Adams in Ibiza on holiday but is fitting in some networking time over at the White House Recording Studio. Liam has been busy working on new software, Del has been sorting manufacturing and Kasper is preparing a new prototype for a testing next week.   

Red Wasp’s Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land is available as part of a bundle on INDIEGALA Mobile. It’s a brilliant opportunity for fans of indie games to save money on awesome games and contribute to a good cause at the same time. So make sure you check it out here.

It’s been a brilliant week for Tangible FX who received their first review in print from Computer Music Magazine, where their app iMoov was awarded a fabulous 8/10. On Thursday their exciting new app MoovFX Echo went live. MoovFX Echo turns your iPhone into a motion effects controller, you can control echo effects by moving the neck of the guitar. You can watch a demo video here and find it on the app store here. Dan and Lee would also like to say a massive thank you to their wonderful Volunteers Zoe, Ingrid and Carl who have been working away on some secret projects that we have to keep under wraps for now.

On Friday Good For Nothing kicked off in the Studio for an amazing weekend of rapid social innovation, and on Saturday the sun finally came out for the Harbourside Festival. Keep an eye out for a Write-up of Friday's brilliant Lunchtime Talk ‘"Now the Field is Open" - new currents in documentary over the next few days.