For a mobile phone producer, the latest word in “blink-and-miss” graphics, animation and transitions can make or break a new model handset. For the Astonishing Tribe, the development of sophisticated mobile phone graphics technology is an almost talismanic art.

The company’s six founders, all of whom were born in the late 1970’s, spent time in the late 1990’s vying with each other to create the most impressive graphics with limited technological resources - small processors, tiny memories. In the end, they joined forces and went into business to bring their “small is big” approach to the Øresund corridor’s burgeoning mobile phone industry.

As TAT’s Charlotta Falvin explains,”Our mission is to create graphic effects in mobile phones, to make software come alive, and to do it without too much intervention in the underlying code”.

TAT’s flagship technology is known as Kastor, an architecture for graphical user interfaces that enables an array of different handset models to display high-quality visual effects.

Platform independent technology cuts time-to-market

“Often, when a designer has a great idea for a new graphical effect, a smooth animation or an advanced user interface layout on a mobile phone, the programmers have to scrap it, simply because it would require such major changes to the software and architecture,” says Falvin. Using TAT’s user interface technology the handset manufacturer is given a much more flexible approach, where the whole user interface is controlled by declarative markup language. This makes it possible to create the complete mobile phone UI with layouts, animations, special effects, UI flow and so on, in a very easy and flexible manner, since no code needs to be rewritten or recompiled.

“The end result is not only a more visually attractive user interface, but our technology also gives an important competitive edge to the handset manufacturer in terms of time-to-market for upgrades, as well as a more flexible process to meet for instance demanding operator requirements,” says Falvin.

The Øresund Region – a perfect fit

Sitting right in the middle between design and technology, and serving global customers, the Øresund region is a perfect fit for TAT. “Malmö has transformed beautifully over the past ten years, becoming highly attractive for design talents and for programmers. The region is well served by LTH in Lund, and all the major telecom companies are gathered in the area that together attracts talent from all over,” says Falvin. “And customers are easily reached from across the bridge to anywhere in the world.”

This article was originally published by Øresund IT Magasine (nr. 7 - 2006). You can download the magazine in PDF format on Publications.