Featured Client - Jim Bull, CEO of Brass Monkey

Jim Bull, CEO Brass Monkey

Brass Monkey is at its core a networking library for interconnecting mobile devices and computers over a local WiFi network. Brass Monkey’s primary use is as a controller, where a mobile device, say an iPhone, uses its built-in controls to communicate to a web based experience (Flash/Flex, Unity3D).
We are addressing the lack of interoperability and speeds of connecting various mobile devices, laptop and desktop computers, large screen displays and web browsers.  Devices that have different operating systems usually cannot communicate easily with each other without using  proprietary software and/or inefficient web-based networking protocols. Methods used currently to connect multiple devices together typically implement an intermediary server, and thus are slow and experience latency, making it prohibitive to use for instant feedback and control. Some other solutions have built-in peer to peer networking, but still lack the  responsiveness and instant feedback expected from something like a game controller.  Other implementations use Bluetooth for connectivity but this does not allow for connecting to many types of devices and its range is severely limited. In addition, none of the current solutions in existence allow for low latency experiences running in a web browser, thus making it a requirement for the end user to install an additional program on his/her computer.  We have solved these problems by removing the server and keeping the connections local to the users’ network, while allowing realtime control over experiences running in a web browser. In the process, we have created possibilities for new and revolutionary user experiences, allowing for large numbers of people to communicate in real time across WiFi networks.