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********************************************** * 01 October 2005 - Fly those friendly skies * ********************************************** It's been about a year since I updated this thing, so I guess just about any news is better than letting it sit quiet any longer. There have been a lot of major things going on, but there's one thing in particular I wanted to mention. Partly because it's been keeping me busy, but partly because this is the right crowd to talk with about this. The company I work for, eFlyte, Inc., is in the inflight entertainment industry. I've been working with the company for a bit over two years now as its product development manager. A quick explanation of what we do is "we put games on airplanes". A slightly longer explanation of what we do is that we develop and port software to embedded Linux-based platforms for use in the in-seat entertainment systems of airlines all over the world. It's just about the perfect spot for someone who wants to work with embedded systems, Linux, porting games, R&D, cutting-edge hardware, trailing-edge hardware, and squeezing just about every single cycle out of software. A little while ago, the Jacksonville Financial News and Daily Record stopped by eFlyte's Jacksonville office to take a look at what we do. You can check out the article they wrote on us here, in case you want to see their perspective on what it is we do. The poor reporter seemed rather overwhelmed when she walked into our office and was shown all sorts of example software running on the actual embedded systems within our test lab. Still, she got to play Bejeweled for a little bit, so it had to be some of the more entertaining research she had to do for an article. eFlyte is growing. We've been steadily expanding our staff for some time now, but we've got big stuff cooking. So, I'm always on the lookout for new engineers that have the know-how and interest to work with us and help us get to where we want to be. I've got Win32 source code here for game titles from PopCap, Mumbo Jumbo, GameHouse, and a handful of other publishers and developers. These games need to be ported to Linux and put on some airplanes. I'm not talking about deals being worked and "maybe we'll have source code"... I'm talking about source code sitting right here, looking for a better life on a Linux system. The red tape is gone. We have license to port these guys. We just need to port them! So, if you'd like to work with source code from publishers and developers like PopCap, Mumbo Jumbo, and GarageGames, and work with hardware manufacturers like Panasonic, National Semiconductor, and nVidia, you need to send me your resume. Right now. Send it to my icculus.org e-mail. Professional game porting isn't a job for the weak of heart, though. If STL makes you cringe and gdb is a mystery to you, you'll want to buff up your skills a bit before you even consider trying a game development position. But, if you've done some open source development for kicks and can easily dig through newsgroups and google for answers to weird problems, you're on the right track. Aside from our games software team, we also have teams working in the following areas: - Communications: Our Inflight Communicator software allows SMS and e-mail messages to be sent from the aircraft to the ground and back. Our primary area of expertise in this area is researching and inmplementing input mechanisms for non-Latin character sets. - Technical Services: We act as advisors and contractors to other organizations seeking to place their products in the inflight market. We also serve as advisors on software issues to the manufacturers of inflight entertainment hardware. Custom application development for airlines also falls under this area. - Inflight Gambling: eFlyte provides software for inflight low-stakes gambling for airlines whose routes fall within legal jurisdictions where gambling is allowed. This is poised to be our fastest-growing segment of the company, and the interest from airlines all over the world in our gambling product has been nothing short of phenomenal. eFlyte has been around since 1999, has established business relationships with nearly three dozen airlines all over the world, is a privately-held company, and has never been funded by venture capital. Its expenses as an ongoing concern are paid for by the cash flows from operations. Our software is licensed to the airlines in such a way that we receive recurring monthly cashflows for the software that is installed. This is a bit different than the traditional shrink-wrapped software model that involves selling a software title once and then providing support to the customer from that point onward at the developer's expense. Think you'd be interested in working with us? Want to port some games? Send me an e-mail at my icculus.org mail address and I'll fill you in on the details and answer what questions I can. All positions are currently at our office in Jacksonville, Florida, and we can sponsor H1B visas. We offer very competitive salaries in an area of the country that has a very low cost of living, medical benefits, a 401k plan, flexible work hours, and (if you are the travelling type) opportunities to travel to both domestic and international destinations to work with other eFlyte office locations, partners, and customers. So send those resumes. You know you want to.
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