Byte-size news: Katy and Ubisoft are besties

If you're looking to make a worldwide splash, you can't do much better than having a role in a Katy Perry video. For video game maker Ubisoft, it's even better when the Teenage Dream singer takes your latest game for a whirl in her latest production.

On Perry's latest single Last Friday Night, the pop juggernaut transforms into a geeky persona, "Kathy Beth Terry", and boogies down to the game with other partygoers.

"Including Just Dance 2 in my Last Friday Night music video was so rad," said Perry. "Kathy Beth Terry and I are big fans of the game!"

Showing the worlds of gaming and music, and Perry in particular, are getting closer all the time, Ubisoft is also sponsoring Perry's North American California Dreams tour and are including her hit song Firework in the Just Dance 2 game.

For their part, Ubisoft seem stoked with the arrangement. "Katy Perry music videos become instant pop culture events worldwide and for our game to be included is an honour and testament to the popularity and appeal of the Just Dance franchise," said Geoffroy Sardin, Ubisoft senior vice president of sales and marketing.

Android vampires

Forget backing "Team Jacob" or "Team Edward", a new company has smartphone users either battling or saving vampires in their own backyard.

AFP reports San Francisco-based company Viewdle have released "Third Eye", an augmented-reality game for Android smartphones, which utilises face-recognition software to identify if the people around them are vampires or vampire slayers.

This is the first instalment in a planned trilogy that will end in an ultimate "battle".

More importantly, it is intended to showcase their phone software and its capabilities.

The key part of the game is the SocialCamera application, which creates "faceprints" that users tag with names. When the subject is snapped again, the app automatically recognises who the person is.

Or in the case of the game, evaluates the subject's bone structure and calculates whether it's a blood sucker or slayer.

The first instalment primarily involves assembling a network of like-minded players into clans, to prepare to battle it out in later versions.

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