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  • SEVEN24 Films And marblemedia To Develop Preschool Animated Series Little Wombat

28th June 2011

SEVEN24 Films And marblemedia To Develop Preschool Animated Series Little Wombat

seven24 filmsSEVEN24 Films and marblemedia have announced a partnership to develop Little Wombat, an animated series (26 X 11 minutes) for preschoolers based on the internationally acclaimed Little Wombat books by Charles Fuge. Through the adventures of Little Wombat, preschoolers explore, learn, and discover new things.marblemedia

Each episode follows the mischievous marsupial Little Wombat and his friends Mouse and Koala as they adventure within the Hollow where they live. Although their adventures don’t always go smoothly, Little Wombat and his friends use teamwork to solve problems and complete their adventures successfully.Little Wombat

The adventures of Little Wombat continue online and on mobile devices. Kids are immersed in the world of Little Wombat through interactive digital books, bonus animated content, age-appropriate games, puzzles, and sing alongs.

“We’re pleased to be developing this series, and look forward to telling Little Wombat’s timeless stories through charming animation,” says Jordy Randall, Executive Producer, SEVEN24 Films. “The show really captures the fun and adventure of being a 4 year-old, where every day is filled with optimism and curiosity.”

“This is a great opportunity to expand the adventures of Little Wombat across multiple platforms,” says Matt Hornburg, Executive Producer/Partner, marblemedia. “Having already gained phenomenal success as a book series, the doors are open to bring these stories to life in other unique and exciting ways, including the TV series we’re currently developing.”

International distribution and format sales will be handled by marblemedia and SEVEN24 Films’ distribution arm, Distribution360.

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28th June 2011

Make Technologies Announces New ISV Suite

Make TechnologiesMake Technologies has launched its innovative Make Technologies ISV Suite for independent software vendors. ISV Suite includes everything a software company needs to reinvent its products and stay ahead in its market.

Many software vendors have built their products on legacy platforms that are as much as 25 years old. This makes it difficult to improve their feature sets, integrate with other products and to take advantage of modern technologies such as cloud and mobile. As a result, these vendors are losing market share to more nimble competitors that are better able to embrace cutting-edge technologies. These vendors have a critical choice to make: rejuvenate legacy platforms through a modernization initiative or face market share erosion.

With the Make Technologies ISV Suite, independent software vendors can revitalize their product offerings and give their customers all the advantages of a modern technology stack. With ISV Suite, vendors get:

  • Cloud enablement: to transform the way products are delivered to customers by creating a cloud-ready software package
  • Rich user experience: to provide easy-to-use interfaces in a variety of environments, including mobile devices, to streamline user training and improve productivity.
  • Global reach: to increase market coverage by adding full internationalization and improved extensibility.

The Make Technologies ISV Suite uses TLM® 6, the proven modernization platform, to cover the three key components of the product modernization lifecycle:

  1. Application re-architecture: Make Technologies conducts an in-depth analysis of every aspect of a legacy product; including functionality, source code and data structures. Next we help determine which functionality can be slimmed down, reused or eliminated as the product transitions to a modern architecture. Make Technologies ensures valuable intellectual property built up in the code base over time is safely retained while still adopting a new state-of-the-art, cloud-enabled platform.
  2. New module development: ISVs can leverage Make Technologies’ TLM Application Design and Collaboration tools to define and build the new features and modules of the modernized product. This allows software vendors to deliver the improvements their customers have been asking for at a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches while ensuring that the new functionality is seamlessly integrated with the modernized functionality.
  3. Customer roll-out: Make Technologies provides the tools needed to automatically and smoothly upgrade an ISV’s customers to its modernized system. ISVs can use Make Technologies’ TLM Code and Data Analysis products to identify not just custom modifications to source code but also the business impact of those changes. TLM Data Migration uses the transformation rules created during modernization to automatically migrate customer data to the rearchitected system.

“To keep pace with changing customer needs, every independent software vendor needs to add new features and improve the functionality of their products,” says Bill Bergen, President and CEO of Make Technologies. “The only way to do this is through a highly scalable, modernized architecture. The Make Technologies ISV Suite lets you leapfrog your competition and set a new standard in your market.”

Register now to participate in a hosted webinar about the Make Technologies ISV Suite will be presented on Wednesday July 13, 2011 at 8:30am PDT.

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28th June 2011

D-Box Ready To Shake Up Conan The Barbarian

D-BoxD-BOX Technologies Inc. has announced its third feature film with Lionsgate® for the upcoming summer blockbuster, Conan the Barbarian in theatres August 19.

This legendary tale is brought to life with D-BOX Motion Effects that pitch, roll and heave moviegoers in theatre seats that move in perfect sync with all the onscreen action. The audience will become completely immersed in the film’s epic battle scenes as motion effects deliver real-life action that can only be experienced in D-BOX MFX Seats.

“This is an incredible addition to our summer lineup, Conan the Barbarian is a perfect match for our subtle, refined motion effects,” said President and CEO of D-BOX Technologies, Claude Mc Master. “Lionsgate has been a long-time supporter of D-BOX and we expect great success with this upcoming motion picture.”

“We are thrilled to be working with D-BOX again,” says Lionsgate EVP, General Sales Manager David Spitz. “Conan the Barbarian is the ultimate immersive experience that I know will be a great ride for audiences.”

D-Box has also announced its first agreement with Hoyts Cinemas of Australia and New Zealand, one of the world’s leading entertainment companies, to equip its Hoyts TE AWA, Hamilton, New Zealand location with 44 D-BOX MFX Seats.

Hoyts TE AWA is the first theatre in the country to offer the immersive D-BOX entertainment experience and marks the first sale of D-BOX in New Zealand for commercial theatre use.

“Confidence in our international business model and the D-BOX product continues to drive steady international expansion,” said President and CEO of D-BOX Technologies, Claude Mc Master. “Hoyts is one of the leading exhibitors in Australia and New Zealand providing a high quality cinematic experience and we are proud to name them as a partner.”

Available in more than 90 theatres in the United States and Canada, in addition to this first location in New Zealand, D-BOX is also available in several other countries to include Austria, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and the Netherlands.

“We are delighted to be the first theatre circuit to introduce D-BOX to movie patrons in New Zealand,” said Brian Eldridge, General Manager of Hoyts Cinemas. “Our commitment to excellence and exceptional entertainment is unwavering. With D-BOX we have the opportunity to offer a one-of-a-kind experience that enhances our existing digital technology capabilities and distinct comforts and service.”

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28th June 2011

DBI Technologies Releases dbiCalendarWPF

dbi techDBI Technologies Inc., the leading provider of scheduling and UI design component software for Windows Development is proud to announce the release of dbiCalendarWPF.  Through many months of developer and customer consultations along with intensive research and development these activities are now showcased in a new 3-in-1 Scheduling product for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) application development.

Straight forward and to the point – Scheduling and Calendar presentations for WPF application development – now in one, fully customizable control.  dbiCalendarWPF combines three controls;  a Multi Column Day/Resource View, a Month Calendar View and a Week Calendar View, into one compact, feature rich, royalty free WPF component software product.  The goal for this product is to help developers manage; Appointments, Contacts, Locations and Tasks, from local to global perspectives, in one fluid, drag and drop, context menu driven scheduling control.

Gone are the days of developers having to create data entry dialogues and then separately having to manage collections of Appointments, Contacts, Locations and Tasks. dbiCalendarWPF incorporates all of the necessary entities and data management features for building outstanding Schedule and Calendar functionality in a fraction of normal development time.

Great developer and user scheduling experiences start right here with dbiCalendarWPF. Direct appointment creation and inline editing features that include setting appointment attributes via built-in, customizable context menus offer .NET developers the control for building elegant scheduling interfaces and smooth Calendar navigation.

“DBI has reset the bar once again when it comes to providing Windows developers with functional, get the job done Scheduling component software. They’ve taken their time to properly research and implement functionality and data management capabilities that will allow developers to intuitively support their global software development needs” said Craig Gluck, VP of commercial product development.  “From being able to sort and group local and global appointments based on Contact, Location and /or Task will make conference call coordination and corporate resource scheduling a snap.”

Full, 30 day evaluation licenses are freely downloadable from the product detail web page or from DBI’s general download site.  A single , royalty free developer’s license of dbiCalendarWPF starts at $399.  All DBI .NET component products come with sample applications and demo’s written in C# (C Sharp) and VB .NET. Technical support is provided at the code level and each new product license includes one year of full subscription product upgrade and component update services.  DBI component products may be purchased directly from DBI or from any one of DBI’s registered value added resellers serving all four corners of the globe.

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28th June 2011

Absolute Software Recovers 20000th Stolen Computer

Absolute SoftwareAbsolute® Software Corporation has surpassed a significant IT industry milestone with over 20,000 stolen computers now recovered. These devices have been recovered using Absolute’s flagship Computrace® and LoJack® for Laptops products and returned to customers ranging from consumers to some of the world’s largest organizations.

“As the undisputed leader and inventor of the computer theft recovery product category, we’re very proud of our Theft Recovery Team and in turn wish to give tremendous thanks and acknowledgment to the many law enforcement professionals that count on Absolute’s Computrace and LoJack for Laptops everyday to recover stolen computers for their local citizens,” said John Livingston, chairman and CEO of Absolute. “This milestone confirms that our patented technology, process, and approach to managed theft recovery is, by far, the most successful – and only proven – theft recovery solution available to both consumers and organizations on the market today. The reason we continue to safely recover devices on behalf of our customers lies in the strength of our technology combined with our global network of Theft Recovery Investigators and trusted relationships with over 6,000 law enforcement agencies worldwide.”

“At DPS, we’ve already seen the effect of these recoveries,” said Robert Barenie, special investigator for Detroit Public Schools (DPS) Office of Inspector General. “Absolute Software’s Computrace is truly the finest investigative tool for the recovery process of stolen devices, leading us to the successful conviction of numerous individuals stealing laptops. We would have never recovered any of the 300 plus laptops stolen from our district without the aid of Absolute Software.”

As a result of Absolute’s technology being embedded in the firmware of computers from leading PC manufacturers since 2005, the recovery success rate has been increasing every year, with over 17,000 devices recovered in the last six years, and over 5,000 in the last year alone. In addition to the value of the device, the importance of data not falling into the wrong hands is critical to consumers and organizations alike.  Many of Absolute’s customers have purchased our data protection solutions that don’t include recovery. For these customers, our persistent technology has successfully performed over 8,500 remote data deletions to secure the privacy of their data.

On the heels of its 20,000th recovery, Absolute has gathered statistics highlighting the sheer volume of hardware, software, data, and additional collateral the company has helped to recover during more than 18 years in the industry. In 2009 and 2010 alone, Absolute’s recoveries have represented: Read the rest of this entry »

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28th June 2011

PayPal Canada Study Says Canadians Okay With Cashless Future

PayPalNew market research conducted on behalf of PayPal Canada by Leger Marketing shows that 56 per cent of Canadians are comfortable with never having to handle cash to make a purchase and many would prefer the use of a digital wallet to give money to others or pay for items when shopping. PayPal accounts have always provided digital wallet functionality. PayPal is Canada’s most trusted digital wallet and provides its more than four million Canadian customers the ability to pay and get paid using their bank account, credit cards or PayPal balance from their computer, smartphone or virtually any Internet-connected device.

Given the choice, 34 per cent of survey respondents would rather carry a mobile phone to make a payment than a pocket full of change. The survey also indicates that 36 per cent of Canadians would make mobile payments for a wide variety of purchases, on average, saying they would use their mobile device to buy something as expensive as an iPod ($272.30) or as inexpensive as a latte ($5.50). As consumers continue to transition to smartphones and get more comfortable shopping and paying with their mobile phone, PayPal, which reported $750 million in mobile payment volume in 2010 anticipates the company’s mobile payment volume should increase by the end of 2011 to $3 billion globally. In Canada, a PayPal mobile transaction happens once almost every minute.

Canadians are also looking for an easier and faster way to give money to others. Almost 40 per cent of survey respondents say using a mobile phone to make a payment would be more convenient because they can make transactions whenever and wherever they want and 60 per cent of respondents would find it appealing to not have to find a bank machine every time they need to pay someone back. Read the rest of this entry »

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28th June 2011

Redline Settles Class Action Suit

redline communicationsRedline Communications Group Inc. has reached an agreement in principle to settle the proposed class action lawsuit commenced in Ontario in September of 2010 against the Company, certain of its current and former directors and officers, and its former auditors. These claims remain unproven and the action has not received court approval.

The agreement in principle provides for the settlement, release and dismissal of all claims asserted against the Company, its former auditors and the individual proposed defendants.

Substantially all of the anticipated contribution to the settlement amount from Redline and the individual proposed defendants is to be funded through their insurance coverage, the remaining nominal amount being funded by the Company. The agreement in principle remains subject to final settlement documents and receipt of court approval. The settlement does not constitute any admission of liability by Redline or its officers, directors and employees.

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28th June 2011

Destiny Media and Yangaroo Legal Update

destiny mediaDestiny Media and Yangaroo have resolved all litigation between the two parties. As part of the settlement agreement the parties agree that all allegations of infringement and invalidity on any existing or pending Yangaroo patents will immediately cease.  As a result, Destiny will drop the Canadian patent invalidity YANGAROOproceedings and its action for defamation against Yangaroo and certain of its former officers.  Yangaroo will drop its counterclaim for patent infringement in Canada and drop its defamation counterclaim as against Destiny and its CEO.

In consideration of the settlement, Yangaroo paid Destiny a lump sum amount totaling $600,000 (Canadian Funds), and granted Destiny certain intellectual property rights relating to the two patents held by Yangaroo that were the subject matter of the dispute.

Destiny will continue to provide Play MPE® in its current form with no changes or service interruptions.  As part of the settlement, neither party will pursue legal fees, court costs or royalties pursuant to the above mentioned disputes. YANGAROO is pleased with the result as it allows YANGAROO to focus on its business and to provide the best services possible to its customers and clients.

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28th June 2011

Vote For Your Favourite Cartoon Animal At Teletoon Retro

teletoon retroLion-O, Tweety and Yogi, oh my! TELETOON Retro is asking viewers to vote for their favourite cartoon animals of all-time to be inducted into the TELETOON Retro Hall of Fame as the Top 5 Awesome Animals. Between now and Monday, August 1, viewers can vote online for their favourite cartoon critters and maybe a place in TELETOON Retro history. Following the voting period, the Top 5 Awesome Animals will be announced on Friday, August 5, followed by a special programming marathon featuring the Top 5 as part of the “Retro Rewind” programming block on Sunday, August 7 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET on TELETOON Retro.

TELETOON Retro has narrowed the field to 30 classic animated animals and is inviting fans to make their picks for the Top 5 Awesome Animals of all-time. The list of nominees is made up of the following classic cartoon characters:

  • Alvin (Alvin & The Chipmunks)
  • Astro (The Jetsons)
  • Azrael (The Smurfs)
  • Boo Boo (The Yogi Bear Show)
  • Brain (Inspector Gadget)
  • Bugs Bunny (The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show)
  • Bullwinkle (The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle)
  • Cheetara (Thundercats)
  • The Chicken Hawk (The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show)
  • Daffy Duck (The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show)
  • Dino (The Flintstones)
  • Foghorn Leghorn (The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show)
  • Huckleberry Hound (The Huckleberry Hound Show)
  • Jerry (The Tom & Jerry Show) Read the rest of this entry »
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28th June 2011

Microsoft Canada Study Finds We Are Not Racing To The Cloud

Microsoft CanadaCanadian small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are hesitant to harness the power of the cloud, in large part because they find it difficult to keep pace with rapid technology advancements, according to a survey conducted by Leger Marketing and commissioned by Microsoft Canada.

The study found that although nearly 73 per cent of SMBs understand that cloud-based technology offers a cost-effective means of accessing the latest technology, just 30 per cent are currently investing in cloud services.

“We all know that with great technology, you are at a better business advantage. Yet with 83 per cent of SMBs finding it hard to keep pace and 79 per cent settling on old tech even though they know there are better options, it is clear that Canadian businesses require simple and cost-effective cloud-based services to drive productivity, efficiency and give them the competitive edge,” says Eric Gales, President of Microsoft Canada. “Three-quarters of Canadian SMB are ready to invest in their own growth, but they want to invest smartly in technology that is going to work for them. This is why we’re so excited to announce the launch of Office 365 to meet Canada’s SMB technology needs.”office 365

Office 365 brings together Microsoft Office, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Exchange Online and Lync Online in an always-up-to-date service, with a predictable monthly cost that starts at just $7 per user, per month.

Moving to the cloud with Office 365 doesn’t require a team to change the way it works, because the service is based on familiar tools people know and trust, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook and more. Employees get new ways to work together with ease, on virtually any device or mobile phone, and businesses get the reliability, security and IT controls they need in the cloud, even without a dedicated IT staff.

“I’m a road warrior and my office is a coffee shop, a hotel room or my clients’ board room” said James Won, founder of Servant4Stewards, a financial planning consultancy. “Office 365 gives me the power to work anywhere with full access to my documents on my computer and my mobile phone. The best thing about Office 365 is the fact that I can collaborate with clients and third-parties, revising, sharing and updating documents seamlessly in the cloud.”

Microsoft is building a massive partner ecosystem around Office 365, which includes new ways of partnering with service providers such as telecommunications and hosting firms around the world. Bell, Canada’s largest communications company, is the first Canadian syndication partner.  Bell will be offering Office 365 bundled with their communication services, creating a one-stop-shop for small and midsize businesses.

“Bell and Microsoft have worked closely for years to help Canadian businesses with their collaboration needs, and we’re happy to partner with Microsoft to bring Office 365 to the Bell cloud portfolio,” said Strahan McCarten, Director of Product Management, Hosting & Cloud Computing, Bell Business Markets, Bell Canada. “With Office 365, Bell customers can reduce their costs and maximize their IT productivity whether they’re starting a new business venture or enhancing their existing technology operations.”

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