Village Gamer

Allstream continues to be a Canadian leader in Internet Protocol (IP) communications with the launch of Integrated Service Management (ISM) – a fully managed, end-to-end voice and data infrastructure for connectivity, IP Telephony, and other Cisco Unified Communications (UC) applications. Read the rest of this entry »

A $2.1-million investment by the governments of Canada and British Columbia, through the BC Innovation Council, will help Accelerate Okanagan increase the number of technology companies that start and grow in the region. The funding, which is spread over three years, was announced today at the official opening of Accelerate Okanagan, a technology-focused not-for-profit organization that is already benefiting more than 20 local firms through its start-up and growth strategy programs. Read the rest of this entry »

User experience agency Jet Cooper has launched Design in Residence (“DiR”), a program that provides design resources into technology accelerators across Canada. The program will be integrated into startups at Montreal’s FounderFuel, Waterloo’s VeloCity, and Toronto’s MaRS Commons in January 2012. Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto based SecureKey Technologies Inc. has been awarded a contract by the Government of Canada to provide an innovative Credential Broker Service (CBS) that will allow Canadians to use their bank authentication credentials to obtain access to online government services. To ensure privacy protection, users of the CBS will authenticate through their bank but neither their login credentials nor the identity of their bank will be shared with the Government of Canada.  Similarly, no information about the government service being accessed by the user will be shared with the user’s bank. Read the rest of this entry »

Calgary-based UrtheCast has announced that the company has signed an agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos). Under the terms of this agreement, the Russian Federal Space Agency has committed to providing the prelaunch preparation, space launch and delivery, installation, and maintenance of two UrtheCast cameras on the Russian module of the International Space Station (ISS). This agreement is a continuation of the exclusive agreement signed with RSC Energia, who currently acts as the prime contractor on ISS related projects. Read the rest of this entry »

Crowdsourced marketing specialist Chaordix has announced Crowd Intelligence™, a process which applies unique new methods of crowdsourcing and data analysis to generate new levels of rich market insight and data that would be difficult, if not impossible, to acquire through traditional research methods. Read the rest of this entry »

A program to help technology companies develop has also accelerated job growth in the sector. In its inaugural year, the BC Technology Industry Association’s (BCTIA) Centre4Growth program helped over 200 companies, with job growth increasing overall by nine percent or 76 new jobs. The program also helped tech companies raise revenue and investment by $17 million, delivering an estimated $6.4 million in regional economic benefit. Read the rest of this entry »

Canada’s Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS) reports an increase in telecom consumer complaints for the fourth straight year.  Highlighted in the annual report is the significant CRTC ruling that now allows for customers of all Canadian telecommunications service providers to go to CCTS. Read the rest of this entry »

Softchoice Corporation has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the business of UNIS LUMIN, one of Canada’s most highly regarded Cisco networking and managed services companies. The acquisition strengthens Softchoice’s professional services capabilities while providing the technology foundation to support the Company’s future cloud offerings. Softchoice has agreed to pay approximately $17 million in cash for substantially all assets of UNIS LUMIN, subject to balance sheet adjustments. The transaction is subject to approval by the Competition Bureau of Canada and is expected to close before December 31^st, 2011. Read the rest of this entry »

In a puzzling case of international art theft, a Superplexus, a large-scale, museum-quality, hand-made, interactive sculpture created by American inventor Michael McGinnis, has gone missing. Last seen October 23rd in Essen Germany on display at the Spiel Essen 2011 Games Fair, the Superplexus was on display at global toy distributor PlaSmart Inc.’s Perplexus booth which was visited by thousands of visitors during the high-profile and highly attended, four day trade show. Read the rest of this entry »