Village Gamer

UK education software specialist NetSupport, who does have a subsidiary office in Markham, has once again responded to the challenges of the modern classroom with the release of NetSupport Assist; the new cost-effective and efficient way for teachers to manage and engage with their students in a Mac and Linux environment.

Twenty-first century education is providing students with inspiring learning opportunities and giving them unparalleled access to a diverse range of computing assets. However, providing the latest IT infrastructure is only half the equation. Ensuring it is used in the most effective way represents the other half.

With 22 years of development expertise to call upon, NetSupport Assist brings together NetSupport’s core classroom management technology to deliver a focused feature set that ensures teachers can give their time and attention to their students, without having to worry about learning and maintaining the software.

Crystal clear student thumbnails enable teachers to monitor the entire class in a single real-time view, each thumbnail displaying visual indicators to show when applications and websites are in use. To ensure the resources being accessed by each student are appropriate, with a single click you can switch to a view that details exactly which files and websites are open and, if needed, take remedial action to block the internet.

A powerful range of remote control tools enables teachers to interact with students individually or as a class. Teachers can discreetly view an individual desktop to confirm the student is on task and, for example, conduct a two-way chat session without disrupting the rest of the room.

With NetSupport Assist there’s also no need for expensive front-of-class display equipment: real-time presentation tools enable the teacher to ‘show’ their screen to students.

To gauge topic understanding, teachers can, on the fly, poll students for their feedback. A question can be sent to each machine with a pre-defined list of responses and, once the students have responded, the results are instantly reported on the teacher’s screen. Read the rest of this entry »

Communitech’s Venture Services program is expanding to support the burgeoning number of startup companies relying on Communitech for commercialization expertise, with more new companies “walking through the doors” every week, Communitech CEO Iain Klugman said today. The program provides expertise and resources to startup companies, engaging executive-level talent from the Region.

“Part of the tech ecosystem is ensuring that the wealth of executive knowledge in all aspects of entrepreneurship is shared with others who are the future leaders of successful ventures,” said Klugman. “It’s one of the reasons that hundreds of entrepreneurs have chosen Waterloo Region for their startups.”

More than 250 early-stage companies are actively engaged with the Venture Services Program, up from 50 since the inception of the EIR program five years ago, Klugman said. In 2010, more than 7000 hours were spent by EIRs coaching startups.

Communitech continually seeds its Executives-in-Residence team with high-level executives who have experience in “C-level” jobs and can coach startup tech firms, and the program has expanded from one to a complement of six EIRs. Each EIR has experience and expertise in a particular sector and a capability essential to business success. Klugman says most EIRs continue to be active in their field, either as senior executives or entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs work with the team of advisors best suited to their business, and have access not only to the expertise needed, but also resources and connections across a range of disciplines and sectors.

The Venture Services team at Communitech currently includes the following Executives-in-Residence:

– Lillian Bass, a Chartered Accountant who provides leadership and helps get things done for fast-growing small and medium-sized businesses. Lillian was VP Finance and Operations at IGLOO Inc., an early stage business social software company, CFO for engineering company Brock Solutions, and Corporate Financial Manager for ATS Automation Tooling Systems and was involved with the inception of Angstrom Engineering.

– Marc Castel, CEO at Maintenance Assistant Inc. and formerly CEO at ROBOsky, who brings extensive experience in the private and public sectors. Castel serves as Director of Commercialization for the Ontario Centres of Excellence, and works in collaboration with Angel Investment Groups in Ontario. Castel is also the founder of the Resource Alliance, Ontario’s largest network of commercialization professionals.

– Cameron Hay, a professional from the global high-tech world, who was for six years president and CEO of Unitron and previously COO and VP Operations at Unitron; Hay also had experience at IBM and Celestica as a process engineer, and subsequently focused on both entrepreneurial businesses and global high-tech.

– Chris Howlett has been involved with Communitech since its own startup days and applies his PhD in Mathematics to helping companies solve business problems with software systems. He has held executive positions as a VP at Geosign, as CTO at Maplesoft and as CEO at Freedom Intelligence/Aruna. In his current EIR role, Howlett is CTO-in-Residence at Communitech.

– Dave Litwiller brings senior executive experience from Prinova Technologies where he was COO, as well as DALSA Corporation where he was Corporate VP Marketing and Business Development. At Prinova, Litwiller led R&D, Quality Assurance and Product Management for the company’s enterprise software development and delivery. Prior to joining DALSA, Litwiller was a design engineer at several high-tech startups in the wireless, fibre optic telecom and broadcast industries.

– Brett Shellhammer, an expert on aligning marketing, sales and services activities around product lines to build successful organizations. Shellhammer was previously SVP of Marketing at Coreworx Inc. in Kitchener, and was previously SVP of Product Management at Eloqua in Toronto and VP and General Manager of the Global 2000 and Government business unit at OpenText. Shellhammer’s experience also includes having worked with five San Francisco Bay area startups.

Communitech and the Waterloo Accelerator Centre announced in late 2010 that they would team up to ensure one-stop shopping for early-stage companies looking for help taking their business to the next level. Now startups located at both the AC and The Communitech Hub have access to the same ‘Accelerator Program’, operated by the Accelerator Centre, which includes amenities for tenants, educational programming, in-house mentors and access to the Entrepreneurship Council and the Venture Services Program.

EA BioWare™ has partnered with FUNimation® Entertainment, a distributor of Japanese animation in North America, announced today an agreement to create an anime feature film adapted from one of the video game industry’s most revered franchises, Mass Effect™. Tokyo-based anime and international feature film production company T.O Entertainment, Inc. has signed on as a co-producer on the video. Based on the Mass Effect universe, the anime video will tell the tale of an epic science fiction adventure set in a vast universe filled with dangerous alien life and mysterious, uncharted planets.

Casey Hudson of BioWare, executive producer of the Mass Effect series, will serve as executive producer on the film, along with FUNimation President and CEO Gen Fukunaga and Director of Original Entertainment Chris Moujaes and T.O Entertainment’s CEO Takeichi Honda and Yui Shibata.

“Over the last few years, we have revealed different pieces of the Mass Effect world through different media. Extending the story through an anime medium is another amazing opportunity for us,” said Casey Hudson, Executive Producer for the Mass Effect series. “Partnering with FUNimation ensures that we will bring this rich universe to life with the utmost quality and the same attention to detail that the Mass Effect games are known for.”

“It is thanks to the enormous and passionate Mass Effect fan base that this movie is made possible,” said Gen Fukunaga, President & CEO of FUNimation. “With production underway on the Dragon Age video, we are excited to team up with another BioWare team to add an exciting new chapter to this vast sci-fi world.”

Production of the Mass Effect anime movie has already begun. Digital and home video releases are scheduled for the summer of 2012. The original Mass Effect game and its sequel Mass Effect 2 have received over 250 awards and 100 perfect ‘10’ scores from critics worldwide. Mass Effect 2 is available now for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system and PC. Stay tuned for more news about the continuation of Commander Shepard’s adventure as BioWare will release more information about Mass Effect 3 soon.

In another deal, EA and Hasbro, Inc. have proclaimed that today, April 7th, is Global Monopoly Day on Facebook. Monopoly fans around the world are invited to play Monopoly Millionaires on Facebook to win more than $20,000 in prizes (no purchase necessary, void in Quebec) and participate in an attempt to set a new Guinness World Records® title. The attempt will be measured by the greatest number of people worldwide simultaneously playing Monopoly Millionaires on Facebook. Official adjudicators will be monitoring the game over a 24-hour period from 12 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. PST on April 7. Players can take part during that time frame through Monopoly Millionaires on Facebook and can RSVP to participate at the Global Monopoly Day event page on Facebook any time prior to 11:59 p.m. PST on April 7. As of right now, there are over 74 000 people “attending” the event. Read the rest of this entry »

March Networks^® has launched its Command video management platform. The scalable software provides customers with a sophisticated, web-based interface that is easy to use and highly customizable. Command fits easily into existing Information Technology (IT) infrastructure to ensure rapid installation and management. It also enables customers to select from hundreds of IP surveillance cameras and encoders through its support for ONVIF devices and direct integrations with leading surveillance products.

A full member of ONVIF (Open Network Video Interface Forum) since 2008, March Networks designed Command and all of its next-generation IP cameras, encoders and hybrid recorders to meet the industry standard, ensuring interoperability with other ONVIF-compliant products. In addition, the Command software platform delivers further capabilities when used as part of a complete March Networks solution, including total fail-safe management with the company’s innovative Shadow Archiving^™ technology.

The intuitive Command interface is one of the industry’s only clients able to run on both Windows^® and Mac^® operating systems, as well as multiple browsers including Internet Explorer^®, Safari^®, FireFox^® and Chrome^™. The award-winning software is also easily tailored, allowing an organization to provide its distinct user groups with only the features they require, which simplifies training and improves user efficiency.

To accommodate different customer environments, Command comes in two versions with the same user interface, powerful feature set and the ability to scale as required. Command Professional supports up to 128 cameras and is ideal for single-server environments. Command Enterprise can support as many as 128,000 cameras with multiple servers, and can also manage March Networks’ new 7532 Hybrid NVR as well as existing 4000 C Series NVR installations.

Command software runs on any commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) server or in a virtualized environment, reducing capital expenditures and allowing it to be managed similarly to other corporate applications. It supports LDAP/Active Directory^® for quick user setup and the efficient administration of security policies, passwords, access control, and group policy configuration. Command also delivers mass configuration and management capabilities that lower installation and maintenance costs significantly. Further, with Command’s unique server-to-server gateway technology, customers can reduce WAN bandwidth traffic by as much as 90 percent. Read the rest of this entry »

The Globe and Mail has introduced an exciting and innovative new Facebook app, Globe Lifestream, providing readers with a personalized stream of lifestyle articles, news items, columns and contests that can be shared with friends.

The launch of Globe Lifestream complements the recently redesigned Globeandmail.com/life featuring extensive video libraries, expert advice and indepth archived content under the Globe Life pillars: Health & Fitness, Food & Wine, Fashion & Beauty, Parenting, Relationships, Home & Garden and Travel. Additional Globe Life features include Horoscopes and The Hot Button, a blog for lifestyle buzz and chatter around the hot topics everyone wants to discuss.

“Globe Life is an inspiring and energetic hub offering tips, advice and insight on how to live better. In a dynamic digital age, Globe Life and Globe Lifestream provide readers with the daily content they need to get more out of life wherever they are, whenever they want it,” said Jill Borra, Managing Editor, Features, The Globe and Mail. “Life can change in an instant, and Globe Lifestream allows users to change their personal content stream at any time to suit their evolving interests.”

Readers can install the Facebook application, which customizes content based on current Facebook interactions and specified preferences, make updates, share articles and invite their Facebook friends to join. Likewise, friends can make updates, share and invite others to participate in the conversation.

Users of Globe Lifestream will be able to earn and spend ballots to enter an ongoing contest series with great prizes, such as gift cards and the grand prize including a VIP Package to the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival® in September.

“The Globe and Mail is aggressively pursuing our commitment to provide readers with provocative and compelling content in print, online and mobile,” said John Stackhouse, editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail. “These new and innovative offerings will continue to stimulate and engage our readers with conversation, analysis and advice on the touchpoints of life.”

The Globe and Mail has also introduced a Globe Life mobile app for readers to access Globe Life content on the go.

Everyone knows the best way to start the day is with a good breakfast, but it’s something many Canadian children miss out on. That’s why Microsoft Canada teamed up with long-time partner Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada to create the MSN.ca Breakfast Campaign, which launches nationally today.

“Close to 700,000 Canadian children live below the poverty line. Boys and Girls Clubs in 700 communities across Canada support critical areas of healthy child development, including addressing child hunger through the provision of nutritious meals and snacks to thousands of young people in need,” says Pam Jolliffe, President and CEO, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada. “Our longstanding partnership with Microsoft is having a tremendous impact on the lives of the more than 200,000 children, youth and families we serve, and we are thrilled to be working with the MSN.ca team on this Breakfast Campaign, which will help us have an even greater impact on child hunger and nutrition in Canada.”

The eight-week social media campaign encourages Canadians to reset their homepage to MSN.ca – for every homepage reset, Microsoft Canada will donate a breakfast to Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada. With a target of 100,000 homepage resets and breakfast donations, the campaign is anchored by a Facebook application that allows users to ‘toast’ their profile photo and post it to the Wall of Toast, share the cause with their social networks on Facebook and visit MSN.ca to reset their homepage.

“Microsoft Canada has proudly partnered with Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada for over a decade through programs like CanTech, Digital Arts competitions and an Annual Holiday Greeting Card competition,” says Gavin Thompson, Director of Corporate Citizenship, Microsoft Canada. “We are thrilled to offer our Facebook fanbase a unique way to engage with MSN.ca and make a difference in the lives of Canadian kids through the breakfast campaign.”

Distribution360 has been very busy over in Europe. Earlier today the company announced that it has secured the worldwide distribution rights—excluding the UK—for the brand new animated preschool adventure series, Olive the Ostrich (52 x 5’), created by BAFTA-winning animation studio Blue-Zoo. The series will premiere in the UK on Nick Jr. in September 2011.

Written in a highly descriptive, storybook style, Olive the Ostrich is a CGI animated series for kids, which chronicles the adventures of a young ostrich named Olive on her imaginary travels to all sorts of amazing places. In each episode, animators bring to life real pictures drawn by children and submitted through an integrated online component. These animations create all the guest characters, places and objects that Olive encounters. Inquisitive and enthusiastic, Olive loves to solve problems and help people whenever she can. She’ll try anything once, which can get her into trouble, but always finds fun and inventive ways of getting herself out of it.

“Olive the Ostrich is a wonderful new series, and we’re very pleased to be partnering with Blue-Zoo to bring Olive’s adventures to markets internationally,” says Stéphanie Röckmann-Portier, Head of Sales, Distribution360. ?This truly engaging and interactive property allows us to further explore the preschool market for new and exciting opportunities.”

“Olive is a unique property that has been brought to life by children for children. Core to Olive is story making and creativity – both important ingredients in creating a successful property, said Oli Hyatt,Director Blue-Zoo. “We are pleased to be working with Distribution360, and hopefully Olive will now be enjoyed by children in many more countries.”

Join your peers and industry experts from Panduit, The Uptime Institute, Cisco, and Emerson at the Novotel Toronto Centre in Downtown Toronto on May 26th to learn how you can drive change within your enterprise to become more efficient, productive and agile.

Panduit’s ‘The Nature of Transformation’ Roadshows feature presentations, interactive sessions, and roundtable discussions with industry experts that will address business challenges such as evolving customer expectations, technologies, regulations and sustainability initiatives. With a focus on best practices and methodologies, Panduit, Emerson, and Cisco will also discuss cutting-edge solutions in data center and building planning, design, and management that reduce costs while enhancing business performance. Space is limited, so register early if you want to attend.

Absolute^® Software Corporation has released details of several laptop theft recovery success stories from K-12 school districts across the U.S. that utilize Computrace^® by Absolute Software. These recoveries, along with the over 5,000 stolen computers recovered in the last 12 months, demonstrate the value of security software in the prevention of data breaches and the financial loss associated with laptop theft.

Computrace has been successfully deployed by school districts across 39 states as an effective and proven layered approach to endpoint security. In fact, 75% of America’s top 20 school districts depend on Computrace persistence technology to provide them with actionable intelligence to understand where their devices are, regardless of location, and take the necessary action required when a device is at risk.

“School districts throughout the U.S. are facing drastic budget cuts, and as a result, the ability to adequately track, monitor and protect expensive mobile assets both in and out of the classroom is more critical than ever before,” said Lyle Singular, vice president of recovery services, Absolute Software. “The power of Computrace persistence technology combined with the expertise of our Absolute Theft Recovery Team and their established relationships with local authorities provides a clear value proposition to all organizations. Our technology provides resource-strapped IT departments with the necessary visibility and control they need to track and manage their deployed devices and get them back quickly should a crime occur.”

Carleton Elementary School, part of the Detroit Public School District, recently fell victim to large-scale theft. Included in the items stolen were several Mac laptops, which were outfitted with Computrace software. Relying on the tracking capabilities inherent in Computrace, Absolute worked with the local police department to provide a trail of clues leading directly to a suspect.

When contacted by law enforcement the suspect admitted that while he did not steal the devices, he had recently purchased them for $400 each from a nearby gas station. He agreed to return the stolen laptops and one day later, the devices were returned to Carleton Elementary. Read the rest of this entry »

Intertainment Media Inc. has announced that its social media, real time, language translation platform Ortsbo has been endorsed by international rock legend, accomplished global entrepreneur and one of the world’s most recognized personalities, Gene Simmons, who has signed on as a business partner and to serve as Ortsbo’s official spokesperson.

The personification of today’s globally connected, multi-cultural citizen, Simmons is fluent in five languages, including English, Hebrew, Hungarian, and German, as well as some Japanese and he’s working to add Mandarin to his repertoire. Simmons will lend his legendary personality to help spread the word about Ortsbo’s unique, translator experience platform that integrates seamlessly with the most popular social media platforms to enable users from around the world to instantly send and receive messages in their native language.

Along with the new logo created by Gene Simmons, Ortsbo is launching an engaging, dynamic website that offers users the choice of Ortsbo for Silverlight and Ortsbo HTML that is compatible with desktop and mobile browsers, iPad, and other portable computing devices for consumer and commercial environments.

“Ortsbo has changed my life. I can now instantaneously communicate with fans around the world in their native language. It’s opened up so many new doors for me – personally and in business,” said Simmons.

Unlike typical translation software, Ortsbo eliminates the need to cut/copy and paste text into a translator by automatically translating typed text into the specified language instantly. Users simply indicate the desired language for their intended recipient and Ortsbo does the rest. Ortsbo even lets users conduct multiple chat sessions simultaneously across multiple social networks in multiple languages in real time.

Free for consumers to use, the Ortsbo service is ideal for both personal/social communication, allowing users to chat with friends and family around the world or around the neighborhood, and for business communications. Global colleagues can use Ortsbo to collaborate and chat about projects in their native language for faster and more efficient communication that reduces the risk of misunderstanding due to translation errors.

For businesses, Ortsbo provides multi-lingual global communications solutions via RSS, API solutions, private chat networks and custom services allowing organizations to provide seamless communications with their constituents.

“Ortsbo is tearing down language barriers to bridge communication gaps in our infinitely connected global society,” said David Lucatch, president of Ortsbo. “Whether you want to communicate with family and friends back home in Europe, or a business associate in Japan, Ortsbo is changing the way people communicate around the globe by automatically translating your conversation in real time.”

In just nine months, Ortsbo usage has reached the same level that it took internet bellwether Facebook 29 months to achieve, outpacing usage growth at the world’s largest network in one-third of the time. Ortsbo boasts more than 9 million unique users each month. Since launch, over 26.9 million unique visitors from more than 170 countries have logged more than 132.7 million minutes using Ortsbo, translating conversations automatically into more than 50 global languages.

Ortsbo integrates seamlessly with all the most popular social networks you already use, including Facebook, Twitter, MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo! Messenger and many more. For business or personal use, the Ortsbo for Outlook plug-in module will automatically translate emails sent and received for a one-time purchase of just $29.95.

“Our world is becoming increasingly interconnected every day, but the fact that we’re all speaking different languages remains a significant obstacle in achieving a real global connectivity and consciousness,” Lucatch said. “Ortsbo’s quick and easy automatic translation that eliminates the need for the hassle of cut/copy and paste can help eliminate this barrier to move us forward economically and socially and help us to overcome some of the stereotypes, cultural challenges and political obstacles that stand in our way.”

Here’s a trivia fact for you – Gene Simmon’s Family Jewels is the only “family” reality show we watch. No Osbornes, no Kate & Jon, no Sister Wives. We watch the Simmons, because for all their celebrity, they are not afraid to their strengths, their weaknesses, and most of all, their humanity.

CANARIE Inc. has announced that it is accepting proposals from technology entrepreneurs and innovators to develop their products, services or applications using Canada’s Advanced Research and Innovation Network, offering a unique opportunity and competitive advantage for Canada’s small and medium-sized information and communications technology (ICT) companies.

CANARIE’s DAIR – the Digital Accelerator for Innovation and Research Program – is a shared R & D environment where users can design, prototype, validate and demonstrate pre-commercial technologies on demand and at no charge during the pilot phase of the program, which runs from May 2011 until March 2012. Based on a successful pilot, the program will be expanded to incorporate additional users, such as multinational enterprises and academic researchers.

The  Digital Accelerator for Innovation and Research Program is open to developers of:

• Multi-player online games
• Transactional software such as e-banking
• Telecom software such as billing
• Web-based apps such as social networking/marketing
• Other digital products, services and applications

“Canada is rich in terms of technical talent and technology start-up companies. There are many companies involved in developing advanced networking solutions and associated software systems across the country. The DAIR Program represents an innovative way to help these companies rapidly develop solutions for world markets. It will provide a substantial boost to the technology R & D community in Canada,” said Terry Matthews, Chairman and founder of Mitel, March Networks, Solace Systems and many other Canadian technology companies.

“DAIR is a very welcome program,” said Mr. Matthews. “This will help a large number of developers in smaller ICT organizations who often lack the resources to test their solutions in an advanced R & D network environment.”

CANARIE announced DAIR in December 2010 in response to data showing Canada’s ICT sector underperforms in comparison to its global peers. DAIR is designed to stimulate the ICT sector by removing a competitive barrier for SMEs and by promoting made-in-Canada product development and commercialization.

DAIR helps accelerate time-to-market for SMEs by providing access to an R & D environment consisting of a high-capacity fibre optic network, macro cellular and WiFi access, and compute and storage resources. This environment will offer SMEs the opportunity to move products quickly towards commercialization, without incurring additional development costs.

Applicants are urged to submit their proposals by April 22, 2011, as these will be evaluated by May 2. Proposals accepted after that date will be evaluated within 5 business days. The first group of users is expected to access DAIR in May 2011. Selection criteria for the program include expected cost and time savings with respect to product development, and alignment of technical requirements with DAIR resources.

OpenText has been ranked Canada’s top software company for the third consecutive year by the Branham Group, a leading Canadian industry analyst and strategic consulting firm serving the global information technology marketplace.

“OpenText is really a homegrown Canadian success story, given that the company evolved from an ambitious project at the University of Waterloo initiated 20 years ago,” said John Shackleton, Chief Executive Officer at OpenText. “We’re delighted to have become one of Canada’s flagship high-tech companies, and to be named the top software company again this year.”

The Branham300 has highlighted the top Canadian and multinational ICT companies operating in Canada, as ranked by revenue, for almost 20 years. “OpenText leads the Canadian Software sector on the Branham300 again this year, closing yet another year of positive growth,” today’s Branham300 announcement states.

OpenText’s growth is reflected in the expansion of its headquarters location in Waterloo which when completed this summer more than doubles the capacity at the facility. The company now operates in 114 countries serving millions of software users worldwide and partnering with companies like Microsoft, SAP and Oracle. OpenText is focused on providing social networking software that is secure and robust enough for use behind corporate firewalls; mobile solutions to ensure that content can be accessed everywhere; and advanced content analytics technology to improve search and Web user experience. OpenText was the first company ever to provide secure social networking collaboration for world leaders at the Toronto and Korea G-20 Summits held in 2010.

“OpenText is helping enterprises globally manage content challenges, something that is becoming increasingly critical in a digital world,” said Shackleton. “When meeting with our customers throughout the world, we find that the role of enterprise content management solutions has never been more relevant for improved productivity and performance.”