Village Gamer

Vancouver – British Columbia-based performer Janyse Jaud voices Marvel Comics character ‘Hela’ in the new Lionsgate/Marvel animated DVD’s “Hulk Vs Thor”, and ‘Lady Deathstrike’ in “Hulk Vs Wolverine”.

Hela, daughter of ‘Loki’ and ruler of the mythical worlds of ‘Hel’/’Niffieheim’, first appeared in Marvel Comics “Journey Into Mystery” #102, (March 1964) as a 7 ft. tall beauty, weighing 500 lbs with green eyes and grey hair. By the decree of ‘Odin’, ruler of the ‘Asgard’ gods, Hela was crowned absolute ruler of the spirits of the dead.

‘Yuriko Oyama’, aka Lady Deathstrike, created by Dennis O’Neil/Larry Hama and developed by writers Bill Mantlo/Chris Claremont, received her original ‘cyborg’ look courtesy artist Barry “Conan” Windsor-Smith. Debuting in “Daredevil” #197 as Yuriko and as Deathstrike in “Alpha Flight” #33, Lady Deathstrike’s father ‘Lord Dark Wind’ created the ‘adamantium’ process that was forced onto ‘Wolverine’. The villain ‘Spiral’ then bonded adamantium to Lady Deathstrike’s frame, with additional cyber-genetic enhancements.

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Burnaby – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) announced today that tennis legend John McEnroe will headline a roster of some of the sport’s all-time greats to be featured in EA SPORTS™ Grand Slam® Tennis. An enigmatic personality both on and off the court, McEnroe will make his videogame debut in EA’s new tennis franchise. The game is being developed under the EA SPORTS brand by EA Canada in Vancouver, B.C. It will be available first for the Wii™ and ships to North American retailers on June 16th, 2009.

“It’s great that EA SPORTS has embraced tennis into its family of games. I think it’s a solid sign the sport is thriving and I hope it will continue to generate more interest and excitement in tennis,” said McEnroe. “Having Wimbledon exclusive to this game is huge because Wimbledon is such a special tournament, for the entire sport of tennis and for me personally.”

One of the greatest tennis players of all-time, McEnroe won seven Grand Slams, including three at Wimbledon, and amassed 77 singles titles. He stopped playing singles on the main ATP tour at the end of 1992 but has remained heavily involved in tennis, playing on seniors tours and providing television commentary for a number of networks at the Grand Slams. McEnroe was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1999. Off the court, he hosted his own talk show and written an autobiography, titled “You Cannot Be Serious”, a phrase he made famous through his on-court outbursts during his career.

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Ottawa – In 1999, David Skoll founded a one-man Linux consulting shop and called it Roaring Penguin Software.  In 2002, David left his solo consulting practice behind and decided to concentrate his company’s efforts exclusively on solving the then relatively new problem of spam.  Roaring Penguin was re-focused with a vision of a world without spam.  Ten years later spam is still here, but Roaring Penguin’s customers wouldn’t know it.  Since 1999, Roaring Penguin has achieved consistent revenue growth to become a small, privately held, profitable, software development company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

“I am truly humbled by this anniversary,” said David Skoll, President and CTO of Roaring Penguin Software.  “I set out ten years ago to promote Linux as a solution to the networking and computing needs of businesses and government agencies in Ottawa.  Shortly after I started I decided to take on the problem of spam.  It has been ten great years of both personal and professional growth.  I want to say thank you to the many friends of Roaring Penguin who have helped us on our way with advice and encouragement.  I want to say thank you to all the employees, both past and present, who have helped me to achieve my dream.  And most of all, I want to thank our customers who have helped us design the best anti-spam solutions in the world.”
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Vancouver – The British Columbia Innovation Council is pleased to welcome PMC-Sierra founder Greg Aasen as Chair of its Board of Directors. “The council has accomplished much in the way of fostering both technical and business talent,” Aasen said. “I look forward to continuing this work in my role as chair, and unleashing the full economic potential of innovation in British Columbia.”

Aasen was chief strategy officer at PMC-Sierra until June 2007 and has over 20 years of experience with the semiconductor industry. He has served on the BC Innovation Council board since 2006 and has been appointed to a one-year term as chair.

“Greg Aasen is highly qualified and will continue to build on what the council has already achieved under the leadership of Hector MacKay-Dunn,” said Ida Chong, Minister of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development “I look forward to celebrating the council’s continued success in supporting innovation and commercialization to provide a high standard of living for British Columbians.”

Two new members have also been appointed to serve three-year terms on the board:

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New Affirmations iPhone app helps overcome stress and anxiety during these tough economic times

Toronto – ACQYR.com has released the iAmHappy iPhone app with over 500 positive affirmations to help people through these uncertain times.  With all the negativity swirling around us during this economic turmoil, it’s hard to keep a positive outlook and so this new iPhone application delivers a dose of positive affirmations. The positive affirmations have been specially crafted to transform your mental attitude and bring a more positive feeling in a negative world.

iAmHappy provides access to hundreds of positive affirmations across three dozen categories, coupled with 100 relaxing and soothing images and backgrounds. Simply shake the iPhone for a random affirmation such as “I surround myself with positive people just like me” and “No matter what the statistics say I am an exception to the rule.”
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Toronto – Red Wolf Online proudly announces its Beta launch of MeetingMade™, a web-based meeting scheduling tool that automates and simplifies the scheduling of meetings and events by removing the tedious ‘back & forth’ over the phone or email.

It can often take as much time to schedule a meeting as the meeting itself but with MeetingMade™ you can accelerate the process of scheduling meetings between individuals and groups. MeetingMade™ works in concert with your existing email and calendaring programs, integrating seamlessly with programs such as MS Outlook, Lotus Notes, GMail and Google Calendar.

With MeetingMade™, you and your meeting participants share your availability without disclosing or compromising personal schedules in an easy-to-use interface. MeetingMade™ then calculates the best meeting time for everyone. Only the person originating the meeting needs to be a subscriber – the participants use it for free.

MeetingMade™ is a pure web-application that does not require any downloading of software. MeetingMade™ works seamlessly with most known browsers and utilizes established calendaring mechanisms present in all of today’s email programs, online services, and smart mobile devices.

The Ultimate Two-Man Private Military Team is Back in Action Delivering New and Groundbreaking Cooperative Gameplay

Montreal – EA Montreal, a studio of Electronic Arts Inc., today announced ARMY OF TWO™: THE 40th DAY. The ultimate two-man private military team of Salem and Rios return in this epic sequel where they must survive and prevail in a city under siege. EA Montreal is once again leading the next evolution in co-op shooter games offering a fresh, innovative and fluid co-op experience with a deep arsenal of customizable weapons so players can team up with their friends online for the fight of their lives.

With ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY, we’re pushing the tactical two-man military team into new battlegrounds offering a completely organic and rich co-op experience to deliver an action-packed co-op shooter this winter,” says Reid Schneider, Executive Producer, EA Montreal. “As chaos blankets Shanghai, China, you must rely on your partner to survive as you weave through a broken city left devastated in a mysterious wake.”
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Calgary – Psyko Audio Labs Inc. of Calgary will use a $975,000 investment by AVAC Ltd. to enhance an international marketing campaign to let gamers know how they can buy a set of the revolutionary 3-D-sound headphones that won first place at the world’s largest consumer electronic tradeshow held in Las Vegas in early 2009.

“The Psyko 5.1 headphones deliver precision directional audio through a patent pending technology that provides a sound-surround experience that gamers would call the ‘perfect room,” says James Hildebrandt, Psyko founder, CEO and Head Psyko. “There is absolutely nothing else like them on the market. That’s why our headphones won first place in the headphone category at the Vegas show and were a finalist in the game category. We went to the largest consumer electronics trade show in the world and won two top awards. It is like a rookie going to the World Series and hitting two home runs. Lots of people tested our headphones at the show and that produced a ton of positive reviews and videos on all the major tech web sites. We were already taking orders through our web site, but news of the tradeshow win has attracted a lot of new attention.”

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OpenGL and leading semiconductor companies combine to produce high performance graphics software and hardware for safety-critical markets

Toronto – ALT Software, a worldwide supplier of safety-critical 2D/3D advanced graphics software and development services announced today plans to extend their market leading OpenGL SC (Safety Critical) products to support the MB86298 ‘Ruby’ graphics processor unit (GPU) from Fujitsu Microelectronics, a major supplier of semiconductor products. ALT draws upon its graphics expertise and experience with Top Tier commercial and military avionics customers, to supply DO-178B/EUROCAE 12B certifiable MB86298 ‘Ruby’ solutions specifically for Integrated Modular Avionics applications.

MB86298 ‘Ruby’ is a 90nm CMOS Graphics Processing Unit based on a new chip architecture design. The chip is specified for demanding requirements and delivers optimal performance, low power consumption and targets graphic applications in the high end sector of automotive, avionics and industrial application fields. MB86298 ‘Ruby’ provides high performance 3D-rendering functions in combination with enhanced video capturing. OpenGL ES 2.0 conformity is attained via with its fully programmable unified vertex and fragment shader architecture. State-of-the-art -interfaces to the host and graphic memory provide the necessary bandwidth for the data throughput of future high end graphic applications.
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Montreal – Meridian4 is thrilled to announce that their physics-based hardcore casual game; Obulis will soon appear on Steam for sale to their millions of hard-core gamers.

“Obulis will be a great fit for Steam’s audience of gamers who love a unique and challenging puzzle game. The game has already received rave reviews from the press and it has appeared on many top ten lists in 2008 and we are excited about getting it out to a wider audience.” said Andy Sher, CEO at Meridian4.

Obulis will be available March 19th on Steam and will sell for $9.99.

About Obulis
Based on IonFX’s award-winning mobile game of the same name, Obulis takes things to the next level by fusing highly compelling gameplay with outstanding graphics, music and state of the art physics effects.

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