Village Gamer

Ottawa – Corel Corporation today announced Corel® InstantON™ technology is now included in the award-winning Sony® VAIO® P series Lifestyle PC.

With Corel InstantON technology, VAIO P series Lifestyle PC users can surf the web, check email, chat online and play back photos, videos and music in seconds after turning on their notebook, saving the time of booting up their Windows operating system.

“We are pleased to work with Sony to provide a superior instant-on solution for their VAIO P series Lifestyle PC,” said Jeff Hastings, President and General Manager, Digital Media at Corel. “Users will find an all-new, custom-designed interface that provides a complete, efficient and secure way to quickly access online content at home or on the go.”

“As the world’s lightest 8 inch notebook at 1.4 pounds, the VAIO P series Lifestyle PC deserves a superior instant-on solution to meet the needs of today’s mobile computer user,” said Bob Ishida, Senior Vice President, Corporate Executive, President of VAIO Business Group, Sony Corporation. “By adopting Corel InstantON technology, users will enjoy a stress-free and exciting user experience through an easy-to-use interface that accesses the internet faster than ever before.”

Currently only available in Japan, the VAIO P series will be available in North America this month and can be pre-ordered on the SonyStyle website for $999.99.

Montreal – amBX today further strengthened its partnership with Ubisoft via an agreement to amBX-enable Tom Clancy’s EndWar on PC.

Set on the battlefields of World War III, Tom Clancy’s EndWar is a pioneering real time strategy game that pushes the envelope of technology with its revolutionary voice-command system. The addition of amBX enhances this innovative game with real-world sensory experiences – using light, colour, rumble and even air flow – through licensed amBX peripherals, including LED lights, variable speed desktop fans and rumblers.

The agreement to amBX-enable EndWar will see a huge range of lighting effects add realism to the theatre of war, including colours that reflect the changing landscape, environment, weather formations and time of day, as well as creating a real sense of movement and immersion. Of course, dynamic weapon fire will flash fiercely whenever large weapons are discharged.

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Vancouver – Over the past two weeks I haven’t had as much time as usual to search out the news from Canada’s digital media industry, so I’m taking a different angle tonight to catch up on a few things. One of the reasons for the busy schedule on our end was a visit to Vancouver by representatives of World Cyber Games, Inc. They have been visiting cities around the world scouting possible future locations for a variety of World Cyber Games events. During their visit, the representatives had a chance to tour Relic Entertainment, EA Burnaby, the Great Northern Way Campus, the Electric Playground studio, then attended a small reception hosted by Radical Entertainment and the SIGGRAPH presentation of Modern Princesses given by Ubisoft Montreal – but more on that later in this post. Thank you to everyone who took part in the tours and events.

The month began in the best way possible with the Game Design Expo presented by Vancouver Film School. This two day expo which features the top guest speakers is one of the consistently best-run events around. Every seminar and panel topic was relevant to today’s game development industry, and it’s small wonder why GDX sells out every year. Over the next short time, I will be posting articles about the seminars – and hopefully once you’ve read them, if you weren’t at GDX this year, you’ll make a note to attend next year. Aside from the myriad of topics and opportunities to learn, the biggest announcement at this year’s event was the estalishment of the Women In Games International $30 000.00 – $47 000.00 full scholarship. This scholarship will provide full tuition for a female game design student to attend the VFS Game Design Programme. Other scholarships announced range from $2000.00 to $7000.00, and are sponsored by G4techTV, EA, Big Fish Games, Annex Pro, Obsidian Entertainment, and Radical Entertainment.

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Vancouver – New iPhone application ReachMyFile lets users search for a file on their remote home or work computer across the cellular data (3G or EDGE) or Wi-Fi network.

ReachMyFile enables home users to download movies to watch or photos to show to friends. It allows business users to download documents, images and presentations to share with colleagues and to email documents from their remote Mac directly to the person who needs the information most, all in real time.

ReachMyFile’s purpose-built, intuitive, user interface means there is no need to navigate a tiny desktop on the iPhone screen. Users simply get access to the information they need, where and when they need it.
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Vancouver – The Game Developers Conference Canada® is the premier forum for Canadian developers to share best practices for creating games with long production cycles, large development teams, and multi-platform releases. Unique to GDC Canada, is its focus on production cycle improvements every game professional can make to build innovative and quality games. Collaborate with industry veterans from EA, Propaganda Games, Next Level Games, Radical Entertainment, Relic Entertainment and more.

GDC Canada Featured Sessions

Concept/Preproduction Track Featured Sessions

• Realism in Animation. Misnomer or Oxymoron? – Speaker: Owen Hurley (Relic Entertainment)
• The IP Toolkit: Making Ideas Real – Speaker: Eric Holmes (Radical Entertainment)

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Markham ON – MAGIX, a leader in multimedia software, leverages Dolby technology within their premium products to the market. MAGIX has incorporated Dolby’s award winning technology, Dolby® Digital 5.1 Creator, into its own award winning software, Video Editing Software Movie Edit Pro and its professional video editing software Professional Video Editing Software – Video Pro X.

Dolby Digital 5.1 Creator maintains audio fidelity while preserving valuable disc space to allow for sharper picture quality or longer recording time. Dolby Digital 5.1 is crucial for the truly amazing audio creation in MAGIX video editing software tools. Users are able to create professional surround effects with Dolby Digital 5.1 Creator surround creator, so MAGIX included it in a number of their key products for people to create real surround sound with channel control and live mixing.

“Dolby Digital 5.1 Creator brings brilliant surround cinema sound to your DVDs or Blu-ray Discs. We are happy to work together with Dolby, the leader in multi-channel sound processing. This truly makes Video Pro X and Movie Edit Pro powerful video and audio editing tools.” says Senior Product Manager Video at MAGIX, Sven Kardelke.

MAGIX continues to work closely with Dolby technology to deliver professional tools to its customers and ensure the highest fidelity experience.

Montreal – The developers of Far Cry 2 have thrown down the gauntlet –  Canadian players can win the chance to take on the development team in one of three matches on a special downloadable map. The Jungle Seizure Map is presented by Microsoft Visual Studio®. Players with Ubisoft accounts can enter the contest by answering three multiple choice questions. While the first drawing has already taken place, there are still two more challenge nights to go – one on March 12th and one on April 9th. Click here to read the contest rules – and good luck! Far Cry 2 is rated M (Mature) by the ESRB.

Alberta – The Banff World Television Festival (BANFF) announces the extension of the Program Competition submission final deadline for the Banff World Television Awards (“The Rockies”) to Friday, February 20, 2009. BANFF will take place at the Fairmont Banff Springs in Banff, Canada, June 7-10, 2009.

“Extending the final deadline for submissions is our way to ensure producers can participate in this opportunity to showcase their work on the international stage,” says Georges Leclere, Director of the Banff World Television Awards.

Recognized as one of the world’s most prestigious program competitions, “The Rockies” honor excellence in international television, covering 21 genres and 2 interactive categories. The 2008 competition attracted close to 1000 entries from 44 countries.
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Californian creative marketing and public relations firm will use social media monitoring to help build and execute communications plans for clients

Fredericton – Just Drive Media has selected Radian6’s social media monitoring platform as an asset to their public relations, online marketing, and multimedia capabilities. The high-tech public relations firm will use the intelligence they gather through social media to build successful integrated campaigns for clients and improve their blogger relations efforts.

Radian6’s social media monitoring platform gathers real-time-as-discovered information from across the social web, including blogs, video sharing sites, boards and forums including LinkedIn Answers, and emerging media such as FriendFeed and Twitter.
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Ottawa/Toronto – Amberwood Entertainment and Xenophile Media are proud to announce the launch of the RollBots Online Gaming Experience accessible through YTV.com.

This fully immersive experience will allow kids to create their very own RollBot avatar to explore Flip City and the world of RollBots which is featured in the YTV original series. RollBots Online is available at www.rollbots.ytv.com and the series premiered Saturday, February 7th at 7:30am on YTV’s CRUNCH.

In making the announcement, Jonathan Wiseman, Vice President, Sales & Acquisitions at Amberwood said, “RollBots Online is a wonderfully rich gaming world that features original content and games that will be updated throughout the broadcast of the series. Xenophile Media has created an innovative online experience for the future fans of RollBots.” Read the rest of this entry »