Village Gamer

Griflens, the new startup that hopes to spark a playground craze, are the winners of Startup Weekend Maker Edition Toronto. Their team beat out stiff competition from ten other innovative hardware startup ideas to win the contest that empowers entrepreneurs to launch businesses in a single weekend. They impressed judges with their 3D printed story beads that combine to tell an interactive online story that changes depending on which beads you have in your collection. Read the rest of this entry »

The Banff Centre has issued a call for applications for WIDC Aspects of Camera and Post Production, a mini master class led by award-winning cinematographer and senior picture editor (TBA)Roger Vernon. Beginning with the end picture in mind, this class is facilitated by Women in the Director’s Chair producer Carol Whiteman and will be run January 15th through 19th, 2014 – the application deadline is December 11th. This program is open to up to eight Canadian women directors. Read the rest of this entry »

Vancouver Film School (VFS) is pleased to announce that it will be adding a brand-new, one-year program to its educational roster. Starting March 2014, VFS will offer Programming for Games, Web & Mobile, a course that is all about becoming a better, smarter, more versatile and hireable developer. This one-of-a-kind program teaches individuals how to create and bend programs; to develop software that is impressive, innovative, and entertaining. Students graduate with a high-powered portfolio along with the skills to impress professionals and recruiters from an incredible range of industries. Read the rest of this entry »

The next generation of game developers are here – and they’re already hard at work on the next big thing. Today, Mind Pirate and the Canadian Film Centre (CFC) announced the four participants selected to participate in the ideaBOOST/Mind Pirate Production Lab: a three-month boot camp that gives developers the resources to create games and apps for wearable technology devices.  The four winners selected to participate in the ideaBOOST/Mind Pirate Production Lab consist of high caliber developer talent from both the United States and Canada. The winners are: Read the rest of this entry »

MaRS Innovation (MI), a Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research, has announced a new collaboration with Johnson & Johnson Innovation and its affiliate Janssen, Inc., in Canada to advance early-stage technologies related to human health in therapeutics, medical devices, and diagnostics. Through the collaboration, MaRS Innovation and technical experts from the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Center in Boston will jointly identify and fund high-potential opportunities emerging from well-validated scientific research discoveries within MaRS Innovation’s 16 member institutions, which include the University of Toronto and its affiliated teaching hospitals. Read the rest of this entry »

More than 50 leading Canadian art historians, curators, and museum professionals have come together to launch the Art Canada Institute (ACI), a non-profit organization that is redefining, compiling, digitizing, and distributing Canadian art and its history for free, in both English and French. The institute is a non-governmental initiative, made possible through private and corporate donations. The inaugural program of the Art Canada Institute is the “Canadian Online Art Book Project.” The project launches this Thursday, November 28th, with the release of Jack Chambers: Life & Work, the first title in a series of 50 free online art books. Read the rest of this entry »

Rogers Communications has released the results of a new poll that shows the broadcasting industry needs to evolve to meet changing customer demand – something we consumers already know and are waiting for.  Results reveal that a majority of Canadians value their TV subscriptions, including the channels and packages available to them, but want the opportunity to further customize those packages. I know that in our house, we are forced to have a plethora of channels we simply do not watch to get one or two channels that we do want, or simply don’t get them because we don’t want any of the other channels in the package. I still don’t understand why the “documentary” style channels – Bio, Book, Investigation Discovery, Investigation Science, National Geographic, etc. can’t be bundled together in a “Knowledge Bundle” instead of with channels like Much or Spike. Anyhow – back to the story…. Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto-based e-learning consulting firm Uncanny Owl Inc. has introduced Grade Hacks, an online learning platform for high school and college students that helps to improve academic performance. Grade Hacks combines an interactive training program with tools, calculators, rewards and videos to teach learners how to be better students.  Read the rest of this entry »

Independent testing confirms what users repeatedly report – that Fotobounce’s advanced face recognition technology is the best in the world for tagging and organizing digital photos. Fotobounce, developed by Ontario’s Applied Recognition, Inc., outperforms Apple iPhoto™, Google Picasa™ and Microsoft Photo Gallery™. Accuracy is only part of the story when it comes to applying face recognition technology to help consumers tag their photos. Another aspect that is just as important is the way the application handles and presents face recognition suggestions to users. Read the rest of this entry »

At its 2013 Enterprise World conference in Orlando, Florida, Enterprise Information Management (EIM) solutions provider OpenText™ announced the release of two new secure messaging services designed to help organizations share information easily in a secure and integrated cloud environment. Secure Mail and Secure MFT (Managed File Transfer) are new messaging solutions that support information exchange processes, enhance productivity, shorten transaction cycles, and improve customer communication – all while helping to strengthen compliance, data sovereignty and security measures. Read the rest of this entry »