Village Gamer

If you have children who are interested in animation, check out Toon Boom Animation’s version 5 of the very popular Flip Boom Classic animation software. Version 5, which costs $39.99, includes a brand new sound library whose audio files can be easily dragged and dropped into your child’s project – or your young animator can use voice recordings to bring life to his or her 2D animations.

QuickPlay Media Inc. has joined the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) LLC, a cross-industry consortium dedicated to creating a consumer-friendly open market for digital content distribution. With DECE’s UltraViolet™, consumers will have an easy and consistent way to collect and watch movie and television content across multiple branded platforms, such as computers, connected TVs, game consoles, smartphones and tablets.

According to research by Nielsen, consumer demand to watch TV and movies anywhere, at any time is growing, and DECE will help accelerate this trend by providing those who purchase UltraViolet-branded media and services with a high-quality and convenient entertainment experience. Through the UltraViolet Account system, each household will be able to create an account for up to six members who can access their household’s UltraViolet movies, TV and other entertainment via participating retailers, streaming providers and devices. Consumers will also be able to register up to 12 UltraViolet devices and then easily download or share content among them. In addition, UltraViolet streaming access will enable consumers to access their collections via set-top boxes and most places where they can access the web.

QuickPlay Media’s experience includes powering premium mobile video services for live TV, video on demand (VOD) and radio services for many of the world’s largest communications providers. The company’s offerings include PrimeTime2GoTM, an award-winning premium TV service, and a complete suite of solutions for the delivery of high-quality video across multiple platforms. QuickPlay’s Multi-Screen Movie Solution provides seamless switching of movie viewing between devices, and includes a feature-rich storefront with options for customization of branding, merchandising, navigation and billing integration. Its Multi-Screen TV Solution delivers a fully-integrated entertainment experience with unified delivery of download and streaming DVR capabilities for live TV and VOD.

TVO has launched of a number of new and innovative connected TV apps for Boxee and Yahoo! TV that bring the Internet to the traditional TV screen. Boxee is the newly released set top box which allows the user to connect their TV to the internet, while the Yahoo! TV widget engine is built into several new TVs at the point of manufacturing and allows for web content to be viewed on the TV screen. TVO has released three apps for Yahoo! and Boxee, including:

* Gisèle’s Big Backyard for ages 2-5,
* The Space for ages 6-11, and
* TVO.org video content including Allan Gregg In Conversation, Big Ideas, Think Again and The Agenda with Steve Paikin.

In addition to the three new apps, the Boxee TV Show Library also features episodes of The Agenda with Steve Paikin.

Based on the Ontario school curriculum, all TVOKids content, including Gisèle’s Big Backyard and The Space, is teacher tested and developed in conjunction with TVO’s in-house educational specialist.

These advancements come out of the “IdeaShaker” digital innovation lab, which is TVO’s incubator for new talent, ideas and products. Students from Sheridan College’s Interactive Multimedia post-graduate program have worked alongside TVO staff on both connected TV projects from conception to launch.

Based on this success, TVO is excited to partner with Sheridan’s post-graduate program to nurture and develop new talent who will contribute to cutting-edge technology advances in public educational media. As part of the partnership, students gain employment experience through TVO and help develop new media applications from the ground up.

Your grandmother’s or mother’s life could be saved by a new smartphone application developed by a joint venture in Ottawa. Taynaxa Software and Flare Consulting have created “Rescue Me!“, an emergency application that will automatically send a distress message if your loved one is incapacitated and doesn’t cancel it at a certain time.

The phone can be configured with a pre-set “Rescue Me!” message to be sent at a specific date and time (and repeated daily or weekly, for example). At the pre-arranged time, the phone prompts the user to cancel the message. If it is not canceled it will be sent to two contact numbers.

The benefit of “Rescue Me!” over monitored “panic buttons” with high charges is that it requires intervention NOT to send a message. As a result, if the user is incapacitated through a fall or other mishap, the distress message can still be sent at the appointed time.

Monitoring systems can cost over $100 every month, and still rely on an elderly person pressing a button to summon help. Version 1 of “Rescue Me!” is currently for sale online in the Android Marketplace store for just $1.99. The application will be equally as useful to outdoor enthusiasts such as hikers, climbers, and skiers or even to people going on a blind date or setting out on a drive in potentially bad conditions. All the user has to do is estimate when they expect to be back safe and sound and, if they don’t confirm that all is well at that particular time, “Rescue Me!” will alert their key contacts to the potential problem.

Mood Media Corporation has announced that its retail point of sale division, Somerset Entertainment, has partnered with Encore, Inc. (Encore), a wholly owned subsidiary of Navarre Corporation, to launch Sony Online Entertainment’s multi-million selling Wheel of Fortune® games to its increasingly popular casual games retail program. Under the agreement with Encore, Wheel of Fortune®, Hoyle® and other well-known Encore games will be sold through Mood’s interactive displays at retail, which allow customers to sample the games via interactive video before purchasing.

Antarctica Digital has launched Future Flow Media, a new division of the North Vancouver digital marketing service provider that will offer multi-channel list rental email and mobile services that advance digital marketing campaigns. Future Flow Media will focus exclusively on email marketing campaigns and specialized, integrated marketing support. The company’s target market includes media agencies, advertising agencies and corporate marketing professionals across all verticals.

“Antarctica Digital has years of proven experience in providing list-growth techniques such as contests, sweepstakes, and coupons,” said Chris O’Neill, director of business development for Antarctica Digital. “Due to the success we’ve had with email marketing campaigns, we saw the need to create a separate entity that’s focused solely on providing a service offering that helps clients acquire new email opt-ins and expand their subscriber bases through permission-based directories.”

Future Flow Media is not just a data aggregator — the division is a full-service marketing provider. If needed, Future Flow Media can provide best practice recommendations to enable clients to integrate mobile and email marketing campaigns with custom microsites, online contests, coupons, and social media programs. The company’s consultants will help clients boost the overall quality of email campaigns in efforts to acquire new customers, expand their marketing databases and increase brand loyalty.

The Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus (EOWC) as part of their $170 million dollar regional broadband project, has awarded a contract to Barrett Xplore Inc., through its Xplornet brand, to provide immediate and more affordable broadband access via satellite to residents across eastern Ontario.

For many people and businesses that today cannot access high-speed Internet this new arrangement makes access to the possibilities of broadband a reality. Starting on January 24, 2011 Barrett Xplore Inc. will begin offering residents an up to 1.5 Mbps package for $69.99 per month with an upfront one-time cost as low as $99 depending on contract length.

EOWC residents will benefit from new technologies as the Barrett network evolves. Starting in 2012, Barrett’s new 4G network will be available in the EOWC region. This network will use High-Throughput Satellites that will be capable of speeds up to 25 Mbps, and will offer even better value for end-consumers. Xplornet satellite customers who sign up for this new offer will have the option in 2012 to upgrade to the new 4G network. At the same time, EOWC’s work on an ultra high-speed, fibre optic telecommunications grid for Eastern Ontario is continuing on schedule.

Shaw Media and Global Television have announced that its original drama series Combat Hospital has been picked up by ABC. The 13 episode series, the second Global series to be picked up by the US network, will air in simulcast with ABC this summer.

Set in a hospital inspired by the Role 3 Multinational Medical Unit (MMU) at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan, Combat Hospital charts the frantic lives of the hospital’s resident doctors and nurses from Canada, America, the UK and other allied countries. This candid, entertaining and sometimes brutal series follows Canadian trauma surgeon Rebecca Kincaid as she experiences relentless life and death battles on the surgeon’s table that transcend politically-charged stereotypes and is confronted with making the tough decisions that come with the realities of frontline medicine

Combat Hospital is a joint production of Canada’s Sienna Films and the UK’s Artists Studio with Carrie Stein at 3 Arts Entertainment and Simon Vaughan at Lookout Point heading up international sales. Executive Producers are Jennifer Kawaja and Julia Sereny for Sienna Films (The Cry of the Owl—with BBC Films, MACT Productions, Diamonds—CBC/ABC, with Buffalo Gal Pictures, Alchemy Television and Philo Films, How She Move—Paramount Vantage/MTV Films/Mongrel Media), Gub Neal, Justin Thompson-Glover and Patrick Irwin for Artists Studio; Executive Producer/ Showrunner Dan Petrie Jr. will head up the writing room on the show originally created by Jinder Chalmers and Douglas Steinberg.

Meanwhile, CTV announced today its international hit series FLASHPOINT will conclude its third season with a shocking season finale immediately following SUPER BOWL XLV (Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Green Bay Packers) in all markets on Sunday, Feb. 6. In the gripping cliff-hanger episode, Canada’s favourite TV cop unit is threatened like never before as the fate of Team One and the life of one their own hangs in the balance. The season finale guest stars renowned actor Victor Garber (ALIAS, ELI STONE) as an elite military psychologist who sets his sights on destroying Team One.

The scheduling comes following a remarkable mid-season run on Tuesday nights this Winter, where FLASHPOINT has won the 10 p.m. timeslot on CTV against new simulcasts of THE GOOD WIFE (Global/CBS) for two weeks in a row. Premiering with 1.7 million viewers on Jan. 4, the series has seen impressive double digit growth (15-24%) in the three, key adult demos compared to last season, and series’ high audiences among A18-34.

Last year’s SUPER BOWL broadcast was watched by more than 6 million viewers on CTV. CTV’s SUPER BOWL coverage kicks off at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 6 with the pre-game, followed by SUPER BOWL XLV at 6 p.m. ET.

Dare To Be Digital 2011 is seeking applicants for its annual student competition held University of Abertay Dundee, Scotland. For complete details on how to apply and the full list of rules, please see the competition’s web site.

Microsoft Canada invites you to enter the Battle of the Apps, a WP7 app competition for student developers and designers. The Battle encompasses three rounds of competition with prizes awarded at the end of each round, as well as a grand prize awarded at the end of the competition for the top app. Round One is open for entries until February 15th. Also, Microsoft Canada would like to remind aspiring WP7 developers that Go DevMental will be in Calgary on February 7th and Winnipeg on February 11th. Go DevMENTAL is Microsoft’s free academic tour designed to teach you coding for the coolest apps and platforms, connect you with the industry, and help you pursue your career aspirations.

The Vancouver chapter of the Institute for International Film Financing (IIFF) continues its popular monthly gatherings at the junction of film & finance with a special Film Financing Townhall, hosted at Vancouver Film School’s downtown campus (420 Homer Street) on Thursday, January 27th from 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM.

This grassroots community get-together is designed to foster & inform productive relationships between attendees. It provides unbiased insight & education about the business of film and film financing in particular. The event features a powerful roster of highly topical speakers from the filmmaking and financial industries. We are delighted to welcome real-world financiers among our guests!

The evening’s five presentations plus panel discussion address key issues relevant to filmmakers, financiers and anyone interested in the economics, business mechanics, and financial dynamics of motion pictures. They are followed by Q&A time. Attendees also have ample opportunity to interact & network with our featured experts and amongst themselves. An informal après-meeting celebration will take place at a nearby restaurant.

RBC has issued a call for grant applications for the 2011-2012 school year as the RBC After-School Grants Project is offering more than $2 million in grants to fund first-time and renewed grant recipients.

The grants are awarded by regional community panels made up of experts in the fields of youth and education. Each organization should have a mandate to keep students in grades K-12 safe as well as positively engaged through an enriched curriculum after their classes end each day. RBC After-School grants of up to $40,000 are provided by the RBC Foundation to programs in at-risk or underserved communities. The deadline for funding applications is March 4, 2011, and grant recipients will be advised by June 2011.

“Research has shown that participation in after-school programs helps students enhance their academic performance, improve social skills and motivate them to excel in school,” said Shari Austin, executive director, RBC Foundation. “We are looking to fund the best after school programs in the country that help bridge the gap between schoolwork and homework and offer students an opportunity to participate in a wide-range of other activities that help build self-esteem and confidence.”

To qualify for a grant, after-school programs should offer structured, supervised activities five days a week and focus on offering a variety of activities, such as, computer instruction, sports, literacy tutoring, music and art lessons, nutrition guidance, and help with homework. RBC has been funding after-school programs since 1999, with over $22 million through 750 grants to 212 different organizations that have helped more than 24,000 children.

Bieber? Buffett? Oprah? Obama? WIND Mobile has launched a new competition that will give five Canadians the opportunity to talk to anyone they want in the world. To make these conversations happen, WIND Mobile will donate over a half a million dollars to Canadian charities. Once WIND confirms the winners, WIND will donate $100,000 on behalf of the chosen personalities for having the conversations. An additional $100,000 will also be donated to the six most popular charities as voted for online.

“The question we are asking ‘if you could talk to anyone in the world, who would it be?’ is the kind of question that really gets people talking, whether it’s at work, at home or even among strangers,” said Anthony Lacavera, Chairman, WIND Mobile. “We think it’s a powerful and fun question and we are look forward to hearing how Canadians answer it! Ultimately, we hope this unprecedented competition makes a few dreams come true and helps some important Canadian charities in a big way.”

When it comes to who they want to talk to, Canadians are encouraged to get creative: is it an actor or an author, a well known chef or business person? An athlete, journalist or politician? “Whether it’s a film student in Calgary whose dream is to speak to Steven Spielberg, an environmental scientist in Ottawa who wants a few minutes with Al Gore, or a restaurant owner in Vancouver keen to chat with Jamie Oliver – we are going to make some amazing conversations happen,” said Lacavera.

To help kick-off the competition WIND Mobile brought one the top newsmakers of 2010, Aron Ralston to Toronto for a conversation. Ralston, the real life mountain climber who was forced to cut off his own arm and whose journey is depicted in the much acclaimed film 127 Hours, shared his inspiring story and encouraged Canadians to think outside the box on who they’d like to speak with.

The launch event was held at Ryerson University where dozens of students gathered to hear the conversation and become among the first to enter the competition. WIND Mobile staff were on hand to help people record and upload their entries in the “Conversation Lounge” where the event was held. These lounges will be set up at universities and malls in cities across Canada through-out the course of the competition. Who knows who else might drop by these lounges to inspire people to think outside the box?

“From the beginning WIND Mobile was built by the power of conversation – listening to what Canadians wanted to build a better wireless carrier. Best Conversation Ever is an extension of that promise,” says Lacavera.

Who do these well known Canadians want to talk to?

Rob Ford, Mayor of Toronto – Warren Buffett
Justin Trudeau, MP – Neal Stephenson
Valerie Pringle, Canadian Journalist – Nelson Mandela
Gerard Kennedy, MP – Nelson Mandela
Sami Jo Small, Double Gold Medalist, Women’s Hockey – Obama
Lyle Bauer, President & Chief Operating Officer, Calgary Stampeders – Obama
Dan Hill, Songwriter – Obama
Dr. Samantha Nutt, Founder of War Child Canada…Lee Harper
Mark McEwan, Celebrity Chef – Alan Greenspan
Geoff Green, Arctic Explorer – Dr. E.O. Wilson
Jim Watson, Mayor of Ottawa – Sydney Crosby
Senator Mike Duffy – Queen Elizabeth II
Dean Del Mastro, MP – Warren Buffett
Senator Michael MacDonald – the Dalai Lama
Mike Harris, former Premier of Ontario – his wife
FeFe Dobson, Canadian singer – Stevie Nicks

The ultimate goal of the competition is to help five lucky Canadians have the conversations they never dreamed possible. The competition begins January 24, 2011 and runs until March 7, 2011. The winners will be selected by a panel of WIND judges and industry leading bloggers. Entries will be judged based on creativity and number of votes.

Don’t miss out! There’s only one week left to nominate your favourite Canadian blog for the 2011 Best Health Blog Awards. Best Health invites Canadians to nominate their favourite blogs in one of four healthy-living categories based on the brand’s four pillars: Look Great, Eat Well, Get Healthy and Embrace Life. Canadians can submit their entries until January 30, and for all those who nominate their favourite blog, each individual will also be entered for their chance to win one of 17 fabulous prizes!

Blogs can be nominated in one of four categories:

1. Look Great: Beauty
2. Eat Well: Cooking and healthy eating
3. Get Healthy: Fitness
4. Embrace Life: Personal growth, humour, crafting and charitable living

Finalists will be announced on February 16, 2011 for Canadians to then vote for their ultimate favourites, and the top bloggers will be revealed on March 31, 2011. All finalists will receive a Best Health Blog Awards badge for their blog, recognition on besthealthmag.ca and the four top blogs will also be featured in the Summer 2011 issue of Best Health Magazine.

Congratulations to everyone on the FlashPoint team for the U.S. syndication deal. FlashPoint is the uncontested favourite crime drama in our house, and apparently there is more news coming soon from the producers. Yesterday there was a teaser put out on Twitter that this news is something Canucks fans will like.

I’m very keen to find out what it could be – the team gets taken hostage by an angry fan? A former Canuck makes his acting debut? How to drive a Gemini crazy – say you have news, then don’t say what it is. 😉

The Documentary Organization of Canada is taking its National Fair Dealing Road Show again in 2011. The first stop is coming up in Toronto in January, followed by Ottawa in February, Edmonton and Vancouver in March. The cross-Canada event is a comprehensive effort to educate the documentary community, foster dialogue and identify common positions, or points of contention, around the issue of Fair Dealing and documentary filmmaking.

A little known exclusion to the Copyright Act, Fair Dealing allows for free use of otherwise copyrighted material under certain conditions. For example, some visual archives in a documentary with clear critical purposes could possibly invoke the Fair Dealing exclusion and be exempt from having to obtain clearances.

But how many of us know or understand this finer point of law and when to apply it? More often than not, producers are counseled by their risk-averse lawyers, sometimes at great and unnecessary cost to their clients, to “clear everything all the time.” This can be so costly as to inhibit the production or release of certain documentary films altogether. Whether filmmakers, producers, lawyers or insurance brokers, Fair Dealing and its advantages remain obscure to many of us and underutilized in general.

The National Fair Dealing Road Show aims to introduce potential users to DOC?s Copyright and Fair Dealing – Guidelines for Documentary Filmmakers (PDF), published in May 2010. Filmmakers are encouraged to share their experiences with copyright and to engage on case studies presented for discussion. Lawyers, visual researchers, insurance brokers and broadcasters are invited to take part in the conversation. This is an exercise in building community-based consensus on best practices where panelists and members of the audience discuss copyright myths and argue whether a particular use of copyrightprotected material would meet the Fair Dealing exclusion or not.

Given that copyright law is a federal responsibility, it is necessary to cast this as a national event to gather as many views as possible and present the federal government with a nation-wide consensus, where possible. It is DOC’s experience that the realities of production vary greatly from region to region yet the benefits to the industry from this initiative will accrue nation-wide.

The Road Show plans the following pit stops where local and invited experts will lead panel discussions:

January 27 – Ryerson University – Eaton Theatre – 80 Gould Street, Rogers Communication Centre, Rm 204
February 12 – Halifax – TBA
February 16 – Ottawa – TBA
March 1 – Edmonton – TBA
March 2 – Vancouver – TBA

Panel details and venue information will be listed on the DOC site as it becomes available.

The Canadian Innovation Exchange (CIX) is pleased to present the Canadian Technology Accelerator, a one-of-a-kind opportunity for three emerging Canadian companies working in Information Communication Technology or Digital Media to get unparalleled access to the tech community in Silicon Valley. In partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada and the Consulate General in San Francisco, selected companies will be given the opportunity to spend three months beginning in June, 2011 working rent-free in the Plug and Play Tech Center (PnP) in Sunnyvale, CA. Selected companies will also receive one complimentary registration to CIX 2011, taking place December 2011 in Toronto.

To submit a company profile to be considered for the CIX Canadian Technology Accelerator, you need an account. Once your account is created, you can log in as necessary to revise your submission(s). The deadline for entries into the CIX Accelerator Program is Friday, March 11, 2011, with recipients to be announced early-April.

The second instalment of the social media networking event, the Edmonton Social Media Breakfast (SMBYEG), will be held on Friday, January 28 at 8:00 a.m. at the CBC Centre Stage. Based on the overwhelming success of thirteen Calgary Social Media Breakfasts, McQ Design Strategies is pleased to organize this second Edmonton event.

This month’s speaker will be Mike Spear who presents regularly at conferences around North America on such varied issues as social media, science communications, and genetic testing. He’ll bring his social media, science communication and extensive media background to bear on the two solitudes that seem to exist between mainstream media and social media. He feels that the two camps often live in their own bubbles and forget that they need each other to be successful.

Seating is limited and fills up quickly so hurry to book your place, as only those with advanced reservations will be permitted to attend. Stay after the discussion to network and share ideas within the realm of social media. Marketers, PR pros, entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters, new-media fanatics, and online social networkers are all welcome to attend.

Amazon.com, Inc. is extending the 70 percent royalty option to include books sold to Canadian customers through the Kindle Digital Text Platform, which will soon be known as Kindle Direct Publishing. This new option will allow authors and publishers around the world to receive a 70% royalty, net of delivery costs, for books sold to Canadian customers via the Kindle Store for Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle DX, or one of the Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac, Windows Phones and Android-based devices. Kindle Direct Publishing is a fast and easy self-publishing tool that lets anyone upload and publish their books for sale in the Kindle Store.

The National Post, on the heels of its successful launch on iPad, is proud to announce its second offering, the Financial Post Magazine App, is available now on the App Store with IBM as the exclusive launch advertiser.The first edition of the Financial Post Magazine for iPad is highlighted by the annual “Canada’s Outstanding CEO of the Year” feature.

“The content and design of the Financial Post Magazine App was a natural fit for the functionality and interactivity of iPad,” said National Post Publisher Douglas Kelly. “We received positive feedback for our first National Post App and our audience clearly wanted the innovation to keep coming.”

The Financial Post Magazine App takes full advantage of iPad’s large, high-resolution display and innovative Multi Touch interface, delivering an enhanced reading experience with exclusive embedded multimedia content including video, photo galleries and timelines. The app also includes Financial Post’s award-winning editorial content and features.

Vancouver’s Destiny Media Technologies, Inc., developer of the Play MPE® system has released an update in its lawsuit against Toronto-based Yangaroo, John Heaven and Clifford Hunt filed May 4, 2007. Destiny had claimed CDN$25,000,000 in damages for defamation and injurious falsehood, breaches of the Trademarks Act and Competition Act, and interfering with Destiny’s economic interests. Yangaroo had filed a counterclaim with similar allegations against Destiny Media and Destiny’s CEO, Steve Vestergaard.

Destiny filed a motion to have the counterclaim dismissed in its entirety as frivolous and the motion was heard in court on October 28th, 2010. On Jan. 20, 2011, Mr. Justice Stanley Kershman announced his verdict. Summary judgment was granted in favour of Destiny in respect of the torts of injurious falsehood and interference with economic relations. Additionally, summary judgment was granted in respect of all claims brought against Mr. Vestergaard in his personal capacity.

The judge also added that, in his view, many of the statements made by Destiny that Yangaroo counterclaimed for were clearly either not defamatory or were justified based upon the evidence filed in the motion. He names a number of statements in his ruling that cannot be fairly characterized as “false or misleading” citing statements that Destiny’s system predates Yangaroo’s patent and that MPE does not have the essential features necessary to infringe on Yangaroo’s patent.

Destiny CEO, Steve Vestergaard reflects on the lawsuit win, “We are pleased that after looking at the evidence, the judge was able to dismiss so much of Yangaroo’s counterclaim. This is the second major decision in our favor in our ongoing dispute with this regional competitor. In June 2010, Destiny successfully won a fast track motion to dismiss a frivolous patent infringement case.”

Destiny’s $25 million claim against Yangaroo remains unchanged and will proceed to trial.

Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger and the Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, today helped launch a provincial network of Cisco TelePresence™ video conference sites linking UWinnipeg, Brandon University (BU), and University College of the North (UCN) in The Pas.

Other dignitaries taking part in the landmark ceremony at UWinnipeg included Mr. Nitin Kawale, President, Cisco Canada; Dr. Lloyd Axworthy, President and Vice-Chancellor, The University of Winnipeg; Dr. Deborah Poff, President and Vice-Chancellor, Brandon University; and Dr. Kathryn McNaughton, Vice-President (Academic & Research) University College of the North, The Pas.

The Cisco TelePresence system, which promotes energy conservation by reducing travel and delivering measurable energy savings, enables high-quality distance education and more effective collaboration with research sites in Manitoba and around the world.

“An investment in education is an investment in Manitoba’s future; I’m honoured that our government has been able to assist in providing technology that will link students from across the province and around the world, allowing research, information and ideas to be shared,” said Premier Greg Selinger. “This is just one of the many ways that our government works to support and promote green innovation and education in our province.”

“Our Government is committed to building a competitive advantage for Canada and Manitoba based on excellence in science and technology,” said the Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification. “Through investments in key public-private partnerships, we are helping to support knowledge-based research and development with a focus on the commercialization of new products, technologies and services.”

The Government of Canada and the Province of Manitoba supported the establishment of this Cisco TelePresence network through an investment of $7 million announced in January 2010 under the Canada-Manitoba Western Economic Partnership Agreement (WEPA).

“The Cisco TelePresence system is transformative in the way the Internet has been transformative. The Internet allowed us to instantly retrieve and share information in ways we could not imagine even 15 years ago,” said Dr. Axworthy. “TelePresence shrinks our world even further with tremendous implications for our students and faculty, for citizens of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Canada in advancing solutions to the many global challenges facing us today. There is also enormous potential to grow this collaborative technology into a viable commercial unit to benefit business, governments, and others in our community.”

Cisco donated two TelePresence virtual meeting systems to UWinnipeg, making it the first university in Canada with this advanced technology.

One TelePresence endpoint will be based in the new Richardson College for the Environment and Science Complex in the coming months. The second will be located inside UWinnipeg’s Faculty of Business and Economics at the newly opened Buhler Centre. UWinnipeg is acquiring additional TelePresence technologies for future use.

“Establishing UWinnipeg as a centre of excellence for innovative collaboration technologies, like Cisco TelePresence, is already reaping benefits in global leadership, economic development, and cost savings,” said Mr. Nitin Kawale, president, Cisco Canada. “As the Cisco Innovation Centre for Collaboration Technologies continues to evolve at UWinnipeg, we look forward to continuing to work with the University, the Province of Manitoba, and the Government of Canada to help academic leaders and government policy makers extend expertise, share resources, and reduce environmental impact.”

The Province of Manitoba, under the Manitoba Research Innovation Fund, has contributed $2 million over 8 years to supporting UWinnipeg’s Cisco Endowed Research Chair for Collaborative Technologies.

VM6 Software, Inc., provider of the only all-in-one IT virtualization infrastructure software, today announced that its flagship product, VM6 VMex 2.1, has won a Bronze Award in the virtualization platforms category of the SearchServerVirtualization.com 2010 Products of the Year. The awards were presented by the editors of TechTarget’s data center and virtualization Media Group and judged by the SearchServerVirtualization.com editorial staff in conjunction with a team of users, industry experts, analysts and consultants.

The SearchServerVirtualization.com 2010 Products of the Year winners were chosen according to the following six criteria: ease of integration into existing environments, functionality, innovation, manageability, performance and value. VM6 VMex 2.1 was selected because of its ability to replicate storage among local disks on disparate virtualization hosts. This feature provides significant value to smaller shops that cannot afford shared disk environments.

“SMBs have gone through their first phase of virtualization adoption and are now demanding more advanced functionality,” said Claude Goudreault, CEO and founder of VM6 Software. “By removing the requirement for a SAN and simplifying the installation and operation of the virtualized infrastructure, VMex makes high availability affordable to SMBs.”

VM6 VMex 2.1 software offers small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an all-in-one IT infrastructure solution that is designed to fully leverage the benefits of virtualization to manage, provision, consolidate and protect distributed servers and desktop environments at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions. Judges selected the Products of the Year from among virtualization-related products introduced and shipped after November 1, 2009 and before October 15, 2010.

Interactive Ontario (IO) in partnership with The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Ryerson University, is pleased to announce the launch of EDGE: Education for Digital and Games Entrepreneurs. This part-time academic program will deliver targeted business-skills training to video game and digital media entrepreneurs. It will pilot in the spring with a full launch in the fall of 2011.

The goal of EDGE is to help grow the interactive digital media industry by providing in-depth business knowledge to video game entrepreneurs. EDGE will provide the training needed to make key business decisions and will teach entrepreneurs skills in training, leadership and administration.

“The EDGE program will be of huge value to digital entrepreneurs because the key to being a successful creator or innovator lies in your ability to navigate an ever-changing business environment,” says Ian Kelso, President and CEO, Interactive Ontario. “Ryerson is uniquely positioned to combine world class business training, a solid digital media focus, and an embedded entrepreneurial spirit which will ensure this program will add tremendous advantage to anyone trying to grow an interactive digital media business.”

Worldwide, the gaming industry is expected to grow 9.1 percent annually. Canada will benefit from this boom with profits estimated to be in excess of $346 million in 2012. The funding for the EDGE project was underwritten by Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.

“Ontario is rapidly becoming viewed as a leader in digital media and gaming,” says Dr Gervan Fearon, Dean of The G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education at Ryerson University. “Recognizing this growing market, The Chang School is pleased to be a partner with Interactive Ontario to offer programming to help prepare the next generation of leaders in this innovative industry.”

EDGE will specialize in areas relevant to the business aspect of the digital media sector, including courses on Business Strategy and Tactics, HR/Labour Relations, Project Management, Finance and Marketing. The program will feature industry experts from Canada and around the world. It will also provide opportunities to network and forge select business relationships.

WaveFront, DFAIT and Nokia are taking the Introduction to Nokia Platforms and OVI Services breakfast seminar across the country, and would like to invite Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal developers to these free sessions. (Pour la version française, s’il vous plaît clic ici). As we told you earlier this week, the seminar will also be held in Vancouver on February 8th.

Montreal – February 1st in the Mt-Royal I Room at the Centre Mont-Royal, 2200 Mansfield Street
Ottawa – February 2nd at the Brookstreet Hotel, 525 Legget Drive
Toronto – February 4th at the MaRS Centre, 101 College St (Breakfast: Cafe | Seminar: CR-3)
Vancouver – February 8th at 1055 W Hastings St, Conference Room, Lower Level

This introduction to Nokia platforms and OVI Services is an opportunity to bring your Canadian apps to the world’s largest application distribution network – the Nokia OVI Store. Attend this seminar to receive an end-to-end overview of Nokia platforms and OVI services which reaches hundreds of millions of consumers in over 190 countries downloading over 3 million applications per day. Developers and publishers will learn about the latest Nokia OVI business opportunities and receive practical advice on how to develop and port your mobile application/content on Nokia platform and publish it to the OVI Store, an easy way to distribute and monetize your applications and content to Nokia users all over the world.

OVI store makes it easy to distribute and pay for your Canadian apps:

• Consumers can browse and purchase content from Ovi Store in more than 190 countries through credit card billing
• 91 operators in 27 countries support integrated mobile billing
• Publishers from more than 90 countries are distributing their content through Ovi Store

This is a must attend for Canadian mobile app developers and mobile content publishers to network with business and technical specialists from Nokia and local developer peers. All attendees will receive copy of “Foundations of Qt Development” and can enter draw for several Nokia N8 smartphones that are being given away.

Attendance at this seminar will also give you an opportunity to set up a one-on-one engagement meeting with Nokia during and after each seminar, so please also let us know if you would like to set-up a meeting when you register. Mr. Johan Nyman, DFAIT Trade Commissioner from Helsinki, Finland will also be available for one-on-one meetings (between 9:30-11:00am) to discuss Finnish market opportunities.

Toronto’s PadWorx Digital Media Inc. and The Juno Company, a leading children’s digital media publisher based in San Francisco, have begun working together on The Juno Company’s 2011 series of music education gaming apps and eBooks. This collaborative partnership will see The Juno Company and PadWorx Digital Media develop and publish eight music education apps, games and eBooks based on the Juno franchise of DVDs and books, all of which will be released in 2011. The first app in the series is scheduled to launch in March; more details will be released in the coming weeks. The Juno eBooks will be narrated by actress and dedicated mom Brooke Shields.

“PadWorx’s technical expertise and design aesthetic is rocket fuel for our creative content as we roll out our line of children’s apps,” said Barrett Cohn, CEO of The Juno Company. “We are raising the bar in 2011 in terms of fun, engagement and learning for children with our eBooks, apps and games; we’re looking to make a significant impact in the children’s new media world!”

The Juno Company was founded by mom and composer Belinda Takahashi, Ph.D., and is dedicated to inspiring a lifelong love and appreciation for music in children. The company is best known for its Emmy Award-winning Juno Baby line and its newly released Juno Jr. line of products, which include DVDs, CDs, books, digital apps, toys and apparel. The Juno Company team is a blend of senior technologists, top children’s creatives and leading children’s educators.

“The creativity and design aesthetic we used to develop our award-winning eBooks creates an immersive, user-driven experience, and that’s exactly what fans of the Juno franchise are going to see with this new series of apps,” said Jeffrey Alan Schechter, CEO of PadWorx Digital Media, Inc. “Through the combination of text, animation, gameplay elements, touch screen interaction, original music, and sound effects, children will gain the ability to interact with the Juno characters they love in an entirely new way.”

Regina’s NetSecure Technologies is growing, and to support that growth the company has announced a new website to better reflect the company’s strengths and expanding product line – developing breakthrough security solutions for online transaction security.

With hackers becoming more sophisticated, antivirus software is no longer enough to protect consumers. NetSecure’s product suite, powered by its patented Dynamic SSL technology, provides complete protection from endpoint security threats by ensuring that sensitive information is never present in the data stream until the point of encryption.

The company’s award-winning SmartSwipe, an online purchase security system, enables consumers to swipe their credit cards at home for secure transactions while shopping online. According to a recent survey of 1,000 consumers and small businesses, there is a clear demand for such devices with nearly 70 percent of respondents indicating they would use one if their financial institution or credit card company offered it.

NetSecure’s newest PINCheckout, a chip and PIN technology solution, enables card issuers and financial institutions to offer their customers a secure online shopping environment for their chip and PIN transactions. Research has indicated that more than half of consumers would feel more comfortable making online purchases if offered a secure shopping solution. With PINCheckout, e-commerce transactions are secured by encrypting sensitive information through an external device and remains protected throughout the entire transaction. NetSecure offers this viable solution via licensing options, with or without hardware.

“NetSecure Technologies is at the leading edge of e-Commerce solutions, protecting consumers where they need it most: the point of origin,” said Daniel McCann, president, NetSecure Technologies. “We are dedicated to providing consumers the very best in protection technology, but also believe technology should be user friendly and follow the mantra “simplicity, speed, security and compatibility.” Our solutions embrace those elements to provide better and solid Internet security, and are proven by the growth we’ve realized since our inception. As we enter 2011, we look forward to even more growth as well as contributing to a safer online environment.”

Included in the new website is NetSecure’s blog, highlighting company news as well as emerging security threats, providing solutions and security best practices to readers. In addition, the site features a tool called “Ask an Expert,” allowing site visitors to ask questions regarding data security. Each week, NetSecure features the question and provides an answer.

Once again the internet has made business easier. In this case it’s show business – the business of Shakespeare with William On Web. It’s now easy to get your own copy of either a Classic (Free) or Director’s Choice ($19.97) version of the most popular plays of all time -thanks to the innovation of a local Vancouver social profit enterprise. For professional companies, community theatres, academic or school productions, the editorial expertise contained in a Director’s Choice is a huge benefit. It streamlines the editing process by offering industry insider professional editorial suggestions coupled with a custom built online editor from Vancouver’s PointyHat dev team. The website offers versions of Shakespeare’s most popular plays including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, Romeo & Juliet as well as Hamlet, King Lear, The Tempest, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, Love’s Labours Lost, Julius Caesar and more.

Most Shakespeare scripts, with 40-plus roles and running times over 3 hours, rarely get performed as-written in modern productions. But what to cut? Editing is a daunting process that may leave a director struggling with characters’ motives and plot flow, and requires time-consuming manual reformatting. To help solve these problems, WilliamOnWeb created their Director’s Choice scripts to suggest specific cuts which help you reduce cast size and running time while maintaining the integrity of the script.

This new production edition draws on every credible version of the plays, from the original Folio to today’s academic gold standard, the Arden. Unlike academic works, the scripts have been carefully crafted to work for directors and producers preparing from production. Accurate and faithful to the originals, these scripts also offer industry expertise on what and where to cut, delivering modern clarity to the characters and stories.

“We think of our project as bringing Shakespeare into the 21st Century”, stated COO James Pollard. “This new edition of his plays and Scriptivate — our custom-built online script editor — represent the first real change in the way to work with the Bard’s plays since he wrote them 400 years ago.”

Scriptivate, an online script editor free with both Classic and Director’s Choice versions, allows you to customize these scripts for your production. Scriptivate preserves all formatting of Shakespeare’s text — showing suggested cuts as strikethroughs — and lets you accept, reject or make your own cuts and additions. Once you’re satisfied, accepting your changes lets you e-mail or print your revised script in a rehearsal-ready format. Scriptivate works with modern web browsers on any computer connected to the Internet. Scripts are stored online “in the cloud”, bringing the process of editing Shakespeare into the digital age.

Viatec is hosting its first ever Victoria Launch Party, an evening of innovation, drinks and appetizers at the Bard & Banker on Government Street in Victoria. If you have recently launched or are about to launch a new product, opened a new office or added a key executive to your team, contact Viatec today, because the association would like to help you spread the word at the launch party. Don’t miss this opportunity to network with Victoria Tech Executives and discover some of Victoria’s most promising up-and-coming tech companies, including five of the finalists from the New Ventures BC Regional Competition. If you pre-register now, attendance is free; for those who drop in at the Launch Party without pre-registering, you’ll be ask to drop a $5.00 donation into the jar for Victoria-area Science Fairs. The Launch Party will be held on February 3rd at the Bard and Banker Scottish Pub from the 5:00pm until 8:00pm. The pub is located at 1022 Government Street in Victoria.

BCTIA invites you to TechBrew at the Stanley Park Pavillion, where you can experience cool technology demos, meet cutting-edge entrepreneurs and innovators, network with influential decision-makers and make new connections. This edition of Innovation on Tap will take place on March 9th from 5:00pm – 8:00pm, tickets are $34.95 for BCTIA Members, $44.95 for Non-Members and $19.95 for Students. Ticket prices include your first drink plus appetizers. Featured companies will be named in the coming weeks.

Ignite Montreal has announced the 14 speakers who will be presenting at the next Ignite Montreal event, which will be taking place at 7:00pm on Tuesday Feb 8th at Il Motore. Each of the 14 speakers will have 5 minutes to get through a presentation which includes 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. Check out the event’s info page to find out who was chosen – it looks to me like attendees are in for a very entertaining, informative and inspiring evening at the next Ignite Montreal. Tickets for this event are $10.00 (+ tax), and registration is now open.

The CIO Canada Summit team announced today that Canadian CIOs and senior technology executives are invited to qualify as speakers for the upcoming event to be held February 27 – March 2, 2011 at the Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth in Montreal, QC.

The CIO Canada Summit will bring together CIOs, technology analysts and solution providers to discuss the latest IT topics and trends. The event’s agenda features think tanks, analysts Q&A sessions, roundtables and open forums, and is designed to encourage in-depth conversation and idea sharing among the event’s attendees.

Current speakers at the technology event include representatives from Rogers Communication, ING Direct Canada, MTS Allstream, CIBC Mellon and the Government of Canada. Topics to be discussed include paradigm shifts in IT, simplifying business communications, and transforming the organization through cloud computing.

“The CIO Canada Summit is a great opportunity for technology executives to establish themselves as industry leaders. The event creates a relaxed, yet professional forum where executives can discuss transformative technology projects, lessons learned, and best practices. Our current speakers represent some of the largest organizations in Canada and I look forward to hearing what each of them has to say,” said Mark Southam, Event Director, CIO Canada Summit.

Qualified speakers for the CIO Canada Summit must be senior-level IT decision makers at a major Canadian organization or have executive-level experience with a direct technology focus. Qualified executives may receive complimentary travel, accommodations, food and drink for the duration of the event.

Fan Expo Canada has announced that changes will be coming to this year’s event. Organizers have added another full day to Expo’s schedule, and to help ease the overcrowding experienced at the 2010 event, Fan Expo will occupy the entire south building at the Toronto Convention Centre, doubling the amount of floor space available. Fan Expo 2011 will run from August 25th through 28th,

WaveFront would like to invite Vancouver developers to a free WaveGuide Breakfast Seminar being presented By Wavefront and DFAIT on the morning of Tuesday, February 8th. This introduction to Nokia platforms and OVI Services is an opportunity to bring your Canadian apps to the world’s largest application distribution network – the Nokia OVI Store. Attend this seminar to receive an end-to-end overview of Nokia platforms and OVI services which reaches hundreds of millions of consumers in over 190 countries downloading over 3 million applications per day. Developers and publishers will learn about the latest Nokia OVI business opportunities and receive practical advice on how to develop and port your mobile application/content on Nokia platform and publish it to the OVI Store, an easy way to distribute and monetize your applications and content to Nokia users all over the world.

OVI store makes it easy to distribute and pay for your Canadian apps:

• Consumers can browse and purchase content from Ovi Store in more than 190 countries through credit card billing
• 91 operators in 27 countries support integrated mobile billing
• Publishers from more than 90 countries are distributing their content through Ovi Store

This is a must attend for Canadian mobile app developers and mobile content publishers to network with business and technical specialists from Nokia and local developer peers. All attendees will receive copy of “Foundations of Qt Development” and can enter draw for several Nokia N8 smartphones that are being given away.

Attendance at this seminar will also give you an opportunity to set up a one-on-one engagement meeting with Nokia during and after each seminar, so please also let us know if you would like to set-up a meeting when you register.  Mr. Johan Nyman, DFAIT Trade Commissioner from Helsinki, Finland will also be available for one-on-one meetings (between 9:30-11:00am) to discuss Finnish market opportunities.

OpenText has announced the availability of OpenText StreamServe Persuasion™ version 5, which helps businesses improve their customer communication in an effective, consistent, and engaging way. Persuasion is the first major product release from StreamServe since it was acquired by OpenText in October 2010 and represents an important addition to the OpenText ECM Suite.

Whether communicating with customers and suppliers or facilitating payment and revenue, documents keep business transactions flowing and the organization healthy. Persuasion helps increase the efficiency of document-based communication and improves customer engagement by allowing businesses to include impactful marketing messages that are best suited to individual audiences.

Linked with existing business systems, and requiring few or no changes to them, Persuasion adds extensive in-house capabilities for defining, producing and interacting with mass-produced, personalized documents. It provides straightforward tools for business users such as designers, marketing staff, customer support agents, and process owners to efficiently create and use the documents that matter to them.

“At OpenText, we’re giving customers new ways to engage with, interact with, and improve the customer experience using our growing portfolio of technologies,” said James Latham, Chief Marketing Officer at OpenText. These technologies include social media, web experience management, mobility, and now the customer communications solutions from StreamServe, with Persuasion becoming the first addition to the line up in the OpenText ECM Suite.”

Supporting Customer Communications Management, for example, Persuasion empowers business managers to rapidly and directly create content such as marketing messages, campaigns, and cross/upsell offers. It also gives them control over how and when this content is automatically included in customer correspondence and touch points, such as customer support conversations.

In document-intensive business processes—logistics and distribution, for example—Persuasion eliminates most, if not all, costly and error-prone manual handling. By allowing to automate the flow of paperwork through electronic checkpoints, Persuasion helps to reduce cost, accelerates timelines, and can assist substantially to improve the accuracy of the documentation. This can result in better customer, partner and supplier relationships – Open Text invites you to find out more about Persuasion on the product’s information page.

When Doris McCarthy passed away on November 25th 2010, Canada lost a revered and talented artist, best known for her landscape paintings. Fool’s Paradise, the Scarborough property where she lived and worked, will remain a part of her remarkable legacy. In 1998, McCarthy generously donated it to the Ontario Heritage Trust to become a retreat for future generations of artists. The Trust will post more about the retreat later this year as more information becomes available.

“My colleagues at the Ontario Heritage Trust and I were deeply saddened by the loss of Doris McCarthy. Her unique brand of talent and enthusiasm will be missed,” said Dr. Thomas H.B. Symons, Chairman of the Ontario Heritage Trust. “We are thankful for the memories of Doris that will live on. Fool’s Paradise, as well as McCarthy’s many works of art, will be an inspiration to artists for years to come.”

In 1939, McCarthy bought a picturesque 12-acre (4.9-hectare) property on the Scarborough Bluffs overlooking Lake Ontario. Her mother viewed the purchase as an extravagance, referring to “that fool’s paradise of yours.” The name Fool’s Paradise stuck and she eventually made it her full-time home.

In addition to its significance by association with McCarthy, Fool’s Paradise is also an important natural heritage site. The property is perched on a narrow plateau of the ecologically sensitive and geologically significant Scarborough Bluffs. In 1986, to help conserve the site, McCarthy donated seven acres (2.8 hectares) to the Metropolitan Toronto Region Conservation Authority under an Erosion Control Agreement.

In 1998, McCarthy donated the remainder of Fool’s Paradise to the Ontario Heritage Trust, along with a charitable remainder trust to maintain the property in perpetuity. She retained a life tenancy, with the intent that after her death it would become a retreat for artists, musicians and writers, and a setting for heritage activities. In the coming year, the Trust will be working to plan the retreat McCarthy envisioned – giving other artists the opportunity to be inspired by the beauty of Fool’s Paradise, just as she was herself.

The Board of Montreal Museum Directors (BMMD) launches its 25^th anniversary by opening a new gateway into Montreal museums and culture with its new iPhone and iPod touch app, Montreal Museums. Starting today, mobile users from around the globe can visit the App Store and download the Montreal Museums app for free, putting temporary and permanent exhibitions, works of art and museum circuits, all at the fingertips of mobile users. The Montreal Museums app allows users to catch a glimpse of the utterly fascinating collections of Montreal museums.

Frequent updates allow users to stay in tune, in real time, with the ever-changing Montreal museum landscape. The Montreal Museums app will allow tourists and Montrealers alike to utilize integrated geo-positioning technology to easily search and discover the BMMD’s 35 member museums.

Montreal’s iBwave, leading designer of solutions for wireless in-building networks has announced that it has signed a multi-year, multi-license agreement with one of North America’s pre-eminent Tier 1 wireless operators. This major contract secures iBwave as the in-building network design solution across all major wireless operators in North America. iBwave’s solutions and its market leading iCP training and certification program provide RF professionals, technology vendors and systems integrators with the tools and knowledge to design, plan and deploy advanced wireless in-building networks.

Mobile data traffic is growing at an incredible rate. Vendors and analysts following the wireless industry project global mobile data volumes in 2014 at anywhere from 25 to 50 times what is seen on networks today. Confronted with this new reality and the impact this will have on their wireless network, operators worldwide are now upgrading their networks by deploying faster technologies such as HSPA+ and LTE, which promise to bring additional network capacity immediately by a factor of 2-3 times. But those capacity improvements won’t be nearly enough to handle the projected increases in traffic. Recognizing that more than 70% of the traffic is generated inside buildings and that faster technologies alone won’t be sufficient, wireless operators are now trending towards deploying advanced in-building wireless networks, using distributed antennae systems (DAS), to offload their outdoor macro-cellular networks. From airports, hospitals, and stadiums, to shopping malls, skyscrapers and corporate offices, increasing in-building coverage is now a critical strategy for wireless operators to meet the growing demand on their data networks.

“We are extremely pleased and excited to have been awarded such a significant contract,” said Mario Bouchard, President and CEO at iBwave. “It accentuates the strategic importance of in-building wireless coverage, it underscores our unrivaled experience, and it magnifies iBwave’s unwavering commitment to supporting our customers with targeted solutions that deliver real business value,” continues Mr. Bouchard. “With such a substantial amount of wireless traffic originating from the inside of a building, operators recognize that in-building coverage is no longer a luxury, but an immediate necessity.”

With iBwave Design, RF engineers can generate high volumes of 2G, 3G and LTE in-building wireless network design and eliminate guesswork, bringing strong, reliable wireless communications to indoor and near-building environments that bear the brunt of the upsurge in mobile data activity. And since small cells and DAS are increasingly used to handle capacity requirements, in-building solutions are becoming more critical and complex, making it even more essential to work with a software solution that delivers superior designs. The iBwave Design suite guides RF engineers through network planning, design, costing, validation, documentation and reporting, delivering top performance, reducing capital expenditure and increasing productivity. Additionally, iBwave’s Unity platform delivers business intelligence to in-building projects by acting as a centralized project collaboration and information database and providing advanced data mining and reporting functionality to the entire wireless ecosystem.

Toronto’s Mood Media Corporation, provider of in-store media, music and digital signage solutions has signed a partnership with The Please Hold Group (“Please Hold”), a leading supplier of digital message on hold solutions to over 50,000 retail clients across the United States, Canada, Caribbean and Europe

Through this partnership Mood Media will now offer Please Hold’s leading-edge VOIP utilities for digital voice response systems, automated receptionists, voice mail, interactive voice response platforms, digital announcers and other peripheral add-on audio video components to an existing client base of over 170,000 locations.  In turn, Please Hold will utilize Mood Media’s rights included library for background and foreground music programming on a go forward basis to existing and future Please Hold customers.

Autodesk has launched an animation contest which is open to students 18 and over (or over the age of majority in their jurisdiction or residence, whichever is older), in the United States and Canada, but excluding residents of Florida, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island and the Province of Quebec. As part of the First Robotics Challenge 2011, students are being tasked to create a 30 second animation that depicts a solution to a series of challenges that the iiko, an alien race, face on their home planet.

As a contestant, you have the opportunity to identify a challenge the iiko face and tell us how your idea/product/invention would change their world – for the better! It might be something that makes a positive difference in the lives of the iiko, in their world at large, or even in space. It may save lives or make daily life easier, or bring back their world to the way it once was. It’s up to you. You can use and modify the characters if you choose, or you may decide on other ways to tell the story of how you chose to help the Iiko. We want you to be creative and innovative, maybe it’s a new invention, maybe you recycle something from what we have found.

As part of your entry, you are required to create a storyboard, 30 second animation and accompanying jpeg image. Please visit the contest page for complete details and full rules.

Desire2Learn will receive a grant of $4.25 million from the province of Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade as part of the company’s investment of more than $28 million, which will see 21 new jobs created at Desire2Learn and an additional 33 existing jobs will be sustained. The company is continuing its R&D and staffing investment to build out platforms for learning focused on three technology pillars including teaching and learning applications, mobile learning, and analytics that will help Desire2Learn increase its share of the growing eLearning market.

“Desire2Learn has demonstrated a real commitment to research and development,” states Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Economic Development and Trade. “We’re proud to support their latest investment that will help the company grow its share of the global eLearning market and create good jobs for Ontario families.”

The Government of Ontario offers a number of programs that support innovative ventures in technology, research, development and commercialization across industries and attract new investment in strategic areas of Ontario’s economy. Working proactively to promote the province’s technology sector and support high-value jobs for Ontario families is part of the government’s five-year Open Ontario Plan.

“We are very appreciative to be the recipient of a provincial grant that will support our ongoing commitment to R&D and job creation,” says John Baker, President & CEO, Desire2Learn. “We’re very excited about the future and fortunate to be experiencing incredible growth; financial infusions such as this are invaluable in assisting us achieve our goals.”

“Great ideas create great jobs. As Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, and as a resident of Waterloo Region, I am proud that Desire2Learn’s software is making learning more accessible for students around the world while creating jobs here in Waterloo Region,” remarks John Milloy, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, and MPP for Kitchener Centre.

How many angles of equal measure are there in an isosceles triangle? What do plants need in order to conduct photosynthesis? How do you turn a good idea into a well-written paragraph? Every child tackling homework is bound to hit a stumbling block, but perhaps the bigger challenge for kids is overcoming the anxiety and frustration that often follow. What can kids do? Where can they turn for help?

Support and encouragement are just a click away thanks to the newly launched TVOKids Homework Zone, available now at tvokids.com. The TVOKids Homework Zone is a microsite that aggregates TVOKids’ massive inventory of kid and teacher-tested, curriculum-linked resources into an easy-to-navigate and fun work zone. Primary grade-school kids can practice and review concepts learned in school and get problem-solving tips and tricks for three core areas of the Ontario curriculum: math, science and literacy.

“We’ve heard from kids, parents and educators that these subjects are areas of need,” says Stacie Goldin, TVOKids’ in-house educator/research advisor. Goldin led the mammoth task of identifying the content appropriate for the microsite, and tagging and categorizing resources in a way that kids – and their parents – could easily find help. “As parents, we often struggle to help our kids with homework because we ourselves may have struggled in those subjects, especially math. One key objective of the site is to help parents, not just kids, better understand these subjects,” she adds.

Kids can locate the subject they need help with and drill down to a specific topic, be it perimeter or patterns; the animal kingdom or outer space; or spelling and grammar. To illustrate these concepts, the Homework Zone provides episodes of popular TVOKids-produced shows and web games from some of tvokids.com’s 160+ offerings, as well as new resources exclusive to the Homework Zone including:

* teacher videos featuring experts in each of the three subject areas (math expert Troy Langevine, principal at Ellesmere-Statton Public School; science expert Aldo Petrucci, vice principal at Edgewood Public School; and language expert Wynne Ng, a Grade 2/3 teacher at Glamorgan Jr. Public School)
* printable activities and worksheets
* interactive practise tools
* general homework and study tips on things such as practising for the EQAO tests

Language expert Wynne Ng agrees that the TVOKids Homework Zone will be a useful resource for the whole family. “Students are taught that nouns are people, places and things and verbs are action words, but when you ask them to identify the noun from the verb in a sentence they can’t transfer that skill. Even adults forget basic grammar,” she says. “The Homework Zone gives parents a chance to see how [grammar] might be taught in a classroom and how they can kick-start rich conversations at home with their kids.”

She adds, “I wish I had the Homework Zone when I was in school. Instead of just turning to the Internet as a source of gaming or entertainment, students can use it as a tool to become accountable for their learning.”

Coupled with the TVOKids Homework Zone microsite is a bi-monthly, live broadcast-webcast event in which students can connect directly with a teacher and ask questions via email or phone on a variety of homework topics. The next live TVOKids Homework Zone event airs Monday January 31 on TVOKids’ afterschool block, The Space, and online on the Homework Zone microsite.

Reminder: The deadline for Papers submission for the Canadian Games Conference is January 25th. See the Conference web site for full details. The Canadian Games Conference takes place in Vancouver this May 19th and 20th.

A few minutes ago Interactive Ontario announced that there were only 11 tickets left for GameON: Finance. If you don’t have a ticket yet, chances are the conference will be sold out by the time you read this – but it’s still worth a try. If you don’t check, you’ll never know for sure, and you might end up missing some great learning and networking opportunities. GameON:Finance is happening this week on January 20th and 21st in Toronto.

Help Pixel to Product find out how many people are employed in Canada’s digital media industry by completing their new survey. As stated on the Pixel to Product site, “By collecting this data, we’ll have a better understanding of the size and scope of the Canadian digital media labour force. For example, we’ll understand the salary ranges as it relates to the job titles found in our industry, which areas of the country have the highest concentration of visual designers, and the relationship between education levels and job satisfaction.”

Pixel to Product is aiming for 10,000 complete responses, and asks that you help spread the word amongst your co-workers, partners, friends and associates. The survey only takes a few minutes to complete, and will provide valuable insight into our digital media workforce.

This beta announcement from THQ and Relic has The Cavechild all excited today, because got his pre-order in last week. A multiplayer beta for upcoming real time strategy game, Warhammer® 40,000®: Dawn of War® II – Retribution™, is scheduled to launch in late January.

Featuring all six multiplayer races including the new Imperial Guard faction, this beta is expected to run from the end of January through the end of February to test the new Steamworks networking and matchmaking features and to help balance the multiplayer mode. All new units for each race will be available in the beta along with the new multiplayer maps which ship with Retribution.

The beta is scheduled to go live on Monday, January 31st when global press and key Dawn of War(R) community members will be given access. It will then broaden to include everyone who has pre-ordered Dawn of War® II – Retribution™ on STEAM to date on February 1st. Finally, anyone who has bought a Dawn of War game through STEAM or has registered a Dawn of War II product on their STEAM account will automatically receive an invite on February 8th. There will be no open registration phase to this beta.

The Dawn of War II – Retribution multiplayer beta is currently planned to run until midnight on February 24th, at which point the developers will take all feedback into account to create a day-zero balancing patch.

Vancouver developer Inspirado Games formed a partnership with World Wildlife Fund Canada to enable players of the online brain training game, GardenMind, to support real-world conservation initiatives by completing in-game brain game challenges.

“We chose WWF-Canada as our partner because of their incredible dedication to protecting threatened habitats and endangered species as well as the logical fit with the concept of our game,” said Inspirado Games CEO, Rick Davidson. “If a player wants a virtual Tiger for their garden they have to actively protect Tigers in the real world through WWF’s Save The Tiger program.”

The GardenMind game itself is based upon the metaphor that your brain is like a garden and needs to be nourished each day through mental exercise. The argument for brain training is that just like the other muscles in our bodies, our brain needs regular exercise to remain strong and healthy. In GardenMind, players plant garden items in their virtual garden and then play a variety of brain training games to grow those items.

Given that video games have historically come under fire by skeptics for being “a waste of time”, meaningful gaming products such as GardenMind are a clear sign that the video game industry is evolving to meet the needs of new market segments – in this case not just the needs of entertainment and social connectivity, but also personal-development and contribution. GardenMind has been nominated in the Best Social/Casual Game category for this year’s Canadian Video Game Awards.

New projects are afoot for Big Blue Bubble, who is currently developing two titles for the Nintendo 3DS. The studio’s very successful iOS and Android game Burn The Rope will soon come to life in 3D game play, along with another as-yet-unannounced title currently in development. The studio is also working on a new iPhone game as well as a new PC game, both of which remain untitled. Big Blue Bubble’s large catalogue of previously-released mobile, casual and console titles include the Home Sweet Home series, Thumpies and iCarly: iJoin the Click, which is a companion title to the TV show iCarly.

The Canadian Media Production Assocation (CMPA) has released Profile 2010, its annual economic report on the Screen-Based Production Industry in Canada, which showed limited growth from 2008/09 to 2009/10, with an overall increase in production volume from $4.8 billion to $4.9 billion.

Profile is an annual economic report published by the Canadian Media Production Association (CMPA) in collaboration with the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec (APFTQ), and the Department of Canadian Heritage. The report provides a statistical overview of the three main screen-based production sectors in Canada: Canadian production (includes television and theatrical), foreign location & service production, and broadcaster in-house production. These sectors helped sustain 117,000 full-time jobs in 2009-2010.

Total numbers for independent television production were down by 3.4%, despite an overall one per cent rise in activity in the industry. The 7.8% decrease in English-language production levels largely contributed to the lower television values. The report also reveals that while Canadian theatrical production and foreign location & service production regained some momentum in 2009-2010, both production segments are below peak levels reached in the last 10 years.

Social media is the current trend taking the business world by storm, and Calgary businesses are no exception. The problem is, corporate communicators and business owners aren’t sure how to fold social media marketing and public relations into their overall media mix. That’s where Quickinars™ comes in, providing quick seminars for business, mainly on social media and Internet marketing topics.

This new seminar series is a joint production of Calgary internet marketing firm Anduro Marketing and social media agency communicatto. Anduro President Jeff Nelson and communicatto President Doug Lacombe, both Internet veterans and long-time educators, will lead the seminars.

“There’s a strong drive for business people to develop or enhance their social media skills,” says Nelson. “Until now there’s been a gap in this market as to acquiring those skills, and busy communicators have no time or appetite for trial and error.”

An array of topics, from developing your social media strategy to proper use of Facebook fan pages, Twitter, YouTube, and best blogging practices are scheduled between now and March 2011. Sessions are half or full day, are generally limited to twenty or fewer people, and, with early bird discounts, start as low as $249 plus fees for a half day session.

“We wanted to make Quickinars informative, interactive and practical,” says Lacombe. “Professionals should expect to have their social media questions answered and to walk away with quite a bit of information and follow up resources.”

Quickinars was born out of the intense market demand Calgary is currently experiencing for social media information.

“So many people were asking so many social media questions, we just couldn’t satisfy them one at a time,” says Lacombe. “Exactly,” concurs Nelson “it just made sense to help people climb this learning curve in small, personal groups. We ran a trial course in November that was a huge success. In the feedback forms one attendee said they brought back several ideas to their supervisor who was ‘psyched’ and they would be incorporating lessons learned to strengthen their communications. To see this information put to good use is very satisfying to us as educators.”

There’s only one way to escape the dead of winter. Let your mind wander and get your creative juices flowing this February at the WordsWorth Weekend. Young writers are invited to join Judith Graves, one of the hottest YA authors around, on a horrific journey on how to write to die for fiction including the terrifying realms of character development and revision.

Judith Graves is the smart and sassy author behind the hit paranormal trilogy Under My Skin. Librarian, singer, songwriter, author, and book club haunter, Graves has her own opinions about words and she’s not afraid to voice them. Much like Eryn, the snarky protagonist in her books, Graves doesn’t pull punches when it comes to calling ‘em as she sees ‘em. Now she’s putting her bold opinions to good use at WordsWorth by teaching young and emerging writers how to better craft their own tantalizing tales.

“I’m a firm believer that Canadian teen fiction can be sexy, action packed, and snarky as hell,” says Graves. So what better author could there be for encouraging youth to develop their own feisty stories?

The Young Alberta Book Society’s WordsWorth event is a weekend-long sleepover for young writers being held February 4-6, 2011 and is open to all writers aged 13-19. The weekend will take place at Kamp Kiwanis in Bragg Creek. Over the course of the weekend, writers will be completely submerged in their fictitious worlds. Carefully guided by Graves and poet Owen Percy, writers will be able to attack their projects with newfound creativity. They will learn how to tweak, manipulate, push, pull, and revamp their stories and characters to create truly unique tales.

OpenText has announced that components of the OpenText ECM Suite 2010 together with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 have met U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) 5015.02-STD certification requirements for records management, encompassing unstructured content including physical, electronic and email records.

Many government agencies and private enterprises around the world look to DoD certification as a benchmark requirement for records management software deployments. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 satisfies these requirements when used in conjunction with certified partner solutions such as OpenText Application Governance and Archiving for SharePoint 2010, a component of OpenText ECM Suite 2010. OpenText is the first major ECM provider to obtain DoD 5015.02-STD certification for SharePoint 2010.

This certification builds on OpenText’s leadership in helping customers use SharePoint 2010 for mission-critical applications. It also continues the company’s success in delivering DoD-certified records management solutions: OpenText has certified against all versions of the DoD standard since its inception more than a decade ago and has successfully completed the testing process over 20 times on various platforms and versions.

“For those customers who require a DoD-certified records management solution within SharePoint 2010, OpenText is clearly a strong choice,” said Jared Spataro, Director of Product Management at Microsoft. “Moreover, OpenText’s latest offering extends and complements the rich ECM capabilities offered by SharePoint 2010 to specific industry or regulatory solutions.”

Managed by the Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC), DoD 5015.02-STD certification involves a rigorous testing process. In this case, OpenText had OpenText Records Management and its Application Governance and Archiving for SharePoint offerings tested in an environment that included SharePoint 2010 and a full set of Microsoft operating systems, office applications and database servers. Through the test, OpenText met requirements for applying records management policies and securely managing the entire lifecycle of the information.

“This latest DoD certification reinforces our ECM industry leadership and is another important step in our strong relationship with Microsoft,” said Lubor Ptacek, Vice President of Product Marketing at OpenText. “We continue to build our strategy to extend the ECM competency of SharePoint 2010 with additional capabilities and integrate content from across the enterprise. That focus has allowed us to again be the first major ECM supplier with a fully certified records management solution for SharePoint 2010.”

OpenText is a worldwide leader in records management, offering solutions that allow organizations to apply retention and records management policies to content in multiple systems. For Microsoft SharePoint 2010, OpenText’s solution allows users to access, classify and manage records directly from a familiar SharePoint 2010 or Microsoft Office user interface. In addition to the seven DoD certifications, including solutions for use with SAP, OpenText’s records management software is also certified under the United Kingdom’s TNA regulations and Australia’s VERS regulations.

As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, OpenText has a close working relationship with Microsoft. OpenText was named a 2009 Global ISV Line of Business Partner of the Year finalist at Microsoft’s 2009 Partner Conference. OpenText’s solutions for Microsoft are offered as part of OpenText ECM Suite 2010. This integrated suite brings together the content management capabilities needed to manage all types of enterprise content, including business documents, vital records, Web content, digital media such as images, audio and video, email, forms, reports and more. Using OpenText Everywhere, customers can access and work with enterprise content securely from smartphones.

Fresh TV, in association with Family Channel, has begun production in Toronto for its new live-action situation comedy Really Me, a series that follows the life of 15-year-old Maddy (Sydney Imbeau: Marley & Me: The Puppy Years (post-production), Supernatural), the ordinary-turned-famous 9th grader who wins the ultimate contest of landing her own reality TV show for a year.

Middle-child Maddy has been overshadowed her entire life by her gorgeous, popular older brother, Brody (Wesley Morgan: Unnatural History, Being Erica, Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, Degrassi: the Next Generation), her super genius little brother, Clarke (Azer Greco: The Town Christmas Forgot), and her former NHL hockey star father, Ray (Neil Crone: Little Mosque, The Summit, Hollywoodland).

“Really Me is about the good, the bad and the ugly of being on reality TV, and shows just how crazy family life can get when the cameras are rolling 24/7,” said Tom McGillis, President, Fresh TV Inc. “We are very excited about our cast of industry veterans and rising stars.”

Things begin to look up once Maddy and her best friend, Julia (Kiana Madeira: Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars) suddenly become the stars of VTV’s brand new reality show. But Maddy quickly realizes that even though she’s the star, actually getting on the screen can be tough when you live with a family of scene-stealers.

Through a series of mishaps, drama and embarrassing moments, Maddy and Julia demonstrate the true meaning of friendship by staying real to themselves… and to each other. Despite the competition, no camera crew could ever have any negative effect on the love Maddy’s family has for each other, on or off the screen.

Really Me was developed by Fresh TV, in association with Family Channel. Executive producers are Tom McGillis, Jennifer Pertsch, Brian Irving and George Elliot. Associate Producer is Robin McLeod and the Producer is Manny Danelon, with direction provided by Brian Roberts, who is also the creative producer. The Series Director of Photography is Gerald Packer and the Production Designer is Brian Verhoog. The first episode is set to air in April on Family Channel.