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The largest ever global research project into people’s online activities and behaviour – Digital Life – was released today, Digital Day, by TNS, the world’s largest custom research company. Covering 88% of the world’s online population through 50,000 interviews with consumers in 46 countries including all of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the study reveals a number of very significant findings and provides indicators for the future of the world’s online behaviour.

Core data from the study is being made publicly available via an interactive website, with TNS providing more detailed reports and breakdowns to its clients.

“This study covers more than twice the markets of any other research of this kind. So, it will really allow us to determine Canada’s position in the online world.” said Michael Ennamorato, TNS Canada’s Managing Director. “Plus, we have taken the research to the next level by going beyond basic behaviour to provide more detailed data into attitudes and emotional drivers of that behaviour.”

A main take-away is that when it comes to online behaviours, Canada, despite being a mature market with advanced infrastructure, is being hopscotched by the rapid growth markets:

* Canada lags in digital engagement. When looking at behaviour online, rapid growth markets such as Egypt (56%) and China (54%) have much higher levels of digital engagement – that is, they are more active with the technology – than mature markets such as Canada (37%), Japan (20%), Denmark (25%) or Finland (26%). Read the rest of this entry »

Voices.com has released its newest educational offering, Voices.com Webinars. Webinars produced by Voices.com feature top voice over consultants and industry professionals with how-to sessions in one convenient place.

Stephanie Ciccarelli, co-founder/CMO, hosts the interactive webinars and Scott Lumley, Job Postings Manager, moderates the much anticipated virtual events. The company’s webinar series offers free on-going training for those new to voice overs or those looking to learn more about the industry and about Voices.com. The hour long webinars are designed to educate, entertain and engage the listener, allowing them to participate live during the event and ask questions of the experts on the line.

‘I’ve found our webinars to be incredibly useful and informative for our subscribers and even our staff. It seems like every time we get someone to join us and share their knowledge, I learn something new,” Scott Lumley says. “We’ve had people join our webinars and freely share so much information that it becomes a problem trying to remember it all. That’s why we provide audio recordings of the webinar material.’’

Broken into two parts, participants receive a half hour filled with pearls of wisdom from industry professionals followed by a half hour question and answer period. Registered users of Voices.com and their fans on Facebook are informed of these opportunities in advance and can call in to participate on the live webinar. Audio recordings of the webinar are then emailed to those who registered to enjoy again at their convenience.

An archive of all free webinars has been made available and is frequently updated for anyone who can not make it to the live events. Mobile users can subscribe to Voices.com’s webinars via iTunes.

Less than a year after provincial support for a major digital media innovation centre was announced, The Communitech Hub has officially opened for business, ready to foster the next-generation of digital media innovation in Ontario.

The Hub, which occupies 30,000 square feet of a renovated downtown Kitchener Tannery building, is now home to start-up companies, small-medium enterprises, and global multi-nationals all aiming to accelerate the pace of development of new ideas and products in the digital media sector. Leaders from business, government, and community organizations gathered at The Communitech Hub today to recognize the expansive effort that has now created a leading-edge facility customized to meet the needs of its occupants.

Iain Klugman, Communitech, Tom Jenkins, Open Text, and Kevin Tuer, CDMN at The Hub grand opening

“Ontario has a tremendous legacy of innovation in digital media and ICT, and this sector is exploding around the world. The Communitech Hub will help launch more made-in-Ontario companies, create good jobs and better lives for families,” said Glen Murray, Minister of Research and Innovation.

The Communitech Hub will not only serve as a collaboration centre for resident companies, but will also link to other digital media centres across Canada as part of the Canadian Digital Media Network (CDMN). The CDMN headquarters reside in The Hub along with Communitech offices.

“Creating this facility has been a collaborative effort between community organizations, industry, all levels of government and the community itself, making this a truly remarkable achievement,” said Iain Klugman, President and CEO of Communitech.

Founding partner companies who have contributed to the establishment of The Communitech Hub include: Canada’s largest software company Open Text Corporation; leading-edge visual technologies company Christie Digital Systems Canada Inc.; and high-tech heavyweight Research In Motion (RIM). The Communitech Hub — a $100 million project — was created with contributions from the provincial government, the federal government, the City of Kitchener, and private industry.

“Open Text and the other founding industry partners are committed to innovation; The Communitech Hub will enable R&D projects that might not have been possible without this unique environment,” said Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer at Open Text, and Chair of the CDMN.

Renovating the 30,000 square foot space in the former Tannery building and transforming it into a state-of-the-art facility for digital innovation was no small undertaking, given the size and scope of the project. The facility features unique amenities such as a four-sided 3D ‘immersive environment’ provided by Christie Digital powered by Christie’s 3D stereoscopic projectors, enabling display of vast amounts of data. The Hub has an open concept area for the established companies to brainstorm and collaborate, and private office areas for entrepreneurs to ‘incubate’ ideas in close proximity to tools and services they need to succeed. Companies have access to a suite of expert resources including entrepreneurs in residence, project manager support, and marketing & branding expertise.

“This facility is a dream come true for many of the people who celebrated The Communitech Hub opening today who can now envision the innovative technologies that will undoubtedly have their start in this facility,” said Kevin Tuer, VP Digital Media of Communitech and CDMN Managing Director.

Edmonton’s Ted Bradshaw and Scott Rusnak today announced the launch of Visimonde Inc., a new company that will design and develop virtual worlds and games for audiences worldwide.

“Visimonde will specialize in the creation of games for the purposes of engaging, entertaining, and educating our players and delivering value to our partners,” said Bradshaw, the company’s CEO and President.

The Albertan company is already in production on its first property, which is scheduled to launch in closed beta this winter. This full-featured massively multiplayer online game will offer both free and subscription-based features, as well as an innovative new “Instant Trial” that lets players experience the virtual world without the need for a time-consuming registration process.

Bradshaw and Rusnak come from both educational and children’s software and information management backgrounds. Bradshaw was the President and CEO of StudentsAchieve Software. Bradshaw oversaw the company from early stage start-up through to a successful acquisition by SRB Education. Rusnak, Visimonde Creative Director, spent 15 years as Vice President of Management Information Group in Scottsdale, Arizona and Edmonton, Canada. Rusnak has extensive international experience in development and marketing of education and social media software applications.

The company has hired Blaine Graboyes to serve as Executive Producer for its current game. Graboyes is an award-winning Media Architect and Game Designer that has worked with the likes of Dreamworks, Sony, Mattel, NFL Films, Disney, Nickelodeon, MTV and more.

The Canadian Marketing Association and Marketing Magazine have unveiled the full roster of featured presenters at the annual Digital Day conference “Navigating the Digital Labyrinth” to be held November 2, 2010 in Toronto.

Considered one of the most comprehensive and leading conferences on digital in Canada, this year’s program includes many of the brightest minds in digital in the country.

“We are so excited with the calibre of talent at this year’s conference and know that it will be a rich and enlightening discussion on all things digital,” said Lisa Charters, SVP Digital, Random House of Canada and co-chair of the conference. “The digital world continues to evolve at such an unbelievable pace that this year we are focusing on content creation, mobile and SMS, community engagement, digital retail experience and social media for leading brands.”

Featured Presenters include:

Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
Joseph Jaffe, author of Flip the Funnel
Jordan Banks, Managing Director of Facebook Canada
Claude Galipeau, Executive Vice-President, Digital media, Rogers Media Inc.
Matthew Idema, Vice-President, Country Manager, Yahoo! Canada
Graham Moysey, General Manager, AOL Canada
Chris O’Neill, Country Director, Google Canada
Paul Burns, Vice-President, Digital, Canwest
Brad Ross, Director, Corporate Communications, TTC
Jennifer Evans, Founder, Chief Strategist, Sequentia Environics
Angus Frame, Vice-president, Digital, Globe and Mail
Michael Procopio, Social Media Lead, HP Software
Steve Levy, President, Canadian Market Research, Ipsos Reid
Mike Girgis, President, OneStop Media
John Roe, Director of Marketing, Sporting Life
Sean Moffit, author, Wikibrands
Ferg Devins, Chief Public Affairs Officer, Molson Coors Canada
Heather Travis, Director of Public Relations, Beef Information Centre

In addition, Ipsos Reid will be release the fifth annual Digital Marketing Pulse report, a Canada-wide survey of Canada’s top marketers and agencies and how they view digital media.

Tickets for the November 2, 2010, conference are $499 and can be purchased online. The conference will be held from 8:30a.m. – 5:30 p.m. at the Allstream Centre, 105 Princes Blvd. in Toronto, Ontario.

Race to the Finish, the new online companion game to the hit YTV reality series In Real Life is now live and ready to play. For the first time, young fans from across Canada are encouraged to support their favourite In Real Life on-air challenger by accumulating virtual points for them through game play. The two on-air challengers with the most points have the chance to compete in a bonus webisode finale for a brand new prize. Award-winning digital producer Secret Location created Race to the Finish, a show which has 18 new Canadian youths aged 12-14 from 15 different Canadian cities, race across North America to compete in heart-pounding, real world challenges. From high-tech espionage and video gaming to lobster fishing, these kids are vying to win the amazing ultimate prize: college tuition money and an all-expense paid family vacation. In Real Life season two premiered last evening at 7 p.m. on YTV.

Vancouver’s SillySoft has released Castle Vox, a computer strategy board game where Diplomacy meets Chess meets Axis & Allies. Victory in the game is accomplished by capturing all of the castles in a variety of historical, geometric, geographic, and fantasy settings. Unlike most strategy games, Castle Vox is not turned-based. All players plan their moves simultaneously, which allows for a much faster game time for those can’t wait to hold dominion over the world. For those who are more patient, there is the “one-turn-a-day” mode.

Players are able to use the built-in map editor to create their own maps, which can then be shared with others, and programmers are welcome to add to the game’s AI with SillySoft’s SDK. Castle Vox has a free demo so that interested players can try it before purchasing ($19.99), and includes the following features:

* Fast world domination.
* Plan attacks simultaneously.
* Collaborate with teammates.
* Maps from many eras and mythologies.
* Giant maps with many players.
* Map editor included.
* Hard AI will push your brain in single-player matches.
* Online multi-player modes: relaxed and speed variants.
* Easy to learn, hard to master.
* Available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows.

Castle Vox has been chosen as one of the 32 finalists (and the only Canadian-made game) at this year’s IndieCade Festival, which takes place in Culver City, California this coming weekend.

The next BCTIA TechForum Voices of Experience takes place on October 14th at the Coal Harbour Hotel, and will feature Mr. Anthony von Mandl, Chairman & CEO of the Mark Anthony Group of companies and Proprietor of Mission Hill Family Estate winery.

Anthony von Mandl’s dream was to produce world calibre wines at Mission Hill Family Estate in the Okanagan Valley. The wine industry is extremely capital intensive and when no-one could be found to finance the vision he set about to build the Mark Anthony Group, a company which today is a multi-hundred million dollar private corporation based in Vancouver, BC.

This is his very private story and one he does not usually share in public; however being so passionate about building a stronger economic environment in BC and Canada for future generations he has agreed to so on this occasion.

Today seems to be the day for telecom acquisitions and partnerships. Rogers Communications Inc. announced earlier today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Atria Networks LP, owner and operator of one of Ontario’s largest fibre-optic networks for cash consideration of $425 million, subject to certain adjustments. Atria Networks is privately owned by Birch Hill Equity Partners.

The purchase of Atria Networks, based in Kitchener, Ontario, augments the Rogers Business Solutions offering by enhancing its ability to deliver on-net data centric services within and adjacent to the company’s cable footprint. The closing of the transaction is subject to regulatory approval. Rogers expects the transaction to close prior to the end of its first quarter, 2011.

Atria’s unique and scalable network includes 5,600 fibre route kilometers and over 3,800 on-net buildings in high-growth territories including Ottawa, Cornwall, Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Richmond Hill, Markham, Hamilton, Barrie, Orillia, Peterborough and Vaughan. Atria serves a diverse customer base of over 1,100 customers spanning the public sector, enterprise and carrier providers.

D-BOX Technologies Inc. has completed a private placement by issuing 3,947,368 common shares to Le Fonds d’investissement REA II Natcan Inc. at a price of $0.38 per share, for gross proceeds to D-BOX of $1,500,000. The private placement was conducted on a “non-brokered” basis.

“We are very pleased that Le Fonds d’investissement REA II Natcan Inc., a specialized institutional investor, participated in our private placement”, said Claude Mc Master, President and Chief Executive Officer of D-BOX. Its decision to invest and increase its existing equity position in D-BOX, is a sign of its confidence in our growth strategy. At the same time, the proceeds from the private placement will help D-BOX carry out its business plan.” Mr. Mc Master continued.

D-BOX will use the proceeds from the private placement to accelerate the deployment of its motion systems for commercial theatre application and for working capital and general corporate purposes.

As a result of the private placement, there are 128,584,936 common shares of D-BOX issued and outstanding. Under applicable securities legislation and the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange, the securities issued in the private placement are subject to a four-month hold period expiring on February 6, 2011.

Praxis Centre for Screenwriters and Agentic Communications are inviting you to participate in the second iteration of the “Melting Silos” initiative in partnership with Telefilm, the National Film Board and BC Film.

The goal of the Melting Silos Program is to connect local television/filmmaking and digital media talent in a way that educates both parties and facilitates the development of cross-platform project materials to be pitch ready for funding.

Melting Silos is seeking a small group of accomplished media content producers who would like to produce narrative based work with technical and creative support from a group of professionals in their opposing “silo”.

Filmmakers need not have new media skills, but a curiosity and desire to dive into this world with a creative idea. Digital Media Developers need not have story writing/telling expertise but possess a strong understanding of the interactive medium and have production proficiency.

Melting Silos is inviting you to submit a proposal via their online application in order to be considered for development. Deadline for application is October 15th, 2010

You can either apply with a concept and if selected have us match you with a suitable partner, or if you have an established relationship with a partner company please indicate on the application form.

Here are some key points of the Melting Silos Program:

* What sets Melting Silos apart from other workshops is the attention each project receives. It is not simply a high level feedback session. Your project is one of a very few that is being focused on during an intensive, intimate, collaborative mind-hive of creative and technical professionals dedicated to crafting better interactive experiences for their audiences. The subject matter experts are sought and recruited specifically for what they can bring to the projects being incubated using our agile programming methodology. This is only possible by leveraging the extensive networks of all three Melting Silos producers. Networks built out and maintained from our longevity of focus in the transmedia/cross-platform space Read the rest of this entry »

Investintech PDF solutions is a leading provider of desktop, server and developer software for reading, converting, editing, creating and securing PDF documents. Today, Investintech.com is pleased to announce the release of the all new version 7 of its flagship PDF Converter software – Able2Extract. It is the first PDF converter to convert into all major Microsoft Office formats in a single product.

Version 7 is the biggest improvement in their product to date, from a totally new interface to the new and improved conversion outputs, here is a taste of what the new Able2Extract can do:

Able2Extract’s graphical user interface has been totally updated and includes a new streamlined toolbar to ensure an easier and less confusing experience. The new toolbar features and PDF conversion processes make viewing, selecting and converting PDF documents simpler and more efficient.

The most popular PDF conversion options have received attention and the result is better, faster and more accurate conversions. The developer has increased custom options for power users who want granular control over their conversion process.

Investintech’s flagship PDF to Excel conversion has a redesigned custom conversion feature which gives users of version 7 the ability to not only designate vertical column structure but also horizontal row structure. This will ensure maximum conversion accuracy for difficult PDF tables. Read the rest of this entry »

Digital Leisure Inc. announced today the upcoming launch of BrainDead 13 on the AppStore, designed exclusively for your iPhone® and iPod Touch®. Following in the footsteps of Don Bluth’s classic Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace, BrainDead 13 adds the ability to fully control where you’ll go throughout this classically animated interactive adventure.

“This game has a massive cult following.” says Paul Gold, Supervising Producer. “Fans have been begging us to re-release it for years, and we think the iPhone is perfect format to celebrate the 15th anniversary of its original release.”

BrainDead 13 has you taking on the role of Lance, a young computer expert who is called to fix a computer at a bizarre and dilapidated castle. After repairing the large super-computer within the castle, you learn of Dr. Nero Neurosis’ diabolical plan to take over the world! Discovering the secret plan sends you on the run, being chased around the castle by Fritz, a psychotic servant of Dr. Neurosis – an evil disembodied brain. You must guide Lance through the deadly and mysterious castle to defeat Dr. Neurosis and save the world from his evil plans!

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRit60k1ONo]

Digital Leisure plans to follow up BrainDead 13 with a variety of classic arcade games for the iPhone and iPod Touch titles in the coming months. BrainDead 13 will be available this Friday October 8th for only $2.99 on the AppStore!

Vancouver Film School has announced on their blog that Peter Jin Hong, Google’s User Experience Designer in Search Engineering and Mobile, has joined the Digital Design program’s advisory board.

As part of his work in innovation and research in Mountain View, Peter focuses on conceptualizing and rapid prototyping next-generation applications. His past roles include Group Creative Director at the world-leading interactive agency Blast Radius and National Creative Director at Tribal DDB Canada. He’s also a graduate of the program (from way back in 1996) which gives him firsthand insight into the VFS experience.

“His empathetic approach to humanistic design greatly enhances our curriculum as we continually strive to keep pace with our evolving industry,” says Head of Digital Design Amber Bezahler. “Peter is a true user experience expert and a role model for what our graduates can accomplish.”

Select industry professionals from around the world are invited to join VFS’s advisory boards. As lifelines to the industry, members provide the next generation of designers with a vital link to the professional world through guest lectures, project mentorship, portfolio advising, and potential internship and employment opportunities.

“There have been many good mentors in my life,” he says. “Mentoring in turn, and seeing people realize their potential, is both a privilege and source of joy for me. The successes I’ve been a part of really come down to people, their stories, and inspiring collaborations – much of that started at VFS for me.”