Village Gamer

Gatineau – DBx GEOMATICS Inc. has announced the release of CartoVista 2.0 with new cartographic publishing tools and application extendibility through Adobe® Flex®.

The new CartoVista Publisher is a state-of-the-art desktop application designed to support every aspect of a CartoVista 2.0 deployment. The CartoVista Publisher features advanced management tools to create and maintain any maps or data used by the application. It centralizes the management of the users’ map files and style settings so that they can rapidly create maps without having to find map files each time, or reapply style settings. CartoVista Publisher provides tremendous cartographic freedom to create very high quality maps from existing GIS data.

The CartoVista 2.0 display engine features enhancements to thematic display and visualization. The addition of new color schemes, selection views and new histogram options significantly enhances the display of strategic data.
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Toronto – New software offers first-ever solution to help protect 200 million P2P file-sharers from rampant identity theft and lawsuits; United States Federal Trade Commission warns about dangers of file-sharing.

ZapShares Inc. announced today the public release of their ZapShares software, which is the first software specifically designed to help protect the 200 million users of P2P file-sharing software who are at high risk of identity theft and lawsuits.

“Many people who use file-sharing software are at high risk of having their identity and private information stolen, or are at risk of being sued by copyright holders, and up until now there has been no solution,” said Bernard Trest, President of ZapShares Inc.
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Brampton – Sheridan Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning’s top-priority capital project has received significant funding from the federal and provincial governments. Together both levels of government are providing a combined $31.23 million in new infrastructure dollars toward building a college campus in Mississauga. The creation of Sheridan’s third major campus will mean that Mississauga, Canada’s sixth-largest city, will finally have a college.

“Thanks to the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario, Sheridan is going to be able to fill a big need for students and businesses in Mississauga,” said Dr. Robert Turner, President and CEO, Sheridan Institute. “The Mississauga area is home to over 55 corporate head offices in finance, insurance, real estate, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and logistics. Everyone has told Sheridan a college presence is essential to fulfilling their workforce needs. Thanks to this new funding, we’re going to be able to pay big dividends to the Mississauga community.”
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Vancouver – At this month’s ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver seminar, animation director Eric Darnell shared his journey from Pre-Med student to animated feature film director. Who would’ve thought that problems with Organic Chemistry and watching a televised football game would lead to becoming the director of animated hits Antz, Madagascar and Madagascar 2, with a third and final Madagascar installment currently in production.

Eric Darnell

Throughout the seminar, which was a fire-side styled chat with Glenn Entis, Eric shared some of his early, experimental work with the audience. While I did enjoy the innovative styling of the collage-animation done for REM’s “Get Up” music video, my personal favourite was animation short Gas Planet, seen below. Eric has a knack for capturing just the right expressions in his characters, to the point where dialogue is simply not required in getting the point of the animation across. Gas Planet was the recipient of the Ottawa Animation Festival’s Special Jury Prize.

I think that the one, most valuable piece of advice which Eric had for aspiring animation directors was using whatever personal time they had to create their own experimental pieces. He stated that by pursuing such interests, “the experience will make your future, paid work better, and can take you to places which you never imagined. Real life experiences make you a better director – seemingly unrelated events help you bring more to the table.” Eric also went on to state that “as the director, you are the caretaker of the story, and it is important that you have very strong writers on your team.”
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Ottawa – The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has announced the launch of a new web site designed to open dialogue in regards to proposed Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). The site features a collection of essays by leading academics, lawyers, researchers, activists and industry professionals, and is designed to serve as a resource on Deep Packet Inspection. According to information on the site, it grew out of a desire at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada to understand more about a technology that has application in network traffic management, behavioural advertising, and law enforcement.

Jennifer Stoddart

“The prospective uses of DPI technology raise serious concerns about individual privacy,” said Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner of Canada. “DPI technology has the potential to give ISPs and other entities wide-ranging access to vast amounts of personal information sent over the Internet. Canadians spend a significant amount of their lives on online as consumers, professionals, and citizens. They are entitled to privacy protection pursuant to Canadian telecommunications policy, as set out in the Telecommunications Act, and under privacy laws of Canada. We respectfully submit that before DPI technology is employed, careful consideration should be given to what impact it may have on individual privacy.”
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Vancouver – Join CATA-WIT’s recently established BC Chapter on June 2, 2009 for a lunchtime event featuring vignette presentations by women leaders in BC’s technology sector, followed by interactive breakout and networking sessions:

SPEAKERS/FACILITATORS

* Catherine Boivie, Senior VP, Information Technology and CEO, Inventure Solutions
* Cybele Negris, Co-founder and COO of Webnames.ca
* Maria Pacella, Investment Manager: Information Technology, GrowthWorks

TOPICS

* Climbing the Corporate Ladder
* Women Entrepreneurs in Technology
* Securing Financing
* Working Effectively with Recruiters
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Ottawa – WinZip Computing, an American company wholly owned by Canadian Corel Corporation and maker of the world’s most popular compression utility for Windows®, today released WinZip® 12.1 featuring the new Zipx format, WinZip’s most efficient archives to-date. WinZip 12.1 also makes it faster and easier for users to resize images before sending them via ‘Zip and E-Mail’.

With its commitment to continuous improvement, WinZip has significantly advanced the compression and encryption capabilities of Zip files and the new .zipx file extension is the next step in that evolution. By using the most current compression methods to create Zipx files, WinZip 12.1 helps users create their smallest Zip files ever. The new .zipx file extension makes it easier to share highly compressed files with others by making it clear when a file was created using advanced methods and that WinZip 12.1 (or another compatible compression utility) is required to open the file. Users can still create regular “Legacy Zip 2.0” files with WinZip 12.1. In addition, WinZip has documented all of the details associated with creating and reading Zipx files and has made them available for software developers of compression software, anti-virus software, search engines, and other software applications.
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Vancouver – Zynga, the industry leader in social gaming, has shown its support for the Masters of Digital Media (MDM) Program with three new entrance scholarships totaling $20,000. The three scholarships will be awarded in the areas of Game Design, Art and Programming. Students beginning their studies in September who have demonstrated remarkable talent in these fields will be considered. The MDM application deadline is June 30, 2009.

“At MDM, we’re thrilled that Zynga is keen to support our Masters of Digital Media students,” said Dr. Gerri Sinclair, Executive Director of the MDM Program and CEO of the Centre for Digital Media at Great Northern Way Campus. “The backing of an industry leader such as Zynga is a testament to the quality of the students joining our two-year program, and we thank the company for their support not only of our program, but of the digital media industry in Vancouver and throughout North America.”
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Vancouver – Vancouver Film School (VFS), Canada’s premier post-secondary entertainment arts institution, today announced Shannon Lee from Toronto, Canada, as the first-ever winner of the Women in Games Scholarship, valued at $30,000. The scholarship covers the full tuition to the acclaimed one-year Game Design program at VFS, which was recently named by the L.A. Times as one of the top 10 schools “favored by video game industry recruiters.”

The unique scholarship was launched in early February at Game Design Expo 2009 as a means to support and foster talented female game designers in an industry traditionally dominated by male gamers and designers. More and more women are forging successful careers in the game industry and now make up 20 percent of the workforce, up 17 percent from 2004, according to findings in The Game Industry: Now & in the Future, a 2009 report released by VFS. The school established the Women in Games scholarship to encourage this positive trend.

Shannon will have the opportunity to experience one intensive year learning every facet of game design, from game theory to level design to game interface design. The Game Design program’s industry-led curriculum reflects a professional game development and production environment, so that when Shannon graduates, she will be prepared to begin a career in the game industry.
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Montreal – Audiokinetic® and Emergent™ have teamed up to provide the video game industry’s only cross-platform, multi-genre development system that fully addresses the audio needs of programmers, game designers, artists and sound designers by including Wwise right out of the box with every Gamebryo® LightSpeed™ license. The flexibility of LightSpeed’s core technology allows the art of game development to easily evolve across every function of development.

Audiokinetic’s Wwise offers audio programmers and sound designers a complete audio authoring tool with a powerful sound engine, greatly improving workflow while pushing the limits of sound design. Coupled with LightSpeed, Wwise allows developers to audit, profile, and modify sounds in real-time within the current build of the game. This new bundle further simplifies workflow by allowing designers and artists to generate and iterate on any type of asset during all phases of development without recompiling. Content creation is sped up and programmers are free to devote their efforts to game?specific tech for new kinds of gameplay instead of adding and tweaking game content.
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