Village Gamer

Motives in Movement, the dramatic-content consultancy and providers of the next generation of convergent solutions for animation software developers, has completed its first Proof of Concept with cutting edge French animation company, Dynamixyz. The POC coincides with Motives in Movement founder and Heavy Rain actor Pascal Langlois relocating to Toronto, and he will be attending SIGGRAPH 2011in Vancouver. Dynamixyz will be in Booth 351.

Pascal Langlois

While Motives in Movement still operates from a London base, the recent Dynamixyz POC and relocation of the company founder to Canada demonstrates that it is in countries like Canada and France that leading edge game tech and boundary pushing projects receive significant support. This support is still lacking in the UK games industry and while it is undoubtedly deserved, it is not a reality.

Pascal Langlois explains “The fact is, in France and in Canada, there is a climate of government-level faith in this young industry. It’s founded on a belief that it’s worth investing in, to guarantee being at the heart of its future.”

The Motives in Movement and Dynamixyz relationship started at Gamescom 2010, where the two companies discovered they shared a common and unique approach to animation source material. Instead of using fundamental expressions as a starting point, both companies believe that libraries and animation tools work better with fluid, live performances resulting in the final animation being considerably more believable and engaging than existing systems. The overall process is also radically faster and more efficient.

This collaborative and new wave thinking not only proves that Motives in Movement and Dynamixyz make a good team but also opens up exciting new prospects for both companies.

Dynamixyz is a french company working in the field of high quality 3D facial analysis/synthesis. Distinguished by the French Ministry of Research, Dynamixyz has developed a unique statistical modelling technology making possible to “clone” the expressions and dynamics of a subject. This model can then be used to produce high quality facial animations at low costs. Dynamixyz also develop marker-less performance capture for the entertainment industry.

Dynamixyz and MiM, besides sharing the same point of view on enhancing facial animation, have a really complimentary approach, one providing technology and one providing the necessary high quality content and expertise.

Motives in Movement (MIM) has expertise in both high level traditional media and AAA game development. We provide ‘convergent consultancy’ on performance based library creation, Direction and Acting, for all levels of Capture. Motive’s unique ability to draw on skill sets from both industries, offers developers and animation software providers the next generation of convergent solutions. Motives in Movement now operates from both London and Toronto and is actively engaged in business development in both locations.

Corel has launched its Summer Appventure, featuring four, new, free apps designed to help families make the most of their summer vacations. With new apps for the iPhone®, iPad®, Mac® and PC, there’s something for everyone. Whether families are packing up the car, heading for the airport or planning holiday time closer to home, Corel’s new apps make it easy for everyone to make the most of their vacation moments.

“Summer is the perfect time to travel, explore and reconnect with the things and people we care about most. Being creative and having the ability to easily share and relive holiday moments is at the heart of Corel’s Summer Appventure,” said Prescott Lee, VP and GM, Light Apps at Corel. “With the release of our four new mobile apps, we want to give travelers a range of options to make the most of their summer adventures, offering them a collection of apps that are creative and fun and that help them make the most of their valuable time.”

• Beep Beep: Convert your iPad into the perfect digital coloring book for a no-mess, creative distraction while you’re on the road or flying through the air. Rather than zoning out with a DVD, kids can explore their creativity and create vibrant, fridge or Facebook-ready masterpieces with an array of colors and sample images to choose from. Corel Beep Beep for iPad (iOS 3.2 or higher) is available as a free English app.

• Slingshot™: Capture those once in a lifetime moments on your iPhone and automatically share them in real-time with customized groups of family and friends, or send them straight to a selected Facebook album. All of your photos are automatically backed up to a private Facebook photo album so you’ll always have peace of mind. Corel Slingshot for iPhone (3G, 3GS, 4 and iPod touch 4^th generation users running iOS 4.3.3 or higher) is available as a free English app

• Postcard: Forget crowded tourist shops and searching for postage stamps. With Corel® Postcard, it’s easy to create and send personalized postcards using your iPhone. Snap that perfect moment, add your greeting, and automatically send your printed postcard anywhere in the world for just $0.99 (USD). There’s no faster, easier or more personal way to say “Wish you were here!” Corel Postcard for iPhone (3G, 3GS, 4 and iPod touch 4^th generation users running iOS 4 or higher) is available as a free English app in selected Apple App Stores worldwide. The sender’s credit card will be charged USD $0.99 per card to anywhere in the world (includes printing, postage, and handling). Postcard also runs on the iPad (iOS 3.2 or higher).

• QuickSort: Quickly sort your top holiday photos and select your favourites with this free app. With QuickSort, it’s faster than ever to reduce the hundreds, if not thousands, of digital images you captured on the road and isolate your very best shots. Using QuickSort for Mac or Windows, you can rapidly sort your photos into “good” and “best” folders with the tap of a keystroke. Not only will QuickSort save you valuable time, you may even free up some hard drive space!

Travelers can join the Corel Summer Appventure and share favourite vacation photos, videos, and holiday anecdotes. From memorable landmarks, to funny encounters, to beautiful landscapes, Corel wants to hear your stories. You can also follow the Corel Summer Appventure action by connecting with them on Facebook and following along on Twitter using the hashtag #corelappventure for your chance to win prizes such as Corel photo editing or video editing software.

Today at the National Association of Bar Executives Annual Meeting in Toronto, Vancouver-based Themis Solutions Inc. announced its new Clio Bar Affinity Program which provides members of participating Bar Associations access to an ongoing discount on Clio, a cloud-based practice management system for small and solo law firms. The NABE Annual Meeting is being held at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel from today through August 4^th.

The 77,000-member New York State Bar Association, the largest voluntary state bar association in the United States, has signed up for the Clio Bar Affinity Program so that its members can enjoy the benefits of Clio at a reduced price. Several other top bar associations in the U.S. have also joined the program, including the Connecticut Bar Association with over 9,700 members, State Bar of Michigan with over 40,000 members and the South Carolina Bar with over 13,500 members.

According to Jack Newton, President of Themis Solutions, “We are proud to announce the Clio Bar Affinity Program. Bar Associations across North America are realizing that cloud-based technology is becoming integral to their members’ success, not only as legal professionals, but as business owners. Themis Solutions is teaming up with Bar Associations to offer Clio at a discounted monthly subscription price, which is a true win-win situation. Bar members can tap the efficiencies offered by Clio, and in turn, Clio can be discovered by small firm and solo lawyers seeking greater organization and productivity for their practices.”

Southpaw Technology, a Toronto-based developer of production asset management (PAM) technology for digital content creation companies, has announced that Toonbox Entertainment, also located in Toronto,  is deploying 100 seats of TACTIC to manage all of the assets and data for its first feature-length production, The Nut Job. The growing studio just completed the movie’s trailer, and is now rolling out TACTIC for the production of the stereoscopic 3D film, which is one of the largest productions happening in Canada at the moment. Read the rest of this entry »

Toon Boom will be unveiling Toon Boom Harmony 9 & Storyboard PRO 3D at SIGGRAPH 2011, Booth 708. These ground-breaking applications skyrocket animation styles to untapped creative realms, offering mind-blowing digital capabilities to creators.

Toon Boom Harmony Highlights:

• Draw with pencil lines supporting textures and variable line thickness. • Deform images and drawings animated over time using advanced bone and curved deformers.
• Built-in particle effects and dozens more!
• 2D-3D import integration, 3 axes object transformation Toon Boom

Storyboard Pro 3D Highlights:

• Work with 3D space with Camera View, Top and Side Views to position your 2D drawing.
• Build your own 3D Library for reuse.
• Export project to 3D software using FBX format.
• Take advantage of Digital Storyboarding capabilities

Absolute® Software Corporation has announced the general availability of Absolute Manage 5.4.2, allowing for customer upgrades to Apple’s newest operating system without any interruption to the endpoint management processes they depend on to effectively manage their cross-platform deployments. In addition, Apple Open Directory integration means organizations can now better manage users’ access to resources used on iOS 4 devices.

“Absolute Manage is truly cross-platform and provides endpoint management capabilities for PC, Mac®, and iOS devices,” said John Livingston, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Absolute Software. “Our customers expect us to keep pace with the market and we do, ensuring our solutions support the most current operating systems and form factors on the market today.”

Absolute Manage allows organizations to efficiently manage all their assets by automating time-consuming IT processes such as software distribution, patch management, asset inventory and imaging. Additionally, it helps organizations save money by allowing them to track installed applications and licenses, redeploy under-used licenses and hardware to optimize inventory, and avoid non-compliance fines.

Quebec’s OroLogic Inc. has released the latest version of their time tracking software for customers world-wide. The main focus of OroTimesheet 7 is performance improvements, ease-of-use and the addition of important new features. This release shows OroLogic’s attention to customer feedback as it incorporates many features requested by current users.

“Ever since the beginning, we have taken strides to always improve the quality of our software,” said Guylain Plante, president of OroLogic Inc. “We did it again with this new version by including highly requested features such as exporting invoices to QuickBooks and Simply Accounting.”

Cambridge based software company iVenuto has launched its first business app for the Apple iPad platform. Sign In, the reception desk visitor registry app is now available on iTunes App store for the introductory price of $24.99 (regular price $28.99). This innovative app is the first of its kind, allowing users to convert their iPad device into an easy-to-use Visitor registry.

Most offices require all visitors or contractors to “sign in,” satisfying the needs of health and safety concerns providing an accurate head count in the event of an emergency. The head count is given to emergency officials when asked if everyone is present and accounted for during a fire evacuation, for example.

The problem is: most visitor registries are paper binders with a collection of illegible scribblings, purposely so to keep competitors unaware of appointments or to hide personal information when asked for an email or license plate by the host company.

The “Sign In” app addresses this problem by keeping all information private. Visitors enter their own information on a graphical interface that mimics a paper page in a book. Visitors can not see the information on previous visitors.

Data collected on each visitor is unique to each company’s policy. The data is then easily accessible to only administrative staff. A custom report writing tool allows users to quickly create instant reports. The software also has a badge printing feature – creating personalized & dated color badges for each visitor (according to the software’s FAQ, this is done via AirPrint). The software also assigns a Sign In and Sign Out time stamp, managing a dynamic “on-premises” report.

Toronto’s emailtopia has announced the much-anticipated release of Response Manager 5.5, a product designed to help organizations manage their customer service email inboxes.

“We are very proud of the work completed by our development team that has allowed us to begin shipping Response Manager 5.5”, said emailtopia President and CEO Mike Senechal. “With the latest version of Response Manager we are ensuring that our product adapts to the latest changes in the marketplace, and continues to offer an affordable email management solution to both SMBs and large organizations.”

* JavaScript custom actions offers the ability to put in place dynamic business rules to satisfy very specific needs, such as updating information in other enterprise systems such as CRM. For instance, if a client emails an organization’s customer service team asking for a price quote, a custom business rule could be used to automatically update the organization’s CRM system with an instruction for the account manager to send the client a price quote.

* More flexible user scheduling. A new user scheduling option for Response Manager lets each user have two “working” time spans per day, which makes it easy to avoid assigning messages to users during break periods.

* Closed message reporting. A new Response Manager report is now available which assesses user performance based on the number of messages closed within the defined service level, as well as providing average close time values.

* SQL 2008 support

* Outlook 2010 support. Outlook 2010 is supported on any operating system, including Windows 7 (32- & 64-bit).

* Secure IMAP connection support.

* Pure JDBC database connections. Response Manager no longer requires additional SQL Server client software or an ODBC data source.

Supply chain execution software solutions provider Accellos announced today that it will be holding a Summer Conference single day event in Toronto, along with stops at Newark, Chicago, San Francisco and Atlanta.

Accellos Visions 2011 is designed to give supply chain professionals across North America the opportunity to join in educational sessions, networking opportunities and engaging dialogue with Accellos experts, customers and partners like Microsoft and Psion Teklogix. The event provides a forum for attendees to spend time face-to-face with their Accellos team, meet new colleagues with similar business interests in their area and industry, and learn how to drive even greater returns from current and future Accellos solutions.

The daily agenda (PDF) includes educational sessions covering topics meaningful to Accellos’ 3PL, Warehouse Management, Transportation Management and EDI customers and partners. The sessions will focus on profit-building strategies, industry insights, best practices, in-depth product information, technology road maps, and the vision for Accellos going forward. Speaking guests include Accellos top executives, product and brand managers, and representatives from Microsoft and Psion.

“We developed Accellos Visions with the aim of bringing together our customers, partners, and supply chain professionals from coast to coast,” said Accellos CTO Ross Elliott. “Our attendees will have the chance to learn about how our latest products can help them drive ROI, hear expert speakers from Microsoft and other partners talk about topics like Cloud Computing and Mobility, and get a glimpse of Accellos’ vision for the coming months and years. And the best part is that, rather than host a single event in one location, we will be bringing the show to our attendees.”

Early bird special registration pricing for Accellos Visions 2011 is available until July 22.