Village Gamer

Ottawa – Corel Corporation has announced its support for the new Wacom® Intuos®4, providing significant creative support and workflow advantages for artists using Corel® Painter™ 11. Together, Corel Painter 11 and the Wacom Intuos4 offer a heightened level of realism in digital art through unparalleled creative options, optimal control, and interactivity.

‘With the Intuos4, we wanted to provide the most natural, responsive and consistent experience for our users,’ said Don Varga, Senior Product Manager for Wacom. ‘For artists using Corel Painter 11, the Intuos4 enables them to get the most out of the product’s amazing new features, creating the most realistic digital art experience available.’

Corel Painter 11 is the ultimate art studio for anyone ready to expand their definition of creativity. With the most advanced digital painting and natural media tools available, artists can create the artwork they’ve always envisioned. Pressure-sensitive brushes, inventive drawing tools and customizable media let users create distinct digital and photographic art with every brush stroke.

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ParetoLogic finds itself a rare safe haven, after a variant of the Conficker virus blocks access to other popular security programs. Many infected users are expected to turn to ParetoLogic, having little other option in removing the pernicious threat

Victoria BC – A wildfire has broken out in the computer security world, in the form of the Conficker C virus. As long standing companies find themselves cut short by the threat, young and innovative companies rise to take their place, with ParetoLogic at the forefront.

Conficker C, which also goes by the name Downadup, has presented a new and devastating payload to infected users. The virus, according to a report by the Computer Science Laboratory of SRI International, attacks specific vulnerable Windows DLLs related to domain name resolution and caching. The worm then inserts a collection of anti-virus company names, and forbids their access. The result: users who attempt to visit most online security vendors find the sites unavailable, and they are therefore unable to remove the Conficker C infection. The list of affected companies is extensive, but still more notable for the heavy hitters listed, including Norton, McAfee, Trend Micro, Symantec, Avast and AVG. ParetoLogic Anti-Virus PLUS is not listed, and by virtue of its absence the program can still be accessed and downloaded. Accordingly, it is one of the few available security solutions which can protect against the Conficker worm.

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Vancouver – Verrus Mobile Technologies Inc, a global leader in the mobile payment industry, is pleased to announce it has achieved compliance validation as a Level 1 service provider with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) – the industry’s highest level of payment account data security certification.

Endorsed by all the major card brands – Visa Inc., MasterCard Worldwide, Discover Financial Services, American Express and JCB — the PCI DSS mandates rigorous requirements for protecting cardholder data and requires any organization that stores, processes or transmits cardholder data to operate in a compliant fashion. Additionally, any organization that stores, processes or transmits more than 300,000 transactions per year is defined as a Level 1 service provider and is required to complete an annual on-site PCI Data Security Assessment, performed by a Qualified Security Assessor and network scans conducted by an Approved Scanning Vendor.
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Fusing intellectual discussion and creative entertainment including a MySpace Secret Show with a platinum-selling Canadian band

Vancouver – AdvancedIO® Systems, the leading provider of application-optimized 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) connectivity solutions for high-performance real-time embedded systems, have announced the release of the V3021 dual-channel 10GbE connectivity and packet processing Advanced Mezzanine Card (AMC) module. With two front-panel SFP+ ports, the latest Xilinx® Virtex®-5 FPGA and the addition of SRAM memory, the V3021 offers customers the most 10GbE connectivity in a single slot. The V3021 is optimized for the type of real-time data flow and processing found in applications such as COMINT, ELINT, situational awareness systems, security, and network monitoring and optimization.

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Vancouver – Less than one month after Sierra Wireless acquired Wavecom, the two companies announced today compelling proof of the product and technology synergies expected from the combination of two leaders in wireless data solutions. This week, Wavecom and Sierra Wireless will demonstrate a network-connected EVDO Fastrack Extreme, streaming video of the CTIA show floor over the Internet using an integrated Sierra Wireless MC5727 PCI Express Mini Card.

The Fastrack Plug-and-Play Wireless CPU^® form factor has been popular among Wavecom customers for years, thanks to its rugged casing and Plug-and-Play functionality. The Sierra Wireless MC5727 EVDO Rev. A embedded module can be found in countless connected computing devices throughout North America.

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Montreal – Interactive entertainment company Ludia Inc., and CBS Consumer Products announced today that Ludia will create video games based on the seven-time Emmy® award-winning “The Amazing Race” television series. The North America-wide deal will see the reality TV sensation launch games across multiple platforms in tandem with the show’s 14th season.

“The heart-pounding adventure, around-the-world competition and postcard worthy settings of ‘The Amazing Race’ are perfectly suited for video game adaptation,” said Alex Thabet, Founder and CEO of Ludia. “We are thrilled to add such a high-energy, suspenseful franchise to our slate, and we will infuse those key elements into a highly social, team-based multiplayer game that unites duos in cooperative game play to compete against rivals.”
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Vancouver – If you’re walking around Vancouver and notice some real-life packaged action figures, blame Hot Tomali Communications, an integrated marketing agency located in Vancouver, B.C. The action-packed professionals are part of a new campaign titled “Job Candidate 2.0”, which promotes the launch of Resume Hut who has expanded to Vancouver after operating for 23 years in Victoria. The expansion is part of a larger strategy in which Resume Hut aims to expand across North America over the next five years.

The unique idea for the campaign came as a result of a combination of factors. “When we were approached with the idea of executing a campaign for Resume Hut, we needed to come up with something that was engaging, memorable, and cost-effective,” says Clayton Mitchell, Hot Tomali’s Strategic Planner. “Working with Resume Hut, we started with a complete rebranding including a new logo and the positioning line ‘Position Yourself’. The key insight we extracted during our creative process was that Resume Hut helps you position yourself more effectively for the jobs you want—in a sense, repackaging you.”

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Toronto/San Francisco – As media assets for Web, gaming, marketing, computer-aided design (CAD), film and television continue to grow, the need for an easy-to-use, yet cost-effective workflow asset tracking system has never been more immediate. Southpaw Technology provides the answer with today’s launch of TACTIC™ 2.5, delivering the first enterprise Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution to tackle large asset management problems from a workflow perspective. TACTIC 2.5 increases productivity by properly indexing and tracking each component of every project to create a streamlined workflow with an automated central repository of valuable assets.

Created by users from the 3D and animation industry, TACTIC 2.5 combines a robust server with an intuitive drag-and-drop Web Client to create a superior DAM system which is highly scalable, secure and very fast. Developed and used in the most demanding media pipeline environments, TACTIC 2.5 simplifies and solves the most challenging DAM issues faced by today’s film and game producers, designers, architects, educators and many more.

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Developer – Big Fish Games
Publisher – Big Fish Games
Released – November 26 2008
Rating: E – T
Game Score: 10/10
Official Website

In this sequel to Mystery Case Files: Ravenhearst, players again take on the role of a Master Detective trying to unravel the evil mysteries which inhabit the old Ravenhearst Manor. Picking up where Ravenhearst left off, the story revolves around the fate of yet more ghosts who are still trapped in the eerie mansion.

The tone for Return to Ravenhearst is set right from the opening frames of the game. A moody and haunting soundtrack, complete with timely sound effects lets the gamer know that this chapter in the franchise is not going to be a pleasant jaunt through the park. The game’s environmental artists have developed an atmosphere that exudes creepiness – everything from the artfully created lighting to triggered animations immerses the player into the mood of the story.

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Story2.OH and giraffesoft announce the launch of Hailey Hacks, a web series for kids 8-13. The funny magazine-style show is hosted by Hailey, played by Marlee Maslove, and demonstrates cool things kids can do with their computers

Toronto – Story2.OH and giraffesoft introduce Hailey Hacks, a series of web videos starring Toronto grade 6 student, Marlee Maslove. Hailey (Maslove) is the Hermione Grainger of web wizardry showing 8-13 year olds all kinds of cool things they can do with their computers.

“Kids have these very powerful machines at their fingertips,” says series creator Jill Golick, “but no one’s teaching them the incredible scope of what they can do with them.” The mandate of the series is to broaden tweens’ use of the computer beyond games, Google and YouTube to include the wider world of blogs, widgets, RSS feeds, social bookmarks and the amazing tools that exist on the web for creating, collaborating and communicating.

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