2nd March 2011

Not All Of The Action Is At GDC 2011

Note: The Toronto International Film Festival (September 8 – 18th) is now open for submissions.
Event: WaveGuide™ Technical Workshop: Samsung Bada Code Camp presented by WaveFront. This free seminar takes place tomorrow in Vancouver from 1:30pm – 8:00pm. Pre-registration is required.
Event: Global Insights Conference is taking place in Victoria on March 17th.
Event: The Basics of Intellectual Property is a free seminar on March 10th presented by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and hosted by nGen.

Decapod StudiosVancouver’s Decapod Studios, creators of one of my favourite XBLIG games, Murphid, has released iStopwatch for Windows Phone 7. The free app is a simple, fast and elegant stop istopwatchwatch. It features a stopwatch timer, split timer, lap timer and countdown. It supports logging unlimited split and lap times and shares results via email.

The studio has also submitted an update for its measurement units converter app, Convert Units PRO for Windows Phone 7. The update includes faster application loading and adds in-app feedback options. The update will be available for free for all existing users once it receives Microsoft certification.

Convert Units PRO features include:

• U.S., Imperial and metric units.
• Convert length, mass, area, volume and temperature with ease.
• More than 100 measurement units are supported.
• Rarely used and old units are available.
• High precision conversion.

industrial brothersIndustrial Brothers has released a new 99 cent USD game on the iTunes Store. 2Bit is a challenging 2Bit The Gridretro-inspired puzzle game that will challenge your nerves and co-ordination as you try to navigate through The Grid, a landscape full of dangers. Yes, that’s right, The Grid is rife with shooting turrets, trip wires, hydraulic plugs, screwblades and more dangerous too frightening to talk about. At launch, 2Bit offers 20 challenging levels contained within 2 Grid areas, each with 10 levels of puzzles to negotiate.

2Bit’s current features include:

• Select between 2D or 3D views
• Personal High Scores and Global Leaderboard and Online Registration
• Original retro-themed sound effects and music
• Additional Grids and Levels to be released over the next few weeks at no extra cost

The Cavechild has released his first non-narrated gameplay video for Dawn of War II: Retribution by Relic Entertainment. His army is the one decked out in patriotic red and white, in Last Stand on The Anvil of Khorne as the Space Marine Captain.

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Strangeloop has partnered with Exclusive Concepts, Inc. to offer its proprietary Site Optimizer service to Yahoo! store merchants worldwide. Yahoo! Merchant Solutions is Strangeloop Networksthe largest hosted platform for ecommerce stores, with more Internet Retailer® Top 500 retailers using Yahoo! than any other hosted solution. Exclusive Concepts, the leading resource for online stores seeking to convert online shoppers into loyal buyers, provides a breadth of marketing services – from advanced search engine marketing to conversion testing – to more than 800 merchants around the world. As an authorized Yahoo! partner, Exclusive Concepts will be the exclusive provider of Strangeloop’s website acceleration technology to this market.

The Strangeloop Site Optimizer, utilized by companies such as Petco, Travelocity, Visa, Sodexo, and O’Reilly Media, is the only automated web performance optimization solution that functions at the scale demanded by global ecommerce sites and enterprise applications. Through partners like Exclusive Concepts, Site Optimizer can be offered as a hosted service, making Strangeloop’s advanced optimization technology accessible to businesses of all sizes.

vaencoCalgary tech company Vaenco, Inc. has officially launched its interactive media platform called ZoweeTV. An end-to-end multi-screen media platform that delivers movies, TV shows, music, games and other interactive media to Internet-enabled devices including TVs, Blu-ray players, media extenders, set-top boxes and game consoles for both ‘over-the-top’ delivery as well as integrated solutions for service providers and operators.

Key features include a fully integrated cross-platform user interface that includes a media management system for consumers as well as social networking capabilities through ZoweeTV’s proprietary system-wide network. zoweetvZoweeTV was built for content owners by content owners, offering a fully customizable content management system enabling dynamic ‘self’ distribution with a turnkey content management dashboard including asset management, metadata integration, windows, pricing, territories and other key policies with detailed ‘back-end’ reporting.

According to recently released In-Stat research, Web-to-TV Video content revenue will grow by 750% to $17 billion by 2014. “We built ZoweeTV from the ground up, built for complete customization for any platform, any video format on any device, anywhere in the world — ZoweeTV will optimize content distribution opportunities for content owners and deliver a robust, quality user experience to the end user” said Ronald Domes, CEO.

ZoweeTV will be widely available to consumers Worldwide by Summer 2011 through strategic partnerships with device manufacturers as an operating system or through stand-alone apps and web browsers. More announcements will be made in the upcoming weeks.

Government of CanadaFour initiatives that support northern innovation and knowledge will move forward thanks to investments by the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor). The Honourable John Duncan, Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, has announced an investment of $426,000 for research and training projects to help the Northwest Territories and Nunavut strengthen information technology (IT), energy, and educational sectors of the economy. With additional contributions from project proponents and the Territorial governments, the projects have a total value of more than $500,000.

“The Government of Canada recognizes that by investing in research and training, we are enabling the long-term sustainability of communities and businesses across the North,” said Minister Duncan, who is also Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians.

“Research has shown that there is a strong positive correlation between investments in IT infrastructure, capacity development and economic growth,” said the Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, Member of Parliament for Nunavut, Regional Minister for the North and Minister of Health. “These investments will create new educational, social and business opportunities in both territories that will provide long-term benefits for northerners and northern businesses.”

CanNor’s funding will support four projects in the NWT and Nunavut, including new mining and remediation training programs, research into the potential to use local willow as biomass fuel, and two projects to assess and support the potential for establishing broadband internet in Nunavut.

Funding for these projects came from CanNor’s Strategic Investments in Northern Economic Development (SINED) program, which provides funding for northern projects that contribute to long-term economic growth, economic diversification, and capacity building in the three territories. SINED is one of a number of economic development programs delivered by CanNor in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

RCMPOn this past Sunday, February 27th, members of the London RCMP Detachment Federal Enforcement Section seized thousands of pirated DVDs from a booth at the Gibraltar Trade Centre on Dundas Street East in London.

Pirated DVDs in flimsy plastic sleeves were openly displayed for sale at space rented by the accused at the Gibraltar Trade Centre, where it is alleged they sold the pirated movies. The accused were found in possession of approximately 4000 movies for sale including recently released DVD movies, movies still in the theaters and others yet to be released. Titles included: The King’s Speech, The Fighter, Black Swan, True Grit, and Inception amongst many others.

“This isn’t a victimless crime,” stated Inspector Dwight Blok, Officer in charge of the RCMP London Detachment. “We are committed in our efforts to combat this type of criminal activity.”

The accused, a 25 year old man and a 24 year old woman from Toronto, face charges under the Copyright Act for allegedly offering for sale an infringing copy of work where copyright subsists. If convicted the accused could faces fines not exceeding twenty-five thousand dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or both.

bits republicBits Republic Technologies, Inc., a Vancouver-based developer of cloud security applications and licensed technologies, has unveiled the new name for its popular ultra-secure Document Management System. The application formerly known as MOnet has been renamed PrivyDocs in order to better reflect the complete privacy that this application provides.

PrivyDocs is entirely browser-based. Unlike past versions, PrivyDocs requires no software installation and can be run on Mac or PC through most major browsers. This represents a major unique advance in cloud computing in that security and privacy are so complete that neither the application host nor storage hosts have access to stored data, yet control by the user extends to file sharing with other parties replete with advanced file and folder permissions.

“PrivyDocs is designed to replace a key part of in-house systems; that part that deals with guarded data dissemination both within and outside the organization.” explained Charles Chung, owner and founder of Bits Republic Technologies, Inc. “In the past, placing such data online and managing it `through the cloud` has necessitated complete trust in the application provider – they can see your data. With our solution, professionals and enterprises retain control of their sensitive data and the providers have no access to it. Our solution enables the users to control advanced permissions by file, to track file access and versions, and even to customize the look and feel of the application for their particular needs”.

PrivyDocs uses the patent-pending Bits republic security engine which provides a very flexible platform for client-side encryption and server side ‘blind’ hosting and management. This technology assures that only authorized users are able to access secured data and metadata, and that not even the application or storage hosts have access to it themselves.

dhx mediaDHX Media Ltd has been authorized to purchase at market price up to 3,629,576 common shares of the Company being approximately 10% of its public float of 36,295,762 common shares as of February 28, 2011, and representing approximately 5.9% of its issued share capital, by way of a normal course issuer bid (the “Bid”) through the facilities of the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). As of February 28, 2011, there were 61,617,565 common shares issued and outstanding. DHX is making the bid to reduce the number of outstanding shares in the corporation and to improve earnings per share. The Bid will commence on March 4, 2011, and end no later than March 3, 2012, observing the purchasing restrictions during ‘black out’ or ‘close’ periods.
Kid vs Kat
The Company intends to implement an automatic share purchase plan to allow it to purchase shares under the Bid while in such ‘black out’ or ‘close’ periods. The Bid will be funded from the Company’s existing cash resources. Any shares purchased under the Bid will be cancelled. The TSX rules permit DHX to purchase daily, through TSX facilities, a maximum of approximately 26,467 common shares under the Bid, being 25% of the average daily trading volume of 105,870 over the last six months.

In the opinion of the Company’s board of directors and senior management, DHX shares may occasionally trade in a price range which does not adequately reflect the value of underlying assets based on the Company’s business and financial position. Consequently, the Company may, from time to time, purchase common shares of the Company under the Bid. DHX has not purchased any shares of the Company pursuant to a normal course issuer bid during the preceding 12 months.

veerCalgary-based Veer, a provider of affordable visual elements that makes it easier to be creative, today announced the launch of an exclusive new font collection named Agency 26, as well as the addition of fonts from the Filmotype foundry and several other leading designers.

The new Agency 26 collection has 10 new typeface families and 23 fonts, all of which are Veer Exclusives.  The collection is inspired by the bold wood typefaces of 19th century America, and takes a modern slant on the traditional representations of these historical fonts with the addition of features like a full Western European character set, alternate widths, lowercase and other features not found in their historical counterparts.

All Agency 26 fonts are designed by Brian Jaramillo, who has been designing typefaces for more than 10 years, but typically kept them for his own custom projects. He is inspired by the graphic language of the surf and skate industries, and a childhood of drawing band logos on notebooks. Brian’s previous font designs for VersusTwin Foundry can be found in Veer’s Umbrella™ Collection. Brian is also the force behind the blog Lettercult, a showcase of hand lettering arts.  The Veer creative team has produced an animated short to help show off Agency 26.

Veer also welcomes Filmotype, a foundry that brings 16 new fonts evoking classic American lettering of the 1950s and 60s. At the historical crossroads between lead type and the computer revolution, the original Filmotype library grew to encompass several hundred fonts available to designers, providing typeface designs on 2-inch filmstrips. Filmotype initially manufactured a manual phototype machine enabling headline and display typesetting using a photochemical development process, helping to revolutionize the process of advertising layout and lettering.

In 2006, Stuart Sandler and Font Diner revived the Filmotype marque, intending to create high-quality digitizations of this historic collection, adapted for the modern age. A gallery of Filmotype fonts on Veer.com reveals that they have a retro vibe and contain lots of brush scripts and condensed gothic sans, particularly Filmotype Zanzibar and Filmotype Macbeth. The original designs have been brought up to date with the inclusion of a full international character compliment, automatic fractions, ordinals, and a set of automatic alternate contextual characters and ligatures.

“Agency 26 is a fun, playful font collection that evokes the days of wood type broadsides and wanted posters,” says Joe Newton, Product Manager, Type for Veer. “The fonts include playful details like alternate widths, lowercase and ornaments that are perfect for evoking the worn, weather look of vintage leatherpress, or for lending rustic charm to food packaging and signage.”

Other new additions to the Veer font collection include:

•   Steinweiss Script – Known as the father of the album cover, Alex Steinweiss’ distinctive “scrawl” has been faithfully recreated by Michael Doret in homage to the original. Available in three weights, each including a number of variations including simple, fancy and tilting. Steinweiss Script is part of the Umbrella Collection.
•   Yana – Designer Laura Worthingon set out to create a versatile, swashy serif usable in logos, headlines and body copy. Along the way it gained an old-style Victorian aesthetic, upper and lowercase characters, over 200 swash capitals, and regular, bold and italic variants. Yana is part of the Umbrella Collection.
•   Torino Pro – Originally designed in 1908 by Alessandro Butti, Torino is a modern italic Didone that has been revived, redrawn and expanded by Jason Walcott. It contains a large number of elegant swashes, discretionary ligatures and lining figures. Torino Pro is a Veer Exclusive and part of the Jukebox Collection.
•   Hiatus – This is a contemporary script that blends casual and formal elements with the warmth of hand lettering. Stephen Rapp’s low body height and full connection of the characters make for a versatile script. Hiatus, which includes a large number of swash alternates and ornaments, as well as extensive international language support, is a Veer Exclusive from the Umbrella Collection.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 at 11:37 am and is filed under Business News, Casual, Digital Products, Education, Events, Everyone, Government, Mature, Mobile, National News, New Releases, RTS, Social Media, Upcoming Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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