Village Gamer

Toronto – Congratulations to all of the Canada New Media Award winners who were announced last night at the nextMEDIA gala at Toronto’s Design Exhange:

• Best Company of the Year –  Cyberplex Inc. (Toronto)
• Best Brand of the Year – Doritos
• Promising New Company of the Year – Syncapse (Toronto)
• Hottest New Digital Kid on the Block –  ChickAdvisor.com (Toronto)
• Best in Mobile Marketing –  Brisk ARTwist by Addictive Mobility (Markham)
• Best Mobile Application – Air Canada iPhone App by IBM Canada
• Best Location Based Service – Poynt by Multiplied Media (Calgary)
• Best Use of Social Media – Invoke Media, creator of HootSuite (Vancouver)
• Best in Interactive Marketing – Doritos White Bag by BBDO Worldwide – Proximity Canada (Toronto)
• Best Branded Entertainment – Worldwide Short Film Festival: Short Attention Span by doug agency (Toronto)
• Best Cross-Platform Project – Waterlife Interactive by the National Film Board of Canada
• Best Online Video Portal – National Film Board of Canada: Online Screening Room
• Best Innovative Web-based Game – Junk: Battles by Antic Entertainment (London ON)
• Best Kids Interactive – Titanium Chef by mod7 (Vancouver)
• Best in Canadian Culture, Interactive – In Touch: Connecting Cloth, Culture & Art by ecentricarts (Toronto)
• Best Online Comedy Performance – Têtes à claques (Montreal)
• Best Online Artist of the Year – K-os
• Leader in Social Change – Mark & Tonya Surman
• Lifetime Achievement Award – Red Burns, who is, according to the nextMEDIA website, known as the “Grandmother” of new media and Founder of the ITP Program at the Tisch School for the Arts at NYU.

London ON – Big Blue Bubble Inc. announced today that the first Fighting Fantasy game book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, will be available on iPhone this Christmas.

Following the successful Nintendo DS launch of the game of the same name, Fighting Fantasy: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain for iPhone and iPod Touch takes a different approach bringing Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson’s legendary game book to your favorite handheld device.

Fighting Fantasy fans will love the classic story and original illustrations with a technological twist. No more dice, pencils, or bookmarks. All the special features are built in!

Features…

• Tap the on screen buttons to flip pages (No papercuts!)
• Shake to roll the dice using the accelerometer
• Inventory items selectable via touch-screen
• Game-save feature allows you to retrace your steps
• Beautifully painted illustrations

Vancouver – Karta Mobile Inc. today announced the public availability of Viira 2.0, the updated and enhanced version of its popular BlackBerry® application that brings the principles of David Allen’s Getting Things Done® (GTD®) productivity system into the hands of busy professionals, executives and entrepreneurs worldwide.

The new version of the already full-featured Viira adds several industry firsts, including the ability to create tasks based on incoming email messages, effortlessly prioritize tasks, and designate next actions. Viira is also the only BlackBerry GTD app to fully incorporate appointments and events in its underlying organizational system.

“Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” is a popular work-life productivity book by David Allen that shows readers how to effectively organize tasks, information and communications in an intuitive way. Since its debut in 2001, the GTD methodology has been enthusiastically embraced by millions of knowledge workers around the world.

While a multitude of web-based tools for implementing GTD have been made available over the last years, the engineering challenge of building effective and intuitive BlackBerry applications has left the principles of Getting Things Done under-represented on BlackBerry smartphones.

Viira has stepped in to fill the void. With Viira 2.0, BlackBerry owners can now conquer their inboxes by creating to-dos from the incoming email messages and immediately filing them in their appropriate place. Handling large volumes of incoming email has been a known pain point for people implementing Getting Things Done with BlackBerry devices – until now.

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Toronto – A new civilian charity supporting military personnel and their families officially launched its website today. The Canadian Hero Fund is a registered charity dedicated to raising money for families of fallen soldiers through community, grassroots efforts.

Founded by university students, the organization has a specific focus on youth engagement. “With the launch of this website we’re expanding the opportunities for Canadians to express their gratitude and support for the families of our military personnel,” said Michael Ball, executive member of the fund. “The site along with other online tools will leverage social networking to engage Canadians across Canada – young and old – to come together in common cause.”

The Canadian Hero Fund’s first goal is to raise $2.5m over 5 years, which will go to support scholarships for the children and spouses of fallen servicemen and women. By focusing efforts and engagement at a grassroots level, the Fund allows Canadians from all walks of life to have an opportunity to express their thanks and contribute in whatever way they can – large or small – in a show of support. Families will be able to apply for scholarships through the website.

“Canadians are looking for ways to express their thanks,” said Tim Peters, co-founder of the fund. “By promoting a grassroots approach the Fund is giving individuals, communities and groups who are looking for an opportunity to give back the chance to do so.”

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This just in – Ubisoft Montreal has announced DLC expansions for Assassin’s Creed 2! Available for the Xbox 360™ video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the Playstation 3™ computer entertainment system, the first DLC, entitled “Battle of Forli” launches in January and the second DLC, entitled “Bonfire of the Vanities” in February.

Players must own a disc copy of Assassin’s Creed™ II on Playstation 3™ or Xbox 360™, have an Internet connection to download the additional content and a minimum of 1.0 GB of memory available for each DLC. More info on the DLC to be announced in late December. Time to start hoarding my XBL Points.

Meanwhile, Eidos Montreal is looking for a Marketing Manager for Thief 4. Here are the listed responsibilities:

* Assist the Eidos strategy team in the definition of game marketing position from a global scale point of view
* Create and implant a communication strategy adapted to each project
* Be the principal contact for the studio products, and provide client and game market related knowledge to the development teams
* Be in charge of the production and quality of all the marketing images, as well as the communication tools («screenshots», demos, artistic images and trailers)
* Setup and ensure production deadlines
* Be responsible for all the different development stages, and make sure that the marketing choices are represented in the elements constituting the game, such as the universe, the characters, the actions, etc…
* Identify the key success factors for the game, create the final positioning and compare this analysis with customer studies. Defend own marketing choices and achieve final approval
* Establish recommendations about the communicating strategy for the game (public relations, packaging, advertising, Internet, promotion) and be in charge of the creation of the principal game images (trailers, demos, «screenshots»…)
* Efficiently divide the tasks within the marketing team.

Please visit the Eidos job listing to check on the required qualifications and to apply for this position.

Ottawa – Klipfolio, Inc., developer of KPI dashboards, today announced the immediate availability of Klipfolio Dashboard version 5.3. The dashboard software now adds organizational and departmental notifications and alerts to its well-known strength in KPI reporting for operational decision makers.

While dashboard software aims to give workers the performance data they need when they need it, achieving this goal can also increase the burden on overworked IT departments. Klipfolio Dashboard solves the first problem by putting KPIs in front of every employee all day long. Now Klipfolio addresses the second problem with real-time alerts and notification that are completely self-serve and require no IT intervention.

KPI dashboards from Klipfolio are popular with Fortune 1000 firms like Baxter Healthcare, EMC and Lufthansa for improving data visibility for business performance metrics using a light-weight desktop dashboard that exposes performance indicators and drives application adoption.

“The new real-time publishing system is invaluable for employee alerts,” says Allan Wille, President & CEO of Klipfolio. “Above and beyond internal communications, every department needs to communicate with their staff. Klipfolio Dashboard Publisher let’s managers and communicators notify the workforce with anything from passive news to critical alerts that require acknowledgement – all without any added IT effort.”

The 5.3 release also builds on Klipfolio Dashboard’s ability to share KPIs at a glance. In addition to tables and bar charts, desktop dashboard users can now visualize KPIs in interactive pie charts as well as searching and filtering dashboard KPIs with a new find feature. Finally, the new version also adds support for Microsoft’s XML Excel spreadsheets – the .xlsx format. Klipfolio offers a free 30 day trial period.

Waterloo – Open Text Corporation today announced the release of version 14 of its Connectivity Solutions consisting of Open Text Exceed, the leading PC X server solution for Windows, Open Text HostExplorer, its terminal emulation suite, and its secure shell clients and network file system software. Leveraging the new productivity and security features of Windows 7, this release offers organizations a smooth transition to the new Microsoft platform.

Windows 7 represents a significant leap forward in terms of user productivity, information security and platform management. Working closely with Microsoft, Open Text designed its latest Connectivity Solutions to take advantage of Windows 7 technologies. Specifically, users of the new software suite will be able to take advantage of the following enhancements:

– Support for Windows 7 Touch technology allows users to interact with UNIX and Mainframe applications through an intuitive and easy to use touch interface
– Jump Lists in the Task Bar and Start Menu provide faster access to frequently accessed items and frequently performed tasks
– Multiple Documents preview reduces the time spent switching between applications and open sessions
– New FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic module provides stronger security to connections

“Windows 7 represents a great opportunity for Open Text to bring its rich portfolio of Enterprise and Connectivity Solutions to the next generation desktop,” says Jens Rabe, Vice President, Microsoft Solutions Group at Open Text. “With this release, Open Text has demonstrated that its Connectivity Solutions have been tested and proven to offer a rich user experience, while providing IT departments improved manageability and greater cost-control.”

Open Text’s leading connectivity solutions connect people, data and applications in mission-critical environments through a complete line of remote application access and data integration solutions. With 90 percent of Global 2000 companies relying on its award-winning solutions for over 20 years, Open Text understands the financial and operational challenges that most organizations face, whether it is multiple systems, disparate data sources or geographically dispersed teams.

Calgary – MoboVivo Inc., a software company that enables broadcasters to distribute TV shows on mobile phones, laptops and set-top boxes, today announced it is developing an additional 150 apps to be released starting later this year.

The Apps are compatible with MoboVivo myScreens which allow consumers to shift screens from mobile phone to set-top box. Content owners like broadcasters, cable and telephone companies that are trying to reach audiences on all platforms are using myScreens and MoboVivo’s other proprietary media management technologies to give consumers access to TV shows on whichever devices they choose, anytime, anywhere.

“The iPhone is an extremely popular device world-wide and our broadcaster, distributor and producer customers want to reach consumers on all screens,” said MoboVivo founder and CEO, Trevor Doerksen. “MoboVivo continues to explore innovative ways to attract new viewers and increase revenue for our customers on more screens.”

Burnaby – Electronic Arts Inc. today announced the continued record-setting sales pace for FIFA 10 as well as the development of FIFA 10 Ultimate Team, a game mode expansion and new way of playing FIFA 10, the highest rated sports game ever (according to MetaCritic) on the PlayStation®3 and Xbox 360®.

Based on internal sales projections, FIFA 10 has sold through more than 4.5 million units worldwide since launch, a 26 percent increase over the same period a year ago (eight weeks in Europe and five weeks in North America). FIFA 10 also became the fastest-selling sports videogame in the world with 1.7 million units sold through at European retail in its first week after its launch on October 1, and it’s the top selling game overall in Europe in 2009.

FIFA 10 has achieved new franchise records for online play as well, averaging 3 million games played daily (based on average daily online users between Oct. 1, 2009 and November 19, 2009) and over 113 million total online games played on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 over the past two months as of November 30 2009, and will launch FIFA 10 Ultimate Team in the new year. FIFA 10 Ultimate Team is a deeper, more authentic, more dynamic version of the game mode successfully introduced last year and enables fans to customize the way they build their Ultimate Team.

Take on the challenge of building an Ultimate Team of the best football stars in the world, manage one or multiple squads simultaneously, and compete against other gamers in dynamically updated online tournaments. For the record number of football fans playing FIFA 10 online, FIFA 10 Ultimate Team provides a new challenge to put a personally crafted team up against the rest of the world.

“FIFA 10 Ultimate Team adds a lot more authenticity to a unique game that will update with new challenges and content over time,” said Producer Paul Hossack. “We now have over 7,000 players from 27 leagues available, from which gamers will craft one or multiple squads to show their mastery of the revamped, more realistic chemistry system, and compete in tournaments with exciting requirements and rewards. On top of that, we’ll release new tournaments and other updates regularly to keep the experience fresh and exciting.”

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