Village Gamer

The Centre for Digital Media will once again be hosting Digital Kung Fu, a day of intensive training and professional development workshops, on May 28th at the Great Northern Way Campus in Vancouver.

Digital Kung Fu offers a full day of interactive sessions to help inspire new ideas and develop them into realizable goals. Participants will be treated to insider techniques for the conceptualizing, visualizing, prototyping and pitching of ideas, as well as insights into current industry trends and technologies. The day will open with registration at 8:30am and sessions will carry out through the day until 5:00pm. Cost to attend the event is $125.00 or $75.00 for students and professionals who are between contracts.

Speakers include Adrian Crook, Jake Birkett, Shane Neville, Kerry Corlett, Sean Murch and Earl Hong Tai. Topics include Biz Dev – Tips, Tricks & General Advice, If you’re not Indie…Stories From The Front Line, How to Boot-Strap a Successful Digital Media Start-Up: 101 and more. We attended some of the sessions last year, and highly recommend your attendance.

A video recording of  yesterday’s Canada 3.0 Forum’s Keynote Address from The Honourable Tony Clement,  Minister of Industry is now available for viewing, along with a text transcript of his presentation, is now available on the Digital Economy Consultation site.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Kh1yAbV4s8]

Digital Leisure’s latest game title is now available for download to your Wii (500 Wii Points) or DSi (500 Nintendo DSi Points). Chess Challenge will try your patience quotient as you perfect your chess skills by playing against the computer in multiple difficulty modes, or play against your friends in either shared or wireless play via DS Wireless Play or Nintendo® Wi-Fi Connection.

Start by practicing with some casual games, then work your way up in fully Elo-rated matches. You’ll even be able to track all of your game-play stats – win, lose or draw. Chess Challenge! will keep both novice and expert players glued to the screen for hours.

With the Wii version of Chess Challenge, you can play online matches and see how your rating stacks up against competitors around the world by viewing the online Leaderboard. If you don’t have time to play your friends in a live chess game, Chess Challenge! also lets you play with up to five different Wii Friends using WiiConnect24™. With full Mii™ character support you can really bring your games to life. Start by practicing with some casual games, then work your way up in fully Elo-rated matches. With all of these game-play options, you’re in for some serious chess action. Chess Challenge is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB.

Ubisoft® Canada has officially announced new product details for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, the next iteration of the critically acclaimed, multi-million unit selling franchise. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood will ship Holiday 2010 for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and the PC. Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is a worldwide production effort led by the Ubisoft Montreal Studio in collaboration with Ubisoft studios in Singapore, Bucharest, Québec City and Annecy (known for developing Splinter Cell Chaos Theory’s Multiplayer).

The critically acclaimed single player experience of Assassin’s Creed is back and better than ever as Ezio returns in a powerful struggle against the powerful Templar Order. Now a legendary Master Assassin, he must journey to Rome, center of power, greed and corruption to strike at the heart of the enemy. Defeating the corrupt tyrants entrenched there will require not only strength, but leadership, as Ezio commands an entire Brotherhood that will rally to his side.  Only by working together can the Assassins defeat their mortal enemies.

And for the first time, Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood offers a never-before-seen multiplayer layer.  Players can help the Templars by using Abstergo to train in the art of Assassination to eliminate the Assassins once and for all. Players can choose from a wide range of unique characters, each with their own signature weapons and assassination techniques, and match their skills against other players from all over the world in different game modes.

·    Master The Possibilities – As Ezio, a legendary Master Assassin, experience over 15 hours of single-player gameplay set in the living, breathing, unpredictable city of Rome
·    Lead a Legendary Brotherhood – Recruit and train promising young Assassins.  Deploy them across the city as you see fit, or call upon them to aid you in your quests
·    Experience A Rich Historical Tapestry – Collaborate with real historical characters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolo Machiavelli and Caterina Sforza
·    Win The Heart of a City – Use your hard-won currency to revitalize the crumbling capital city.  Rally the citizens to your cause and unlock extra factions and missions
·    Deploy Secret Weapons – Swiftly eliminate your enemies using tools such as poison darts, parachutes, double hidden blades, hidden guns, and an advanced flying machine at your disposal.
·    Memorable Multiplayer – Choose from multiple authentic character classes, each with their own signature weapons and killing moves.  With richly-detailed maps and a wide variety of unique multiplayer modes, you’ll never fight the same way twice

QuickMobile and The Canadian Film Centre’s (CFC) Worldwide Short Film Festival (WSFF), have partnered to create both the 2010 Worldwide Short Film Festival App for iPhone and iPod Touch, and a new mobile website to enhance and extend this year`s Festival for attendees and fans worldwide. The 2010 CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival presented by TELUS, will take place from June 1st to 6th in Toronto, Canada.

WSFF 2010 mobile solutions have been developed specifically to create a new and exciting film festival experience for both festival goers and worldwide fans year-round. Features of this free app include: a display for each venue with screening schedules; directions with live maps and ticket availability; film guide with film trailers and clips; event schedules with real-time updates; info booth (411) to answer common inquiries; My Schedule “favorites,” allowing fans to personalize their schedule of film screenings and events; social networking, including Twitter and Facebook; rich media content including videos and print articles; and more.

WSFF is also offering an optimized mobile website for BlackBerry, Android and other SmartPhone users. This mobile website extends the Festival’s mobile experience to all fans and attendees, allowing access to many Festival features, including the complete film guide and event schedules with real-time updates; venue info with detailed maps; special event listing and event details; Festival info and frequently asked questions; and much more to anyone with an internet-enabled device.

David Snell, EVP of QuickMobile stated, “QuickMobile is honored to be working with the Canadian Film Centre to develop the 2010 Worldwide Short Film Festival iPhone app and mobile website. The first ever extension of their mobile brand for the festival will provide a richer and expanded experience for festival-goers and fans alike.”

“Our festival-goers are smart, sophisticated and tuned-in and we are thrilled that this year they will be able to hold the Festival in the palm of their hand,” said Eileen Arandiga, Director, CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival. “QuickMobile has proven why they are leaders in Mobile Event solutions by listening to our needs and delivering an exceptional solution for the Worldwide Short Film Festival.”

In other news from QuickMobile, attendees to the ILTA 2010 Strategic Unity Conference will have the entire program at their fingertips via BlackBerry and iPhone apps specifically developed by QuickMobile for this event.

Attendees and vendors will be able to access the entire event guide and schedule, read about special panels, speakers and events, search topics and “what’s on now”, and organize their own itinerary combined with their chosen event sessions on their SmartPhone. Other major features of the mobile solutions include sorting and searching events, attendee details page, and social networking interfaces with Facebook, Twitter, event picture gallery and more!

David Snell, EVP of QuickMobile stated, “We are very pleased to be partnered with a preeminent association such as ILTA and we are looking forward to assisting them in making their 2010 national meeting one to remember. The iPhone application not only benefits the attendees with the program guide in their pocket and access to real-time features but is also valuable for the conference organizers and sponsors, who can reduce traditional printed materials, provide leading edge interactive tools and showcase their products and services. QuickMobile has really become the mobile solutions vendor of choice for event organizers worldwide and we appreciate the faith ILTA has shown in choosing us to develop these apps.”

“We are very excited about using mobile solutions for the first time this year to enhance our attendees experience at our 2010 event and to assist our team in simplifying communications before, during and after the event “ said TJ Johnson of ILTA. “QuickMobile has proven themselves as a trusted mobile solution provider to associations and events such as ours, and we’re pleased to be partnering with them on our 2010 conference.”

Returning to the above mention of the World Short Film Festival for a moment, the National Film Board of Canada will be present at the Worldwide Short Film Festival with five animated shorts films, including the world premiere of Theodore Ushev’s latest film about enigmatic filmmaker Arthur Lipsett.

Opening Gala: Cordell Barker’s award-winning animation, Runaway, kicks off this year’s festival in a screening of the world’s most celebrated films. A prize winner at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and 2010 Genie winner for Best Animation Film, Runaway sees the world as a driverless train thundering recklessly over bumpy tracks. The film’s hilarious plunge toward chaos is enhanced by music from composer Benoît Charest (The Triplets of Belleville).

Official Selection: Making its world premiere is Theodore Ushev’s Lipsett’s Diaries, an animated journey into the tormented life of the brilliant filmmaker Arthur Lipsett, from the loneliness of his childhood to his suicide at age 49. The Man Who Slept (Sacrebleu Productions/Unité Centrale/NFB) by Inés Sedan follows a young woman who shares her life with a sleeping ghost. She lives in denial of a loss that has left her all alone. This vibrantly textured animated film is a work about resilience: a journey to night’s end that culminates in an awakening.

Special Program: Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, creators of the Oscar-nominated short Madame Tutli-Putli, return with the live-action/animated adaptation of Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life ((NFB in association with Warner Home Video) based on the book by Maurice Sendak. Produced by Spike Jonze, Vincent Landay and Marcy Page, and featuring the voices of Meryl Streep and Forest Whitaker, Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life follows Jennie and her surreal, suspenseful and unexpectedly moving journey to gain new experiences and realize her dream of becoming the star of the World Mother Goose Theatre. Andrea Dorfman’s Flawed is an elegantly animated illustration of how the personal can have universal resonance. Less about whether girl can get along with boy than whether girl can accept her imperfect self, Flawed celebrates at once the birth of love and the film itself.

A new downloadable whitepaper (registration required for viewing) by Prescient Digital Media describes the “social intranet” as the next step in the evolution of the intranet: one with two or three accessible social media tools (e.g. blogs, wikis) and wide participation from most or all employees with intranet access, ultimately resulting in increased employee engagement, higher adoption rates, and better ROI for an organization’s technology.

In the past year or two, social media on the corporate intranet (intranet 2.0) has become mainstream with up to two-thirds of organizations in the western world having some form of social media on their intranet.

“Despite the many benefits of a social intranet, many organizations don’t plan for their intranet 2.0 initiatives and never get them off the ground” says Toby Ward, president and CEO of Prescient Digital Media. “Assessment and planning are the critical stages to social media success, but are too often overlooked.”

Organizations that haven’t adopted such tools are now in the minority and are flirting with disaster and the ‘global talent crunch’ – the fight for young, talented individuals to replace the rapidly aging and retiring baby boomers.

Though social media tools are simple and inexpensive to deploy (more than half of organizations spend less than $10,000), many organizations are lulled into complacency until the initiative fails.

Highlights of the whitepaper include:

• Definition, prevalence, and importance of social intranets, supported by recent statistics and case studies
• Why social intranets are crucial to securing and engaging the workforce of the future
• Preliminary results of the 2010 Intranet 2.0 Global Study
• Social Intranet Success Matrix, containing key factors to upgrading an organization’s basic intranet to a social intranet.

Toronto-born writer Cory Doctorow has released his latest Young Adult novel, which takes place in the dark realm of goldfarming. From the publisher, the premise of For The Win is:

At any hour of the day or night, millions of people around the globe are engrossed in multiplayer online games, questing and battling to win virtual “gold,” jewels, and precious artifacts. Meanwhile, others seek to exploit this vast shadow economy, running electronic sweatshops in the world’s poorest countries, where countless “gold farmers,” bound to their work by abusive contracts and physical threats, harvest virtual treasure for their employers to sell to First World gamers who are willing to spend real money to skip straight to higher-level gameplay.

Mala is a brilliant 15-year-old from rural India whose leadership skills in virtual combat have earned her the title of “General Robotwalla.” In Shenzen, heart of China’s industrial boom, Matthew is defying his former bosses to build his own successful gold-farming team. Leonard, who calls himself Wei-Dong, lives in Southern California, but spends his nights fighting virtual battles alongside his buddies in Asia, a world away. All of these young people, and more, will become entangled with the mysterious young woman called Big Sister Nor, who will use her experience, her knowledge of history, and her connections with real-world organizers to build them into a movement that can challenge the status quo.

The ruthless forces arrayed against them are willing to use any means to protect their power—including blackmail, extortion, infiltration, violence, and even murder. To survive, Big Sister’s people must out-think the system. This will lead them to devise a plan to crash the economy of every virtual world at once—a Ponzi scheme combined with a brilliant hack that ends up being the biggest, funnest game of all.

Imbued with the same lively, subversive spirit and thrilling storytelling that made Little Brother an international sensation, For The Win is a prophetic and inspiring call-to-arms for a new generation, and is available for purchase at Chapter’s (support your favourite authors, buy their books), or you can download it for free from the book’s site under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license.

Robert Herjavec of The Herjavec Group and “Dragons’ Den.” Tony Lacavera of Globalive Communications and Wind Mobile. Stephan Cretier of Garda World Security, a billion-dollar global security firm.

What does this diverse group of successful business leaders have in common? They’re all alumni of the PROFIT HOT 50 ranking of Canada’s Emerging Growth Companies. Now in its 11th year, the PROFIT HOT 50 has celebrated hundreds of Canada’s best young businesses, ranked based on two-year revenue growth.

Anyone who manages or knows of a fast-growing young company is invited to submit a nomination by completing the simple online entry form before June 30, 2010.

PROFIT will honour Canada’s Emerging Growth Companies in its October issue and at GrowthCamp, an exclusive summit at which HOT 50 leaders share ideas, learn from experts and make valuable new contacts. Past winners have called it the best business event they’ve ever attended. Winning firms are backed by a national publicity campaign that generates extensive consumer and trade-media coverage.

Toronto publisher DreamCatcher Games has announced its line-up for E3 2010. In addition to the highly anticipated role-playing game ArcaniA – Gothic 4, DreamCatcher will feature new games from the successful gaming series Spellforce, The Guild, plus a plethora of products from the PLAYMOBIL® games brand.

ArcaniA – Gothic 4: The official sequel to the award-winning Gothic series takes the player into the rough world of the Nameless Hero. With Intense Combat, Powerful Magic, Breath Taking Quests and Exhilarating Action – ArcaniA offers exactly what RPG fans long for!

SpellForce 2 – Faith in Destiny: This game continues the much-praised story of this influential fantasy universe. The story revolves around a powerful force which threatens Eo, the world of SpellForce. As a new hero, you’ll forge an alliance between the Shaikan and their associates in order to destroy the evil for good.

The Guild 2 – Renaissance: The stand-alone expansion to the highly successful medieval game makes the game even more comprehensive, offering players many new challenges and scenarios and an interesting new model of war and peace, which adds fresh elements the Game.

To complete our E3 line-up, we have added the highly successful PLAYMOBIL® License, with products such as Playmobil Knights for Nintendo DS™, Playmobil Circus for Nintendo Wii™ and Playmobil Pirates DS.

Today’s cool technology news will probably interest all of my friends who are into photography. Sony has introduced two innovative “a” (alpha) compact interchangeable lens digital cameras (models NEX-5 and NEX-3) that provide the quality of a digital SLR in a compact body that is easy to slip into a small purse or jacket pocket for ultimate portability.

“Consumers want better picture quality in a smaller form factor. Sony has made that a reality with these cameras. The NEX-5 and NEX-3 cameras truly embody Sony’s make-believe spirit,” said David Oyagi, Marketing Manager for the a (alpha) digital imaging business at Sony of Canada Ltd. “These new cameras are the game-changers everyone has been waiting for and will revolutionize the consumer experience by offering outstanding picture quality with a totally pocketable size.”

With breakthrough video performance, these models automatically adjust auto-focus and auto-exposure while recording video. The NEX-5 camera offers Full HD movie capture (1080i AVCHD and 720p MP4) with Full HD 60i recording.

These cameras are perfect for point-and-shoot users looking to advance from snapshots to creative photography as well as existing DSLR users searching for a no-compromise compact alternative. Unlike conventional DSLR models, the “mirrorless” construction of the new models reduces the thickness of both camera bodies to just about an inch at their slimmest point (excluding grip and mount portions). The NEX-5, constructed from magnesium alloy, and the NEX-3, with a polycarbonate casing, offer a newly developed 14.2 megapixel Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor. About 60 percent larger than sensors in micro four-thirds cameras, and up to 15 times larger than in many point and shoot cameras, the sensor is key to the exceptional image quality, extremely low image noise and creative defocus effects that are familiar to DSLR users.

The NEX-5 and NEX-3 cameras, which come with the camera body and SEL16F28 lens will cost about $750 and $650 respectively. With the camera body and 1855 lens, they will cost about $800 and $700 respectively. The NEX-3 will be available in silver, black and red, and the NEX-5 will come in silver and black. The SEL16F28 and SEL1855 lenses will be available for about $300 and $350. (The SEL18200 zoom lens will be available this fall for about $950.)

The cameras, lenses and a range of accessories will be available in July at Sony Style® retail stores and at authorized dealers nationwide.