Village Gamer

Toronto Public Library (TPL) has launched an advertising campaign to inform people about its selection of current, popular and free e-books and e-magazines. Commuters will see ads promoting TPL’s e-books and e-magazines on subways, streetcars and outdoor shelters. This is part of a long-term strategy to increase awareness of e-content. Read the rest of this entry »

When “Mother” has a problem, gorgeous, highly-trained contract killers Veronica and Roxie get the call in the new action-thriller series Cleaners, available since Oct. 3 only on Sony’s Crackle, the free video streaming service. Cleaners is currently the #1 show on Crackle. Read the rest of this entry »

HootSuite‘s free Chrome extension Hootlet lets you quickly & easily share content to your social networks from anywhere on the web, integrating directly into your everyday browsing experience. From the business owner who wants to schedule Tweets a day in advance, to the blogger looking to share interesting content with their followers, Hootlet makes all of these social media activities simple and straightforward. The versatile functionality offered by Hootlet means you will only need one extension to perform all the researching, sharing and posting you do while in your browser. Read the rest of this entry »

Work is underway to adapt more open textbooks for use by students and instructors in British Columbia with today’s open call for proposals to begin the second phase of the project, which will ultimately see 40 open textbooks available for students and instructors in highly enrolled first- and second-year subject areas. The first phase involved faculty reviews of 15 open textbooks, in subject areas ranging from math and chemistry to marketing, psychology, and business. Those 15 open textbooks and the reviews are now available free online for students and instructors. Read the rest of this entry »

Canadian startup Synbiota Inc., has launched its revolutionary web based collaborative biotech development platform, bringing increased security, transparency, and efficiency to life science research. Built on cutting edge web technologies and embracing open source, Synbiota hopes to radically accelerate life science research by providing both open science, and secure research tools. Read the rest of this entry »

Founded in 2010 in Toronto by Jim Woo and John McLachlan who have careers in the ad industry, The Comic Machine comics are unique because they are created and optimized for digital viewing on the iPad without the constraints of adapting an existing print edition. The app, available now on iTunes, uses xml code to control the display of dialogue bubbles and cropped images that float on layers above the page. With each tap the page builds and animates automatically and then rests to allow the user to read before loading the next set of actions. With an investment from Telefilm Canada’s CMF fund, the publisher set out to develop a new digital comic book platform for the iPad. Read the rest of this entry »

TunnelBear, a Toronto company building apps to make online privacy and an open Internet accessible to everyone, is squaring off with data brokers, advertisers and social media companies that track everything consumers do online. While it’s as simple as an on/off button to the user, in the background the new TunnelBear app is protecting user privacy by hiding both the users’ IP address and zapping many of the ads, scripts, cookies, social buttons and beacons that these companies are using to track consumers online. Read the rest of this entry »

QuickMobile, a Vancouver-based developer of mobile apps for meetings, conferences and exhibitions, today announced the availability of a new configurable gamification module for its industry-leading MobileEvent event app platform. The module makes it fast, easy and affordable to add gamification benefits to any single event app for any-size meeting or organization. With QuickMobile, event planners and organizers have greater flexibility when using in-app games to achieve meeting goals and objectives, from increasing attendance and networking to promoting education and participation. In addition to the new game module, QuickMobile also develops fully customized games from the ground up to further enhance attendee engagement and improve the event experience. Read the rest of this entry »

Broad-Connect Telecom, an Ontario-based provider of managed data, voice, security and hosted IT services, has announced the launch of its VoIP Video Conferencing solution for multi-location business customers. The video and voice solution augments Broad-Connect Telecom’s current SIP Trunking and Hosted PBX solution offerings allowing companies of all sizes to purchase an affordable Video Conferencing platform and introduce new companies to Broad-Connect Telecom’s access services. Read the rest of this entry »

Stingray Digital, a Montreal-based supplier of music services for multi-channel television service providers worldwide, announced today the availability of The Karaoke Channel App for Samsung Smart TVs. Designed and optimized for the large screen experience, this easy-to-use app delivers thousands of high-quality HD karaoke videos to television sets instantly through internet streaming. Read the rest of this entry »