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6th January 2011

Business Shorts – What Casual News Is Wearing Today

iConnectivityCalgary-based startup iConnectivity has introduced iConnectMIDI, the high performance way to connect your Apple iOS device (iPad, iPhone and iPod touch) to digital musical instruments. Professional and amateur musicians with iConnectMIDI and an iOS device can load up an app and start jamming. Enhance your creativity with this state of the art music interface for computers and handhelds. MIDI Keyboards, guitar controllers, pedals, control surfaces, drum pads, DAWs, iOS devices and computers can now all play together. iConnectivity spent some time presenting to press and media iConnectMIDI at the Startup Debut as a precursor to International CES this week. Press and media at CES had the opportunity to view iConnectMIDI in advance of the trade show – feedback on the device and its capabilities is said to have been very positive.

koboKobo has announced that its open platform pure-play global eReading service has gained access to more than 20 million consumers through securing relationships with over a dozen partners that include tablet and eReader original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), mobile operators and retail outlets. Kobo has attracted key partners including Samsung and RIM with its unique, innovative, strategy of making eReading available on any device from its open, cloud-based platform, and is demonstrating the application at CES on Freescale’s new Smart Application Blueprint for Rapid Engineering (SABRE) for Tablets based on i.MX53 running Android. By including the Kobo eReading App, OEMs have a simple path to meeting customer expectations for a compelling tablet reading experience.

Open standards are essential to giving users the freedom to build and access their lifetime libraries as they chonew koboose, something that Kobo’s partners are aligned with. Kobo’s content is accessible through more than ten platforms including most smartphones, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Android Tablets, PC and Windows Tablets, MAC and Linux. Kobo’s free applications are consistently among consumers’ favorites, regularly a top ten app in the iTunes store for 2010. Throughout 2011, Kobo will introduce support for additional platforms including QNX for the Blackberry Playbook. In addition, Kobo offers the Kobo Wireless eReader to sell through partner channels such as Walmart, BestBuy and Chapters Indigo. The new stylishly designed Kobo Wireless eReader holds up to 1000 eBooks and connects wirelessly to Kobo’s robust library allowing customers to shop on the go.

In 2011, customers will expect eReading to be available on their devices out-of-the-box. With a catalogue of more than 2.2 million eBooks, magazines, newspapers and an open platform, Kobo enables tablet OEMs and mobile operators to easily bring eReading to their customers. Kobo recently launched the Kobo Android app for the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which offers a “Readers Hub” powered by Kobo – in addition to reading eBooks with the app, which was designed especially for the Galaxy Tab, users also have access to the entire Kobo book store.

Animated Media IncFinnish-based Rightware Oy, a leader in 3D user interface (UI) technology and Toronto-based Animated Media Inc. (AMI), a technology company focused on creating Adobe Flash-compatible multimedia software products, have announced a partnership that provides their customers with the best of both 3D and 2D UI development and design tools. Rightware’s Kanzi UI Solution provides rapid creation of visually rich 3D UIs with a high performance engine for embedded systems. The Kanzi UI Solution also supports stereoscopic 3D, multi-touch, gestures and physics, and porting to any smart platform that supports OpenGL ES 1.x or 2.0 is an easy and straightforward process. AMI’s VGK Platform with its innovative Flash-enabling technology facilitates rapid prototyping, compact code development and cross-platform support. The integrated solution will empower customers with more choices to create their UIs by giving them a solid path from legacy 2D to true-3D, with options to add in a mixture of Flash animations, videos and audio with 3D objects.

Both companies have extensive experience within embedded markets and understand the need for cross-platform compatibility, hardware optimization and efficient usage of CPU, GPU, and memory resources; the integrated solution meets these requirements. Another benefit of the integrated solution is that it can support a development group’s current workflow between its designers who use Flash and its engineers, enabling seamless transitions and simplifying the development process. The key markets for the integrated solution will be mobile, consumer electronics, and automotive, with a focus on supporting those platforms being adopted widely including Android, MeeGo, and several other Linux variants. Rightware and AMI will be showcasing their solutions at CES and if you want to see demos or hear more about the solutions, contact them to set a meeting time and location.

ciscoCisco has named the winners of the Cisco® Networking Academy® NetRiders Skills Challenge, an interactive contest designed by Cisco to give technical education students the opportunity to showcase their information communications technology (ICT) and networking skills and to recognize excellence among Networking Academy students. More than 1,000 college and university students from across the United States and Canada competed in the competition, which consisted of three rounds culminating Dec. 8, 2010, in a live virtual event.

The NetRiders is an annual competition which uses Cisco Web 2.0 technologies to create an interactive experience, enhance classroom learning, and motivate young people to further pursue technology education and training. Over the past year, more than 10,000 students across 80 countries competed in regional NetRiders competitions, with the U.S. and Canada NetRiders Theater Finale competition involving more than 45 teams representing 42 states and five provinces.

Networking Academy students competed in a variety of activities, including a timed theoretical exam, a Cisco Packet Tracer network simulation activity, and a Cisco Packet Tracer exam. The top 10 winners received prizes, including a grand-prize study trip to Cisco U.S. headquarters in San Jose, Calif., in January 2011, which was awarded to the first- and second-place teams. Other prizes included Flip™ video cameras and Linksys wireless routers.

The U.S. and Canada Theater Winners are:

o 1st Place: Carl Verge and Brian Wilson, Algonquin College (Ontario)
o 2nd Place: Jeremiah Shore and Nathan Buchholz, Blue Ridge Community and Technical College (West Virginia)
o 3rd Place: Alandra Oukrop and Kent Savage, Montana State University-Billings (Montana)
o 4th Place: Ryan Stalets and Albert Kennis, University of Illinois-Springfield (Illinois)
o 5th Place: Zachary Lichliter and Donald Block, West Kentucky Community and Technical College (Kentucky)
o 6th Place: Michael Lowry and Michael Schanck, New Hampshire Technical Institute-Concord (New Hampshire)
o 7th Place: Michael Antonette and Feng Yang, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (Alberta)
o 8th Place: Michael Eckhart and Barry Fedon, Northampton Community College (Pennsylvania)
o 9th Place: Ross Weseloh and Brian Berg, Lake Area Technical Institute (South Dakota)
o 10th Place: Nathan Miller and Stephen Mesik, Youngstown State University (Ohio)

Cisco’s Networking Academy is a global technology education program that develops curricula to provide students with networking and technical skills and prepare them for careers in the 21st century. Committed to providing the highest standard of information technology education to students of all nationalities, genders and economic brackets, the program is designed to offer students real-world skills that will position them for employment and career growth.

winmagicToronto’s WinMagic® Inc. has released SecureDoc v5, the comprehensive full-disk encryption solution that makes it easy and cost effective for organizations to seamlessly integrate data protection with existing security policies to protect sensitive data in any Windows 7 (32 and 64 bit)/Vista/XP, Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard/Snow Leopard and/or Linux environment.

SecureDoc v5 features a single integrated enterprise console for policies and profiles which provides support for Microsoft Windows (including Windows 7 64 bit), Mac OS and/or Linux support, OPAL Self-Encrypting Drives (SED), Full-Disk and File Folder Encryption, removable media encryption, portable and secure USB encryption (no additional software installation or administration access rights required) and Intel® Anti-Theft Technology. SecureDoc v5 also provides a multi-language client available in English, Japanese, French, Italian, German, and Spanish.

SecureDoc makes easy to centrally-manage self-encrypting drives, including Seagate Drive Trust Momentus hard drives and Opal compliant drives and also makes it simple for organizations to deploy sector-based full-disk encryption, file-and-folder encryption, container encryption and self-extractor encryption. And, in the event that a password is forgotten or the user is unavailable, SecureDoc v5 utilizes centralized escrow and management of encryption keys to ensure critical data can be accessed. SecureDoc v5 also adds full-disk encryption and encryption management to Intel® Anti-Theft Technology (Intel® AT) – a laptop theft deterrence mechanism enabling organizations to issue a “poison pill” to disable stolen laptops whether or not they are connected to the internet – ensuring data cannot be accessed before a laptop is disabled, even if the hard drive is removed and installed on another computer.

SecureDoc v5 enables administrators to create and securely share key files (or encryption policies) as well as link SES profiles with specific users or specific Windows/Mac devices – making it easy to ensure compliance with security policies when sharing data with co-workers, clients and customers. Additionally, SecureDoc v5’s audit functionality enables administrators to track data security down to the individual user or device level and includes enhanced features for Mac OS X users, including Password Synchronization and the OS Picker, which enables access to an external recovery/repair CD/DVD from an encrypted Mac. Please see the product’s website for a full list of features.

PriceMetrixPriceMetrix, a Toronto-based software firm that helps retail wealth management firms and their advisors optimize selling efforts, manage clients, identify growth opportunities, and enhance practice management, announced today the launch of ClientCheck, a state of the art client dashboard for advisors. At the click of a mouse, ClientCheck gives advisors a complete snapshot of each client at the household level. ClientCheck, available exclusively to PriceMetrix ValueOne customers, delivers all the important vitals an advisor needs to know to better service and enhance their client relationships.  Powered by an automated search and proprietary business intelligence engine, ClientCheck:

* Instantly delivers pertinent details for a specific household, including: ranking of the household by assets, revenue, product breadth, asset, and revenue mix, historical trending compared to the rest of the advisor’s book and peer group; and key business metrics (e.g., recurring revenue, total revenue opportunity, and average ticket size).
* Reveals three revenue-generating options to support the advisor’s business and client goals.
* Is accessible through the PriceMetrix advisor Workstation and is designed to be used by advisors and their teams on a daily basis to improve productivity.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 6th, 2011 at 11:29 am and is filed under Business News, Contests, Digital Products, Education, National News, New Releases, Peripherals. 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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