Village Gamer

Endloop X has announced their game Please Stay Calm, and the studio claims that you have not played this type of game before. Not only will it amuse you and your online friends, it will also help prepare you for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Well, if not apocalypse, then at least a mild case of zombies.

If this sounds like your cup of tea and you have an iOS device for the initial roll-out, feel free to here sign up here as Endloop X is taking applications for early access.

Here’s a sneak peak of some of the unique features we are building for Please Stay Calm:

* Innovative co-operative gameplay
* Unique location based exploration that lets you play on-site as well as remotely
* Immersive alternate reality

The team will be rolling out the title city by city, as well as platform by platform. On a side note, Endloop X is looking for a PHP developer to fill a contract position. Know anybody?

Hoping to show that not all robots are purely cold and mechanical, Thandros Media presents “Fun With Thandros,” a playful new iPhone app featuring a fun-loving robot who is sure to thrill little ones and big kids alike. This delightful app features four classic games: Play, Maze Quest, Stories, and Twins.

Jeffrey Pierson, the creator of the characters featured in the app, worked with the programmers at Thandros Media and author Mike Jackson. The team understood that children love digital gaming and grasp it at a faster rate than anyone else, but for their first app wanted to incorporate a classic style and varied gameplay mode that many apps seemed to be lacking – and thus, “Fun With Thandros” was born.

“I first drew Thandros for my nephew,” says Pierson, “and he really liked him, so I started to think about what he would act like, and who some of his friends could be. It was a lot of fun to come up with this world, and I’m looking forward to adding to it in the future.”

The new app introduces kids and their parents to Thandros, a happy, friendly robot who loves to go on adventures and isn’t afraid to undertake a quest or a challenge. Toddlers can enjoy meeting Thandros in the “Play” mode, where they can tap on the robot and see how he reacts. The preschool set and older can choose “Stories,” with their choices throughout the course of the tale affecting its ultimate outcome, or “Twins,” a matching game that reinforces memory skills. Finally, big kids are sure to love “Maze Quest,” which takes Thandros on a journey through simple to complex mazes in his efforts to halt the evil Professor Stouch’s dastardly plans.

With its colorful, hand-drawn graphics, cheerful music, and exciting sound effects, “Fun With Thandros” is sure to provide hours of entertainment for children of all ages, while teaching them important lessons about sharing, hard-work, and determination. Fun With Thandros 1.0 is $0.99 USD and available worldwide exclusively through the iTunes App Store in the Games – Kid’s section.

Ubisoft announced today that the Animus Project Update 2.0 downloadable content (DLC) for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system is now available on XBOX LIVE® and PlayStation® Network for download for free.

The Animus Project Update 2.0 includes a brand-new game mode and brand new map for Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood Multiplayer. The Pienza Map provides the perfect free-running playground where predators and targets can blend and disappear.

In the new Chest Capture Multiplayer Mode, two teams, comprised of three players each, partner with fellow Templars to either defend or capture Chests. The “Capturers” must use their HUDs to locate and capture the chests, while “Defenders” must use their skills and quick reflexes to track down their foes and protect the chests.

Also included in Animus Project Update 2.0 is the new “Templar Score” feature. To achieve order and maintain competition, Abstergo created the Templar Grade. Updated weekly and based on the users scores of the previous four weeks, the Templar Grade splits recruits in 10 specific slices – each representing part of the hierarchy of the community. The goal is to reward diligent work by Abstergo recruits. Assassins’ Creed Brotherhood is rated M for Mature by the ESRB.

BioWare™ and Electronic Arts Inc. announced today that Mass Effect™ 2 is now available on the PlayStation 3 for $59.99 in North America at retail and on PlayStation® Network*. The PlayStation 3 version of Mass Effect 2, which received a perfect 10 out of 10 score from PlayStation: The Official Magazine, will include six hours of bonus content, including ” Kasumi – Stolen Memories”, “Overlord” and the award-winning “Lair of the Shadow Broker”.

“The PlayStation 3 version of Mass Effect 2 offers gamers a great entry point to the Mass Effect experience,” said Casey Hudson, Executive Producer of the Mass Effect franchise. “We’re extremely excited and proud to now bring PlayStation 3 owners the opportunity to explore the rich and tumultuous universe of Mass Effect and shape the story and events within it by the individual choices they make.”

Mass Effect Genesis, an interactive comic from Dark Horse Comics and BioWare, will also be available today exclusively on the PlayStation 3 computer entertainment system, giving players a high-level overview of the events of the original Mass Effect. The interactive comic offers players the chance to make critical choices that will affect their storyline in Mass Effect 2 and beyond. Mass Effect Genesis is included in the Cerberus Pack, a downloadable content pack included for first time purchasers of Mass Effect 2 on PlayStation 3. Players who do not have original access to the Cerberus Pack can purchase it for $14.99 on the PlayStation Network. Mass Effect 2 on the PlayStation 3 has a MSRP of $59.99 in North America and is rated M for Mature by the ESRB.

International publisher 505 Games and Ontario developer Reverie World Studios have penned a publishing deal for the studio’s upcoming massively multiplayer online real time strategy (MMORTS) title Dawn of Fantasy. Set in the massively multiplayer fantasy world of

Mythador which supports its own living economic, trading, development and diplomacy systems, players will be given the opportunity to leave their mark on the land’s already war torn history when Dawn of Fantasy for PC is launched on June 3rd, 2011.

Offering a fresh perspective on the fantasy RTS genre, Dawn of Fantasy will deliver a persistent world war experience like none before.Thousands of Players living, building, exploring and fighting together to crush with AI controlled strongholds and empires, in a rich tapestry of story-driven encounters that help to build upon the already weighty single player campaign experience. In a world that continues to trade and evolve even after logging off, Players will also be able to test their armies’ constitution in matched head-to-head, multiplayer encounters on their road to becoming the biggest city-state in Mythador.

Each of the three different races available to players – elves, men and orcs – offer a radically different playing style based on a carefully balanced system of strengths and weaknesses. With an in-game narrative driven by a dramatic historical background, Dawn of Fantasy will combine rich storytelling with compelling gameplay to provide a strategy experience to appeal to MMO and RTS fans alike.

“Dawn of Fantasy is nothing short of the next step in the genre, highlighting the best elements that MMORTS games have to offer with just the right level of considered innovation,” commented Ralph Pitt-Stanley, 505 Games. “In what we feel is an underrepresented genre, we’re confident that Dawn of Fantasy will have what it takes to stay in the hearts of MMO, RTS and fantasy fans for a long time to come.”

“As we catch a glimpse of the finish line after many years of development, we are thrilled to announce our partnership with 505 Games,” said Konstantin Fomenko, Reverie World CEO.“Their dedication, ambition, and extensive history in the strategy genre will prove indispensable as we work toward completing our upcoming MMORTS, Dawn of Fantasy.”

Designed with low system requirements in mind, the Dawn of Fantasy engine will nonetheless render armies of thousands of units and hundreds of terrain objects on screen for epic battle encounters. Once the dust settles on the in game campaigns, players can try exploring their creative side by using the powerful map editor to design the fantasy encounters of their dreams.

WaveFront would like to invite Vancouver developers to a free WaveGuide Breakfast Seminar being presented By Wavefront and DFAIT on the morning of Tuesday, February 8th. This introduction to Nokia platforms and OVI Services is an opportunity to bring your Canadian apps to the world’s largest application distribution network – the Nokia OVI Store. Attend this seminar to receive an end-to-end overview of Nokia platforms and OVI services which reaches hundreds of millions of consumers in over 190 countries downloading over 3 million applications per day. Developers and publishers will learn about the latest Nokia OVI business opportunities and receive practical advice on how to develop and port your mobile application/content on Nokia platform and publish it to the OVI Store, an easy way to distribute and monetize your applications and content to Nokia users all over the world.

OVI store makes it easy to distribute and pay for your Canadian apps:

• Consumers can browse and purchase content from Ovi Store in more than 190 countries through credit card billing
• 91 operators in 27 countries support integrated mobile billing
• Publishers from more than 90 countries are distributing their content through Ovi Store

This is a must attend for Canadian mobile app developers and mobile content publishers to network with business and technical specialists from Nokia and local developer peers. All attendees will receive copy of “Foundations of Qt Development” and can enter draw for several Nokia N8 smartphones that are being given away.

Attendance at this seminar will also give you an opportunity to set up a one-on-one engagement meeting with Nokia during and after each seminar, so please also let us know if you would like to set-up a meeting when you register.  Mr. Johan Nyman, DFAIT Trade Commissioner from Helsinki, Finland will also be available for one-on-one meetings (between 9:30-11:00am) to discuss Finnish market opportunities.

OpenText has announced the availability of OpenText StreamServe Persuasion™ version 5, which helps businesses improve their customer communication in an effective, consistent, and engaging way. Persuasion is the first major product release from StreamServe since it was acquired by OpenText in October 2010 and represents an important addition to the OpenText ECM Suite.

Whether communicating with customers and suppliers or facilitating payment and revenue, documents keep business transactions flowing and the organization healthy. Persuasion helps increase the efficiency of document-based communication and improves customer engagement by allowing businesses to include impactful marketing messages that are best suited to individual audiences.

Linked with existing business systems, and requiring few or no changes to them, Persuasion adds extensive in-house capabilities for defining, producing and interacting with mass-produced, personalized documents. It provides straightforward tools for business users such as designers, marketing staff, customer support agents, and process owners to efficiently create and use the documents that matter to them.

“At OpenText, we’re giving customers new ways to engage with, interact with, and improve the customer experience using our growing portfolio of technologies,” said James Latham, Chief Marketing Officer at OpenText. These technologies include social media, web experience management, mobility, and now the customer communications solutions from StreamServe, with Persuasion becoming the first addition to the line up in the OpenText ECM Suite.”

Supporting Customer Communications Management, for example, Persuasion empowers business managers to rapidly and directly create content such as marketing messages, campaigns, and cross/upsell offers. It also gives them control over how and when this content is automatically included in customer correspondence and touch points, such as customer support conversations.

In document-intensive business processes—logistics and distribution, for example—Persuasion eliminates most, if not all, costly and error-prone manual handling. By allowing to automate the flow of paperwork through electronic checkpoints, Persuasion helps to reduce cost, accelerates timelines, and can assist substantially to improve the accuracy of the documentation. This can result in better customer, partner and supplier relationships – Open Text invites you to find out more about Persuasion on the product’s information page.

When Doris McCarthy passed away on November 25th 2010, Canada lost a revered and talented artist, best known for her landscape paintings. Fool’s Paradise, the Scarborough property where she lived and worked, will remain a part of her remarkable legacy. In 1998, McCarthy generously donated it to the Ontario Heritage Trust to become a retreat for future generations of artists. The Trust will post more about the retreat later this year as more information becomes available.

“My colleagues at the Ontario Heritage Trust and I were deeply saddened by the loss of Doris McCarthy. Her unique brand of talent and enthusiasm will be missed,” said Dr. Thomas H.B. Symons, Chairman of the Ontario Heritage Trust. “We are thankful for the memories of Doris that will live on. Fool’s Paradise, as well as McCarthy’s many works of art, will be an inspiration to artists for years to come.”

In 1939, McCarthy bought a picturesque 12-acre (4.9-hectare) property on the Scarborough Bluffs overlooking Lake Ontario. Her mother viewed the purchase as an extravagance, referring to “that fool’s paradise of yours.” The name Fool’s Paradise stuck and she eventually made it her full-time home.

In addition to its significance by association with McCarthy, Fool’s Paradise is also an important natural heritage site. The property is perched on a narrow plateau of the ecologically sensitive and geologically significant Scarborough Bluffs. In 1986, to help conserve the site, McCarthy donated seven acres (2.8 hectares) to the Metropolitan Toronto Region Conservation Authority under an Erosion Control Agreement.

In 1998, McCarthy donated the remainder of Fool’s Paradise to the Ontario Heritage Trust, along with a charitable remainder trust to maintain the property in perpetuity. She retained a life tenancy, with the intent that after her death it would become a retreat for artists, musicians and writers, and a setting for heritage activities. In the coming year, the Trust will be working to plan the retreat McCarthy envisioned – giving other artists the opportunity to be inspired by the beauty of Fool’s Paradise, just as she was herself.

The Board of Montreal Museum Directors (BMMD) launches its 25^th anniversary by opening a new gateway into Montreal museums and culture with its new iPhone and iPod touch app, Montreal Museums. Starting today, mobile users from around the globe can visit the App Store and download the Montreal Museums app for free, putting temporary and permanent exhibitions, works of art and museum circuits, all at the fingertips of mobile users. The Montreal Museums app allows users to catch a glimpse of the utterly fascinating collections of Montreal museums.

Frequent updates allow users to stay in tune, in real time, with the ever-changing Montreal museum landscape. The Montreal Museums app will allow tourists and Montrealers alike to utilize integrated geo-positioning technology to easily search and discover the BMMD’s 35 member museums.

Montreal’s iBwave, leading designer of solutions for wireless in-building networks has announced that it has signed a multi-year, multi-license agreement with one of North America’s pre-eminent Tier 1 wireless operators. This major contract secures iBwave as the in-building network design solution across all major wireless operators in North America. iBwave’s solutions and its market leading iCP training and certification program provide RF professionals, technology vendors and systems integrators with the tools and knowledge to design, plan and deploy advanced wireless in-building networks.

Mobile data traffic is growing at an incredible rate. Vendors and analysts following the wireless industry project global mobile data volumes in 2014 at anywhere from 25 to 50 times what is seen on networks today. Confronted with this new reality and the impact this will have on their wireless network, operators worldwide are now upgrading their networks by deploying faster technologies such as HSPA+ and LTE, which promise to bring additional network capacity immediately by a factor of 2-3 times. But those capacity improvements won’t be nearly enough to handle the projected increases in traffic. Recognizing that more than 70% of the traffic is generated inside buildings and that faster technologies alone won’t be sufficient, wireless operators are now trending towards deploying advanced in-building wireless networks, using distributed antennae systems (DAS), to offload their outdoor macro-cellular networks. From airports, hospitals, and stadiums, to shopping malls, skyscrapers and corporate offices, increasing in-building coverage is now a critical strategy for wireless operators to meet the growing demand on their data networks.

“We are extremely pleased and excited to have been awarded such a significant contract,” said Mario Bouchard, President and CEO at iBwave. “It accentuates the strategic importance of in-building wireless coverage, it underscores our unrivaled experience, and it magnifies iBwave’s unwavering commitment to supporting our customers with targeted solutions that deliver real business value,” continues Mr. Bouchard. “With such a substantial amount of wireless traffic originating from the inside of a building, operators recognize that in-building coverage is no longer a luxury, but an immediate necessity.”

With iBwave Design, RF engineers can generate high volumes of 2G, 3G and LTE in-building wireless network design and eliminate guesswork, bringing strong, reliable wireless communications to indoor and near-building environments that bear the brunt of the upsurge in mobile data activity. And since small cells and DAS are increasingly used to handle capacity requirements, in-building solutions are becoming more critical and complex, making it even more essential to work with a software solution that delivers superior designs. The iBwave Design suite guides RF engineers through network planning, design, costing, validation, documentation and reporting, delivering top performance, reducing capital expenditure and increasing productivity. Additionally, iBwave’s Unity platform delivers business intelligence to in-building projects by acting as a centralized project collaboration and information database and providing advanced data mining and reporting functionality to the entire wireless ecosystem.

Toronto’s Mood Media Corporation, provider of in-store media, music and digital signage solutions has signed a partnership with The Please Hold Group (“Please Hold”), a leading supplier of digital message on hold solutions to over 50,000 retail clients across the United States, Canada, Caribbean and Europe

Through this partnership Mood Media will now offer Please Hold’s leading-edge VOIP utilities for digital voice response systems, automated receptionists, voice mail, interactive voice response platforms, digital announcers and other peripheral add-on audio video components to an existing client base of over 170,000 locations.  In turn, Please Hold will utilize Mood Media’s rights included library for background and foreground music programming on a go forward basis to existing and future Please Hold customers.

Autodesk has launched an animation contest which is open to students 18 and over (or over the age of majority in their jurisdiction or residence, whichever is older), in the United States and Canada, but excluding residents of Florida, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island and the Province of Quebec. As part of the First Robotics Challenge 2011, students are being tasked to create a 30 second animation that depicts a solution to a series of challenges that the iiko, an alien race, face on their home planet.

As a contestant, you have the opportunity to identify a challenge the iiko face and tell us how your idea/product/invention would change their world – for the better! It might be something that makes a positive difference in the lives of the iiko, in their world at large, or even in space. It may save lives or make daily life easier, or bring back their world to the way it once was. It’s up to you. You can use and modify the characters if you choose, or you may decide on other ways to tell the story of how you chose to help the Iiko. We want you to be creative and innovative, maybe it’s a new invention, maybe you recycle something from what we have found.

As part of your entry, you are required to create a storyboard, 30 second animation and accompanying jpeg image. Please visit the contest page for complete details and full rules.

Desire2Learn will receive a grant of $4.25 million from the province of Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade as part of the company’s investment of more than $28 million, which will see 21 new jobs created at Desire2Learn and an additional 33 existing jobs will be sustained. The company is continuing its R&D and staffing investment to build out platforms for learning focused on three technology pillars including teaching and learning applications, mobile learning, and analytics that will help Desire2Learn increase its share of the growing eLearning market.

“Desire2Learn has demonstrated a real commitment to research and development,” states Sandra Pupatello, Minister of Economic Development and Trade. “We’re proud to support their latest investment that will help the company grow its share of the global eLearning market and create good jobs for Ontario families.”

The Government of Ontario offers a number of programs that support innovative ventures in technology, research, development and commercialization across industries and attract new investment in strategic areas of Ontario’s economy. Working proactively to promote the province’s technology sector and support high-value jobs for Ontario families is part of the government’s five-year Open Ontario Plan.

“We are very appreciative to be the recipient of a provincial grant that will support our ongoing commitment to R&D and job creation,” says John Baker, President & CEO, Desire2Learn. “We’re very excited about the future and fortunate to be experiencing incredible growth; financial infusions such as this are invaluable in assisting us achieve our goals.”

“Great ideas create great jobs. As Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, and as a resident of Waterloo Region, I am proud that Desire2Learn’s software is making learning more accessible for students around the world while creating jobs here in Waterloo Region,” remarks John Milloy, Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, and MPP for Kitchener Centre.

How many angles of equal measure are there in an isosceles triangle? What do plants need in order to conduct photosynthesis? How do you turn a good idea into a well-written paragraph? Every child tackling homework is bound to hit a stumbling block, but perhaps the bigger challenge for kids is overcoming the anxiety and frustration that often follow. What can kids do? Where can they turn for help?

Support and encouragement are just a click away thanks to the newly launched TVOKids Homework Zone, available now at tvokids.com. The TVOKids Homework Zone is a microsite that aggregates TVOKids’ massive inventory of kid and teacher-tested, curriculum-linked resources into an easy-to-navigate and fun work zone. Primary grade-school kids can practice and review concepts learned in school and get problem-solving tips and tricks for three core areas of the Ontario curriculum: math, science and literacy.

“We’ve heard from kids, parents and educators that these subjects are areas of need,” says Stacie Goldin, TVOKids’ in-house educator/research advisor. Goldin led the mammoth task of identifying the content appropriate for the microsite, and tagging and categorizing resources in a way that kids – and their parents – could easily find help. “As parents, we often struggle to help our kids with homework because we ourselves may have struggled in those subjects, especially math. One key objective of the site is to help parents, not just kids, better understand these subjects,” she adds.

Kids can locate the subject they need help with and drill down to a specific topic, be it perimeter or patterns; the animal kingdom or outer space; or spelling and grammar. To illustrate these concepts, the Homework Zone provides episodes of popular TVOKids-produced shows and web games from some of tvokids.com’s 160+ offerings, as well as new resources exclusive to the Homework Zone including:

* teacher videos featuring experts in each of the three subject areas (math expert Troy Langevine, principal at Ellesmere-Statton Public School; science expert Aldo Petrucci, vice principal at Edgewood Public School; and language expert Wynne Ng, a Grade 2/3 teacher at Glamorgan Jr. Public School)
* printable activities and worksheets
* interactive practise tools
* general homework and study tips on things such as practising for the EQAO tests

Language expert Wynne Ng agrees that the TVOKids Homework Zone will be a useful resource for the whole family. “Students are taught that nouns are people, places and things and verbs are action words, but when you ask them to identify the noun from the verb in a sentence they can’t transfer that skill. Even adults forget basic grammar,” she says. “The Homework Zone gives parents a chance to see how [grammar] might be taught in a classroom and how they can kick-start rich conversations at home with their kids.”

She adds, “I wish I had the Homework Zone when I was in school. Instead of just turning to the Internet as a source of gaming or entertainment, students can use it as a tool to become accountable for their learning.”

Coupled with the TVOKids Homework Zone microsite is a bi-monthly, live broadcast-webcast event in which students can connect directly with a teacher and ask questions via email or phone on a variety of homework topics. The next live TVOKids Homework Zone event airs Monday January 31 on TVOKids’ afterschool block, The Space, and online on the Homework Zone microsite.