Village Gamer

Electronic Arts Inc. has announced its latest live service for FIFA Soccer 12 players with an internet connection. (You must accept EA’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service in order to play). called EA Sports™ Football Club that will bring the world’s most passionate sports fans together and engage them within the massive FIFA online community. EA Sports Football Club—the heartbeat of FIFA Soccer 12 —connects players to the real-world game with fresh, new content all the time, enabling them to support their favorite club in new ways connected to real-world events, and connect and compete with friends, rivals and millions of other players around the world.

“The millions of fans playing FIFA online have shown us there is a constant appetite for a deep connected experience, driven by a love of the sport,” said Matt Bilbey, Vice President and General Manager of Soccer for the FIFA Soccer franchise. “EA Sports Football Club is a new social experience that brings the world’s soccer fans together, engaging and entertaining them in new ways that have never been done before in a sports game.”

EA Sports Football Club creates a new social experience where fans can connect and compete with their friends and millions of other fans playing FIFA Soccer 12, where status, bragging rights and progression are all measured and ever-changing. For the first time ever, everything that happens within EA Sports FIFA Soccer 12—and against friends—is measured in a meaningful way. Every match matters, all season long. Earn experience points and level up to build your status. Track friends, challenges and status through the web. Share and compare accomplishments and spread the news on social channels like Facebook.

EA Sports Football Club also ignites the passion of sports fans and deepens their connection to their favourite team through Support Your Club, a central experience in EA Sports Football Club that enables fans to represent their club and compete against rival clubs in everything they do in FIFA Soccer 12. Earn club points and lift your club higher in the Support Your Club League Tables or help them avoid relegation. Virtual league tables are reset each week to create new challenges, renewed rivalries, and fresh story lines.

Fans will be more closely connected to the sport than ever before. Real-world story lines will drive content in EA Sports Football Club, making the game feel fresh and new all the time. Gamers will relive crucial real-world soccer events through regular challenges. EA Sports Football Club will have a dedicated team deliver new content and challenges so that FIFA Soccer 12 will look, feel and play like the real-world season.

There will be no additional charge for EA Sports Football Club as the service kicks off with FIFA Soccer 12 on the PlayStation®3, Xbox 360® and PC when the game launches this fall.

Ubisoft^® announced the joint development of Just Dance^® 3 by Ubisoft Paris and Ubisoft Montreal. The third game in the multi-million selling Just Dance franchise, Just Dance 3 marks the debut of the Just Dance series on Kinect™ for Xbox 360^®and the PlayStation^®Move forPlayStation^®3, and the latest installment of the series on the Wii™ system from Nintendo. Developed by Ubisoft Paris and Ubisoft Montreal, Just Dance 3 will be released worldwide on October 11.

“The Just Dance brand has truly become a worldwide phenomenon with over 30 million people playing Just Dance,” said Olivier Ernst, director of Ubisoft Canada. “Fans play Just Dance at parties with friends, at home with the family, and as part of an active lifestyle to stay fit or even lose weight. Ubisoft is excited to bring Just Dance 3 to all motion platforms and give even more people the opportunity to enjoy the fun.”

Featuring more than 40 tracks across a wide range of musical genres, including pop, hip-hop, rock, R&B, country, disco, funk, and more, Just Dance 3 introduces a number of new game features that take advantage of the unique mechanics of each console. To get the party started, Just Dance 3 includes some of today’s hottest hits as well as classic dance tracks that everyone loves.

Confirmed tracks for Just Dance 3 include:

• 2 Unlimited – “No Limit”
• Black Eyed Peas – “Pump It”
• Duck Sauce – “Barbra Streisand”
• Groove Century – “Boogie Wonderland”
• Gwen Stefani – “What You Waiting For”
• Katy Perry – “California Gurls”
• Kiss – “I Was Made For Lovin’ You”
• Laura Bell Bundy – “Giddy On Up (Giddy On Out)”
• LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett and GoonRock – “Party Rock Anthem”
• MIKA – “Lollipop”
• Taio Cruz – “Dynamite”

In addition to this exciting tracklist, Just Dance 3 introduces exclusive new game features on all three motion-control platforms, such as four-player choreographies and dynamic environments on Wii and the new “Shout Out!” feature on Kinect, which allows players to score extra points by belting out their favorite song verse. This, combined with the entertaining and unique choreography developed by professional dancers, will provide players with the fun and accessible challenges they are looking for and ensuring that Just Dance 3 will get the world dancing.

XMG’s Style Studio has hit its one millionth design milestone. Since its release in May of 2010, Style Studio has remained the only app that allows you to create, customize and share your own original fashion designs. A player can choose between colours, prints and styles, and superimpose them onto one of many articles of clothing. If there’s something they want to change, the designer also has the option of making alterations. For anyone hoping to bring style into their life in a fun, portable way, the app is perfect. Now, less than one year after its launch, more than 1 million items have been designed in Style Studio.

“Style Studio has the most extensive customization engine for clothing design ever seen on the iPhone” said Ray Sharma, Founder of XMG Studio. “While there are a few apps out there that allow you to apply colors to pre-set clothing items and mix and match them, Style Studio is the first app that actually allows the designer to choose different materials, make alterations, customize prints and apply add-ons or decorative elements to each piece of clothing.”

Style Studio is available in the iTunes app store for $2.99 for any Apple mobile device running OS 3.0 or higher.

Florida company tXtBlocker announced today the launch of its distracted driving solution in Ontario and all of Canada’s provinces. The launch coincides with tXtBlocker’s sponsorship of the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) annual R.I.D.E. Drive Safe! Campaign. The initiative was launched during Police Week and supports efforts throughout the upcoming year by the Ontario Provincial Police and municipal police services across Ontario to eliminate texting, calling, and other forms of distracted driving on their roadways.

tXtBlocker is the leading technology platform in preventing distracted driving incidents in the United States. The service, which costs as little as $6.99 (Canadian) a month, allows owners to control when, where and how their phones are used. With a simple download, parents, employers and organizations can keep their loved ones and others safe on the road, while limiting distractions at school or the worksite. tXtBlocker was featured in the April 2011 edition of Consumer Reports, which described the technology as the best product available for preventing distracted driving. The service enjoys high customer satisfaction and is currently available through AT&T’s mobile app website and Best Buy stores.

“I’m very encouraged that the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police has taken a leading role in both educating the public and enforcing distracted driving laws. They intend to stop the growing epidemic of motorists using their mobile phone,” said Stan Van Meter, CEO of tXtBlocker. “We are pleased to announce the launch of tXtBlocker in Ontario and the rest of Canada. tXtBlocker is the leading technology solution to distracted driving incidents in the United States and is proud to have been selected as a partner in OACP’s unique outreach campaign in Canada.” Read the rest of this entry »

Shape Collage, the popular easy-to-use photo collage software with over 4 million downloads, has officially launched its iPhone application offering free, quick and easy collage creation to iPhone users.

The app allows users to create personal photo collages from dozens of pictures on their iPhones in under 30 seconds by selecting the pics they want, picking a shape, and quickly posting wherever they like to share. The app is ready for downloads on iTunes and is also available for the iPod Touch. iPad and Android versions will be released this summer.

“People are taking more and more pictures with their smartphones, but they don’t always have an effective way to share their photos, so many pics get stranded in phones and never get shared with friends and family,” said Vincent Cheung, CEO & Founder of Shape Collage. “Our app allows users to quickly create unique custom collages with their photos and tell the stories they want to share on the fly directly from their iPhones.”

Users can choose from several shapes, or use text or symbols to create a custom shape from their photos and then easily share on Facebook, Twitter, and Email. They can also save the collage on their iPhone and use it as their wallpaper.

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Shape Collage’s desktop software (available for Windows, Mac and Linux) has been downloaded over four million times since its 2009 release. The software automatically creates photo collages in different shapes using patent pending technology. Cheung created the software as a graduate student and was named the 2010 Graduate Student Entrepreneur Global Champion and he has won eight business plan competitions.

The Shape Collage desktop software is available for free at ShapeCollage.com with a pro upgraded version available for $25 USD. A free Facebook application is also available for users to share their collages with their friends on Facebook.

Canadian consumers want more education and options for health self-management. A Deloitte consumer study found 54 per cent of those surveyed in the Deloitte 2009 Canadian health care consumer survey report “Treating Patients As Consumers” are trying to learn how to prevent health problems and improve their well-being, and they want electronic tools to help them do so. Now consumers can access DrugHub, Great-West Life’s new, free health application for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, which they can personalize with their prescription information to help manage their prescription medications.

“Managing prescription drug usage can be complex, particularly for people with chronic health conditions or who require multiple medications over extended periods of time,” says Brad Fedorchuk, Vice-President of Group Marketing for Great-West Life, a leading Canadian life and health insurer, which processed $2.1 billion in prescription drug claim submissions in 2010. Taking prescription medications correctly as prescribed is one simple but effective way people can enhance their health self-management, and DrugHub can help them do so.”

The DrugHub app is intuitive and easy to use, and offers a convenient way to keep track of medications – in effect, putting “a virtual library of prescription drug information at your fingertips,” according to Fedorchuk. The application can also help track medications for aging parents, children, or others. “DrugHub displays multiple prescriptions, issues reminders for multiple individuals about when to take medications, tracks dosages and flags when it is time to order refills,” Fedorchuk says. “By helping to manage some of this complexity, we believe DrugHub can help people follow their medication dosages and schedules more closely, thereby improving health outcomes.”

Security and confidentiality features are built in to protect personal information. DrugHub also provides access to an extensive library of drug information, including simple-to-use drug interaction and side effect reference tools for each drug and access to thousands of physician-reviewed drug articles.

DrugHub is the first mobile health application to be issued by a Canadian group benefits insurer. The innovative health application builds on Great-West Life’s industry-first suite of eClaims services — including being the first and only insurer in Canada at this time to offer text message notification advising group plan members of the status of a claim.

The Insurance Corporation of BC has launched an app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, that lets new drivers practice the driving knowledge test before taking the real test. The ICBC licensing mobile practice knowledge test can be downloaded for free from the Apple App Store and also includes the complete Learn to Drive Smart guide, all driver licensing locations, and selected videos that are aimed at helping new drivers prepare for their test and be safe on our roads.

“Our customers have told us that they want more options from us that better connect with their lifestyle,” said Fred Hess, ICBC’s vice president of driver licensing. “Getting your first licence is an exciting time but it can also be an intimidating process. We believe this app will make it easier to practice, which we hope calms nerves and helps new drivers focus on learning to make smart driving decisions.”

The practice knowledge test app randomly generates 25 questions to replicate the real test, including how to successfully make a right-turn, drive in school zones, watch out for vulnerable road users and handle a vehicle that skids and loses control. Customers who score 100 per cent on a practice test are rewarded by unlocking bonus video content.

The app also includes a series of videos that help new drivers develop their skills on the road, including tips on passing the road test, how to adjust your speed relative to conditions and intersection safety. The app also identifies the driver licensing centre locations nearest to the customer, shows them how to get there, hours of operation and contact number.

“Our online practice knowledge test has proved extremely popular in improving our customer experience for new drivers and this app will offer another easy and convenient choice for them,” said ICBC’s chief customer and marketing officer, Jeff Schulz. “They can even share their practice test results with friends via Facebook, Twitter or email.”

Big Blue Bubble, Inc. is excited to announce that they are burning their way onto Android and Nokia devices. Their smash hit mobile title Burn the Rope is finally available on Android and you can get it exclusively for one week at GetJar.  The good news doesn’t stop there, because Burn the Rope is also now available now for Symbian platforms on the Nokia Ovi Store.

The critically-acclaimed best selling Burn the Rope is a puzzle adventure where the goal is as simple as it is addictive: burn as much rope as possible. Release your inner arsonist and ignite your way through over 100 delightful levels, with new user generated puzzles every day. Get involved and submit your very own puzzle to be featured in Puzzle of the Day.

A tap is all you need to get your flame burning. Remember fire always burns up, so you must rotate your device to make sure your flame keeps flickering, which is not always as easy as it seems. Packed with exploding bugs, bonus levels, and non-stop pyro action, Burn the Rope will make you think, strategize and try puzzles over and over until you burn every last rope fibre. This challenging and addicting game will keep your fires burning for hours, because while it’s easy to play, it’s  not so easy to master.

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Millions of racing fans have flocked to ­Need for Speed™ World to experience the thrill of illicit street racing in the popular Play4Free online PC title. Over five million registered users have battled other gamers in intense races, evaded the cops in thrilling pursuits and joined friends to outrun the law in Team Escape mode. Need for Speed World delivers an enormous, socially-connected white-knuckle Need for Speed experience.

Need for Speed World features some of the hottest cars of today including the Lamborghini Murcielago, Nissan Skyline R34 and Corvette Z06. Players can visually customize their own vehicles for that personal flair as they take down other racers in style. In addition, Need for Speed World players can be the first in the world to test drive the Audi A1 clubsport quattro unveiled at the annual Worthersee tour in Austria today. The Audi A1 clubsport quattro is exclusive to Need for Speed World and will be available to all players as a free in-game rental car from June 1 to June 4.

Joining the A1 clubsport quattro on the Audi stand at the GTI meeting are 17 series production vehicles from the current Audi model lineup. Sporting a very dynamic appearance and an exquisite finish, the Audi A1 clubsport quattro makes no secret of its potential: it is designed as a road vehicle for the race track. The heart of the showcar is a classic Audi gasoline engine – a five-cylinder unit displacing 2.5 liters with turbocharging and direct fuel injection. The output of the TFSI engine has been increased dramatically to 503 hp and 486.79 lb-ft of torque. Another area where the A1 clubsport quattro shines is its overall weight of just 3,064 lb. The powerful engine catapults the car from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.7 seconds. From 0 to 200 km/h takes just 10.9 seconds, while the car goes from 80 to 120 km/h in fourth gear in just 2.4 seconds. A six-speed manual transmission and quattro permanent all-wheel drive deliver the power to all four wheels. Top speed is governed at 250 km/h.

Need for Speed World brings together best-in-class action racing with an unparalleled social experience on the PC. Players can compete against their friends and family or pick from thousands of players to challenge in intense online battles and police pursuits. Gamers race the way they want in an ever-expanding world with a constant stream of new content, cars, and features.

Frima Studio has announced that the Gods of Olympus have seen fit to allow the discounting of PlayStation® mini title Young Thor, now available for 75% off its retail price at $1.25 USD. The sale price of the adolescent god’s title runs from today through the month of June across all markets, and is exclusively available for PlayStation® Plus members on the PlayStation® Store.

The three Norns – Urd, Skuld and Verdandi – have gone missing, leaving no one to tend to Yggdrasil, the World Tree and connector of all realms. With the world now in chaos, players will take on the role of Young Thor and travel to Midgard and Asgard, battling hordes of mythical creatures from Norse mythology, as they strive to restore balance in both worlds in this fun, all-ages appropriate platformer. Defeat Hel, the mischievous daughter of Loki, along with her two allies Ratatoskr and Nidhogg, and save Yggdrasil once and for all—it’s hammer time!