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Hatch Inc., a North Carolina provider of classroom technology innovations for early learning and SMART Technologies Inc. have announced the creation of CoreFocus by Hatch^TM. The content solution, designed to work within SMART Notebook™ collaborative learning software, includes more than 2,500 research-based math and literacy activities for kindergarten and first grade and is aligned with the new U.S. national Common Core State Standards.

The robust set of activities will assist teachers in integrating SMART Board interactive whiteboards into their daily lesson plans and curriculum and also provide a content management system for all of their existing interactive whiteboard content. Early learning experts designed CoreFocus by Hatch to provide critical math and literacy skill development for young learners.

“Hatch is excited to work alongside SMART Technologies to develop a comprehensive content solution that supports teachers in accessing research-based math and literacy activities, with a focus on Common Core State Standards for kindergarten and first grade. The team who developed the TeachSmart® Learning System, the first interactive whiteboard solution proven to impact math and literacy outcomes for early education, led the development of CoreFocus. This product will have a definite impact on the development of children and provide teachers with proven strategies for success,” said Hatch President Ginny Norton.

“We are pleased to enter into a new phase of our relationship with Hatch, collaborating with their research and development experts in the creation of standards-based activities for SMART Board interactive whiteboards that educators can easily integrate into their curriculum,” said SMART Products Vice President Linda Thomas. “CoreFocus by Hatch supports our commitment to meet the needs of educators with innovative products and services to further engage their students with high quality content made in SMART Notebook software and fully aligned to Common Core State Standards.”

The Defence Family is celebrating the official launch of two new services: the FamilyForce.ca website and the Family Information Line, which will keep military families better informed, connected and involved. The announcement was made in the company of several military families who regularly frequent the Military Family Resource Centre of the National Capital Region.

“The loved-ones of Canadian Forces members play a critical role in the success of Canada’s men and women in uniform,” said the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence. “We, as the Defence team, are committed to ensuring that military families are provided the information and services that they need to support their unique, and often demanding, lifestyles.”

Under the “Voice of Families” banner, these two new services are a tangible and true demonstration of the Canadian Forces’ commitment to military families. These new initiatives will connect military families to a wealth of existing programs and resources, as well as help increase their awareness and access to services. With frequent moves being a way of life for many military families, getting acquainted with a new community and finding out what services, programs and resources are available to them is very important.

“Through these new services families will be able to reach out to the large support system both here in Canada and abroad,” said Rear-Admiral Andy Smith, Chief of Military Personnel. “From this day forward, support to military families will be more easily available to them over the telephone and the Internet.”

The FamilyForce.ca website is intended as a central “one-stop shop”, easy-to-use directory that connects families to their local Canadian/Military Family Resource Centres (C/MFRCs), and to national information, services and resources. The website will allow families to find relevant information about programs and services offered in their location, regardless of whether they live on or off base, in Canada, the United States or Europe.

The Family Information Line is an expanded service that builds on the former Mission Information Line originally set up to give CF families deployment information. This expanded service will now offer information, support and referral services to all CF families, irrespective of whether a family’s loved one is deployed or not.

“The new FamilyForce.ca website and Family Information Line will go a long way in helping families get the information they need quickly, through one centralized toll free number and website,” said Celine Thompson, Director Military Family Services. “The distinct voices of Canadian Forces (CF) families will resonate through these new services.”

Established in April 1991, the Military Family Services Program has grown and evolved over the past 20 years and continues to meet families’ changing needs. The Director Military Family Services manages and funds the Military Family Services Program on behalf of the CF and DND.

Announcing Unilytics Managed Services for Webtrends, a hybrid solution for web analytics with the best features of both the “on premise” and “on demand” versions of Webtrends. There is no requirement for costly hardware or specialized IT expertise, the data is fully accessible, secure, and managed by Webtrends experts.

Until now, the only options available were a costly on premise deployment or a restrictive on demand service with limited access. The drawbacks of an on premise Webtrends system include costly hardware, network support, access control, spec review and verification, internal costing, and lack of expertise with hosting tagged web analytics solutions. On demand (hosted) services also have inherent drawbacks including lack of control over data location, no access to reanalyze log files, and extra costs associated with usage.

“With Unilytics Managed Services for Webtrends, clients get the full flexibility of the on premises software version as well as a hands-off approach to infrastructure management costs” says Peder Enhorning, President of Unilytics, “This ‘best of both worlds’ scenario makes Unilytics Managed Services a very shrewd choice for enterprises looking to significantly cut costs, enhance service offerings, and ensure data is securely stored.”

Key Advantages:

• Exceptional cost savings
• Network is more robust and reliable
• Data is securely stored with a hosted service
• Full data access without costly investment in hardware or dedicated internal staff
• No additional cost to create profiles, translation tables, custom reports or to reanalyze data
• Full system access to incorporate other data elements and integrate with other marketing systems
• Unilytics experts will manage the hardware and Webtrends installation

Unilytics Managed Services for Webtrends offers two fully redundant data centers for unsurpassed data security. We use standard industry technology to ensure that even in a regional disaster at least one data centre will be online and collecting your critical web activity data.

KPI Dashboard provider Klipfolio Inc. has made its first announcement regarding Klipfolio Dashboard for the cloud – a browser and mobile accessible real-time key performance indicator (KPI) dashboard delivered as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution.

The public beta program seeks community feedback on the application’s usability, speed, scalability, and robustness. Participants have the opportunity to influence Klipfolio’s roadmap and vote on upcoming features.

The mobile and web-based product roadmap benefited from the collaborative effort of a dozen enterprise customers. These contributors helped shape the cloud-based dashboard’s requirements, priorities, and commercial model as well as being active participants in three months of alpha trials.

To qualify for beta-program participation yourself, please visit the beta information page. A limited number of Beta keys are being distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Like most music consumption platforms today, AUX.TV has just undergone a (generation facelift. With a 600% increase in average monthly unique visitors in the last month alone, the national music channel’s new website is at the forefront of music culture in Canada and from where they’re standing, music consumption rituals are spinning and audiences are looking for enhanced, available content now.  Today’s music fans are going beyond downloading to get behind a favourite band or artist; they want to know, hear, experience, see, even create anything related to the music they love.

“Much of our focus over the last few months has been on building and harvesting a new foundation of enhanced digital features to respond to new demands and expectations,” says Simon Foster, SVP Digital Publishing and Business Development at AUX TV. “These features amplify the content published every day by our team of online music journalists.”

One of the hottest discussion topics at the Banff World Media Festival this year was how audiences interact with and consume media. The next generation of music fans is here. Most have never purchased a CD, and yet they’re never without music.  Collectively, they watch over 2 billion music videos each day and when the country’s hottest band announces a live tour, they want to know about it first.

AUX TV’s largest demographic today is the “T-demo” (18-24 year olds), and when it comes to music consumption, the T-demo is clear about what they like:

Live music access – To immediately know about and participate in a live music opportunity that interests them.

“We recently launched a digital scavenger hunt on AUX.TV to promote a by-invitation-only concert with indie band Stars,” says Foster. “Through an innovative initiative like this, we were able to instantly connect and engage with a new generation of music fans.”

Repetition and information – To listen to their favourite tunes as frequently and conveniently as possible.

Greg Nizbet, founder of Mediazoic, says that “environments and platforms that encourage and properly distribute [a] repetition cycle will be the ones that find success, by enabling the greatest music to find the greatest number of appreciative ears.”

Clicks to content – To be appeased and impressed in 10 seconds or less. Read the rest of this entry »

Square Enix, Inc. and Eidos–Montreal have launched the  Deus Ex®: Human Revolution™ (DXHR) QR Missions App for fans of  Deus Ex: Human Revolution, wherein participants will have the opportunity to win exclusive real world prizes as well as in–game rewards. In order to join the  DXHR QR Missions Scavenger Hunt, fans should visit the App store on their iOS device. The first code is already available in the exclusive content section of the game’s official Facebook page. New codes will be released every week for the next seven weeks.

Fans should visit the App store to download the App (Deus Ex: Human Revolution QR Missions) for their iOS device and register for the Deus Ex: Human Revolution QR Missions. Participants must be 17–years–old or older, have an iOS device with a camera and be able to register using Facebook Connect. Participants will also have to choose their preferred gaming platform.

Once the App is installed, users can begin looking for QR Codes — both online and in the real world — in a variety of locations including marketing and public relations materials, in–store advertising, the official website and Facebook page, and more. Hints for code locations will appear on the Official Eidos–Montreal Twitter feed as well as the game’s official Facebook page.

When a code is found, participants will use their iOS device equipped with a camera to scan it, thereby capturing that code and earning themselves (and all participants) 10 points.

The  DXHR QR Missions Scavenger Hunt delivers elite rewards for the fastest and most thorough code collectors as well as an amazing prize for all participants through a larger, unified goal. These prizes include:

• For each code scanned, users receive an item immediately including special game footage, secret codes to unlock in–game doors, “Augment Yourself” codes and other assets and info from the game.
• The first 1,000 participants to find 10 codes will receive an exclusive theme for their preferred platform (either the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft or the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system). These themes will be available for sale at a later date.
• If the collective score for all participants reaches 1,000,000 points before August 23 (the North American release date), all registered participants in the  DXHR QR Missions Scavenger Hunt will receive an exclusive item for their Xbox LIVE Avatar or for PlayStation®Home. This item will be a toy version of the in–game “B–EE Chopper” that will appear as an Avatar prop item for their Xbox LIVE Avatar and will be available as a companion that follows the user within PlayStation®Home.
• The first 10 participants to collect ALL 21 QR codes will receive the following prize package:
  1. One (1) copy of  Deus Ex: Human Revolution Augmented Edition (system based upon original console selection)
  2. One (1) pair of Custom  Deus Ex: Human Revolution headphones
  3. One (1) Square Enix Products Play Arts – Kai – Adam Jensen Action Figure
  4. One (1)  Deus Ex: Human Revolution Limited Edition Compression Sleeve

Users can find the first code in the  DXHR QR Missions Scavenger Hunt on the game’s official Facebook Page on the “Exclusive Content” tab. Participants must “Like” the page in order to see the code. Additional codes will be unleashed immediately.

PadWorx Digital Media, Inc. has begun work on the enhanced book/app for the New York Times bestseller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Versions of the book/app for iOS and Android will be released in Fall 2011.

Set in a zombie-infested version of Regency-era England, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies follows Jane Austen’s beloved story of the Bennet family’s life and loves, but sets it against a brain-eating zombie apocalypse.   The original book, adapted in 2009 by Seth Grahame-Smith from Austen’s original text, remains a critical and commercial hit and reached number three on the New York Times bestseller list.  Lionsgate Films is currently in production on the feature film version, due out in 2012.

“We’ve been very fortunate to work on some extremely cool projects,” said Jeffery Alan Schechter, Creative Director and President of PadWorx Digital Media, Inc. “But it doesn’t get any cooler than working with Quirk Books on such an iconic title.”

PadWorx Digital Media’s premiere releases, Dracula: The Official Stoker Family Edition and A Christmas Carol, were both crowned “App of the Week” by Apple and nominated in the fiction category for Digital Book World’s annual Publishing Innovation Award this past January, with Dracula going on to win the top honor.  It was the intensity and fun of Dracula: The Official Stoker Family Edition that brought PadWorx to the attention of David Borgenicht, President and Publisher of Quirk Books.

“We were looking for a company that shared our creative vision to tackle our first highly interactive e-book,” said Borgenicht, “and it was clear from Dracula: The Official Stoker Family Edition that PadWorx could be our creative equals.  In the world of interactive book developers, PadWorx is definitely at the top of the game.”

Calgary Scientific has released PureWeb® 3.0, the first platform solution that allows multiple users to interact with the same instance of a software application simultaneously. PureWeb’s new collaboration capability allows geographically distributed users to access any PureWeb enabled application and collaborate with other users on a real-time basis. PureWeb allows existing software applications to be used in new ways and places, for less time and money, while maintaining high performance and security.

“The goal of Calgary Scientific has been to provide solutions for our customers that allow them to extend how and where their solutions are used,” says Pierre Lemire, President and Chief Technology Officer, Calgary Scientific. “Breaking yet another significant technical barrier, PureWeb 3.0 raises the bar to an even higher level by allowing users to interact with a single computed location, from any device, in a secure, high performance manner.”

With PureWeb, software that was previously chained in place on workstations and desktops can be freed to work anywhere on the Internet. It can then be accessed on mobile devices like laptops, netbooks, tablets and smartphones in modern ways that feel native to each. PureWeb allows software applications to be used by any user from any location or device without having to completely rewrite existing application code for each new platform. Making applications available to users anytime, anywhere increases the productivity and value of the applications.

New technologies such as web, cloud and mobile devices, have changed how and where users deploy and access applications. PureWeb allows any software applications to be leveraged in new ways by expanding how and where it is deployed and how it is accessed. This allows existing software to be utilized in new ways and increases the overall value to customers by providing flexibility and extending software and hardware lifecycles. PureWeb 3.0’s revolutionary collaboration capabilities allow users to share and collaborate with each other and their applications in a real-time, high performance fashion. Software applications can be shared natively and controlled by multiple users without having to invoke third-party sharing facilities, such as conferencing and collaboration tools, that add latency, complexity, and cost.

PureWeb brings modern benefits, such as web, cloud, mobile devices and now collaboration, to existing software applications quickly and at a fraction the time and cost of alternate approaches by not changing what the software does or how it is written. PureWeb’s support of existing and emerging standards allows users to future-proof their application investments and quickly support new platforms and devices in the future.

The PureWeb approach to modernizing software for the web, cloud or other host environments, dramatically reduces software management costs. Unlike SOA projects that are difficult to manage and contain, PureWeb does not require changes to existing applications. PureWeb also eliminates the licensing, deployment and management costs of proprietary clients required by screen scraping and other desktop virtualization techniques.

PureWeb offers an ever-expanding list of options for legacy applications. PureWeb integrates directly into your existing C#, C++ or Java code, bringing the web to your application rather than your application to the web. And more importantly, adding support for mobile applications such as an Apple iPad, iPhone or Google Android devices is seamless.

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Data is always most secure when it is not unnecessarily moved or copied. With PureWeb, data is stored where it is in now and is accessed through the PureWeb-enabled application just like it currently does. Since PureWeb does not change or compromise these systems, it provides further cost savings by not transferring or duplicating the data to any client, including mobile devices. This allows users to leverage existing security and infrastructure while providing secure and compliant access to applications from any client.

High performance software belongs on high performance hardware and PureWeb doesn’t change that. It just makes software applications accessible from mobile devices that leverage the processing power of existing high performance infrastructure. By doing this, PureWeb puts the processing power of a server in every user’s hand.

McAfee has extended its mobile device portfolio for consumers with McAfee Mobile Security and McAfee WaveSecure Tablet Edition.  These mobile device offerings change the mobile security landscape by offering security safeguards that help consumers secure their mobile devices for personal use, commerce and work.

A recent Leger Marketing survey of 1,500 Canadians, 18 years of age or older, was completed over the period May 24-26, 2011 for McAfee Canada. A probability sample of the same size would yield a margin of error of +/- 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20. The report results showed that Canadians overwhelmingly want security technologies to protect their mobile devices. Eighty three per cent (83%) of Canadians who use a mobile device want some (36%) or full (47%) protections (e.g. ability to remotely lock the device from unauthorized access; ability to remotely wipe the device’s memory; ability to locate the device using GPS technology; and ability to back up the device) to secure their mobile devices. Only 17 per cent of respondents do not feel the security of mobile devices is important.

According to a mobile security report released last week by McAfee and Carnegie Mellon University, titled, “Mobility and Security: Dazzling Opportunities, Profound Challenges,” respondents named their top three security concerns to be the loss of personal or work data through the accidental loss of a device, physical theft of the device, or loss of their data due to their device “crashing.” In addition, close to half of all respondents said they were using their smartphones both for personal use and work, demonstrating that consumers want more than just personal device security.

McAfee Mobile Security software, available for both smartphones and tablets, provides a comprehensive mobile security solution by combining three leading McAfee mobile security products:  WaveSecure, VirusScan Mobile and SiteAdvisor® for Android. It is ideal for users who want protection for their data and privacy in the event of loss or theft, protection against the growing threats of viruses and spyware targeting mobile devices and protection from Web- based threats, such as phishing sites that probe for personal and sensitive information. Read the rest of this entry »

Intertainment Media Inc., creators of real time experiential translation platform Ortsbo, has begun the full roll-out of  its multi-language application for the world’s most popular email platform, Microsoft Outlook. Users who register at Ortsbo.com for the free trial of Ortsbo for Outlook, or “O4O” will receive the ability to send and receive emails in over 50 languages. Later this year, Ortsbo will release Ortsbo 2.0 expanding the entire platform of services with 80 languages and enhanced email, online, mobile, portable, translation and learning based language services.

All currently registered and new O4O users who register by early August 2011 will be eligible to participate in Ortsbo’s Cruise Into Translation promotion and have the opportunity to win 1 of 5 trips on the KISS KRUISE in October 2011. Ortsbo is making available up to 10 Million copies of O4O beta for initial free trials and users who choose to convert to the full version of O4O will be entitled to initial introductory pricing of as low as $29.95 US for the application.

Ortsbo has also begun to ramp up its activation of users on its cloud computing based Windows Azure Platform, providing global users of Ortsbo the ability to connect through any desktop, mobile or portable computer browser. Ortsbo for Azure is a HTML based platform and does not require any downloading, allowing users in both consumer and commercial settings to use the program. Recent tests of the updated platform have seen the daily traffic accelerate by up to 150% over the previous records set for Ortsbo engagement and without the time delays experienced with the Silverlight version of Ortsbo. The Company is confident that Windows Azure will allow virtually unlimited global connections and immediate response for the Ortsbo platform. Ortsbo plans to release additional user statistics as it completes testing of the new platform. Read the rest of this entry »