Village Gamer

Canadian and international filmmakers, animators and video artists are invited to submit one-minute silent films for an urban public to the 5th annual Toronto Urban Film Festival (TUFF).

TUFF is FREE to submit prior to June 1, 2011. After that date, there will be submission fees: $10 (June 1 – June 30) and $15 (July 1 – July 15). Final deadline is July 15, 2011. Films can be submitted through the TUFF website. The Festival pays artist fees and awards thousands of dollars in cash and prizes.

The Toronto Urban Film Festival is North America’s only true “underground” film festival, reaching over 1.3 million daily commuters who ride the Toronto subway system.  Films screen every 10 minutes on 300 screens in 60 subways stations across the city. The festival takes place September 9 – 18, 2011 concurrent with the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Award-winning Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan will guest judge this year’s festival. Egoyan will select the top three films of the festival as well as the winner of the “Naish McHugh Award”, an annual cash award from the City of Toronto to an emerging GTA filmmaker. Egoyan, who was on the jury of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, joins a prestigious roster of former guest judges that includes Deepa Mehta, Don McKellar, Mark McKinney, and Jeremy Podeswa.

Named one of MovieMaker Magazine’s “20 Coolest Film Festivals” for 2010, TUFF is co-produced by Art for Commuters and Onestop Media Group, and funded by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Canadian casual developers are invited to the Casual Connect Conference, taking place in Seattle this July 19th through 21st. The conference attracts over 2,000 industry professionals with a cutting edge lecture series and highly popular nightly networking events. Join more than 50 Canadian companies that are expected to attend this year’s conference and take advantage of the following:

• $100 discount off the Premium Registration for the first 50 companies – Contact your local Trade Commissioner for details.

• Send and receive meeting requests with companies prior to the conference

• Access to free on-site meeting space during the conference

• Informational breakfast briefing with local industry experts on July 19

• Networking events held at the Invest in Canada booth on-site

• Inclusion in the Canada Company Directory to be distributed at the event (please feel out attached document)

Digital Alberta received nearly 200 submissions in 17 categories for this year’s Digital Alberta Awards. The Association has announced the finalists and hopes to see you all at the Digital Alberta Awards on Monday, June 6th at Calgary’s Hotel Arts. Tickets are on sale now, but seating is limited and the show promises to be a sell out event. This year’s nominees are:

Outstanding Achievement Award

• iStockphoto – Bruce Livingstone
• Bioware – Dr Ray Muzyka and Dr Greg Zeschuk
• Critical Mass – Dianne Wilkins
• Smart Technologies – David Martin
• StumbleUpon – Garrett Camp

B2C Innovation – Presented by Macleod Dixon

• Robots & Pencils for Ripplewave – Ayala Malls
• Robots & Pencils for Rightmove PLC – Rightmove for iPad
• Chaordix for Orange (France Telecom) UK – Mobile Volunteering
• Pirates Love Daisies – gskinner.com
• Strut for Brookfield Homes – Website, iPhone App & Touch-based Kiosk

Best Digital Advertising/Marketing or Design Agency – Presented by the CMA

• Donovan Creative
• Medium Rare
• Suitcase Interactive
• Evans Hunt
• Critical Mass

Best Digital Design – Presented by Adobe

• Robots & Pencils for Rightmove PLC – Rightmove for iPad
• Suitcase Interactive – Jayman MasterBuilt Web Site
• RED The Agency – EPCOR Blue Bucket Crew
• Calgary Herald In-house design team – Swerve Calgary
• Strut for Brookfield Homes – Website, iPhone App & Touch-based Kiosk

Best in Cross-Platform Content – Presented by Postmedia Networks

• The SnowShow Presented by SnowSeekers
• Enthrill Entertainment – One Child Transmedia Experience
• Corus Entertainment – ExploreMusic – powered by Cardinal
• Snow Seekers Go-Guide
• EA / Bioware – Mass Effect 2
• Conceptual Films – FOTO with Struan

B2B Innovation

• Robots & Pencils for Avalanche Air Systems Ltd. – Contractor Forms HD App
• Robots & Pencils for Ayala Malls / Ripplewave – Ayala Malls App
• Chaordix for IBM (Global) – Information Governance Community
• Touchmetric
• WMode – Cricket

Best Combined Hardware & Software Experience

• Suitcase Interactive – Jayman Touchscreen Application
• JetVision
• eQube Technology and Software Inc – Lil Gecko
• SMART Technologies – Multitouch Interactive Whiteboard
• SMART Technologies – Mixed Reality in education

Best in E-learning

• Rocket Fuel Games for Discovery Kids – Seek Your Own Proof
• 3DI – Simulation Training on Aerial Work Platform
• Global e-Training
• SMART Multitouch Interactive whiteboard
• SMART Mixed reality in the classroom

Best in Games Development

• Big Nerds in Disguise – Own This World
• EA / Bioware – Dragon Age 2
• EA / Bioware – Mass Effect 2
• BigStack Studios – Sigma
• Games Cafe – Sally’s Studio
• Pirates Love Daisies – gskinner.com

Best Use of Film, Animation or Special FX

• Solid Green Promo
• Jump Studios – IZOD Indy Rebranding Package
• Science Alberta – Do You Know What Nano Means
• 3DI – MARL Technologies Launches Revolutionary Sub Sea Drill
• EA / Bioware – Mass Effect 2

Government 2.0

• HEALTH DETERMINANTS FOR FIRST NATIONS in Alberta – Lift Interactive
• City of Calgary – Road Conditions Map
• City Of Calgary – 2010 Calgary Civic Election iPhone App
• Studio Dialog for the City Of Calgary – The Bow is Below
• Share Edmonton Wiki Site

Best In Financial Services

• Fulucai Productions Ltd. – “The Real Deal”
• Habañero for Servus Credit Union – Servus Website
• Suitcase Interactive for Neteller Net+ Credit Card – Facebook Ninja Defense Game
• Solium Capital – Adhoc Financial Reporting Engine

Mobile Innovation

• Poynt Corporation
• Syncamatic
• Big Nerds in Disguise – Own This World
• Perfectly Clear – iPhone & iPad Apps
• Fluik Entertainment – Office Jerk

Best in Social Media

• Suitcase Interactive for The Forzani Group – Athletes World “Stand Out” Engagement Campaign
• Cardinal for Corus Entertainment – ExploreMusic
• RED the Agency for EPCOR – Blue Bucket Crew and Digital Aquarium
• Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) – Canada’s Oil Sands: Come see for yourself.
• Edmonton Journal – Grey Cup 2010
• Shell Canada – Shell FuellingChange

Best Social Impact

• Chaordix for University of Oxford (Global) – Global Voices for Maternal Health
• Suitcase Interactive for United Way of Calgary – “BeCause” Social Campaign
• Joe Media for angrysue.ca – Get Turned off. For Good (aka. End Idling)
• Spark! by Benevity Workplace Giving Solution
• From Competition to Connection – Bringing Women Together with Womentum

Best Digital Startup

• Empire Avenue
• ExploreMusic – powered by Cardinal
• Beamdog
• Calgary Herald In-house design team – Swerve Calgary
• decorateIT online

Student Digital Award

• Alana Thorburn-Watt – Synaesthesia Squares
• Jessie Altura and Oana Avasilichioaei – Celan Mirror
• Greg Crossfield – Pulsar Chocolate Bar
• Lindsay MacDonald – University of Calgary – A Delicate Agreement
• Jeremy Pudlowski – The Man of Hat

The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) announced the winners of its first annual .CA Impact Awards at the mesh conference in Toronto, on the evening of May 25. Winners were chosen for using their .CA websites to make a positive cultural, technical, economic, or social impact. Four winners received $5,000 each as well as national recognition.

“At CIRA, we try to keep track of all the great .CA websites out there, but with over 1.6 million registered .CA sites it’s hard to keep up,” says Byron Holland, President and CEO of CIRA. “The .CA Impact Awards has really opened our eyes to some of the amazing work done on the web by Canadians. It’s truly inspiring.”

The awards were broken down in four broad categories, the winners for each category are:

• eLearning: ArtsAlive.CA, an educational performing arts website produced by the National Arts Centre, is the pre-eminent resource for performing arts education in Canada, engaging Canadians through information, multimedia and activities.
• Small Business: OpenMedia.CA uses its .CA website to protect the open Internet and to promote the innovation and free speech that it enables. OpenMedia.ca is currently the home of the viral Stop the Metre campaign, bringing the public together to fight for a more affordable Internet.
• Non-Profit: UppercaseGallery.CA is now an online artist community, featuring a blog, exhibitions, and a magazine. UppercaseGallery began as a gallery in downtown Calgary that featured the work of emerging and established graphic designers before moving online. Its .CA domain name allows Uppercase Gallery to clearly define itself as Canadian, as much of its web traffic is international.
• Web Technology and Design: NewPad.CA is an online apartment-hunting portal intended to make apartment hunting easier by mapping out online apartment listings in cities across Canada.

The .CA Impact Awards are part of CIRA’s ongoing commitment to invest in Canada’s Internet community and are designed to recognize youth, educators, not-for-profit organizations, small businesses, technology developers and web designers.

Sign up now to pitch your launch at Launch Party 11, being hosted at the Grow Conference 2011 in Vancouver. Launch @ Grow will be held on August 17th and organizers are looking for 15 of the hottest Canadian tech startups – but wait, that’s not all! Four of those 15 startups will pitch live on stage during Day 2 of Grow.

Digifest 2011 wants you to participate in First Person Show – a meet & greet show & tell for the video game and animation communities in Toronto and Ontario. Hosted at Gaming Inc., the new George Brown video game incubator and game development classrooms, the First Person Show will be held as part of Digifest 2011 during the day on both Saturday October 29th and Sunday October 30th. Apply now to participate.

3Vis is holding a presentation night on May 31st at the Caprice Club in Vancouver. Make Your Ideas A Reality will feature sessions by Louis Marcoux, Lee Fraser and Mark Schoennagel. In addition to these informative sessions, there will be networking opportunities and some great prize give-aways.

D-BOX Technologies Inc. has signed its first agreement with Maya Cinemas to equip its Bakersfield and Salinas locations in California with 24 and 30 D-BOX MFX Seats respectively. D-BOX Motion Effects create a completely immersive experience with subtle, refined motion sensations that pitch, roll and heave theatre seats in perfect sync with the onscreen action.

“New partnerships like these coupled with an incredible lineup of new movie content continue to drive our growth forward, allowing us to continue to expand our presence in U.S. markets and abroad,” said President and CEO of D-BOX Technologies, Claude Mc Master.

“At Maya Cinemas we strive to create a highly entertaining experience with the most advanced technologies and exceptional services,” said President of Maya Cinemas, Frank Haffar. “D-BOX is a natural fit for our theatres and provides our customers a new way to experience the movies.”

Media Awareness Network (MNet) and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) today unveiled the theme for this year’s annual Media Literacy Week – Digital Citizenship – calling on Canadians to encourage young people to reflect on their online lives, and their rights and responsibilities as they navigate the digital world.

“Through digital media, young people have a platform for communication and engagement that was nonexistent a generation ago. Adults have a huge role to play in ensuring they also have the critical thinking skills to use this technology wisely and responsibly,” said Cathy Wing, MNet’s Co-Executive Director. “With this year’s theme, we want to encourage youth to use digital media for positive activities – for advocacy, creative expression and civic engagement.”

For her part, CTF President Mary-Lou Donnelly explains how teachers play a pivotal role to help their students become active and responsible citizens in a global and increasingly complex world. “Technology has opened doors on issues related to the environment, civic engagement and social justice. Teachers’ fundamental role will continue to be in helping students develop lifelong skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, information literacy, global awareness and multiple knowledges.”

This year, the week will take place Nov. 7-11, 2011, and events are already being organized in homes, classrooms and communities across the country. The list of collaborators include Manitoba Education, the Canadian Library Association, the London Public Library, the Gulf Islands Film & Television School, TeachKidsNews, and The Manitoba Museum. Whether a student film festival, online challenge, panel discussion, workshop or film screening, Media Literacy Week offers events for all ages.

Media Literacy Week is proud to be welcoming back YouTube as a Gold Sponsor and Bell as a Silver Sponsor. To find out more on the week and how you can get involved, visit the Media Literacy Week Web site.

DHX Media would like North American parents to know that S2BN, in association with The Magic Store and DHX Media’s W!LDBRAIN Entertainment, are bringing the successful live stage version of the hit television series YO GABBA GABBA!, created by Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz, back on the road this fall for a 50-city North American tour. The tour will kick off in Minneapolis on Thursday, September 15 and will wrap on Sunday, December 11 in Fort Lauderdale, featuring multiple shows in many cities. Visit Yo Gabba Gabba Live for complete tour, ticket and VIP package information. Please note that the tour schedule can be subject to change.

At this time here are only two Canadian dates on the tour, Toronto’s Sony Theatre on September 22nd and Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre on November 11th.

YO GABBA GABBA! LIVE!: It’s Time to Dance! Presented by Kia Motors promises to be a memorable experience, featuring a mix of classic YO GABBA GABBA! favorites, as well as new songs and new performances. The state-of-the-art, high-energy production features DJ Lance Rock, Brobee, Foofa, Muno, Plex and Toodee, and a mix of music, animation, games, singing and dancing. The 2010 YO GABBA GABBA! live show played to 300,000 fans in sold out theatres in all major cities, including Radio City Music Hall in New York and NOKIA Theatre/ L.A. LIVE in Los Angeles.

Intertainment Media Inc. has announced that a Guinness World Record was established for the Most Nationalities In An Online Chat on May 20th when 92 countries were officially recorded as participating in KISS Live & Global hosted by Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons on Ortsbo. The event also marked the official launch of Ortsbo’s plug-in email translation platform for Microsoft Outlook, the world’s largest email platform.

Broadcast around the world from the Beverly Hills Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA, participants were able to watch a live video stream on their computers, iPhone, iPad, Android devices as well as submitting questions in 53 languages for KISS co-founders to answer. Thousands of questions were in the queue throughout the broadcast, allowing participants from over 92 countries, representing every geographic region globally to ask questions of the legendary rock stars.

“In addition to establishing a world record, Ortsbo has become a name known around the world as the leader in real time translation,” said David Lucatch, President of Ortsbo and CEO Intertainment Media. “We have already received follow up business opportunities, media requests and advertising inquiries increasing the value opportunities for Ortsbo.”

The event was covered by media around the world, including CBS, FOX, AOL and a wrap-up live broadcast interview with CNBC. Copies of all media, as it’s available, will be posted on the Intertainment and Ortsbo web sites.

During the event, Ortsbo announced the launch of its much anticipated email platform plug-in, allowing users to instantly translate and send emails in 53 languages. The first plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, known as Ortsbo for Outlook, or “O4O”, is now available for registration. Ortsbo will initially make up to 10 Million copies of O4O available globally to consumers and businesses on an introductory basis from mid June through mid September 2011.

With the launch of O4O, Ortsbo Cruise Into Translation is a new promotion that gives users who register and install O4O through August 2011, the opportunity to win 1 of 5 trips on the KISS Kruise in October as well as other VIP prizes. Additional contest ballots will be available for people who refer friends that register and install O4O.

Ortsbo’s flagship product for social media continues to accelerate. When initially launched in July 2010, Ortsbo’s social media translation platform infrastructure was designed to handle the expected first 2 to 3 years of operations or 12 Million monthly users.

Ortsbo has exceeded all growth projections in its first 9 months and has maximized existing platform capabilities and consequently the Company is now accelerating its move to Microsoft’s Window Azure Cloud platform to accommodate the continued viral growth of Ortsbo.

The new Ortsbo Azure platform is expected to be active by mid June as the priority for Azure development has been the KISS Live and Global event technology. This transition will provide virtually unlimited access to Ortsbo from anywhere in the world on almost any computer, smartphone or tablet device.

The SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery: Tracing Home presents exceptional digital and technologically mediated artworks that explore issues related to the concept of home in the networked age. SIGGRAPH 2011 takes place August 7th through 11th at the Vancouver Convention Centre.

From more than 300 submissions, the Art Gallery jury selected 16 pieces to be featured at SIGGRAPH 2011. These include 2D images, audio, video, as well as novel data-driven and mixed-media installations. They explore “home” as both a conceptual category and a physical reality, often blurring the boundaries between the two.

MOSTON, Anya Belkina, Emerson College

“The interplay of physical and virtual within our lived experience enables simultaneous and discontinuous realities at the touch of a button, echo of a voice, or nudge of a sensor,” said Mona Kasra, SIGGRAPH 2011 Juried Art Chair. “This year’s Art Gallery connects attendees with a unique interactive approach to art that explores this new era of technology, from a platform that captures the story of current world disasters through tweets and stock exchange information to a computer system that allows attendees to remotely control physical aspects of a house in foreclosure.”

The Art Gallery jury includes a wide range of artists, designers, technologists, and critics hailing from academia, industry, and the independent art world. Works exhibited in the Art Gallery are published in a special issue of Leonardo, the Journal of the International Society of the Arts, Sciences and Technology. Peer-reviewed SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Papers will also be published in this special issue, which coincides with SIGGRAPH 2011 in August.

SIGGRAPH 2011 Art Gallery Highlights include:

MOSTON

Anya Belkina, Emerson College

A 12-foot-tall suspended inflatable sculpture, MOSTON conjures a technology-driven amalgamation of Moscow and Boston with its three-dimensional form of mutated Russian nesting dolls and two-dimensional surface design of printed artwork and documentary footage projection.

tele-present wind

David Bowen, University of Minnesota

This installation consists of a field of x/y tilting devices connected to thin dried plant stalks installed in the gallery, and a dried plant stalk connected to an accelerometer outdoors. When the wind blows, it causes the stalk outside to sway. The accelerometer detects and transmits this movement in real time to the grouping of devices in the gallery.

Open House

Patrick LeMieux, Duke University; Jack Stenner, University of Florida

Open House is an installation that allows visitors to telematically squat in an actual Florida home undergoing foreclosure after the United States housing collapse. Virtual markets transformed this otherwise livable property into a ghost house. Prior to the collapse, movements of global capital seemed like a distant reality, but it was imaginary systems of value, not bricks and mortar, that asserted ultimate authority. Open House temporarily resists eviction by mirroring the market and creating hybrid subjects who occupy both virtual and physical space. Cross the threshold, open the door, flicker the lights, and rattle the shutters.

The Garden of Error and Decay

Michael Bielicky, HFG/ZKM Karlsruhe; Kamila B.Richter, HFG/ZKM Karlsruhe
Programmer: Dirk Reinbold
Sound: Lorenz Schwarz

In this data-driven narrative of current world disasters, the artist, Twitter users, and stock-exchange information all influence the storytelling.

Wait

Julie Andreyev, Emily Carr University of Art + Design and Simon Overstall, Emily Carr University of Art + Design

The companion-species relationship is the starting point for the critique explored in Wait. Human and canine communication methods are brought to bear within this interactive video installation. Taking cues from the movements of the visitor, the dog (as imaged in the video) points to the relationship of control. The dog appears to be waiting for direction; as the dog looks directly at viewers, a state of suspended agency is implied, and viewers are compelled to ask questions about their relationship to the dog. Wait was produced in co-production with the Banff New Media Institute.

The winners of the CATAAlliance 26th Annual Innovation Awards were announced Wednesday night at a sold out Gala Dinner, emceed by Paul Brent, host of CTV Ottawa’s TechNow. For over two decades, the CATAAlliance Innovation Awards Gala has been celebrating the best in Canadian advanced technology from coast to coast.

A reception, hosted by Ernst and Young and the Royal Bank of Canada, started the evening off in celebration of the 2011 Award Winners and Finalists recognized for their innovation, expertise, and leadership in Canada’s advanced technology community.

“Our 2011 award winners and finalists have shown that they are world-class innovators and industry leaders. They are certainly role models for the development of commercially successful enterprises in Canada. CATA is proud to act as an advocate for them and to provide a platform of programs and initiatives to assist in their growth,” says John Reid, CATA President.

In keeping with the theme of the Gala, Technology Futures, a panel discussion of industry experts provided insight into the exciting realm of upcoming technology trends. The panel included:

Patrick K. Horgan – Vice President, Manufacturing, Development and Operations, IBM Canada
Trina Alexson – Service Delivery Executive, Cisco Systems Inc.
Lynda Partner – Vice President, Marketing, Redline Communications
Lubor Ptacek – Vice President, Open Text
Craig Wright – Chief Economist, RBC Capital Markets

Awards winners were presented with awards in the following areas:

• Telfer School of Management Award for Private Sector Leadership in Advanced Technology: Marcel Lebrun – CEO, Radian6
• Open Text Award for Public Sector Leadership in Advanced Technology: Steve Palmer – Executive Director, Canadian Police Research Centre (CPRC), Shereen Miller – Director General, Office of Small and Medium Enterprises, Public Works and Government Services Canada
• Peter Brojde Award for Canada’s Next Generation Executive Leadership: Chris McLaren – Founder and CEO, Tristan Interactive
• ICTC Information Technology HR Strategic Leadership Award: Magor Communications
• KPMG CIO Leadership Award: Erik Boch – Founder, CTO and VP Engineering, DragonWave Inc.
• Wellington West Award for Outstanding Product Achievement (ICT/Health/Clean Tech): IDEAL LIFE Inc.
• Celestica Award for Technology Commercialization: IntelliView Technologies Inc.
• Ericsson Award for Outstanding Product Achievement (Content and Application Mobility Industry): Purple Forge
• TSX Emerging Technology Award: Virage Simulation
• CAMSC Innovation through Diversity Award: Garth Scully – Director, Partner Operations, Cisco Systems Inc.
• Motorola Award for Public Safety Technology: Optosecurity Inc.
• Canadian Women in Technology (CanWIT) Sara Kirke Award for Woman Entrepreneurship: Janet Longmore – President and CEO, Digital Opportunity Trust
• High Road Communications’ Prix de l’innovation pour l’Excellence dans le journalisme scientifique et technique medias du Quebec: Denis Lalonde – Direction Informatique
• High Road Communications’ Excellence in Science and Technology Reporting Award: Bob McDonald – CBC

Front row (l-r): Erik Boch, DragonWave Inc.; Shereen Miller, PWGSC; Steve Palmer, CPRC; Marcel Lebrun, Radian6
Back row (l-r): Ken Davison, Magor Communications; Garth Scully, Cisco Systems Inc., Janet Longmore, Digital Opportunity Trust; John Craig, Purple Forge; Denis Lalonde, Direction Informatique; Mike Reardon, Virage Simulation; Chris McLaren, Tristan Interactive; Bob McDonald, CBC; Dr. Wael Badawy, IntelliView Technologies.

The 26th Annual CATAAlliance Innovation Awards Gala was supported this year by the following corporate sponsors: RBC, Ernst and Young, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, the Peter Brojde Foundation, ICTC, KPMG, High Road Communications, Ericsson, Celestica, Wellington West, TSX, CAMSC, Motorola, Microsoft, Accretive Advisor, and Open Text.