Village Gamer

The Canada Media Fund (CMF) will hold a webcast Wednesday, February 23, 2011, to explain the changes to the 2011-2012 Guidelines and to answer possible questions raised by the changes. This broadcast will be hosted by Stéphane Cardin (Vice President, Industry and Public Affairs) and Nathalie Clermont (Director of Program Management). The presentation will be in 2 stages: first in French from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. ET and then in English from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. ET. You are invited to review the Summary of Changes to the various Convergent and Experimental Stream programs. Comments and questions can be sent via email, asked on Twitter on the CMF Facebook page.

Please click on the following address to test drive the webcast page on your computer:

CMF-FMC Webcast

To view the webcast, Flash player from Adobe is all you need in your browser. You will be asked to provide your name and email address to access the broadcast page. (Please note that you may need to sign in again on the day of the webcast).

Vancouver-based TIO Networks Corp. has successfully launched the Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (PG&E) “mobile bill pay app”. This mobile payment app is an industry first by a major Utility and provides up to six million PG&E customers in Northern and Central California with the convenience of paying their utility bills on an expedited basis through their iPhones and iOS devices.

“Almost immediately from the pre-launch phase in late December 2010, we have had strong consumer interest as several thousand PG&E customers have already downloaded the App and are paying their bills” said Hamed Shahbazi, Chairman and CEO of TIO Networks. “We will be expanding the payment platform to include Android and Blackberry versions in the near future. This product was a collaborative effort with PG&E and we appreciate their strong commitment to the project.”

Millions of PG&E customers can now download the TIO mobile application from Apple’s app store for free, and enjoy the convenience of bill payment on the go, anytime and anywhere. The TIO payment application features a user-friendly interface on iOS powered devices for real-time access to a customer’s account balance and intuitive instructions, in either English or Spanish, for fast payment with Visa, Master Card or through a customer’s bank account.

Sofame Technologies Inc., a Montreal-based manufacturer of environmentally efficient industrial hot water systems and cost effective heat recovery equipment, has turned to Autodesk® to solve a pressing business need: Growing Sofame’s presence in the competitive global marketplace. Sofame’s sights are set on offering rapid delivery of its award winning industrial boiler efficiency systems.  In 2010, Sofame began a program of outsourced manufacturing, which required product redesign and standardization to speed-up manufacturing, eliminate errors, and above-all, reduce costly hours of manual work.  Autodesk Consulting will now work with Sofame to improve its engineer-to-order (ETO) business processes.  New Autodesk solutions will further reduce engineering time as well as produce vessel drawings and P&ID’s more quickly. Sofame plans to shorten sales cycles, and handle more projects with the same number of people.

Beginning Sunday April 17th HBO Canada, a multiplex channel of Astral’s The Movie Network (Eastern Canada) and Corus Entertainment’s Movie Central (Western Canada) is taking subscribers inside a land where summers span decades, winters can last a lifetime, and a bloody battle rages for control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and ultimately, the Iron Throne.

Based on the bestselling fantasy book series A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones is a 10-part epic fantasy series that follows kings and queens, knights and renegades, liars and noblemen as they vie for power.

Created with active collaboration from author Martin, the series combines elements of the fantasy genre with a simultaneous focus on character and psychology. HBO shot the series primarily in Northern Ireland and worked with expert language creator David J. Peterson to develop an expansive language for the Dothraki, a race of nomadic warriors.

Featuring a vast cast set to portray the inhabitants of Westeros, Game of Thrones stars (in alphabetical order): Mark Addy as King Robert Baratheon; Alfie Allen as Theon Greyjoy; Sean Bean as Lord Eddard “Ned” Stark; Emilia Clarke as Daenerys Targaryen; Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Ser Jaime Lannister; Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister; Michelle Fairley as Lady Catelyn Stark; Aidan Gillen as Petyr Baelish (“Littlefinger”); Jack Gleeson as Prince Joffrey Baratheon; Iain Glen as Ser Jorah Mormont; Kit Harington as Jon Snow; Lena Headey as Queen Cersei Lannister; Isaac Hempstead-Wright as Bran Stark; Harry Lloyd as Viserys Targaryen; Richard Madden as Robb Stark; Rory McCann as Sandor Clegane (“The Hound”); Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark; and Maisie Williams as Arya Stark.

Game of Thrones is executive produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss; co-executive producers Carolyn Strauss, Guymon Casaday, Vince Gerardis, Ralph Vicinanza and George R.R. Martin; and producers, Mark Huffam and Frank Doelger. Directors include Brian Kirk, Tom McCarthy, Daniel Minahan, Alan Taylor and Tim Van Patten.

Reminder: Confoo 2011 is March 9th – 11th in Montreal.

Digital Extremes, developers of the PC version for the upcoming HomeFront game is participating in a session on Video Games and the Next Generation of Literacy in partnership with the Child & Youth Network, London Public Library and the United Way of London and Middlesex. The session will take place at the Museum London, 421 Ridout Street North in London, Ontario on Thursday, February 10th from 4:30pm until 8:00pm.

There will be a Keynote presentation by Dr. James Paul Gee, Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University and author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. The event will also feature a panel discussion, networking and refreshments. Donations to support literacy initiatives are welcome.

Digital Extremes has also launched a new iOS title. Available now for 99 cents US, Retro Pinball includes three handpicked tables (Crash and Burn, Super Android, Pangea) from original creator James Schmalz, all with updated graphics and sound to enhance your gaming experience on your favorite Apple iOS device.

Eidos Montreal has released a new trailer for Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Take an up-close and personal look at player character and game hero Adam Jensen.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o39lpePeOp8]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is rated M for Mature by the ESRB and according to GameStop Canada, will be in-store on April 1st.

Puzzle Pond from Little Guy Games is a featured FreeAppADay game today, so hurry over to the iTunes App Store and grab this cute match-up game. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, you play Puzzle Pond by matching two creatures with a swipe of your finger to make them kiss and explode with joy. There are three game modes, Speed, Puzzle and Zen, with the ability to conduct combos and streaks for huge points and power-ups. There are currently sixty brain teasing puzzles in this Game Centre and OpenFeint-enabled game has twenty different achievements and a leaderboard.

Mike Farah, President of Production at comedy website Funny Or Die, and key members of his creative team will deliver a Feature Panel on the future of online comedy at BANFF 2011. Farah and his team will offer an in-depth look at the production strategy behind the phenomenal success of the site, which averages 8 million unique users and over 30 million video views per month.

“In only three years, Funny Or Die has become the destination for comedy fans online, with some of the best content out there,” said Ferne Cohen, Executive Director of the Festival. “We are all looking forward to what I’m sure will be a compelling and entertaining panel.”

As President of Production, Mike Farah oversees the creative day-to-day operations of the premier comedy site, along with Funny or Die’s television and feature projects. With Funny Or Die for over two years, Farah has produced the award-winning video “Prop 8: The Musical,” the Ron Howard-directed “Presidential Reunion,” and Marion Cotillard’s “Forehead Tittaes,” among many others. Under Farah’s leadership, Funny Or Die’s creative team produces over 25 original videos each month. In November 2010, The Hollywood Reporter named Farah one of the top 35 Hollywood executives under 35.

Montreal’s gogo6 inc., a leading provider of IPv6 products, community and services has released gogoCPE version 1.0 – a small v6 adaptor for the home that can be installed and providing IPv6 within a minute. Designed to work with, rather than replace home networking equipment, the gogoCPE can be used to deploy IPv6 using IPv4 or to deploy IPv4 using IPv6 – both resulting in a dual-stack home network. Early customers of the gogoCPE include SingTel, Comcast and Globe Telecom.

The gogoCPE is plug ‘n’ play simple and designed to be installed by the end user without any support. The gogoCPE uses the same code as the gogoCLIENT which has reliably provided IPv6 to over 150,000 users of the Freenet6 service.

The gogoCPE supports the most popular transition technologies including TSP, DS-Lite, 6RD, DSTM and L2TP. It is compatible with the gogoSERVER and other manufacturer systems. Its wide technology support allows it to work in any IPv4/v6 network scenario, including:

* Providing IPv6 to existing and new customers with IPv4 home routers in an IPv4 network.
* Providing IPv4 to new customers with IPv4 home routers in an IPv6 network.
* Providing IPv6 to new customers without IPv4 home routers in an IPv4 network.

“Hands down the most difficult part of introducing IPv6 into a broadband network is the home. This is where a majority of the IPv6 costs lie and where service providers have the least control. In a vast majority of the cases the home networking equipment is either not upgradable or owned by the end user making IPv6 synonymous with installing new equipment,” said Bruce Sinclair, gogo6 CEO. “The recent depletion of IPv4 addresses from the IANA pool increases the pressure on service providers to find a simple yet effective solution to offer v6 and v4 by way of v6. Service providers can quickly introduce IPv6 into their networks with a single 1U gogoSERVER and one gogoCPE per home.”

The gogoCPE is available today after being tested by service providers around the world. In addition to being sold in volume individual gogoCPEs are available on the gogo6 website. These units are preconfigured to work with Freenet6 making them plug ‘n’ play ready out of the box. Individual units cost $99 plus shipping and handling. Volume pricing is lower.

If I owned a Mac, I would be downloading the trial version of Office for Mac from Microsoft Canada right now, because they are holding a contest in partnership with LiveNation. Entrants could win a chance to see any band in the Canadian city—and seats—of his or her choice. Please see the contest rules for complete prize and entry details.

Roaring Penguin Software has updated its CanIt Reputation List, which collects IP reputation data on e-mail servers from a worldwide network of sensors. Roaring Penguin currently aggregates this data into four DNS-based block lists:

Spam Source: A list of IP addresses that have sent mostly spam and very little non-spam.
Dictionary Attackers: A list of IP addresses that have sent to many nonexistent recipients and very few valid recipients.
Greylist Stumblers: A list of IP addresses that have been thwarted by greylisting. Such machines are typically compromised personal computers.
Good: A list of IP addresses that have passed greylisting, have sent to very few nonexistent recipients, and have sent mostly non-spam. These machines are very likely legitimate mail servers.

To these block lists Roaring Penguin has added a new list called “Mixed” for hosts that send a mixture of spam and non-spam. Roaring Penguin found that the old “SpamSource” list would often list outbound mail servers for large e-mail providers. These servers tend to send a lot of spam, but they also send a lot of non-spam e-mail. The change to Roaring Penguin’s Reputation Lists means that about 5600 machines formerly listed on the “SpamSource” list are now listed on “Mixed”. This still leaves almost 1.9 million machines listed on the “SpamSource” e-mail reputation list.

CanIt 8.0 is available as:

* CanIt-PRO, an anti-spam / anti-virus appliance or a soft appliance.
* CanIt-Domain-PRO, spam filtering software that allows service providers such as MSPs to host anti-spam for their customers.
* Hosted CanIt, a fully outsourced anti-spam solution.

The Founder of the Online Party of Canada, Michael Nicula, will be holding a press conference on Saturday February 5, 2011 in the Art Room of the Gladstone Hotel to discuss CRTC policies in the context of decision 2011-44 to impose User Based Billing (UBB) on the whole Canadian market. Nicula will be joined by Iain Calder of TorFree.Net as well as affected consumers and small ISP providers.

In a move aimed to calm angry consumers, already dissatisfied with the internet service market in Canada, the CRTC president as well as many senior MPs vowed to review or strike down decision 2011-44. Internet service quality in Canada is not a new issue; it just happened that the latest CRTC decision has touched a nerve, as consumers are now enjoying data-rich social networking, livestream and television programs more than ever before.

Online Party of Canada wants to take the opportunity to broaden this discussion. Why has Canada slipped in the world ranking of country infrastructures in terms of speed and service quality? Countries like Romania and Bulgaria clock more than twice the average speed, and the leaders Korea and Japan boast speeds as much as three times faster. Is government intervention into the CRTC the right thing to do?

Online Party of Canada (OPC) is an Internet-based Political Party, pending registration. OPC is a non-traditional political party; it focuses on issues instead of platforms or individuals. OPC operates exclusively online and promotes an innovative voting system inspired from today’s popular technologies such as like/dislike, share, tweet, comment.

As a special committee of MPs scrutinizes the government’s proposed reforms to copyright law (Bill C-32, the Copyright Modernization Act), a broad coalition of groups and associations collectively representing hundreds of thousands of creative professionals employed in Canada’s arts and culture industries has come together in an unprecedented show of solidarity. Presenting the coalition’s position statement today in Ottawa were Sophie Milman, internationally acclaimed jazz artist; Jean Bouchard, book publisher with Groupe Modulo/Nelson Education; Alan Cumyn, author and chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada; and Nadia Myre, multi-disciplinary visual artist from Quebec and member of the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg.

Almost 90 groups representing writers, performers, actors, illustrators, musicians, composers, publishers, poets, visual artists, playwrights, songwriters, and producers from across Canada have signed the statement that urges the Government to make changes to Bill C-32. Without these changes, the Bill would overturn the core principles of copyright law that historically have ensured a healthy environment for creators, producers, distributors and consumers of Canadian cultural content. The coalition is part of a $46 billion industry that employs more than 600,000 Canadians and contributes twice as much to the GDP as the forestry industry.

“The whole purpose of copyright is to protect creators and their work,” said Ms. Milman. “Bill C-32 turns that principle on its head by ripping away many of the rights that we have long relied upon, making it that much harder to make a living from our work.”

Citing a long list of troubling new exceptions in the bill, including the expansion of so-called “fair dealing” to cover education, the coalition warns that C-32 will cause serious damage to markets for Canada’s cultural sector and significantly reduce current and future revenues on which creators depend for their income.

“Canadian educational publishers are currently investing money and efforts to develop learning tools that will allow Canadian educators to take advantage of the power of new digital platforms,” said Mr. Bouchard. “If Bill C-32 is enacted as drafted, these investments will be vastly diminished for lack of a foreseeable and stable economic model. Education must be removed from the fair dealing purposes currently proposed by Bill C-32.”

“Bill C-32 also misses an important opportunity to establish the Artist’s Resale Right in Canada,” added Ms. Myre. “Right now, artists only benefit from the first sale of our work, but we all know that the full value of an artwork is often not realized on this first sale. The value of a piece of art can skyrocket over time, but the artist receives none of that profit. The Artist’s Resale Right would fix that inequality.”

“Bill C-32 threatens the collective licensing of rights by undermining the existing, effective system that makes it possible for creators and copyright owners to be paid for the use of their works,” said Mr. Cumyn.

Partial text from the Joint Statement (you can read the full statement on their site)

We believe that the passage of Bill C-32 as it stands will weaken the core principles of copyright law that have historically ensured a healthy environment for creators, producers, distributors and consumers of Canadian cultural content. It will compromise Canada’s competitiveness in the global digital economy, while undermining the economic future of creators of Canadian content. The proposed changes reflect a lack of understanding of the structure of creative industries in today’s rapidly evolving digital economy. Parliament needs to amend the legislation and salvage C-32’s positive provisions. Canada’s hopes for a vibrant and innovative digital economy are only as strong as its protection of intellectual property, the raw material of the knowledge economy, and C-32 as it stands is a step back, rather than a step forward.

Consequences to passing Bill C-32:

The following is a breakdown of consequences that will result if C-32 passes as it stands:

• User-Generated Content Exception: Canada will become the first country in the world to allow businesses like YouTube the right to use copyright-protected works to earn revenue without any obligation to obtain consent or compensate the creators of the content in return.
• Education Exceptions: This exception will violate Canada’s international obligations and may form the basis of a trade challenge under the WTO regime. The expansion of fair dealing to include education is an unfair expropriation of revenues payable to creators for copying their works. These new and expanded exceptions will create uncertainty in the marketplace. This will lead to years of litigation as copyright owners and users grapple with the market impact of the new, often broad, exceptions.
• Private Purposes: Bill C-32 streams revenues away from creators by legalizing copying for private purposes, including format shifting and back-up copies. These exceptions are so broad they could permit unauthorized sharing of content files over networks. The exceptions may significantly reduce the size of the market, undermine existing revenue streams such as the private copying levy and compromise the development of new licensing regimes and business models that provide fair compensation for these additional uses.

Read the rest of this entry »

The User Based Billing debate is gaining momentum across the country, and has taken over this morning’s research, reading and writing time, which with having to do double-duty at my day job for the next two weeks, is putting a huge dent in how much content I can process while still maintaining what little bit of sanity I still possess. I’d like to write much, much more – but time constraints are not very forgiving when one is being pulled in a dozen different directions which constantly conflict with the whole parent-work-life-relaxation balance equation. It’s not just game developers who suffer from that affliction.

As sites like Anti UBB appear and high profile talk shows on the radio and television news casts are rife with people on both sides of the UBB debate stating their opinions, it is clear that Canadians are getting fed up with constant hits to their pocketbook and CRTC decisions.

Is it somewhat ironic that as this debate heats up, CBC issues a press release outlining the changes coming to the public broadcaster, and included in this five year plan outline is an increased digital offering, which Canadians will have to think twice about consuming because that other “public agency” the CRTC says we have to stop clogging up the internet and not use it so much – or pay highly inflated fees to go over our allotment.

According to the press release, CBC’s Everyone Every Way plan is about the future of public broadcasting in Canada. It’s about transformation in the midst of a technological revolution, and about evolving alongside a changing country. It’s a strategy that binds CBC and Radio-Canada around common priorities which also respects the reality that execution of the strategy needs to be tailored to the uniqueness of their respective markets.

Over the next five years, CBC/Radio-Canada will strengthen its commitment to original, innovative, high-quality Canadian content. We will also commit to airing at least 10 signature events per year in English and in French — events like Live Right Now and Concert inaugural de la nouvelle salle de concert de Montréal avec l’OSM — which bring Canadians together in large numbers, are delivered on multiple platforms, and have a meaningful impact on participants and viewers alike.

CBC will be looking to expand its regional footprint, launching new radio stations, introducing new local websites and services, and increasing regional news and programming. Radio-Canada will enhance its presence in regional life by producing engaging local programming that can then be used for broadcast nationally, by delivering more local and regional news, and by providing more local French-language content on regional websites, especially those outside of Quebec. In an evolving digital and on-demand world, CBC/Radio-Canada will continue its leadership in new platforms and digital services, doubling its investment over the next five years.

“The way forward will be about seizing the tremendous opportunity we have before us to truly change our relationship with Canadians on a national, community and personal level,” says Lacroix. “We can’t be all things to all people, but we can and must in some way be something for, and mean something to every Canadian. Everyone, Every way is our commitment to Canadians, and it’s the measure by which we want to be judged. We will meet their expectations. Nothing less.”

CBC/Radio-Canada will deliver on this commitment in four ways: by creating and delivering original and innovative, quality Canadian content; by reflecting and drawing together all Canadians; by actively engaging with audiences; and, by being cost-effective and accountable. To evaluate progress, we have developed metrics to track and assess our performance by service and genre against the strategy twice per year.

The federal Liberal party has come out with their own take on the issue, saying that they have been paying attention and take the side of the Canadian buying public – and asking for the public’s support to defeat the Conservatives in a future election. Today’s Liberal statement has garnered praise from citizen engagement group OpenMedia.ca, the organization behind the rapidly growing Stop The Meter petition – and comes one day after the OpenMedia group noted in a press release yesterday that the Liberals and Conservatives had been rather quiet on the issue.

Federal Industry Minister Tony Clement did issue a comment late last evening, with a statement of support for “competition, innovation, and consumers” in general, but OpenMedia.ca holds that Canadians will not be happy until they have access to Internet services free of metering.

Steve Anderson, OpenMedia.ca’s national coordinator responded to Minister Clement’s statement by saying that “Clement is going to have to do more than ask the CRTC to do some tinkering with UBB pricing. He must either overturn all the CRTC rulings that force pricing schemes on Big Telecom’s independent competitors, or at minimum have the CRTC revisit the entire premise of forced UBB pricing.”

In regards to today’s Liberal statement, Anderson said that “We’re elated by this move by the Liberals. Over the last few months, supporters of Stop The Meter came together as citizens, and today they fundamentally influenced federal politics. This is a groundbreaking example of the power of the online discourse and organization, and why we must protect the open, public Internet.”

OpenMedia.ca is pleased that the Liberals have learned from the 220,000 people who have so far taken part in the campaign to “stop the meter on Internet use”, and reverse the CRTC decision that allows usage-based billing to monopolize the system for pricing the Internet. Led by Rodriquez and Industry and Technology Critic Marc Garneau, the Liberal Party has now become the second major federal party to officially condemn Internet metering.

“Liberals believe in more internet competition, not less,” said Liberal Heritage Critic Pablo Rodriquez in a statement released today, seemingly echoing the words on OpenMedia.ca’s homepage: “Canadians want more Internet, not less”.

Digital Affairs Critic Charlie Angus expressed the NDP’s opposition to the pricing regime in a press release on January 20th, stating that ““We’ve seen this all before with cell phones. Allowing the Internet Service Providers to ding you every time you download is a rip-off. Canada is already falling behind other countries in terms of choice, accessibility and pricing for the Internet. The large ISP-broadcast entities now have a tool for squashing their main competitors – both in internet and video services, and we need clear rules that put consumers first.”

Dr. Michael Geist has also weighed in on the UBB issue, stating on his site that “despite the obvious anger over the issue, there remains a considerable amount of misinformation about what has happened and uncertainty about just what to do about it. This post attempts to unpack the issue, by discussing two related but not identical concerns – the recent CRTC UBB decision and the broader use of bandwidth caps by virtually all large Canadian ISPs.”

Dr. Geist looks at both sides of the issue, and offers his thoughts on options for a solution to what is promising to become a heated, and weighted battle for Canadians as they watch the Telcos seemingly take on the stance of the playground bully in the neighbourhood sandbox. (those are my words, not Dr. Geist’s.)

Is this tongue-in-cheek look at the UBB issue, created by Colin Walsh of Celsius Game Studio going to be the  future for our digital developers as they attempt to create products for global consumers? At least his latest game, Red Nova, didn’t use a ton of bandwidth when I bought it for my iPod Touch.

A related issue for ourselves is the fact that we have long wanted to move our dedicated server account from an American data centre to one in Canada, in part because we’re tired of dealing with the fluctuating exchange rates and the “foreign currency fees” charged by our credit card company, but also because we’d like to be supporting business north of the 49th. Unfortunately, while the actual server plans available in Canada are somewhat reasonable even though they may lack some of the perks we get with SoftLayer, the bandwidth allowances and charges have always caused us to put on the brakes. We have looked at many options, including building a server and upgrading to business internet so that we would be permitted to run it from our home office, but again, bandwidth charges and licensing for all of the software we use is cost-prohibitive. With our plans for the expansion and re-branding of Village Gamer, we either have to take a more serious look at selling advertising space or find other ways to monetize the site without compromising our impartiality or the perception of said impartiality.

I also have to be cautious about the trailers and other large files we download and then upload either to our server or to places like our YouTube channel, because now every byte counts. We’ve probably come close to hitting our cap a few times,  and now that Shaw has quietly reduced our bandwidth cap by 25 gigabytes we have to consider what software, games and game add-ons we purchase online. With three gamers in the house using three PCs, two laptops, two Xbox 360s and a Wii, all running on one internet account, this is something that has the potential to become a huge issue – and cost – for us, especially as many game and software titles have huge updates between the time they are shipped and the time they are installed. Am I going to get the next chapter in the ongoing saga of super hero DeathSpank or just read about it in press releases? How big am I going to be able to make my world in Dragon Age 2, and what extras will I be getting as I take up the fight in Deus Ex: Human Revolution? Will I be getting that next QuickBooks update, and how much bandwidth will the tax files use up? Are the ISPs going to launch their own game and software download service to go along with their Video On Demand service and compete with Steam, Direct to Drive, the Wii Store, PlayStation Network,  Xbox Marketplace and other digital download outlets? I hope I didn’t just give them any bright ideas…

Do we cut some of our digital channels and upgrade our internet plan? We’re already using the Extreme plan and to upgrade to the next available plan would be another $50.00 per month for an extra 75 gigs per month. Which Canadian channels would we drop and how much bandwidth would we burn through watching the shows from those channels online – if they’re even available online? Now instead of conveniently transferring large web site files between computers via MSN Messenger, we will most likely be making use of USB drives or data CDs – which means we get to pay the copyright surcharge to the government when we buy more drives and more CDs to transfer our own data – or perhaps we just add an internal file server and pay for the extra hydro power needed to run it, then we can have the Township pounding on our door wanting to search our house because of excessive power use.

I won’t even go into all those Windows and software updates that can sometimes involve huge files, with ISPs recommending that all computers have the latest updates and patches in order to remain secure, which is a no-brainer, but will still have an effect on our bottom line for bandwidth usage, which, but the way, we can’t even check on because apparently Shaw doesn’t show bandwidth usage on client account profiles unless said account is a habitual bandwidth hog. Why is it a secret? If Shaw knows how much bandwidth we’re using, why can’t WE know how much bandwidth we’re using? The whole process of cable television, internet connection and usage has become a huge tangled web for consumer – and yes, that pun was intended. To add to my Telcom rant, why can’t we have total control over our “bundles” and choose all of the extra channels we want over and above basic cable? Why do we have to have a bunch of channels we don’t watch built into them, instead of being able to build a bundle out of the channels we do want – and why can’t we burn some of our bandwidth up by going to our account profiles and checking off which channels we want? The Build Your Own Bundle option is just a tad misleading, don’t you think?

Spurred by the CRTC’s controversial UBB decision, Canada’s largest high-technology organization has also joined supporters of an initiative to connect Canada with ultra-fast communications, putting out a release today calling for the creation of a new model for the implementation of broadband in Canada.

“Fast and affordable communications is vital to society as well as business,” stated John Reid, President of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA). “We are in danger of falling even further behind the rest of the world if we can’t develop a new, workable model for the adoption of broadband — the fundamental infrastructure for today’s knowledge economy. We need to collectively resolve issues such as usage-based billing within the framework of a larger national plan.”

“Our i-CANADA program to accelerate the development of connected communities and to regain Canada’s leadership in the digital economy is in danger of getting tangled,” said Bill Hutchison, Chair of the i-CANADA program. “We have a New National Dream that will bring global leadership through the use of ultra-fast intelligent communications and collaboration within communities to reach new levels of economic, environmental and social growth and prosperity. This dream is being threatened by a start-and-stop policy environment in Canada.”

Mr. Hutchison illustrated some of the crippling problems that Canadian society faces due to the lack of a consensual overall model: “There may be as many as 700,000 homes in Canada that lack broadband Internet access, and many of those who have it are complaining of speeds so slow that they are barely faster than dial-up. By comparison, the U.S. government’s “National Broadband Plan” sets a target speed of ‘affordable’ 100 megabits-per-second Internet service connecting at least 100 million homes by 2020. Australia has pledged $43-billion to the creation of a high-speed network.

“We need a firm consensus in Canada on what our ‘baseline’ of acceptable speed and cost is,” said Mr. Hutchison. “Businesses need to plan, communities need to build jobs, and residents need access to services such as online health care and education.”

Conflicts like the one over usage-based billing can only be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction if Canada has a strategy for broadband development: “The old model where the private sector is expected to pay for infrastructure development from their profits, has greatly changed,” indicated Mr. Hutchison. “Now that communications is a ‘commodity’, it no longer affords the same level of profit to the telecommunications companies. We need a new model for infrastructure development. We have a good momentum going, but we need a national debate to be able to resolve the broadband issue.”

Welcome to Canada – where you can create all of the great digital products you want – you just can’t share it with your fellow citizens unless you get really creative and innovative with file size and delivery compression.

The Internet lets you share information with anyone, anywhere, at any time, but not without some peril to your privacy, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart warned today.

“There are nearly two billion people now using the Internet,” the Commissioner noted in a message about Data Privacy Day, which is observed every January 28. “That’s two billion people who can potentially access information about you with the click of a button.”

The Commissioner said Canadians, especially the many young people who spend time online, need to recognize that, on the Internet, they are not always among friends. “So whenever you put your personal information in cyberspace, whether accidentally or by design, it may be impossible to control who uses it and how.”

But what’s the risk?

“Strangers could use it to embarrass you or damage your reputation,” Commissioner Stoddart explains. “Businesses could use it to track your personal likes and dislikes, without your knowledge or consent. It could also be stolen and used in ways that cause you significant personal and financial harm.”

You may not realize it, but whenever you go online, you’re building an identity through the words and images you post and the activities you do. This can become part of your reputation, and it can be a lasting one. Once personal information goes online, it may be difficult to delete. While you may be able to delete it in one place, there may be cached versions or copies stored elsewhere that you cannot control. Digital storage is cheap and computer memory is plentiful. “And, unlike people, the Net never forgets,” Commissioner Stoddart says.

So it’s important to think about what you’re doing online, and to always protect your information.

The quantity, accessibility and persistence of personal information online affect privacy in ways that are of mounting global concern. Governments, privacy professionals, corporations, academics and students from around the world are marking the annual Data Privacy Day to help raise awareness about the impact that technology is having on our privacy rights and to promote the protection of personal information.

In recognition of Data Privacy Day, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada will be running an online draw for prizes and sharing its Data Privacy Day resources, such as posters and fact sheets about protecting personal information on mobile devices, with other privacy regulators and organizations.

“The threats to privacy are huge and growing,” Commissioner Stoddart said. “So the protection of personal information has to be the responsibility of everyone – data-protection authorities, organizations and individuals alike, in Canada and around the world.”

As public favour of the CRTC begins heading for an all-time low with growing complaints about its lack of action in regards to Canadian ISPs, the Commission has reaffirmed its support for the Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services (CCTS), an agency that works to resolve disagreements between Canadians and their service providers.

“Following an extensive review, we are satisfied that the CCTS is doing a good job of resolving complaints on behalf of consumers and small businesses,” said Leonard Katz, the CRTC’s Vice-Chairman of Telecommunications. “An independent agency like the CCTS is an essential intermediary in a market where competition is growing by the day and the majority of telecommunications services are no longer regulated.”

As part of its review, the Commission found that the CCTS’ governance structure and mandate remain appropriate, and extended the membership requirement for a period of five years. Moreover, to ensure that a greater number of Canadians are able to benefit from the agency’s complaint-resolution services, all telecommunications service providers must become members of the CCTS. The Commission had previously only required companies with annual revenues over $10 million to join the agency.

The Commission has also asked the agency to include more details in its annual report regarding the types of complaints it receives. This information will enable a better assessment of trends, the agency’s complaint-resolution activities and the effectiveness of public awareness activities.

Consumers and small businesses must first attempt to resolve any disagreements related to an unregulated telecommunications service directly with their service provider. If the matter remains unresolved, they may file a complaint with the CCTS.

A group of leading Ontario digital media companies and venture capital investors will head to New York City next week as part of a delegation organized by MaRS Discovery District. As part of the visit, delegate companies will present at the prestigious OnMedia NYC 2011 conference. OnMedia NYC 2011 is a two-and-a-half day executive gathering held on Jan. 31 – Feb. 2, 2011. The conference features some of the most innovative companies, eminent technologists, influential investors and respected tech journalists in the digital media market. The conference is hosted by Tony Perkins, founder and editor of AlwaysOn, and features keynotes from media personalities such as Mark Cuban, billionaire investor and Internet entrepreneur.

Prior to the OnMedia sessions, MaRS will host an investor luncheon on Jan. 31 featuring CEO presentations from the MaRS delegation. Several Canadian investors will attend from firms such as Blackberry Partners Fund, GrowthWorks, iNovia Capital, MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, Real Ventures, Rho Ventures, Rogers Ventures and Verdexus. Notable investors from the NYC area will also be in attendance. Following the luncheon, the delegation will visit prominent digital media startups in the Union Square area.

“We are bringing a group of companies focused on digital media innovations that add considerable value for customers in key areas such as marketing, branding, advertising, research and public relations,” said MaRS CEO Ilse Treurnicht. “New York City is a key market where innovators, influencers and investors are shaping the digital media sector on a global scale. With our mission focused on building Ontario’s next generation of innovative companies, MaRS is committed to facilitating targeted investor introductions and business development for high-potential clients in these select markets.”

The companies in the MaRS delegation are bringing innovative technologies and business models to market that focus on everything from optimizing organic search; hyper-local advertising for user generated news; next generation live event sports gaming; advertising supported small business accounting software; and social engagement ranking platforms to measure media influence.

The Ontario companies attending are:

* gShift Labs – search engine optimization
* InGamer Sports – live event social gaming
* OpenFile – user-generated online newspaper
* PostRank – social engagement and influence ratings
* Viafoura – online user engagement
* Wave Accounting – free accounting application for small businesses

Speaking of business assistance, if you are a BC company you need to check out The BCIT Commercialization Assistance Program (CAP), a fund which provides financial assistance to BC SME’s and entrepreneurs. The fund looks to stimulate innovation by increasing access to business and technology expertise.

The Fund can assist your business with the following:

* Acquire business and professional services required to facilitate the commercialization process (IP, development of business plans and market or technology studies)
* Access to technical assistance and facilities (Product design, prototyping, testing, verification, certification and demonstration)

The Fund offers the following amounts:

* Up to $10,000 assistance for business and professional consulting services
* Up to $50,000 assistance for technical assistance and facilities

The deadline to apply is November 20, 2011. Please see The Fund’s information page for complete information.

D-Box Technologies is continuing its trend to take over the US one theatre at a time, announcing today that the company has signed a third agreement with Premiere Cinemas to equip its Orlando, Florida location with 22 D-BOX MFX Seats.

“During the last few months of 2010, we advanced our market share in the eastern U.S. with new theatre partners and are now continuing along that path with the expansion of our cooperation with Premiere Cinemas and adding the Orlando location,” said President and Chief Executive Officer of D-BOX Technologies, Claude McMaster.

“This will be our third theatre with D-BOX,” said Gary Moore, President of Premiere Cinemas. “Known for providing a state-of-the-art entertainment experience, moviegoers who frequent our Texas theatres have provided an overwhelmingly positive response to D-BOX and we anticipate similar results once the innovative motion technology is unveiled in Orlando this February.”

Mobilicity and Facebook today announced that Mobilicity is offering their customers another way to stay connected with a new Facebook mobile application for Java-powered feature phones. Mobilicity is also sponsoring the launch by enabling customers to download and use the application for at least three months from the time of the launch. The length of the offer is at the discretion of the mobile operator.

This new Facebook application provides a better experience for feature phones than other similar applications and mobile sites. It brings the popular features and user experience already deployed on Facebook mobile applications for smartphones to the world’s most popular feature phones, and is optimized for speed and performance on Mobilicity’s network. It includes several new and unique features that enable people to stay connected through Facebook including:

* Viewing photos from your mobile phone
* Synchronizing your local address book contacts with your Facebook friends
* Facebook login to third party services within the application, such as news, sports, games, and weather

The new Facebook application is optimized to use as little data as possible while providing the great user experience mobile applications offer. The application uses less data than other similar applications or mobile sites, enabling it to be much cheaper for people to use when the trial period ends. The new Facebook application is a collaboration between Facebook and Snaptu, whose platform brings leading web services to millions of people around the world on more than 2,500 different types of mobile devices via the Snaptu app.

On February 25th, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) will present the findings from a national consultation on how the Internet is run at the Canadian Internet Forum (CIF). CIRA, along with its partners the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and the Media Awareness Network (MNet), will present findings from six face-to-face consultations that took place across Canada along with input received from an online discussion forum.

A panel of Canadian experts will discuss the findings, and leading Canadian technology visionary Leonard Brody will provide the keynote address. The event will also feature sessions for participants to provide their feedback and ideas about Internet governance in Canada and internationally. The CIF will be webcast to facilitate the interactive participation of all Canadians who are interested in Canada’s role in Internet governance.

Although the Internet has become an integral part of the Canadian economy and society, the CIF presents the first opportunity for Canadians to discuss how it is developed, deployed and governed. The results of the consultations, online discussion and the national event will be presented to the United Nations coordinated Internet Governance Forum, a venue for nations to discuss the future of the Internet.

As of today, the online discussion forum is open to all interested Canadians who wish to discuss issues related to how the Internet is developed, deployed and governed in Canada and around the world. All interested Canadians are invited to join in on the discussion. Registration for the Canadian Internet Forum is free, and the event will also be webcast in English and French. The Forum will take place at the Brookstreet Hotel in Ottawa from 9:00am until 5:00pm on February 25th.

OpenText will be bringing content analytics capabilities to market for improved business productivity through an Intellectual Property (IP) licensing agreement with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). The NRC innovations will be incorporated into OpenText’s flagship Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Suite, with the first version expected to be available by Spring 2011.

Businesses and governments are increasingly engaging with workers, partners and customers across a range of electronic and social media to collaborate, find new ideas, measure sentiment, identify important trends and predict future outcomes based on content analytics. With added content analytics capabilities incorporated into the OpenText ECM Suite, businesses will gain more value from their content through improved data mining and analysis.

Research and development for the new project is already under way in the Ottawa NRC facilities in collaboration with OpenText’s Montreal R&D center that develops its content analytics solutions, based on the acquisition of Nstein Technologies last year. The project is focused on developing software for analyzing large collections of structured and unstructured data that reside within organizations.

Content Analytics addresses the discovery of answers to those important business questions through the use of semantic technologies such as natural language processing and sentiment analysis. The collaboration between the National Research Council of Canada and OpenText will enable more efficient data mining capability to locate entities –names, product brands, geographic locations, currencies, ticker symbols for example – plus uncover facts such as financial statements, merger and acquisition announcements, etc. and then connect relationships between those entities and facts. The software can search for pieces of text or metadata that cannot be specified in common search engines, and the results from those queries can be presented much more flexibly than would be possible using traditional business intelligence solutions.

Boutique advisory and technology services company Project X Ltd. has completed the QuickStrike Mobile Application training program from MicroStrategy, a global leader in business intelligence technology. Project X is among the first MicroStrategy alliance partners to complete the training program and become lead facilitators for the MicroStrategy Mobile QuickStrike Program in Canada.

As MicroStrategy Mobile QuickStrike Lead Facilitators, Project X will work with clients to accelerate their mobile BI application strategies from concept to production with a proof of concept mobile application, storyboard and video overview in two weeks. With mobile business intelligence on the verge of widespread adoption, companies are looking to deploy their business data on devices that make it easy and convenient to access critical data.

PoolingPeople.ca, a new web-based business, provides employers with a unique platform for cost-effectively sharing employees directly with each other. The first online service of its kind, PoolingPeople.ca allows companies to reduce overhead costs during idle time by temporarily or permanently sharing employees with other member companies. Conversely, PoolingPeople.ca allows employers to find experienced people when they need additional part-time or full-time staff.

With more than 15 years experience in the recruitment industry, McKinnon knows first-hand the problems and costs businesses face trying to fill a vacancy with a qualified candidate.  Equally, she understands the difficulties involved when layoffs occur.

For a $250 US annual subscription fee, employers can use PoolingPeople.ca in various ways:

• If a company is suddenly overstaffed because of a project delay, they can use PoolingPeople.ca to connect with another company experiencing a temporary worker shortage due to vacation schedules, for example. The two companies solve their staffing issues by lending or borrowing well-qualified employees on a short-term basis.
• A business that must downsize can find other member companies looking to permanently hire talented staff.
• If a company needs to reduce a full-time employee to part-time, it can enter the individual’s qualifications on PoolingPeople.ca and connect with another company needing a part-time employee – resulting in the employee working for both firms.

Level Platforms Inc. has launched Managed Workplace® 2011, a comprehensive, integrated remote monitoring, management and automation software platform designed for IT service providers offering managed services. This historic major release features comprehensive Automation OnDemand, an optional Device Manager agent to supplement Level Platforms award-winning agentless architecture, and further advances in the platform’s seamless integration with the full IT ecosystem found in most organizations today, including local infrastructure, applications and Cloud services. Managed Workplace 2011 is available in Cloud and On Premise versions.

In conjunction with the release of Managed Workplace 2011, Level Platforms also announced the Managed Workplace 2011 Road Show to take place in 19 cities across North America this February 8th through 24th. In addition to an introduction to the highly anticipated Managed Workplace 2011, attendees will benefit from new industry research and information, open forums led by successful MSPs sharing their insights and experience, and significant exclusive industry announcements from leading vendors working with Level Platforms to help the managed services community enhance the growth and profitability of their businesses in 2011.

The Nature Conservancy, Protecting Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest has become the first Canadian incentive to ever receive funding from Disney Friends for Change. The Nature Conservancy: Protecting Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest took second place in the recent round of voting by kids on the Disney Friends for Change website. Disney Friends for Change is a multiplatform environmental initiative that helps kids help the planet. Protecting Canada’s Great Bear Rainforest is a project trains local students to monitor local wildlife in an effort to protect the rainforest, home to such animals as grizzly bears and wolves.

The voting is part of an overall call to action for kids to make a difference in their local communities. Registered participants make personal promises to reduce their impact on the environment by changing their everyday actions. They can also help allocate Disney’s $1 million commitment to fund environmental programs worldwide. This round of voting is the first to include kids from around the world since Disney Friends for Change expanded into Latin America and Europe.

Voting is continuous throughout the year, giving kids the opportunity to vote on five different projects per quarter. Each project is managed by leading environmental nonprofit organizations. The projects are centered on Disney Friends for Change’s four focus areas — climate, habitat, waste and water. With nearly 2.5 million votes, Disney Friends for Change kids have helped direct almost $2 million to 41 projects in 21 countries since the program was launched in May 2009.

The award amount is contingent upon how many votes each project receives. This is the third round of award voting, and the first to include international votes. BirdLife International, Saving Spoony’s Chinese Wetlands received the first prize allotment of $100 000.00 The project contributes to the conservation of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, a unique and highly threatened migratory shorebird. The project raises awareness among local governments and communities about the importance of the species and of the inter-tidal wetlands that are vital for its survival.

Destiny Media Technologies Inc. has received conditional approval from the TSX Venture Exchange for its Employee Stock Purchase Plan. Under the Plan, employees of Destiny are able to contribute up to 5% of their annual salary into a pool which is matched equally by Destiny. Independent directors are able to contribute a maximum of $12,500 each for a combined maximum annual purchase of $25,000. The maximum annual combined contributions will be $400,000. Money in the pool will be used to purchase shares out of the market on a biweekly basis. All purchases will be made through the Exchange by a third party plan agent and no purchases will be made on the OTC or German exchanges. The third party plan agent will also be responsible for the administration of the Plan on behalf of Destiny and the participants. The Plan is subject to shareholder approval at Destiny’s next AGM.

Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger and the Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, today helped launch a provincial network of Cisco TelePresence™ video conference sites linking UWinnipeg, Brandon University (BU), and University College of the North (UCN) in The Pas.

Other dignitaries taking part in the landmark ceremony at UWinnipeg included Mr. Nitin Kawale, President, Cisco Canada; Dr. Lloyd Axworthy, President and Vice-Chancellor, The University of Winnipeg; Dr. Deborah Poff, President and Vice-Chancellor, Brandon University; and Dr. Kathryn McNaughton, Vice-President (Academic & Research) University College of the North, The Pas.

The Cisco TelePresence system, which promotes energy conservation by reducing travel and delivering measurable energy savings, enables high-quality distance education and more effective collaboration with research sites in Manitoba and around the world.

“An investment in education is an investment in Manitoba’s future; I’m honoured that our government has been able to assist in providing technology that will link students from across the province and around the world, allowing research, information and ideas to be shared,” said Premier Greg Selinger. “This is just one of the many ways that our government works to support and promote green innovation and education in our province.”

“Our Government is committed to building a competitive advantage for Canada and Manitoba based on excellence in science and technology,” said the Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification. “Through investments in key public-private partnerships, we are helping to support knowledge-based research and development with a focus on the commercialization of new products, technologies and services.”

The Government of Canada and the Province of Manitoba supported the establishment of this Cisco TelePresence network through an investment of $7 million announced in January 2010 under the Canada-Manitoba Western Economic Partnership Agreement (WEPA).

“The Cisco TelePresence system is transformative in the way the Internet has been transformative. The Internet allowed us to instantly retrieve and share information in ways we could not imagine even 15 years ago,” said Dr. Axworthy. “TelePresence shrinks our world even further with tremendous implications for our students and faculty, for citizens of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Canada in advancing solutions to the many global challenges facing us today. There is also enormous potential to grow this collaborative technology into a viable commercial unit to benefit business, governments, and others in our community.”

Cisco donated two TelePresence virtual meeting systems to UWinnipeg, making it the first university in Canada with this advanced technology.

One TelePresence endpoint will be based in the new Richardson College for the Environment and Science Complex in the coming months. The second will be located inside UWinnipeg’s Faculty of Business and Economics at the newly opened Buhler Centre. UWinnipeg is acquiring additional TelePresence technologies for future use.

“Establishing UWinnipeg as a centre of excellence for innovative collaboration technologies, like Cisco TelePresence, is already reaping benefits in global leadership, economic development, and cost savings,” said Mr. Nitin Kawale, president, Cisco Canada. “As the Cisco Innovation Centre for Collaboration Technologies continues to evolve at UWinnipeg, we look forward to continuing to work with the University, the Province of Manitoba, and the Government of Canada to help academic leaders and government policy makers extend expertise, share resources, and reduce environmental impact.”

The Province of Manitoba, under the Manitoba Research Innovation Fund, has contributed $2 million over 8 years to supporting UWinnipeg’s Cisco Endowed Research Chair for Collaborative Technologies.

VM6 Software, Inc., provider of the only all-in-one IT virtualization infrastructure software, today announced that its flagship product, VM6 VMex 2.1, has won a Bronze Award in the virtualization platforms category of the SearchServerVirtualization.com 2010 Products of the Year. The awards were presented by the editors of TechTarget’s data center and virtualization Media Group and judged by the SearchServerVirtualization.com editorial staff in conjunction with a team of users, industry experts, analysts and consultants.

The SearchServerVirtualization.com 2010 Products of the Year winners were chosen according to the following six criteria: ease of integration into existing environments, functionality, innovation, manageability, performance and value. VM6 VMex 2.1 was selected because of its ability to replicate storage among local disks on disparate virtualization hosts. This feature provides significant value to smaller shops that cannot afford shared disk environments.

“SMBs have gone through their first phase of virtualization adoption and are now demanding more advanced functionality,” said Claude Goudreault, CEO and founder of VM6 Software. “By removing the requirement for a SAN and simplifying the installation and operation of the virtualized infrastructure, VMex makes high availability affordable to SMBs.”

VM6 VMex 2.1 software offers small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) an all-in-one IT infrastructure solution that is designed to fully leverage the benefits of virtualization to manage, provision, consolidate and protect distributed servers and desktop environments at a fraction of the cost of traditional solutions. Judges selected the Products of the Year from among virtualization-related products introduced and shipped after November 1, 2009 and before October 15, 2010.

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.