Village Gamer

Toronto educational developer Spongelab Interactive has opened a beta run for SpongeLab, a revolutionary new web site that is a global science community with educational games, 3D animations and beautiful images, all integrated into a sophisticated teacher management system. Stunning and detailed science content linked with powerful teaching tool stitches all elements of the classroom together in one place. Assessment and reporting is made easy using a flexible system that provides detailed analytical information about the classroom environment, everything from student progress to engagement and user behaviours.

Educators can explore free digital content that can be organized into lessons, shared with students and presented in class. The opportunity to share goes even farther. Members of the Spongelab community can upload their own teaching materials such as images, lesson plans, videos and case studies making this site a current, vibrant open place for communicating about science.

Spongelab.com is also a game, encouraging users to earn rewards in the form of credits and experience points that can be redeemed for premium resources and features. Credits and experience points are earned by every action performed on the site: searching, viewing, creating, contributing, and referring. Redeeming credits provides access to more content at no monetary cost, opening up the world of science for everyone regardless of budget.

TVO gives Facebook politics a whole new meaning and takes another step in promoting citizen engagement with the launch of Honoured Citizen, a multi-player social media game that runs on the Facebook Platform.

Developed for TVO by Lazar Entertainment, Honoured Citizen allows players to participate in all levels of civic society and demonstrates that there are many ways to become an Honoured Citizen, if you are willing to speak out, engage with issues, question, debate and vote.

“Game-based technologies can serve as powerful tools for advancing civic engagement – it’s called gaming for good,” says Christine McGlade, Manager of Interactive and Digital Media for TVO. “Honoured Citizen will immerse gamers in the political process. It’s a great example of how TVO uses digital media as a platform for civic engagement.”

Honoured Citizen is the only Facebook game that realistically simulates all aspects of the political process. Players participate as citizens, politicians, activists or lobbyists. Politicians can seek nominations and woo voting blocs. Lobbyists can wine and dine politicians. Activists can start protests and organize petitions. Citizens can raise issues and participate in polls.

The object of the game is to gain honour points by engaging with and participating in an online shadow government – discussing, debating and organizing around political issues. These points may be spent to take on different roles in the game, perform other functions, or they may be traded with other players or strategically donated. The game runs in real time and every round is one week long, with new issues in play during each round. After every four rounds, there is an election.

Set in a virtual province, Honoured Citizen offers players a chance to simulate the political process. While the topics gamers raise may be real-life issues, it’s not a place for partisan politics. The game focuses on issues of governance, and non-partisan debate.

Honoured Citizen is the most recent addition to TVO’s gaming for good efforts, which includes Inside the Haiti Earthquake, the Games for Change Festival 2010 Transmedia award-winning interactive game.

Honoured Citizen is part of TVO’s Your Vote 2011, a suite of multimedia resources designed to engage Ontarians in the lead-up to the fall 2011 Ontario election.

Kestrel TSCM is well positioned to hunt in a complex signal environment, combating corporate economic espionage, organized crime and the loss of competitive edge due to the theft or compromise of sensitive information. When this new technology is combined with a formal TSB recommended TSCM program, eavesdropping and other forms of compromise are minimized, maximizing the overall security profile of your facility or business environment.

OpenText subsidiary Metastorm has announced the release of Version 9.1 of the Metastorm BPM^®software suite, Version 9.0 of Metastorm Smart Business Workspace and Metastorm’s new Business Performance Intelligence Dashboards.

Key features include:

• Enhanced Social BPM capabilities that help to facilitate collaborative process design and instant collaboration on specific work items for faster, improved resolution
• Ability to find colleagues fast with individual user profiles searchable by user’s skills
• Enhanced design features that support the development of more dynamic applications for improved usability, higher user productivity and rapid global deployment
• New Metastorm Business Performance Intelligence Dashboards that deliver dynamic and easily personalized graphical dashboards to facilitate meaningful data analysis for informed decision-making across the Metastorm Business Transformation Platform

Metastorm BPM is recognized by the top industry analyst firms and by its customers as a leading technology for business process management due to the breadth and depth of its functionality. The new capabilities in this release enable organizations to take the lessons learned from social media and apply them to business processes – allowing organizations to drive greater business productivity and improvement.

These new product enhancements help organizations successfully implement business process improvement initiatives by empowering users to become more engaged and productive. Metastorm’s social collaboration tools provide businesses with a highly personalized workspace and unparalleled access to top contributors, enabling them to drive innovation and increase collaboration and improve efficiency among employees. These tools help employees find other people within their organization with specific skill sets required to help them complete their work. Companies can also route work to the most appropriate employee based on individual skills and workload – ensuring the most cost-effective strategy for work allocation.

“Our latest versions of Metastorm BPM and Metastorm Smart Business Workspace apply the concepts of connecting today’s knowledge workers by leveraging social networking and social collaboration tools in a way that offers a highly personalized user experience. This results in faster, easier access to information anytime and anywhere,” said Greg Carter, chief technology officer and executive vice president of Metastorm. “The addition of the Metastorm Business Process Intelligence dashboards further strengthens our ability to offer our customers the resources to make smart, informed business decisions and drive meaningful change across the enterprise.”

“The latest release of Metastorm BPM and Metastorm Smart Business Workspace and addition of the Metastorm Business Process Intelligence dashboards confirms Metastorm’s commitment to investing in product innovation, exploring new solutions and the ability to make great strides to achieve our product roadmap post-merger with OpenText,” said Robert Caldwell, general manager of the Metastorm business unit at OpenText. “We are excited to offer our customers these enhanced solutions to help them achieve their business goals and vision.”

OpenText Metastorm offers a complete business transformation platform powered by its market-leading software for enterprise and business architecture, business process analysis, and business process management. The Metastorm platform helps organizations close the gap between strategy and execution and gain the visibility, planning, management, agility and insight needed to make the right business improvements. With Metastorm, OpenText offers the most comprehensive platform for change for an organization – from the strategy and goals that drive the business, to the day-to-day systems, processes and people who run it, to the content needed to make the best business decisions.

Game publisher Wicked Interactive has announced that the popular, free-to-play, online first-person shooter Mission Against Terror (M.A.T.) will begin commercial launch today. Wicked Interactive’s SUBA Games platform, best known to shooter fans for such titles as Cross Fire, is hosting M.A.T. With the official commercial launch of M.A.T., SUBA Games endeavours to blow through expectations of all SUBA Games’ Cross Fire and M.A.T. fans.

“We are delighted to be launching M.A.T. 2.0 today,” said Sam Ho, Director of Wicked Interactive. “M.A.T. 2.0 comes with a massive amount new content and updates.  The biggest change is that the game is no longer in Open Beta status.  M.A.T. 2.0 strikes hard with its commercial release; rocking a new user interface, a new game mode, an expanded crafting system, seven maps and over a dozen weapons.”

Hybrid Invasion is a brand new game mode that is being introduced with this patch, expanding on the need to band together as team mates to survive.  Players will survive wave after wave of hybrid creatures that are a combination of AI robots, mummies and biological weapons.  If players survive long enough, they will encounter the Tyrant; a hammer-swinging monstrosity that’ll take a well trained and well armed squad to put down!

The expanded crafting system will allow players to create a variety of items out of multiple types of materials.  Before the patch, players had to collect just a robot part from AI Mode and use a Weapon Casting Machine on it to create one of several weapons.  With the new patch, players will be able to use all kinds of materials like PCB boards, diodes, metal, nylon, leather, dyes, etc to create not just weapons, but clothing and items as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Hothead Games producer Hamish Millar (heyyyy, we know that guy!) provides an in-depth tutorial of the gameplay from the Tower Mode in this new Kard Combat video.  Kard Combat, which is already available for Canadian iOS gamers will be unleashed upon the masses in the iTunes App Store on July 13th.

Watch the video to learn how players can earn upgrades for their mage, items, and additional cards by completing the Tower campaign.  The walkthrough covers basic strategy, offensive and defensive tactics, card combinations, and powerful spells.  This particular battle is fought out on the Master difficulty level, but nothing less should be expected from the producer of the game.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcjfDJvq-Vc]

Kard Combat is rated 12+ for the following:

* Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
* Frequent/Intense Horror/Fear Themes
* Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence

Device Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices running iOS 3.1.3 or later.

Sympatico.ca, which reaches 9.5 million Canadians (according to ComScore), has launched a new mobile application for smartphone users across the nation. The free bilingual app will give Canadians one tap access to the best in news, music and entertainment including stories from across the Sympatico portal. The Sympatico.ca mobile app is available for download now from popular application stores or by visiting apps.sympatico.ca.

The app uses best-of-breed mobile functionality to refine content based on opt-in user preferences and location-based services (LBS). This elevates the user experience by taking the work out of finding relevant information. It also has a QR (2D barcode) reader to make interacting with mobile codes even easier.

“Sympatico.ca is defining the next era of mobile applications for Canadians by demonstrating what is possible when you leverage innovative design, technology and content to engage people,” said David MacPhie, Associate Director, Mobile Products, Sympatico.ca. “Mobile apps have emerged as powerful content distribution channels for consumers and advertisers alike. We’re giving our audience another convenient way to access the content they love by combining it with progressive mobile technology.”

Designed for ease of use and speed, the Sympatico.ca mobile app revolves around an innovative interface featuring quick access to the full depth of Sympatico.ca’s content including news headlines, local weather, celebrity gossip, horoscopes, music, autos and sports. A bevy of features including push notifications, bilingual support, user preferences, social sharing (SMS, Email, Twitter and Facebook) and a QR code reader create an optimal experience for all Canadians to engage with content that resonates.

N-able Technologies^® has announced Policy Manager, a new suite of complementary tools designed to make comparing and reporting on Group Policy Object (GPO) settings dramatically easier and less time consuming.

Designed for use by MSPs and IT managers, N-able’s new Policy Manager offers an important defense against group policy inconsistencies, potential security weaknesses and other factors that can negatively impact network uptime. The solution features two powerful tools — GPO Compare and GPO Exporter — for comparing and exporting GPO settings, including comparing live GPOs to GPO backups, and exporting all GPO settings to Excel. Simplifying the management and consolidation of group policies with these tools saves time and eliminates costly configuration errors.

As an integral part of Microsoft Windows, GPOs offer management and configuration of operating systems, applications and users’ settings in an Active Directory or local environment. But for many IT professionals and MSPs, GPOs also require ongoing monitoring and maintenance — a task that is both tedious and inefficient if performed manually, according to Robert Grapes, director of product management and product marketing, N-able Technologies.

“Policy Manager makes reporting, sorting and searching on Group Policy settings significantly faster and easier, particularly when comparing settings across multiple GPOs,” says Grapes. “The software’s intuitive interface and easy-to-use sorting and searching capabilities provide not only a significant time savings for busy IT professionals, but also offers greater cost advantages compared to other offerings on the market, which are typically offered as part of a much larger, more expensive solution.”

Now available, N-able’s Policy Manager includes:

• Support for the latest policy settings from Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008-R2
• Group Policy comparison capabilities to quickly identify inconsistencies
• Group Policy export features that allow administrators to choose which settings to export, and to search and sort for specific settings
• Capabilities to compare live GPOs with GPO backups to quickly find setting differences
• Selective exporting of GPO settings from one or more GPOs to a variety of formats including CSV, Excel and PDF
• Powerful keyword searching to easily find settings
• Sorting capabilities that allow MSPs and IT managers to quickly discover redundant settings
• Powerful command-line PowerShell (Microsoft’s task automation framework) interfaces for automated comparison and reporting

TVO, Ontario’s public educational media organization is pleased to announce an exciting new partnership with Polar Mobile that will make TVO’s flagship current affairs program The Agenda with Steve Paikin available on mobile apps for BlackBerry® smartphones; Apple iPhones; Android and Windows Mobile smartphones.

The development of TVO’s cross device apps offerings is part of TVO’s aggressive digital strategy designed to make its educational content available to more people, anywhere at anytime.

“Our new partnership with Polar Mobile is allowing us to further the reach of our educational content,” says CEO Lisa de Wilde. “We’re excited to be able to use digital media to bring The Agenda with Steve Paikin to a new audience.”

“A strong mobile strategy is key for any media brand to be successful, and we are very pleased TVO has decided to use Polar’s SMART™ Platform as an integral piece of their strategy,” said Kunal Gupta, Chief Executive Officer, Polar Mobile.

The Agenda with Steve Paikin mobile app will give users access to episodes of The Agenda with Steve Paikin; all of The Agenda with Steve Paikin’s blogs; YouTube videos of the program; and all Twitter feeds related to The Agenda with Steve Paikin. The app will also include TVO’s live broadcast TV schedule.

The app will launch in late summer as part of TVO’s Your Vote 2011 suite of multi-platform resources that are helping Ontarians engage in the issues that are shaping the debate in the lead up to the Ontario election in October.

TVO is a trusted source for multi-platform content, and has recently launched two new mobile apps that teach children math on BlackBerry® smartphones, Polka Dot Shorts and Flower Frenzy; and its first app for BlackBerry PlayBook, My Canada, a fun and engaging app that teaches children about Canadian geography. This follows last year’s launch of Melvin’s Marvelous Words, TVO’s early learning iPhone app.

Mobidia Technology, Inc. has announced a major update to My Data Manager, their popular Android application that helps mobile subscribers monitor and manage their data use. The update is also available to mobile operators and handset and tablet OEM’s as a component of a fully customizable and extendable carrier-grade data management and analytics solution. IOS and Blackberry versions will be available in the near future.

As the vacation season in North America and Europe moves into full gear, Mobidia has released a number of new features to help mobile phone users manage their data usage while traveling. The latest update of My Data Manager supports tracking Wi-Fi data as well as standard mobile and roaming data plans. The app now also provides Dual SIM support for those users that use multiple plans and SIM’s to manage their data usage. Small usability and accuracy improvements have also been welcomed by frequent users who are increasingly becoming dependant on the application to save them money on their cell phone bills.

“With so many people traveling over the next couple months on their summer vacations, we really wanted to make our latest technology available to them to use while on their holidays” says Mobidia Vice President of Marketing, Chris Hill. “Nothing spoils a great vacation like an unexpected, gigantic phone bill when you return home from all those data roaming charges. Our My Data Manager can help people save money by simply making them aware of the amount of data they are using while roaming and which applications are consuming the most”.

The My Data Manager has been firmly embraced by mobile phone users that are on limited or metered data plans. But even in geographies where the move to metered plans is only just starting, many phone users have benefited from using My Data Manager to manage the costs of roaming data charges when they are traveling on personal and business trips.

Chuck Musciano, a busy IT Executive at a Fortune 1000 company, agrees. Chuck occasionally travels overseas where roaming charges can be quite high. Despite paying for a monthly roaming plan, he tries to stay within his limits but has been restricted by operator-supplied tools which are often delayed in reporting usage. My Data Manager saved him real dollars on his last trip. “Your app really helped me on a recent trip to Belgium,” says Chuck, “ I had a 200MB roaming plan with my operator and blew through 25MB the first day, even with everything (I thought) turned off. The app level usage stats instantly showed me which apps were using data unbeknownst to me, and I was able to shut them down and save a lot of data and money.”

His experience highlights an important benefit of My Data Manager – the ability to identify applications that are running in the background and consuming large amounts of data. Mobidia’s My Data Manager can be downloaded from the Android Marketplace. Both a premium, ad-free version and a free version will be available. iOS, Blackberry, and other smartphone users can sign up for Mobidia’s beta program and will be notified when additional platforms become available.

Mobidia is offering My Data Manager directly to smartphone users as a powerful tool to help them save money and better utilize their data plans. A complete, carrier-grade service is also available to extend the application for mobile operators and OEM’s. The white-label service can fully integrate into operator’s existing infrastructure or on existing smartphones and tablets to help decrease costs and generate revenue.