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Halifax studio DHX Media has appointed Universal Pictures UK as home entertainment partner for Rastamouse, the CBeebies stop-motion animated series, which is scoring high ratings on the UK channel and BBC iPlayer. Universal will release the first Rastamouse DVD on 3 October 2011. It will feature six episodes including Da Crucial Plan, Bakin’ an Breakin’, Mice Camera Action, Da Rhymin Teef, Pie Widout Cheese and Toots Re-routes alongside exclusive bonus content: three sing-along songs from Rastamouse & Da Easy Crew and fun printable activities. The Rastamouse DVD will retail at £12.99 and will be supported by a TV advertising campaign.

Jessica Horne, A & R Manager for Universal Pictures UK commented: “We’re delighted to be releasing Rastamouse on DVD. In a crowded market, this is a pre-school series with a genuine USP. Rastamouse is the coolest licensed character on the market and the show’s humour and musical content really connect with pre-schoolers and their parents.”

Josh Scherba, SVP Distribution at DHX Media added: “There is a significant demand for Rastamouse DVDs in the UK and in Universal we feel that we have the right partner on board to handle the home entertainment element of the brand. With the album available via EMI and toys set to hit the market through Character Options in the Autumn, there is a growing consumer presence for the brand in the UK which is supported by a strong performance of the series on CBeebies.”

Rastamouse, the animated series based on the critically acclaimed books by Genevieve Webster and Michael De Souza, launched on CBeebies in January 2011 and has since engaged a following of preschoolers and parents alike. The series features Rastamouse, Scratchy and Zoomer of Da Easy Crew, the mystery-solving, reggae-playing band who always make a bad ting good and live by their motto “redemption, not retribution.”

A Rastamouse Company Production for CBeebies, Rastamouse is produced by Greg Boardman and Eugenio Perez of Three Stones Media, in association with Dinamo Productions, Little Roots and DHX Media, which handles worldwide TV sales (excluding the UK) and worldwide licensing and merchandising.  The production is supported by the Wales Creative IP Fund.

D-Link has announced the ShareCenter® Pro network storage solutions supporting concurrent NAS and iSCSI connectivity, designed for small and medium-sized business environments. With the ShareCenter Pro N-Series and S-Series models, D-Link has expanded its business storage offerings to deliver cost-effective unified storage solutions with built-in security, data protection, and disaster recovery functionality ideal for file sharing, data backup and IP video archival, to complement their existing xStack® Storage family of high performance iSCSI SAN arrays.

According to Gartner, the top storage priorities for small businesses center on data security, backup and disaster recovery. And, of the small businesses that are deploying network storage, approximately 50 percent rely on NAS solutions and 30 percent rely on iSCSI connectivity, according to Gartner User Survey Analysis: Why Small-Business Storage Is a Tough Sell, February 2011.

D-Link® ShareCenter Pro storage solutions offer the best of both worlds – high-end NAS features and performance often found in more costly SAN arrays, including iSCSI connectivity to support small business server applications, dual Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports, snapshots, encrypted volumes, virtual disk drive (VDD) expansion and remote backup. In addition, the ShareCenter Pro models are Windows, Mac and Linux compatible, and come with a five-year warranty (vs. the typical one-to-three year warranty) as well as an extended five-year warranty option for a total of 10 years, offering industry leading ease-of-integration and support.

Gerrit Koester, technology and facilities manager at the Filutowski Cataract & LASIK Institute in Orlando, Fla., was tasked with optimizing and managing a network infrastructure that ensured quick and easy access to over 100,000 patient records containing over two million electronic image files. “What I needed was a highly available, redundant storage solution offering easy backup and iSCSI support,” said Koester.

After evaluating the D-Link ShareCenter Pro DNS-1200-05, Koester was extremely surprised by the performance the solution achieved, as well as the flexibility and affordable price. Koester said, “We should get great speeds, probably as good as USB 2.0, maybe 40 megabytes a second, give or take. We got well over a hundred, and I said, ‘Wow, this is faster than some of the SANs we’ve evaluated. This is a phenomenal product and is truly cutting edge, but it is using existing technologies in a smart way that makes it very easy to configure, and it guarantees that it is going to be reliable.”

D-Link understands that small and medium-businesses have limited IT resources and staff, and provides these companies with end-to-end networking solutions to ensure interoperability, ease of integration and a single support call for troubleshooting. D-Link can offer small and medium-sized businesses scalability, reliability, performance, and lower initial and ongoing costs. Through D-Link’s superior economic model, businesses can leverage these affordable networking and storage solutions in multi-vendor IT infrastructures without being locked into proprietary hardware, software or service requirements.

“Small businesses evaluating network storage often have a checklist of the latest ‘must have’ features, but need to realize that reliability, data protection and network interoperability are paramount,” said Joseph Martins, managing director and analyst, Data Mobility Group. “The D-Link ShareCenter Pro models support non-proprietary hardware in a unified system with NAS and iSCSI support for added flexibility, ease of use and cost savings.” Read the rest of this entry »

Roaring Penguin Software Inc. has released CanIt 8.0.8, which adds a major improvement to the CanIt Archiver software, including the ability to take a search expression and generate a zip file containing all archived messages that match.  Also, CanIt may be configured to zip up archived mail just before it expires from the archive.

For the CanIt-PRO and CanIt-Domain-PRO anti-spam software, improvements were made to the Bayesian Analysis.  The removal of old Bayes databases has been automated.  An “old” database is defined as one that has not been trained in a given timespan (by default, 365 days.)

CanIt Archiver, “The Uninterruptible Email Supply”, is a highly-configurable email archiving solution focused on email continuity.  CanIt Archiver ensures that email is accessible in the event of a mail server outage and queues email to ensure that it is delivered when mail service is restored.  CanIt Archiver is also available as a Hosted Email Archiving Service.

CanIt 8.0.8 is available as:

* CanIt-PRO, an anti-spam software solution suitable for small and medium-sized businesses.
* CanIt-Domain-PRO, spam filtering software for MSPs to host anti-spam for their customers.
* Hosted CanIt, a fully outsourced, hosted anti-spam service.
* CanIt Archiver, email archiving software.
* Hosted CanIt Archiver, a fully outsourced, hosted email archiving service.

Big Blue Bubble Inc. has announced that the will be releasing 5 new titles across iOS and Android devices, PC, Mac and Facebook in the next business quarter. Not all titles will be available for all platforms, please see individual titles for details.

“We’re excited to see our next round of amazing original IP be released simultaneously and across multiple platforms.  The range of genres covered will further cement our standing as Canada’s top gaming company.” said Bryan Davis, Director of Business Development of Big Blue Bubble.

Burn The Rope: WORLDS, the sequel to one of Big Blue Bubble’s most successful games, brings totally new and unique gameplay mechanics combined with the well-known gameplay and visual style.  Burn The Rope: Worlds is a challenging game where players try to burn as much rope as possible in each level, but there’s a catch – naturally. The fire only burns upwards, leaving the player to tilt and turn the phone to keep the flame alive.

As the player progresses through the levels, he will encounter bugs crawling along the rope. Different bugs have different reactions to the flame. For example, burning the ant changes the color of the flame so rope of the same color can be burned, and burning the spider shoots out a web bridge so the player can access parts of the level that were inaccessible before. Burn The Rope Worlds will launch in September 2011 for iOS, Android, PC and Mac.

Fling a Thing is a simple game where you shoot your Thing in the air and collect all the bubbles.  The player advances onto the next level when all the bubbles are collected.  The player has a limited amount of shots and when they run out, the round ends.  The Thing is shot in the air by touching and pulling it back like a slingshot.

Once released it bounces around the screen collecting bubbles and power-ups. The goal is to collect as many bubbles as possible and beat your last high score. The player needs to pay attention to the Suckies’ Hunger Meter because when it’s empty they can head on over to the “Feeding Ground”. As the player taps the bubbles, the Suckie jumps up and collects them, filling their Hunger Meter. Fling a Thing will launch in September 2011 for iOS and Android devices, PC, Mac and Facebook.

Dark Incursion is a side scrolling hack and slash game that gives the player a full stereoscopic 3D experience. It takes place in an alternate reality in the late 1800’s, amidst an industrial revolution and a world war.  The player is the character, Anya, who is one of the few who know about a secret military laboratory developing biological weaponry that could devastate the entire planet if it got out of control.

The player has a multitude of melee and ranged weapons at their disposal to eradicate the abominations from the city. Weapons and attributes are upgradable to best suit their play style. The deeper they get into the secret bunker the more advanced and powerful these monsters become. To top all of this off, the player must complete their mission before the government gives the order to send these bio-soldiers on to the battlefield where there will be no stopping them. With a vivid steam punk art style using new 3D technologies, the creatures will literally jump off the screen. Dark Incursion will be released in September 2011 for iOS and Android devices, and will be available for PC and Mac in October 2011.

Hamster Cannon is a physics-based puzzle game in which the player combines and launches various hamsters out of cannons to collect Golden Noms.  The player will select three different hamsters out of a possible eight – each with their own special skills.  The player will use angles and bouncing to navigate the levels with a myriad of different surfaces that can react differently depending on which Hamster is being used.

The points awarded for collecting Noms can be traded in the In-Game Store to unlock different upgrades. Hamsters are fired out of the cannon at a high velocity, and the player has the ability to adjust the angle of the cannon to maximize the special skills of each hamster. Hamster Cannon will be available for iOS and Android devices, PC and Mac in September 2011

iOracle is one of the most unique trivia games out there! It has players predicting actual real world events, in order to earn the admiration of their fickle followers, who come and go based on the accuracy of the player’s predictions.  The more questions they get right, the more followers they will earn. There will be new questions asked every day, with answers being supplied on the following day.

Players will have their own temple which they can decorate to attract different types of followers. Each follower type asks a different variety of questions – sports, movies, weather, etc. In-app purchasing will also be available to help players get past tougher questions, decorate their temple, or customize their avatar. This will all contribute to the players goal of accumulating more followers.  iOracle will launch in October 2011 for iOS and Android devices as well as Facebook.

Destiny Media Technologies Inc. is pleased to announce that a provisional patent application was filed on August 17th for a new invention that renders video to web browsers on all computers and devices, including mobile, without requiring advance support or permission from that device or manufacturer.

Because there is no standard format for online video, content owners currently have to provide a separate version of their media file to support each device and operating system.  This transcoding process is labor intensive and expensive and requires multiple copies of the exact same content to be stored redundantly in different formats.  Compression artifacts are cumulative, so transcoding causes a progressive loss of quality with each successive generation, known as digital generation loss. Destiny’s invention provides a cacheable, cross platform standard compatible with all web servers and browsers, saving up to 90% on bandwidth costs, while ensuring a nearly 100% playback rate without any effort from the consumer.

Comments company CEO, Steve Vestergaard, “The summer of 2011 has seen a flurry of activity surrounding the so called “smartphone patent wars” being waged in the US and elsewhere.  Some of the largest technology companies in the world have been buying up patent portfolios and stepping up their efforts to enforce their IP rights against their competitors, so we’re very pleased to file an application for an invention in the space which we believe will be very valuable commercially.

Online video for mobile is growing rapidly, but because of a lack of standards, it’s costly for publishers to create content that works cross platform.  Either customers don’t have the right CODEC or plug-in player installed or their device doesn’t provide support for that format at all.  The proposed HTML 5 standard, which will eliminate the need for maintaining and updating plug-ins, will make the process somewhat easier for consumers, but video producers will still be required to create multiple copies of the same video in proprietary formats to support various browsers.”

Popular video players such as Windows Media Player, Quicktime and Flash are implemented in different versions for each operating system and CPU and in the case of mobile, can require that they are explicitly supported ahead of time by the device.  In a heartfelt letter posted to Apple’s website in April 2010, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, explained why he will not allow the most popular video format, Flash, on iPhones, iPods and iPads.  Flash also doesn’t play on Windows Phone 7 and Android 2.1 or less devices.

Destiny’s invention will enable publishers to create a single high quality video which will confidently play on any device and operating system that can access a web page.  A commercial version of Destiny’s solution is expected to be released by the end of the year.  Destiny’s current streaming video solutions, branded as Clipstream®, require Java to be included as part of the browser, so although they are cross platform, devices which don’t support Java, such as the iPhone and iPad do not support them.  This new solution will work on all operating systems and devices.

Accenture and the Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF) have announced that the Accenture Foundations have awarded the national charity a grant of US$420,000 to help the organization support young entrepreneurs in Canada.

The two-year commitment is part of Accenture’s global corporate citizenship initiative, Skills to Succeed, which will equip 250,000 people around the world by 2015 with the skills to get a job or build a business. The grant will help CYBF mentor more than 2,000 entrepreneurs aged 18 – 34 and enhance the mentoring skills of more than 3,700 existing and new mentors, who help entrepreneurs build and scale sustainable businesses across the country.

In addition to the grant Accenture will provide CYBF with pro-bono services to help ensure the long-term success of the program. Specifically, Accenture employee volunteers will create a new online mentoring orientation program, which will upgrade the skill sets of both mentors and mentees. Additionally, Accenture volunteers will be recruited to act as mentors to the entrepreneurs.

“Supporting Canadian Youth Business Foundation helps bring to life Accenture’s commitment to building skills,” said Adrian Lajtha, chief leadership officer at Accenture. “CYBF proves it’s possible to make a significant, lasting impact on the economic well-being of individuals and their communities by developing entrepreneurial skills and connecting people with the right job opportunities.”

“Accenture’s work empowering Canadian youth through our work with Canadian Youth Business Foundation builds on our goal to make a difference in the lives and careers of people across Canada,” said Bill Morris, managing director of Accenture in Canada. “Teaming with CYBF fits with Accenture’s global corporate citizenship focus, Skills to Succeed, which recognizes that skills are one of the most powerful drivers of success.”

The grant is an extension of Accenture’s relationship with CYBF which began in 2006, when Accenture funded development of their online mentoring tools and interactive business planner. Additionally, CYBF is an active member of the Prince’s Youth Business International network (YBI), which Accenture has supported since 2006 by providing more than US$3.6 million in grants and pro-bono assistance in recruiting, training and maintaining the organization’s mentoring network. The new funds will be used to rebuild and roll out the nonprofit’s online mentoring orientation tool and to assess, scope and develop mentoring programs and services.

“Both the Canadian Youth Business Foundation and Accenture share a commitment to invest in the success of tomorrow’s business leaders by providing them with the skills and support they need to start and sustain their own businesses and to drive economic vitality in communities” said Vivian Prokop, chief executive officer of Canadian Youth Business Foundation. “The support of Accenture will enable Canadian Youth Business Foundation to strengthen and broaden its successful mentoring program as the foundation and platform for entrepreneurial, small business skill development for young entrepreneurs in Canada and around the world.

Enterprise solutions provider CSDC Systems Inc. has acquired Privasoft, an Ottawa-based provider of solutions – for public sector and regulated industries – that automate legislated obligations to comply with laws such as Access to Information (ATI) and Freedom of Information (FOI).

Privasoft designs, develops and delivers a variety of solutions including the AccessPro suite. Privasoft’s products are used by a large number of organizations in North America and Europe to automate capturing, tracking, reporting and managing cases as part of the information disclosure process. For nearly twenty years, the solution has proven to optimize case processing, reduce operational costs and deliver consistent decisions while improving the quality of responses.

The addition of Privasoft to CSDC’s existing portfolio of solutions for permitting, licensing, grants and courts, solidifies CSDC position in the market as a leading provider of enterprise solutions that improve the effectiveness and efficiency of service delivery.

“This strategic acquisition increases the strength, depth and breadth of solutions in our product portfolio.” said Sebastien Pare, President and COO of CSDC. “In joining two organizations with complementary customer bases, clients of both companies, all of whom are continually being asked to do more with less, will benefit from the resources and efficiencies of the greater organization. While the Privasoft organization will maintain their focus on the Freedom of Information market, their customers will gain access to expanded resources and enhanced solutions and support.”

Following a five-week-long call for applications, The Canadian Youth Business Foundation has announced the names of the 30 young entrepreneurs who will form the official Canadian delegation at the G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit (G20 YES) in Nice, France this fall.

Thirty dynamic young Canadian entrepreneurs have been selected to participate in the G20 YES, an annual international summit that brings together dedicated and influential entrepreneurs of the G20 countries, between October 31 and November 2, 2011. At the summit, delegates will be working together to identify the ways that governments and business communities can best harness the potential of young entrepreneurs, while also driving public policy, raising awareness and providing a voice for young entrepreneurs around the globe. The resulting recommendations will then be officially handed to the G20 leaders on November 3^rd in Cannes.

Representing Canada will be:

• Arjun Kumar: CEO of Kela Medical Inc. in Whitby
• Armen Bakirtzian: CEO of Avenir Medical Inc. in Toronto and CYBF Entrepreneur
• April Glavine: CEO of Lean Machine Healthy Vending Service Inc. in Moncton and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Barbara Mclean-Stollery: President of Executive Airways Grooming Services in Calgary, CYBF Entrepreneur and G20 YES 2010 participant
• Devon Brooks: Co-Founder of Blo Blow Dry Bar in Vancouver and CYBF Mentor
• François Baron: President of 3Dvisionic in Montréal and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Harry Chemko: Co-Founder and CEO of Elastic Path Software Inc. in Vancouver, G20 YES 2010 delegate and CYBF Board Member
• Jackie Cook: Chief Production Officer of Thread Media in Saskatoon
• Jean-René Lemire: Theobroma Chocolat, G20 YES 2010 participant
• Kassandra Linklater : Co-founder and Director of D.L. Strategic Online Media Corporation in Surrey
• Ken Leblanc: CEO of PropertyGuys.com Inc. in Moncton G20 YES 2010 participant, CYBF Entrepreneur and CYBF Board Member
• Kendal Netmaker: Founder and CEO of Neechie Gear in Saskatoon
• Kévin Paquet: President of AL-Peintre Inc. in St-Gédéon-De-Beauce and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Lesley Steele: President of Eastern Passage Village Veterinary Hospital in Eastern Passage and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Lisa von Sturmer: Founder and CEO of Growing City in Vancouver and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Martin Thibault: President of Absolunet in Boisbriand
• Marty Park: President and CEO of Evolve Business Group in Calgary and CYBF Mentor
• Matthew Hudson: Founder and CEO of Invenia Technical Computing in Winnipeg and CYBF National Best Business Award winner
• Meghan Athavale: President of PO-MO Inc. in Winnipeg and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Mike Wahl: Co-Owner of Definitions Wellness Safety Services in St. Johns, Newfoundland
• Milun Tesovic: Co-Founder and CTO of MetroLeap Media Inc. in Burnaby and G20 YES 2010 participant
• Monica Mei Chiu: CEO of WhatImWear.in, Owner of Aime Luxury and Founder of M Project in Toronto and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Mylène Chaumont: President of Sentinelle Santé in Gatineau and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Olivier Letard: Chairman of PCO Innovation in Montréal
• Roxanne Tétreault: Artistic Director of Esprits Libres Communications in Granby and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Stéphane Elie: President of Symbiose Communication in Longueuil, Québec and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Toby Reid: President and CEO at Solegear Bioplastics Inc. in Vancouver and CYBF Entrepreneur
• Tod Caton: President of Backside Tours in Edmonton
• Wael Badawy: President and CEO of IntelliView Technologies Inc. in Calgary and CYBF Mentor
• Valérie Bellavance: Senior Director, Quebec of Canadian Youth Business Foundation in Montréal

“The Canadian Youth Business Foundation is proud to have some of Canada’s most driven, resourceful and influential young entrepreneurs participate in the G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit,” explains Vivian Prokop, chief executive officer of the Canadian Youth Business Foundation and founding chair of the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance. “These dynamic young delegates have been selected for their role as Canada’s job creators and innovators. Hailing from the four corners of our country and focused in diverse sectors of our economy, they have an impressive depth of experience and insight to offer to the G20 leaders and their fellow entrepreneurs. In November, these 28 young entrepreneurs will come home with strengthened knowledge, a credible platform and the voice to become a leader who drives change to the culture of entrepreneurship in Canada.”

CYBF hosted the inaugural G20 YES in Toronto in June 2010, inviting 200 young entrepreneurs and the organizations that represent them from the G20 countries to participate in the development of a communiqué delivered to the G20 leaders. The Summit also resulted in the creation of the G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance, an international network of like-minded organizations supporting youth entrepreneurship.

Florida-based security and identity management solutions provider AuthenTec and Toronto’s QuickPlay Media Inc.,  have announced a partnership that will see QuickPlay using AuthenTec’s DRM Fusion™ Server to integrate QuickPlay’s OpenVideo™ platform with Microsoft PlayReady®. The integrated offering will enable content owners and mobile operators to securely stream video on demand (VOD) content directly to media tablet devices while ensuring compliance with entertainment industry DRM standards.

“We are excited to add AuthenTec to our growing ecosystem of technology partners,” said Wayne Purboo, CEO of QuickPlay Media. “By working with AuthenTec as one of our DRM partners, QuickPlay is able to provide customers with a high quality VOD streaming service for tablets that cost effectively meets the stringent security standards of leading content providers.”

“Our DRM solutions allow QuickPlay to offer content providers direct yet secure access to a growing number of tablet users with a cost-effective service that supports current and future multimedia standards,” said Dr. Simon Blake-Wilson, Vice President of AuthenTec Embedded Security Solutions. “We are pleased to further expand our leadership in DRM and content protection through this unique partnership with a market innovator and leader like QuickPlay.”

AuthenTec’s DRM Fusion Server and Agent support Microsoft PlayReady, Windows Media DRM, Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and DECE UltraViolet standards. The Agent is available as a downloadable application for both Android and Apple iOS-based smartphones and tablets. As an embedded solution, it is available on Android and many other embedded platforms for mobile phones, set-top boxes and other OEMs. AuthenTec also offers an end-to-end media security solution through its DRM Fusion Server for carriers and network service providers. AuthenTec’s DRM Fusion Server handles the entire DRM process from content protection, rights creation, rights and condition management to license generation and delivery.

AuthenTec’s complete security offering includes fingerprint sensors, identity management software, hardware IP, and encryption software for mobile and networking applications. AuthenTec’s solutions ensure security and user identity from the client to the cloud, and are deployed by the world’s leading companies including Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Fujitsu, HBO, HP, IBM, Motorola, Orange, Samsung, Siemens, and Texas Instruments among many others.

Learning Tree International, Inc. will be presenting five informative sessions at Showcase Ontario 2011, providing key insights on the best in public and private sector business training practices and solutions. Showcase Ontario takes place this September 7th through 9th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and will offer participants access to career-focused education sessions, world-class speakers and a dynamic exhibition.

Defining Clear Project Goals with Larry Barnard
Wednesday, September 7, 9:00a.m. – 12:00p.m.
Description:This interactive session will help create clear goals for projects, and explain how to use these goals to ensure successful projects and achieve smooth project closure.

Managing Emotional Intelligence with Larry Barnard
Two Sessions: Wednesday September 7, 1:00pm – 4:00pm & Thursday September 8, 9:00am – 12:00p.m.
Description: This session will help participants learn to combine strong interpersonal skills with technical skills, and to apply Emotional Intelligence to motivate and engage teams, foster cooperative working relationships and improve overall effectiveness.

Planning for Project Success with Larry Barnard
Thursday, September 8, 1:00p.m. – 4:00p.m.
Description: This intensive mini-course will discuss strategies for planning for project success, as well as common project pitfalls to avoid.

Cloud Computing Overview: Evaluating the Opportunities with Boles Sykora
Friday, September 9, 10:00a.m. – 1:30p.m.
Description: This half-day event features live demonstrations of current cloud computing products such as Salesforce.com, Microsoft Azure, Google & Amazon EC2 to help you evaluate the options, benefits and decisions involved with incorporating cloud computing.