Village Gamer

Toronto – The Toronto Agile Software Development Community will host Agile Tour Toronto as a one day conference that will take place Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency on King in the heart of downtown Toronto.

Agile Tour Toronto will provide a forum to learn about the techniques and practices of Agile software development where attendees can share experiences with the local and international practitioners. The conference program will provide multiple streams that will appeal to all experience levels, ranging from new-to-Agile novices to seasoned experts, as well as a stream for management. Registration fees have been set at an extremely affordable rate to ensure the conference is financially accessible anyone who would like to participate in, contribute to, or learn from the growing grassroots Agile movement in the Toronto area.

Lawrence Ludlow, an early adopter of Agile and one of the organizing committee members, states: “Agile folks really are focused on the people side of software development and are open about what they’ve learned”. After six years of heading the XPToronto/Agile User Group, Ludlow’s excitement surrounding Agile Tour Toronto is based in the progressive nature of the people he hopes to meet, “simply because of the valuable conversations that start up when you get a group of like-minded folks together in an open environment”. Gino Marckx, conference chair for this year’s event, adds “Agile software development is about valuing people, delivering results and encouraging learning, at a high but always sustainable pace”.

Ottawa – CIPPIC, the University of Ottawa’s Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic has launched a new site which is aimed at facilitating debate/action on digital issues. DigitalAgenda.ca is part of CIPPIC’s plan to play a more active role in the important issues that will come up from the Canadian government’s initiative to pursue a strategy aimed at restoring Canada’s leadership role in the global Digital Economy. As this initiative will involve comprehensive changes to a number of fields impacting on Canadians’ digital experience. It is Digital Agenda’s goal to provide a forum for information, discussion and action on such issues.

Toronto – Interactive Ontario (IO) today announced three new speakers for GameON: Finance 2009, happening October 27 and 28 in Toronto. These speakers are experts on key issues surrounding the business of games including funding, banking, and monetization.

Greg Short, Executive Director, EEDAR
With over ten years experience in developing community integrated data services for some of the largest massively multiplayer games available, Greg Short is one of the world’s leading experts in maximizing the acquisition, retention and monetization of gaming communities.

Erik Robertson Managing Director, Nordic Game Program
Erik Robertson is the Managing Director of the Nordic Game Program. Its mission is to ensure access to quality Nordic computer games for children and young people.

Alec Dafferner, Partner, GP Bullhound, Technology Investment Banking
Alec Dafferner is a Partner and Head of GP Bullhound’s San Francisco office. With over ten years of technology investment banking experience, Alec has executed over 40 transactions for emerging growth companies in the U.S. and abroad, raising over $10 billion in capital and advising on over $2.5 billion in mergers and acquisitions.

Vancouver – As announced earlier this week, IUGO Mobile Entertainment has pulled A.D.D. Lite from the iTunes App Store. Here’s hoping that Apple gets its stuff together and either moves titles through approval faster or hires some more testing staff to catch up on the backlog.

Scotland – Brenda and Eli have landed safely in Ayr, Scotland after their transatlantic flight from Vancouver. They will be visiting with friends and relatives over there, before Brenda flies home on a commercial flight while Eli returns in the Cessna.

Montreal – EA Montreal has announced that it is collaborating with lifestyle brands tokidoki, Upper Playground and i am 8-bit to create exclusive in-game car designs and artwork for Need for Speed™ NITRO on the Wii™. Each brand has created custom skins for a wide variety of vehicles including the Lamborghini Gallardo, Dodge Challenger, Dodge Charger R/T, Volkswagen Type 2 and Subaru Impreza WRX. They have also provided over 140 stylistic brushes that players can use to paint and personalize their ride. The cars in Need for Speed NITRO have style, personality and edge unlike any racing game.

The tokidoki brand is one of today’s most popular lines of apparel, accessories, toys, skateboard decks and other merchandise. The brand is characterized by a colorful, high-energy artistic style, while the word tokidoki means “sometimes” in Japanese. The name represents the company’s world view around identity and destiny. tokidoki was founded by Simone Legno and his partners and started as a personal web site before it evolved into an internationally celebrated brand.

Upper Playground is a cutting-edge, San Francisco based brand that brings graffiti culture to all types of street wear such as t-shirts, hats and hoodies as well as housewares and wall art. The Upper Playground punk rock art style has defined it as one of today’s hottest brands among musical tastemakers and Hollywood trendsetters. Read the rest of this entry »

Today on Global TV BC’s morning news, travel consultant Claire Newell mentioned two sites that will be of interest to those in the industry who do a lot of traveling. These two sites enable you to be certain that you are getting the seat you want on a flight, because as we all know, not all airplanes have the same seat layout. If you want to be sure you’re sitting where you want to sit, visit Seat Guru and Seat Expert.

Some cool info from our friends in the Vancouver-based Unity 3D community – Unity 3D appears to be the most popular engine for iPhone game development.  There are currently 258 confirmed games in the App Store that have been made with Unity 3D. From games created by students to professional outfits Unity has been used to create a wide variety of visually stunning, innovative and engaging games – from the quirky to the more traditional – the flexibility and feature set of the engine allows developers to concentrate on content rather than technology.

Nicholas Francis, Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of Unity said, “There’s so many iPhone games made with Unity that its hard to keep track; we’ve got 258 confirmed releases, but the actual number could be much higher. This spans small titles to smash hits like Zombieville USA and Touch KO. Even if its ‘only’ 258, that still means that there has been a Unity iPhone game released every two days since we launched – a great success.”

Unity will release 1.1 for iPhone towards the end of August 2009. The Unity tools have been hailed as revolutionary for enabling high quality results in an easily accessible development environment. Unity is the fastest growing cross platform engine.

Congratulations as well to Pug Pharm, who has received additional project funding from the Canada New Media Fund (CNMF) administered through Telefilm Canada.

“With this financial contribution from Telefilm, along with our recently announced support from the IRAP-NRC program, Pug Pharm is building momentum and is well-positioned to execute on our current production plans towards a public beta launch,” stated Steve Bocska, CEO of Pug Pharm.

“With this investment, the Canada New Media Fund is supporting novel online games that combine the engagement of traditional video games with the technologies of social networking applications. We see opportunities to create innovative offerings that have global appeal,” continued Bocska.

Montreal – Start 2010 with a bang! EA Montreal has announced that Army of Two™: The 40th Day will ship on January 12, 2010 in North America and January 8, 2010 in Europe. The sequel to the 2008 multi-platinum co-op shooter sees the return of the ultimate two-man private military team, Salem and Rios. Trapped in the middle of Shanghai as it falls under attack, the two must work as a team to survive relentless enemy assaults and escape the city collapsing around them. Gamers who pre-order* Army of Two: The 40th Day now will have exclusive access to the game’s all-new explosive multi-player mode, ‘Extraction,’ at launch. This mode will be unlocked for all other players one month after the game ships.

Army of Two: The 40th Day features a more robust and redesigned multiplayer experience with four unique multiplayer modes including ‘Extraction’. ‘Extraction’ pits a team of four players against a series of unique enemy waves as they move from point to point in the ruined city. Players must strategize as a unified team to combat the different forces of the 40th Day Initiative while trying to get out alive.

In Army of Two: The 40th Day, private military contractors, Salem and Rios must fight their way through Shanghai to survive a carefully orchestrated series of catastrophes that are dragging the massive city to the brink of ruin. Jonah, the mastermind behind the 40th Day Initiative, has amassed an army of skilled soldiers to level the city in his attempt to rebuild an empire according to his vision and ideals. Now, the Army of Two must fight their way through ravaged city districts as they try to beat the odds.

Army of Two: The 40th Day will be available for the Xbox 360® videogame and entertainment system, the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system and the PSP® (PlayStation® Portable).

* Pre-order offer has restrictions. See www.eastore.com and participating retailer sites for details

Vancouver – In the midst of IUGO’s A.D.D. (Another Dumb Distraction) iPhone game of over 100 frantic and controversial mini games sitting in Apple’s review queue for almost 3 months, IUGO has decided to take down the Lite version of the game. “The idea, of course, was to have both apps launch around the same time” states Sarah Thomson, Director of Business Development for IUGO. “There is such a disparity in the release dates now that the Lite version holds no real purpose at this point.” IUGO has even gone on to suggest that they most likely will not release the Lite version again, even if and when the full version launches on the App Store.

So what is the fate of A.D.D.? “We’ve received 3 identical emails from Apple stating the game is taking an unusually long time to review and that they apologize. That’s all we know. It seems the game is neither rejected nor has it been approved,” says Sarah. She goes onto to explain their thoughts on the substantial delay, “Sure we’re frustrated and wish we’d hear either way. If the content is too hot then we’re happy to go back in and re-work it,” suggests Thomson.
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Montreal – Montreal International Game Summit (MIGS) has officially revealed the five headline speakers who will address the more than 1,500 attendees expected at the sixth edition of the popular industry event. Yoichi Wada, President and CEO, Square Enix, Paul Holden, Lead Architect, Media Molecule, Jason Holtman, Director of Business Development, Valve, Heather Chaplin, Author and Chris Hecker, Technology Fellow, Maxis/EA will be at the Hilton Bonaventure Hotel on November 16 and 17 in Montreal.

The official keynote speakers include:

– Yoichi Wada is President and CEO of the Square Enix Group, which has the corporate philosophy: to spread happiness across the globe by providing unforgettable experiences. During his conference, Mr. Wada will share the steps the group has taken in order to build a new, group-wide game development environment in an effort to make full use of the unique individual characteristics of its three core brands – Square Enix, Taito and Eidos and will share his vision of the future of video game development.

– Paul Holden is Lead Architect at British-based studio Media Molecule. Developers of the breakout 2008 hit, Little Big Planet, Media Molecule’s Holden will speak about the unique challenges company encountered in developing LBP and its strategy to leverage user-generated content to its fullest.

– Jason Holtman is Director of Business Development for Valve. Among other things, Holtman manages the distribution of Steam, an online platform enabling more than 15 million gamers to access hundreds of games, and video game development via the Source engine.
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Toronto – Yesterday, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, the Honorable Leonard Davis issued a Final Judgment which upheld the verdict won on May 20, 2009, by i4i, a global technology company headquartered in Toronto. The Final Judgment is an award in excess of $290 million and includes a Permanent Injunction against Microsoft Corporation (“Microsoft”) for custom XML in Word 2003 and Word 2007.

The Final Judgment includes the following:

(a) Defendant Microsoft is found to have unlawfully infringed U.S. Patent No. 5,787,449 (the “449 patent”).
(b) Microsoft is found to have infringed the ‘449 patent willfully.
(c) The ‘449 Patent is valid and enforceable, and Michel Vulpe is found not to have engaged in inequitable conduct with respect to the ‘449 patent.
(d) i4i LP’s and Infrastructures for Information Inc.’s (collectively “i4i”) damage award is found not barred by latches.
(e) The Court awards damages to i4i for Microsoft’s infringement of the ‘449 patent in the amount of $200,000,000.
(f) i4i is further awarded enhanced damages of $40,000,000 for Microsoft’s willful infringement.
(g) i4i is further awarded post-verdict damages of $144,060 per day from May 21, 2009 until the date of this Final Judgment.
(h) i4i is further awarded pre-judgment interest of $37,097,032 up to May 20, 2009 and $21,102 per day thereafter until the date of this Final Judgment.
(i) i4i is entitled to post-judgment interest as provided for by 28 U.S.C. – 1961 for any time period between the entry of this Final Judgment and the date upon which i4i receives payment from Microsoft as ordered herein.
(j) Microsoft is permanently enjoined from performing the following actions with Microsoft Word 2003, Microsoft Word 2007, and Microsoft Word products not more than colorably different from
Microsoft Word 2003 or Microsoft Word 2007 (collectively “Infringing and Future Word Products”) during the term of the 449 patent:
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Vancouver – The official League of Super Evil site is now fully operational and ready to unleash its evilness on the unsuspecting world wide web from their secret headquarters, A.K.A. Nerd Corps Entertainment. Visitors can now sign up for an account and create their own evil avatars to “play games and earn Evil Points so you can dress to impress. Or blow stuff up, your choice. Then, fill your Lair with evil gadgets so after a long, hard day you have a place to call “home sweet home.” Okay maybe not sweet but you get the idea! And remember, the only way to win, is to LOSE!”

According to recon information gathered via YTV, which seems to be the source of their regular, animated transmissions, “The League of Super Evil (a.k.a. L.O.S.E.) follows four Super Villains who have set their sights on nothing less than total neighbourhood domination! L.O.S.E. is helmed by the diminutive Great Voltar, whose grandiose plans are generally miniscule and child-like and give new meaning to the term lowered expectations. Then there’s gadgeteer Doktor Frogg, whose evil genius is diminished only by his incredible bad luck. Bringing the muscle is fresh-faced former farm-boy Reginald “Red” Menace, who prefers to channel his energy into gardening, cute animals and bouncy castles. And we can’t forget the completely unpredictable Doomageddon, a pan-dimensional creature who brings the term “bad dog” to a whole other level. Between using a Shiruken anime robot to win a playground slam dunk competition, inventing a super-computer to protect Voltar’s sweet new evil BMX bike, or hosting a neighbourhood barbeque and not inviting ANY of the neighbors, L.O.S.E. struggles ever-onward to its goal of total mindless fun!

Dragon Age™: Origins Collector’s Edition and pre-order incentive program. The Collector’s Edition is a premium package available in limited quantities featuring exclusive Dragon Age: Origins collectibles including a unique steel case, a cloth map of the world of Dragon Age, a Making-of documentary DVD, a digital version of the Dragon Age: Origins soundtrack, game trailers, wallpapers, strategy tips and a concept art video, plus three exclusive downloadable items that will provide special advantages to the player. The Collector’s Edition is available for pre-order today for an MSRP of $74.99 (console) and $64.99 (PC) in North America.
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Saskatoon – Aerial photographers and videographers will be excited to see the newest product from Draganfly Innovations Inc. – the Draganflyer X4 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. The Draganflyer X4 is a computer-stabilized, miniature airborne platform with a wireless video downlink and remote flight control.

The four-rotor, 680 gram electric helicopter is a flying platform capable of Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL), and is classified as an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The Draganflyer X4 helicopter is designed for uses such as surveying, industrial inspection, military reconnaissance, aerial photography, real estate marketing, and inspection of hazardous locations. It is lightweight, compact, easily transportable, and measures only 30.5 inches (77.5cm) across.

The Draganflyer X4 helicopter is aimed at industrial and commercial users, providing reconnaissance and inspection information using an on-board wireless high definition video and high resolution still camera. The Draganflyer X4 helicopter is stabilized electronically using an on-board processor running thousands of lines of code and receiving data from seven sensors (three accelerometers, three gyros, and one barometric pressure sensor). The helicopter is able to determine its own orientation and motion based on the data it acquires through these sensors and can be piloted by a user with minimal training. Remotely controlled by its operator, the Draganflyer X4 automatically handles the complex attitude and altitude adjustments required to move at the specified speed and in the specified direction. Without this computer stabilization, the operator would have to constantly adjust the speed and orientation in order to move smoothly or stay in one place. An altitude hold feature allows the Draganflyer X4 to maintain its position in the air, even without user input. “The Draganflyer X4 provides users with amazing performance and stability” says Zenon Dragan, company president. “The Draganflyer X4 will hover stably even with the pilot’s hands removed from the controls.”
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