Village Gamer

Ottawa – WinZip Computing, an American company wholly owned by Canadian Corel Corporation and maker of the world’s most popular compression utility for Windows®, today released WinZip® 12.1 featuring the new Zipx format, WinZip’s most efficient archives to-date. WinZip 12.1 also makes it faster and easier for users to resize images before sending them via ‘Zip and E-Mail’.

With its commitment to continuous improvement, WinZip has significantly advanced the compression and encryption capabilities of Zip files and the new .zipx file extension is the next step in that evolution. By using the most current compression methods to create Zipx files, WinZip 12.1 helps users create their smallest Zip files ever. The new .zipx file extension makes it easier to share highly compressed files with others by making it clear when a file was created using advanced methods and that WinZip 12.1 (or another compatible compression utility) is required to open the file. Users can still create regular “Legacy Zip 2.0” files with WinZip 12.1. In addition, WinZip has documented all of the details associated with creating and reading Zipx files and has made them available for software developers of compression software, anti-virus software, search engines, and other software applications.
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Vancouver – Zynga, the industry leader in social gaming, has shown its support for the Masters of Digital Media (MDM) Program with three new entrance scholarships totaling $20,000. The three scholarships will be awarded in the areas of Game Design, Art and Programming. Students beginning their studies in September who have demonstrated remarkable talent in these fields will be considered. The MDM application deadline is June 30, 2009.

“At MDM, we’re thrilled that Zynga is keen to support our Masters of Digital Media students,” said Dr. Gerri Sinclair, Executive Director of the MDM Program and CEO of the Centre for Digital Media at Great Northern Way Campus. “The backing of an industry leader such as Zynga is a testament to the quality of the students joining our two-year program, and we thank the company for their support not only of our program, but of the digital media industry in Vancouver and throughout North America.”
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Toronto – NAC Geographic Products Inc. announced that NACMaps – a NAC enhancement for Blackberry Maps has been released and available on the Blackberry App World of Research In Motion (RIM), to make Blackberry Maps work everywhere in all its covered geographic areas no matter whether there are no street addresses such as in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and no matter whether there are no standard street addresses in English.

Although Blackberry Maps is the most comprehensive mobile map application in the world, providing locating, nearby business searching, turn-by-turn driving directions and navigating services in 67 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Carribean and North America, it can specify locations only with street addresses which have many problems:
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Vancouver – PEER 1 Network Enterprises, Inc., a leading online IT hosting provider, has launched SmartMonitoring, a full suite of advanced monitoring solutions now available for its managed hosting customers. Utilizing the platform of partner, Absolute Performance Inc., SmartMonitoring provides in-depth data and analysis to better anticipate IT needs for business success. This offering, which will be expanded to all product lines later this year, represents strategic momentum in working together with best-of-breed companies to provide PEER 1 customers a valuable range of products and services.

“With the launch of SmartMonitoring, we are offering the best monitoring services available, while continuing to provide the advanced hosting services that are in greatest demand by our customers,” said Tim Varma, director of product management for PEER 1. “SmartMonitoring will help our customers increase efficiency and maximize IT resources, which is especially vital in today’s economy. With our fully scalable hosting solutions and services, PEER 1 adjusts to customers’ needs and helps them be more cost effective, to keep their businesses running smoothly.”
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Vancouver – Vancouver Film School (VFS), Canada’s premier post-secondary entertainment arts institution, today announced Shannon Lee from Toronto, Canada, as the first-ever winner of the Women in Games Scholarship, valued at $30,000. The scholarship covers the full tuition to the acclaimed one-year Game Design program at VFS, which was recently named by the L.A. Times as one of the top 10 schools “favored by video game industry recruiters.”

The unique scholarship was launched in early February at Game Design Expo 2009 as a means to support and foster talented female game designers in an industry traditionally dominated by male gamers and designers. More and more women are forging successful careers in the game industry and now make up 20 percent of the workforce, up 17 percent from 2004, according to findings in The Game Industry: Now & in the Future, a 2009 report released by VFS. The school established the Women in Games scholarship to encourage this positive trend.

Shannon will have the opportunity to experience one intensive year learning every facet of game design, from game theory to level design to game interface design. The Game Design program’s industry-led curriculum reflects a professional game development and production environment, so that when Shannon graduates, she will be prepared to begin a career in the game industry.
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Burnaby – EA SPORTS™, a label of Electronic Arts Inc., announced today that EA SPORTS Active™ is now available in North American retail stores and will be available worldwide by May 22, 2009*. Developed exclusively for the Wii™ by EA Canada, EA SPORTS Active is an innovative, virtual fitness product that offers personalized, customizable workouts that can be done from the comfort of home. Developed in collaboration with fitness experts, including Bob Greene – renowned exercise physiologist, author and Oprah’s personal trainer – EA SPORTS Active is a fun and cost-effective way to achieve a healthy lifestyle. The product will be the first in a new line of EA SPORTS virtual fitness products to improve the well-being of people of all ages.

“The EA SPORTS brand is known for award-winning sports video games, but today marks our entrance into the entirely new genre of virtual fitness as EA SPORTS Active hits stores,” said Dave McCarthy, vice president, EA SPORTS. “Now more than ever consumers are seeking economical solutions to getting exercise and living a healthier lifestyle, and with EA SPORTS Active we’ve designed an experience that will appeal to a variety of audiences and deliver a truly fun yet challenging workout in the home.”
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Vancouver – Belcarra Technologies, a leading developer of USB software and device driver solutions, announced today the availability of their USB Communications Device Class (USB CDC ECM) driver, USBLAN deployments for Microsoft Windows CE and Windows Mobile platforms.

Belcarra’s USBLAN is a proven and industry standard USB networking solution for Windows 2000, XP and Vista platforms. In response to industry demand, Belcarra has now extended this functionality with CE-USBLAN, an implementation of the CDC ECM (Ethernet Control Model) protocol that supports Microsoft embedded and mobile platforms.

The Ethernet Control Model is a networking standard published by the USB Implementers Forum, providing a popular protocol for a USB host to access an Ethernet NIC-like device across a USB link. The standard defines a way for the USB host to transfer IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet) network frames, and for the USB host to control the device. The industry-standard ECM is an ideal method for a handheld Win CE or Windows Mobile device to access a network or network-like service across a USB link.
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Vancouver – Namaste Publishing’s new iPhone app for Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth is the first in a myriad projects that the Vancouver-based book publisher is embarking on to take their published material to a wider audience.

It’s no secret that the publishing world is struggling to find new readers. It’s harder to get people to crack a book these days with so many technology devices captivating their attention. The iPhone app allows Namaste to bring Tolle’s work to a wider audience.
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Victoria – Tecagora Solutions Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. James Addison as Chief Information Officer of the company. With the recent release of Tecagora’s new Snapact web services and nomination as a finalist for VIATeC’s 2009 Innovative Excellence Award, Addison’s appointment is anticipated to generate vast opportunities for the company and its user base as he undertakes the future design and development of Snapact’s photo sharing and social networking community.

“As a photo enthusiast, I am excited to lead the future design and development of what Tecagora has created with Snapact,” says Addison. “I have a lot of ideas on how to further develop the Snapact solution and I look forward to contributing my knowledge, experience, and guidance to help make their technology an even greater success. There is a lot of potential with Snapact and I am excited to be a part of its future.”
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Toronto – Entrepreneurs Connect (eConnect) enters the Blogosphere with a big bang! Unlike any other blog network on the web today, eConnect delivers effective and targeted traffic by displaying the RSS titles rather than little icons or badges.

Entrepreneurs Connect (Short for eConnect) is a quality network for Internet Entrepreneurs; it shares and displays members’ latest RSS entries across the network.

eConnect is a free service provided by Business Minder. Since the BlogRush shutdown, eConnect is the only popular network that displays latest titles from RSS feeds. This model delivers effective and targeted traffic to participating members.

Unlike BlogRush, eConnect makes everything less complicated. Members of the network are organized into 30 different categories. The widget on a member’s website will only display relevant entries from other members in the same category. Its simplicity maintains its performance at a high level and reduces the chances of bugs.
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