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Tickets for Anomaly H2O, a dynamic showcase of talented artists from across North America presented by CG Movement, are now available. A fusion of an art workshop and party that brings 2D/3D artists together to share inspiration and creativity, Anomaly H2O will take place on Saturday, October 30, 2010 at the Vancouver Aquarium, one of Canada’s favourite and most beautiful attractions.

Early Bird tickets are available until September 30th at a cost of $55.00 ($45.00 for students). Regular ticket prices are $65.00 ($55.00 for students). Your ticket includes not only a great night of networking and unforgettable artistic inspiration, but also:

* Admission to Anomaly presentations and party
* One year CGmovement membership
* Raffle ticket for door prizes
* Complimentary event t-shirt
* Snacks throughout the event

Keynote speakers are digital painter Craig Mullins and concept artist Jason Stokes. Featured artists for the evening include Anna Fehr, Cesar Rizo, Daryl Mandryk, Jake Collinge, Jesse Turner, Marco Menco, Matthew Barrett, Richard Anderson, Tran Nguyen and Ty Shelton.

If you are planning to attend the Montreal International Game Summit but haven’t bought your tickets yet, time is running out. Early Bird pricing for MiGS ends on September 24th, so you should act fast to save 30% on the cost of attendance. Entries for the for the ‘Create your own advertisement concept for the 2011 MIGS‘ contest also close at midnight on the 24th. The winner will get to see his ad in the printed program, which will be distributed to the 1,500 attendees of the 2010 summit. Plus, the winner also gets a free pass for the event.

nextMEDIA Toronto has published its session schedule for the upcoming November 29th – 30th event which will be held at The Design Exchange. Submissions for the Digital Hot List partnering program close on October 1st, so get your entry in now. Early Bird pricing for the conference ends on October 15th; it is possible to purchase a single day pass, and don’t forget that your nextMEDIA pass includes one ticket to the Canada New Media Awards, with additional ceremony tickets available for $150.00 each.

On November 15th join The New York Times bestselling Author of Blink, Tipping Point, Outliers and What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell along with former CEO of The Walt Disney Company and author of the forthcoming book Working Together Michael Eisner as they headline The Art of Management Conference at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

“We are excited to present this line up of speakers to Toronto’s business community and are confident that we have designed a conference that will help organizations learn to respond to what is happening in the world today,” says Christopher Novais, VP Marketing & Communications at The Art of Productions Inc

Building on the success of the sold out 2009 program, The Art of Management returns to Toronto with five internationally renowned bestselling authors and visionaries including:

* Malcolm Gladwell on Understanding Success, Decision Making & Trends
* Michael Eisner on Creativity in Leadership & Partnerships
* Nilofer Merchant on Collaboration & Strategy
* Simon Sinek on Inspiring Performance
* Mitch Joel on Managing in a Connected World

They will join over 1,500 of Canada’s most influential entrepreneurs, senior executives and management teams as they gather to gain the insights shared by today’s leaders in management and leadership thinking at this highly anticipated conference. “The Art of Management is a world-class event,” says Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image and author of the best-selling business book, Six Pixels of Separation. “While I am honoured to be one of the speakers at this event, I am even more excited to be in the audience, listening and learning from people like Malcolm Gladwell, Michael Eisner, Simon Sinek and Nilofer Merchant.”

From Friday, Sept. 24 to Sunday, Sept. 26, Canadians across the country will be discovering their community’s vibrant arts and culture scene during the first annual Culture Days event (Journées de la culture in Québec), the nation’s largest weekend-long arts and culture celebration. With more than 4500 family-friendly activities offered by thousands of individual artists, groups and organizations in every province and territory, Culture Days 2010 marks the biggest event of its kind in Canadian history.

Free activities include hands-on workshops, drop-in classes, outdoor excursions, guided tours, demonstrations, seminars, panels and behind-the-scenes experiences available in a wide range of disciplines including music, dance, visual arts, film or video, theatre, literary, architecture, new media and heritage. Some activities were created brand-new for Culture Days; others were existing events that have opted to join the national movement. Canadians can get their arts and culture fix by searching for activities in their area on the Culture Days website.

An initiative that brings the Canadian public and artists and cultural groups closer together, Culture Days was launched to celebrate the creative vitality of every community across the country. Inspired by the 13-year success of Québec’s annual Journées de la culture event and its efforts at democratizing culture, Culture Days was also spurred on by the success of the annual Alberta Arts Days – which took place Sept. 17 to 19 this year – as well as the pilot project spOtlight in southern Ontario.

“The Culture Days movement has resonated with the arts and cultural right community across the country beyond our wildest expectations,” says Antoni Cimolino, Chairman of Culture Days’ national Steering Committee and General Director of Stratford Shakespeare Festival. “Since we announced an open call for everyone to join the movement just five months ago, thousands of individual artists, organizations, associations and public and private funders have embraced Culture Days as a fun opportunity to welcome the public into our world and to become more familiar with what we do.”

Culture Days is a volunteer-driven, grassroots movement led by arts-lovers, cultural aficionados and the arts and cultural sector in collaboration with municipalities, public funding agencies, provincial governments and the private sector. In coordination with a national Steering Committee, volunteer provincial Task Forces have rallied professional and community-based cultural organizers to offer activities during the celebratory weekend, and, in conjunction with a complementary national promotional campaign, are promoting the event to the public at the regional and local levels.

Visit culturedays.ca to search for activities in your area and plan your Culture Days outings.

On the night of September 12th, Toronto’s McCaul St was egregiously quiet. Within the walls of OCADU, however, Interactive Ontario’s IN|2010 was enjoying a strong beginning. The room, sparsely lit and ultimately subdued in atmosphere, was party to a broad assortment of digital media pioneers. The occasion was particularly blessed with its concurrence to the opening of START. Ian Kelso, the President and CEO of Interactive Ontario, described the evening best in his greeting to the crowd.

“This is a preview—it actually doesn’t start until tomorrow, but thank you for bringing us into your space.” The thanks was better expressed by the round of applause. “These shows, called Start, the goal of the program itself is to promote art games created in Toronto, and some beyond, and to let you play, and decide for yourself, what is art in the creation of video games? So I really encourage you to play and develop all the games that are here. There’s some really, really fabulous games. So you won’t be disappointed.” Read the rest of this entry »

Remember the golden age of video arcades? The clatter of clanging tokens, 8-bit bleeps and the cheers of caffeine-fuelled competitors? Waiting patiently in line to shatter your best friend’s high score on your favourite game?

The Arcadian Renaissance — an interactive installation for the upcoming Scotiabank Nuit Blanche Arts Festival — will capture that same boisterous spirit of competition and camaraderie while featuring the best of the Toronto indie gaming scene. But without the wasted quarters and the faint smell of nerd sweat.

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, the celebrated all-night arts festival, is partnering with the Hand Eye Society to feature six vintage arcade consoles that have been modified to play games by local developers. Starting at sundown on October 2, the exhibit will be featured in the atrium of the TIFF Bell Lightbox, the newly opened headquarters of the Toronto International Film Festival.

The Hand Eye Society’s “Torontron” arcade cabinet has been seen at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, the Flash in the Can Festival and most recently, FanExpo. Five more Torontron-style cabinets have been built especially for the Scotiabank Nuit Blanche event, thanks to support from local game companies Metanet, Spyeart, RSBLSB and Untold Entertainment, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

The featured games were chosen to reflect Toronto’s vibrant indie gaming scene: highly accessible yet artistically sophisticated — and fast enough to play so that everyone gets a turn. The Arcadian Renaissance is expected to be a popular attraction for the city’s tech-savvy citizenry at the all-night event that drew over a million visitors in 2009.

“This is an amazing time for Toronto’s gaming community, not just as far as business is concerned, but culturally as well,” says project coordinator Jim Munroe. “Developers with artistic or experimental aspirations can create games that will be enjoyed by the masses. That’s the idea behind The Arcadian Renaissance: that video games can bridge the gap between high art and populist entertainment.”

Visitors can check out The Arcadian Renaissance at 350 King St. W. on October 2, 2010. The exhibit will run from 6:57 p.m. until sunrise, with a special midnight tournament of Nidhogg, a swordfighting game by celebrated Brooklyn-based indie developer Mark “Messhof” Essen, shown on the big screen.

Vancouver’s Layer 7 Technologies, a leader in security and governance for cloud and SOA services, will showcase its industry-first Oracle Service Bus (OSB) Appliance and new CloudSpan™ product suite at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco on September 20-22. Layer 7 will be a featured guest in premier sponsor CSC’s pavilion, located at 1101 Moscone South.

Show attendees can participate in a showcase of the OSB appliance and view how it extends the Oracle Service Bus into the DMZ, and see how the CloudSpan solution simplifies integration to the cloud, secures applications in the cloud and governs the publication of APIs from the cloud. Read the rest of this entry »

Regina-based NetSecure Technologies, a provider of online transaction security solutions for financial institutions has announced that its personal credit card reader, SmartSwipe, is now compatible with the Firefox® Web browser 3.6 or higher. Made available to financial institutions earlier this year, SmartSwipe helps protect consumers’ private information, while they shop online. The device is also compatible with Explorer 6.

“By enabling SmartSwipe to operate with various Web browsers, the personal credit card reader is a viable security option to a broader customer base,” said Daniel McCann, president, NetSecure Technologies. “For financial institutions, this means the potential for increased sales through bank-branded credit cards. Because of the security benefits, consumers are more likely to shop with that card, making SmartSwipe the ultimate “top of the wallet” product for financial institutions.”

“Additionally, SmartSwipe improves customer satisfaction and confidence,” McCann continued. “Confidence in banking is at an all-time low, but by offering a personal security device that puts the consumer in control, financial institutions have an opportunity regain trust.”

Hackers are increasingly becoming more sophisticated, and anti-virus software is no longer enough to protect consumers. SmartSwipe provides proactive protection against all existing attacks as well as new emerging attacks, such as the latest Zeus Trojan virus, reported to have stolen more than $1 million from U.K. bank accounts this summer.

By leveraging NetSecure’s Dynamic SSL technology, SmartSwipe secures sensitive data at the point of origin, before it ever reaches the computer, protecting sensitive financial and personal information from endpoint threats such as keylogging, Spyware and Man-in-the-Browser.

Virtual-Vancouver.com will host a Virtual Night of Comedy, a real-time web stream of an all-star comedy event scheduled Sept. 16 at BBQues restaurant. This marks the first time this kind of live comedy and entertainment has been made available to thousands of residents without leaving their homes.

The local barbecue eatery has teamed with Virtual-Vancouver.com parent company Utherverse Digital to host the event on stage while simulcasting it live online at BBQues in-world location. Attendees in real life will be able to watch virtual avatars within the 3D world via TVs located throughout the restaurant, while virtual partygoers will see the live in-person event from within the online world.

“This provides a new, exciting and unique experience for people to view live entertainment either in person or in the virtual world if they can’t make it to the actual event,” Utherverse President Zak Zarry said.

The event will be hosted by local comedian Greg Kettner and will showcase top-rated acts that have been featured at Yuk Yuks, Just for Laughs, CTV’s Comedy Now, Las Vegas HBO Comedy Festival and Canada’s Next Top Comic. The headlining act will be Patrick Maliha, supported by fellow funnymen Chris James, Kyle Jones and several others.

The live web stream will start Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. in the BBQues virtual space with a $5 cover charge. The virtual event also will have a small cover charge using a virtual currency called “Rays.” BBQues’ physical location is 1043 Mainland St. in Yaletown.

Twenty-five years ago today, Nintendo’s original Super Mario Bros.™ video game made its debut in Japan and changed the world of video games forever. Since then, Mario™ has become one of the most renowned and beloved video game characters around the globe.

Mario is all but synonymous with Nintendo. It’s difficult to think of one without thinking of the other. Super Mario Bros. contains a magical blend of characters, graphics, challenges, music and action that still captivates players today. The original game sold 40.24 million units worldwide, and remains one of the best-known, best-loved video games in the world. It popularized the side-scrolling format and established elements of the Mushroom Kingdom that are still used in today’s Mario games. Super Mario Bros. frequently appears on lists of the best games of all time.

“Stimulated by advancements in technologies, we have always enjoyed developing the Super Mario Bros. series,” said Nintendo designer and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto. “The Super Mario Bros. series has always taken advantage of the latest technologies and is the fruit of the creativity of a number of my hard-working friends working as a team.”

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Super Mario Bros., fans can visit Mario’s birthday page to see a special video that shows game-play footage from Super Mario Bros. all the way through Super Mario Galaxy™ 2.

Mayor David Miller and the City of Toronto have proclaimed that September 13-18, 2010 will be MOBILEINNOVATIONWEEK, recognizing the 2nd annual event for the global mobile industry in Toronto. Kicking off the week-long conference is MIW 2010 Hack-A-Thon where local Toronto mobile developers will leverage the City of Toronto’s OpenTO.org Open Data Framework to conceive and create mobile web and apps for social benefit and community services.

“Toronto’s talented mobile developer community is passionate about improving this city,” said Michele Perras, director of the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre (MEIC), co-producer of MOBILEINNOVATIONWEEK, and host for the MIW 2010 Hack-A-Thon.

MIW 2010 Hack-A-Thon will feature two days of presentations, workshops and networking opportunities in addition to “dreaming and building” working sessions. Mobile and web app concepts will be judged by the community and revealed later during the Mobile ThinkTank Series event.

“I’m proud of the City of Toronto’s commitment to the long-term growth of strategic industry sectors like the mobile industry,” said Michael Williams, general manager, Economic Development and Culture, City of Toronto. “Events like Hack-A-Thon and MOBILEINNOVATIONWEEK not only nurture our mobile talent but also help position Toronto as leader, globally. The City is excited about this opportunity to leverage our open data resources as developed through the efforts of our CIO Dave Wallace.”

“Hack-A-Thon will not only showcase our creativity and technical expertise but will result in real solutions that benefit the more than 5-million people that call the GTA home,” adds Jason Silva, founder JBBMobile and curator of the MIW 2010 Hack-A-Thon.

The MIW 2010 Hack-A-Thon will take place from 9:00a.m. – 6:00p.m. on September 11th and 12th at the Ontario College of Art & Design’s auditorium and will be hosted by the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre with Toronto mobile, software developers, designers, marketers, and social media experts as well as with creative and passionate residents dreaming and building mobile and web application to benefit the City of Toronto, its residents, businesses and its services.

“From September 13-18 Toronto will be the centre of the mobile universe,” said Michael J. O’Farrell of The Mobile Institute, founder and co-producer of MOBILEINNOVATIONWEEK. “MIW 2010 Hack-A-Thon is the kick-off event to show what we can do for the greater good once we set our minds – and our world class mobile developer communities to it.”

Rounding out the opening weekend of Mobile Innovation Week will be the IN 2010 kick-off reception, which will take place starting at 6:00pm on Sunday, September 12th, and be hosted in a space featuring an exclusive preview of the START exhibition – an interactive exhibition featuring the work of independent game designers from OCAD University.

Curated by Emma Westecott, Assistant Professor of Games Design for OCAD University, this exhibition will allow guests to experience the best in up-and-coming game design, as well as meet and chat with the designers themselves. Wall-sized projections and personal gameplay stations will make the space come alive, while leaving plenty of room and opportunities for networking with fellow IN 2010 delegates and speakers.

The Canada Media Fund (CMF) is beginning a new round of consultation with the industry this fall as it develops its program guidelines for 2011-2012. Join Valerie Creighton, President and CEO, and Stéphane Cardin, VP of Industry and Public Affairs, for an opportunity to provide your input. With the support of the CMF, this session (and the IN closing keynote) is open to IN 2010 delegates and the industry at large.

If you are not a IN 2010 registered delegate but would like to attend this session please register with the CMF or register for IN 2010 now. The CMF consultations will take place at the Carlu on September 14th from 3:15p.m. until 5:20p.m.

The Board of Directors for Digital Alberta would like to take this opportunity to introduce Jo-Anne Douthwaite, the organization’s new Executive Administrator. Jo-Anne has a wealth of managerial experience in both the non-profit and financial sectors. In her new role with Digital Alberta, the Association expects that she will contribute significantly to the organization’s ongoing initiatives to sustain a strong, vibrant and competitive digital media industry in Alberta.

FITC will be back in Edmonton for two days of design and technology goodness on November 6th and 7th. With presentations, panel discussions, and an evening event, this is sure to be an amazing event. Confirmed presenters include Jamie Kosoy (Big Spaceship), Keith Peters (bit-101), Branden Hall, Jeremy Thorp (blprnt.com), Mike Chambers (Adobe), Grant Skinnerr (gskinnner.com), Joel Wan (Critical Mass), Phillip Musser (Critical Mass), Trent Oster, Jason Theodor, and Hugh Elliott.

The first BCTIA TechForum of the season, Building our Future, will take place at the Sutton Place Hotel on September 15th, will feature Iain Black, Minister of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development for BC. Minister Black will speak about the importance of building capacity in BC technology companies and the role our industry plays in building British Columbia’s economy.

Following Minister Black’s address, honoured representatives from the Federal Government, including Ed Fast, MP for Abbotsford and appearing on behalf of the Honourable Lynne Yelich, Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification Canada, and Neil Bailey, Industrial Technology Advisor of NRC-IRAP, will announce their support of a new initiative designed specifically for our technology companies.

Registration is still open for Interactive Exchange 2010, which begins this Sunday in Toronto. There are still a limited number of discounted Startup Passes available to Interactive Ontario members, so if you are a new digital media enterprise, be sure to check and see if you qualify for one of these passes.

This year, IN 2010’s move to September also aligns it with the Toronto International Film Festival. To celebrate the serendipitous timing, IN will feature several sessions and speakers who will examine the opportunities in transmedia development between interactive media, film and TV entertainment.

Most notably is the opening keynote presentation by Jordan Mechner, creator of both the successful video game franchise Prince of Persia, as well as the recent feature film of the same name produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. The Prince of Persia game franchise has sold over 14 million units while the film has grossed well over $300 million making it the most successful video game to movie crossover ever.

IN 2010 will feature almost 90 presenters participating in five programme tracks including: Games, Mobile, Blackberry Social Media Stream, Rogers Digital Media X-Platform Stream and OCAD University Visionary Stream. IN 2010 also offers registered delegates the opportunity to meet with conference speakers and attendees via the one-on-one meeting system. This year IN is also a partner in MOBILEINNOVATIONWEEK, one of Canada’s largest festivals of mobile media content and services which takes place September 13 to 18.

I just found out about a week-long showcase that will feature games from Toronto-area indie game developers — professionals, well-known names and bedroom coders alike. This showcase, titled The Start Show, will offer visitors the chance to play free indie games on multiple screens at OCAD University’s Great Hall. Exhibitors at the showcase include T.O. Jam, GamerCamp and The Hand Eye Society. There will be a gala event on September 16th, complete with live music, and the showcase opens daily at 8:00a.m.

The Canadian Innovation Exchange, which takes place at the MaRS Discovery District on December 7th is pleased to announce two exciting keynote presentations from international leaders in innovation.

Russ Daniels, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, HP Enterprise Services, Hewlett Packard Company is a veteran of the technology industry, with more than 25 years of experience specializing in software architecture, enterprise management, and software development methodologies. As Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for HP Enterprise Services, he sets the technology strategy and architecture for HP’s Enterprise Services portfolio.

Doug Merritt, Executive Vice President, SAP OnDemand Solutions, is responsible for all sales and Go-To-Market (GTM) activities related to the entire range of SAP’s cloud offerings.

Just a reminder also, that Early Bird ticket prices for CIX end on October 1st, which is also the last day of submissions for Canada’s Hottest Innovative Companies.

Close to 400 conventional and interactive media professionals from film, television, mobile, and games will come together on October 28 and 29 at the newly opened Woodward’s Heritage Complex in Vancouver to explore the rapidly evolving business of cross-media properties at Merging+Media 2010.

Hosted by Merging Media Productions Inc. and the Canadian Media Production Association (formerly CFTPA-BC), this is the first event of its scope and calibre in British Columbia, featuring some of the world’s most noted cross-media experts including Keynote Robert Tercek, former President of Digital Media at The Oprah Winfrey Network. This event will showcase the latest trends and technologies in this space and facilitate valuable funding and partnering opportunities.

“Merging+Media is an important community inspired and supported event,” explains Executive Director Christine Lim-Labossière, “We wish to present a world-class event aimed at creating a greater awareness of the vibrant business of cross-media production, as well as to encourage media producers in the region to take full advantage of newly introduced funding and revenue opportunities. This includes awarding a 10K BC Film Development prize to the Best Pitch at our Masterclass.”

Says Liz Shorten, President, the Canadian Media Production Association, BC Branch (formerly CFTPA-BC), Says Liz Shorten, President, the Canadian Media Production Association, BC Branch (formerly CFTPA-BC), “Merging+Media will be an opportunity for media professionals to come together to explore, discover and debate emerging business models. I am confident this event will have a positive impact on the industry in BC.”

“The launch of Merging+Media is timely with the launch, earlier this year, of the Canada Media Fund, which supports the creation of innovative Canadian content and software applications for current and emerging digital platforms,” said Betsy Chaly, Director of Marketing and Communications, CMF. “The combination of Conference and Masterclass gives producers the opportunity to network, to learn, and to hone their cross-media business plans.”

Merging Media’s illustrious speaker line-up is headlined by former President of Digital Media at The Oprah Winfrey Network, Robert Tercek. Featured speakers include Susan Bonds, President & CEO, 42 Entertainment; Anita Ondine, CEO, Seize the Media; Caitlin Burns, Transmedia Producer, Starlight Runner Entertainment; and Sibley Verbeck, Founder, Electric Sheep Company, to name a few.

Cross-media, also known as transmedia, is the blending of a variety of media forms across multiple media platforms. Statistics show the digital and film industries in BC are growing annually; BC is well positioned to take a lead in the cross-media space.

According to a 2010 report by Canada Pacific Gateway, the official international site for the province of BC, “British Columbia has the third largest film and television industry in North America after Los Angeles and New York” and was recently named as one of Fast Company’s global top five “fast cities” in 2009. The study reported: “Vancouver was seen to have “the right mix of technology and tolerance to attract talent.” BC is also the largest centre of Canada’s $7-billion digital media industry.