QV Software are pleased to announce that Confrontation, the video game adaptation of the fantasy miniature wargame by Rackham, will be released for PC on April 26th, in Australia and New Zealand. To celebrate this upcoming event, new screenshots have been released revealing more of this tactical role-playing game developed by Cyanide (Blood Bowl, Game of Thrones). 

Deftly combining role-playing game elements with strategy, Confrontation offers a rich and unique experience that focuses on intense and extremely tactical battles!

Today’s screenshots reveal the Griffin squad, as they infiltrate deeper into enemy territory. From the maze-like laboratories of the Scorpion in the heart of Syhar desert, to the dark forests of Diisha guarded by the goddess Yllia and its Wolfen packs, or the immense Orc-filled Canyons in Bran-O-Kor, each territory is definitely hostile to the Akkylannian soldiers of the Griffin. These elite soldiers may not allow themselves any rest, until the quest they have been given is finally fulfilled…

Inspired by the bestselling novel SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN by Lisa See, Pinnacle Home Entertainment brings you the story of seven-year-old girls Snow Flower and Lily, in 19th century China, who had their feet bound at the same age and on the same day, which sealed their fates together as laotongs – bound together for eternity. Isolated in their marriages, they furtively communicate by taking turns writing in a secret language, nu shu, between the folds of a white silk fan.

In a parallel story in present day Shanghai, the laotong’s descendants, Nina and Sophia, struggle to maintain the intimacy of their own childhood friendship in the face of demanding careers, complicated love lives, and a relentlessly evolving Shanghai. Drawing on the lessons of the past, the two modern women must understand the story of their ancestral connection, hidden from them in the folds of the antique white silk fan, or risk losing one another forever.

What unfolds are two stories, generations apart, but everlasting in their universal notion of love, hope and friendship.

SNOW FLOWER AND THE SECRET FAN also stars Aussie superstar Hugh Jackman.

Director Wayne Wang (THE JOY LUCK CLUB), believes that See’s book universalises themes that are still relevant today.

“After the producers and I read the novel ‘Snow Flower and the Secret Fan’, says Wang, “we all felt that the story of women’s struggle in society and families still exist in contemporary societies today. It’s a topic that is not limited to an era or any particular location; it’s a story that can be universally understood.”

If you would like to receive a screener, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with myself or my colleague Lucy O’Brien (cc’d). Please find the media release attached.

Have you heard the big news? Of course you have. SimCity is back! It has returned home to Maxis where it is being reborn for an entirely new generation of gamers and it’s coming to PC in 2013. We will have plenty of time to show you the cutting edge aspects that will make this the deepest, richest and most accessible simulation in the franchise to-date in the coming months but today we’d like to focus on our super power: GlassBox

Parking is now going to be hassle free in Sydney and across Australia with a brand new smart phone App to pay for parking. Thanks to Parkmobile, Pay-By-Phone technology is now available in selected locations thanks to recent changes in legislation by the NSW State Government.

“It was clear to us that there was a need to adapt with the times and allow councils and parking authorities to provide an easier way for residents and businesses to park in their area” Duncan Gay, Roads Minister said.

Pay-By-Phone technology has been a huge success internationally with 280 cities around the world by millions of registered users, all of which are already enjoying the benefits of cashless parking.

Parkmobile, a leading global provider of seamlessly integrated end-to-end solutions for mobile payments and parking are proud to have successfully lobbied to bring this to the people of Sydney.  

 “This is great news for businesses, with the ability to streamline tracking of expenses and reduce the risk of overpaying or overstaying both of which ends up hitting you in the back pocket unnecessarily” says Michael Doherty, Local Managing Director.

“Already over 60% of Australian’s are using their phones to access the Internet and 42% of smart phone users download apps. These trends and other advancements are signs we are quickly headed towards a cashless society.  If we also consider that over 84% of people in Sydney Metropolitan area own a car, it is only common sense for parking to be the next thing to go online” said Mr Doherty. 

This exciting advancement in technology will be demonstrated at Shelly Beach, Manly NSW on Thursday 22^nd March at 10am.

Parkmobile’s free parking app can be downloaded from www.parkmobileapp.com.au

Cupertino, Calif.— March 19, 2012 — Seagate (NASDAQ:STX) has become the first hard drive maker to achieve the milestone storage density of 1 terabit (1 trillion bits) per square inch, producing a demonstration of the technology that promises to double the storage capacity of today’s hard drives upon its introduction later this decade and give rise to 3.5-inch hard drives with an extraordinary capacity of up to 60 terabytes over the 10 years that follow. The bits within a square inch of disk space, at the new milestone, far outnumber stars in the Milky Way, which astronomers put between 200 billion and 400 billion.
 
Seagate reached the landmark data density with heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR), the next- generation recording technology. The current hard drive technology, Perpendicular Magnetic Recording (PMR), is used to record the spectrum of digitized data – from music, photos, and video stored on home desktop and laptop PCs to business information housed in sprawling data centers – on the spinning platters inside every hard drive. PMR technology was introduced in 2006 to replace longitudinal recording, a method in place since the advent of hard drives for computer storage in 1956, and is expected to reach its capacity limit near 1 terabit per square inch in the next few years. 
 
“The growth of social media, search engines, cloud computing, rich media and other data-hungry applications continues to stoke demand for ever greater storage capacity,” said Mark Re, senior vice president of Heads and Media Research and Development at Seagate. “Hard disk drive innovations like HAMR will be a key enabler of the development of even more data-intense applications in the future, extending the ways businesses and consumers worldwide use, manage and store digital content.”
 
Hard drive manufacturers increase areal density and capacity by shrinking a platter’s data bits to pack more within each square inch of disk space. They also tighten the data tracks, the concentric circles on the disk’s surface that anchor the bits. The key to areal density gains is to do both without disruptions to the bits’ magnetization, a phenomenon that can garble data. Using HAMR technology, Seagate has achieved a linear bit density of about 2 million bits per inch, once thought impossible, resulting in a data density of just over 1 trillion bits, or 1 terabit, per square inch – 55 percent higher than today’s areal density ceiling of 620 gigabits per square inch.
 
The maximum capacity of today’s 3.5-inch hard drives is 3 terabytes (TB), at about 620 gigabits per square inch, while 2.5-inch drives top out at 750 gigabytes (GB), or roughly 500 gigabits per square inch. The first generation of HAMR drives, at just over 1 terabit per square inch, will likely more than double these capacities – to 6TB for 3.5-inch drives and 2TB for 2.5-inch models. The technology offers a scale of capacity growth never before possible, with a theoretical areal density limit ranging from 5 to 10 terabits per square inch – 30TB to 60TB for 3.5-inch drives and 10TB to 20TB for 2.5-inch drives.
 
The 1 terabit per square inch demonstration extends a long line of storied technology firsts for Seagate, including:
 

• 1980: ST-506, the first hard drive, at 5.25 inches, small enough to be widely deployed in early microcomputers, the precursor of the modern PC. The 5 megabyte drive cost $1,500.
• 1992: The first 7200RPM hard drive, a Barracuda^® drive
• 1996: The first 10,000RPM hard drive, a Cheetah^® drive
• 2000: The first 15,000RPM drive, also a Cheetah hard drive
• 2006: Momentus^® 5400.3 drive, a 2.5-inch laptop drive and the world’s first drive to feature perpendicular magnetic recording technology
• 2007: Momentus FDE (Full Disk Encryption) drive, the industry’s first self-encrypting hard drive
• 2010: Momentus XT drive, the first solid state hybrid hard drive, combining traditional spinning media with NAND flash, to deliver speeds rivaling solid state drives (SSDs)

 
Seagate achieved the 1 terabit per square inch breakthroughs in materials science and near-field optics at its heads and media research and development centers in Bloomington, Minnesota, and Fremont, California. 
 
http://seagate.com/twitter
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http://media.seagate.com
 
About Seagate
Seagate is a worldwide leader in hard disk drives and storage solutions. Learn more at http://www.seagate.com.

Three-year, multi-million dollar deal with Fujitsu provides platform to accelerate delivery of cloud solutions

SYDNEY, Aust. – 20 March 2012 – Symantec has doubled the capacity of its Symantec.cloud services in Australia in the last year by signing a three-year, multi-million dollar deal to co-locate servers and associated equipment in a Fujitsu data centre in Sydney, Australia. This investment will enable Symantec to meet growing business demand for secure, reliable and high-performance cloud services including email, endpoint, web and instant messaging security as well as backup and archiving solutions.

Symantec selected Fujitsu after issuing a competitive tender in mid-2011 for additional capacity to meet forecast demand for small business and enterprise cloud services. The co-location deal complements its existing Symantec.cloud capacity at a data centre run by Equinix, also located in Australia.

“Under this agreement, we have purchased space to install new servers and associated equipment in a Fujitsu data centre, and increased the availability of hosted services to our customers,” said Brenton Smith, vice president, Symantec.cloud, Asia-Pacific and Japan. “This new arrangement has also boosted the resilience of our cloud services infrastructure by enabling us to fail over between the Fujitsu and Equinix data centres as required.”

In addition, Fujitsu’s strict security accreditation and location of their data centre played a key role in Symantec’s decision.

“Fujitsu demonstrated the highest levels of compliance for security accreditation and robust data protection policies and processes. The added data centre infrastructure will provide resilient cloud services that will enable more customers in Australia to take full advantage of the benefits of cloud services which may include reduced capital expenditures and operational overheads, improved staff productivity, reduced business risk, and greater innovation,” added Smith.

Alistair Latham, group executive director, Infrastructure Solutions and Support, Fujitsu said, “We are delighted to be working with Symantec as a partner. Symantec’s choice of Fujitsu’s data centre to host their cloud services clearly demonstrates the depth and strength of the relationship with Symantec and validates our strategy where we made significant and early investment in data centres in this region. This investment is now paying off with high-profile engagements such as this.”

Smith said Symantec.cloud expected to see strong growth in demand for cloud services from small, medium and large businesses. “Many businesses planned to combine public clouds with their own internal cloud infrastructure to meet peaks and troughs in demand for IT resources without investing in additional data centre equipment,” he added.

Symantec also has additional data centres for its Symantec.cloud services in Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong to help meet growing customer demand for cloud services throughout the Asia Pacific and Japan region. This brings the total number of data centres for Symantec.cloud services to 18 globally.

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world.  Our software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored. More information is available at www.symantec.com.

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is the leading Japanese information and communication technology (ICT) company offering a full range of technology products, solutions and services. Over 170,000 Fujitsu people support customers in more than 100 countries. We use our experience and the power of ICT to shape the future of society with our customers. Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.5 trillion yen (US$55 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011. For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com

About Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand

Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand is a leading service provider of business, information technology and communications solutions. As the third largest ICT Company in the Australian and New Zealand marketplace, we partner with our customers to consult, design, build, operate and support business solutions. From strategic consulting to application and infrastructure solutions and services, Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand have earned a reputation as the single supplier of choice for leading corporate and government organisations. Fujitsu Australia Limited and Fujitsu New Zealand Limited are wholly owned subsidiaries of Fujitsu Limited (TSE: 6702). For more information, please see www.fujitsu.com.au

‘Hollow Children’ to target Personal Computer users this April 

Tuesday 20^th March 2012 – SEGA® Europe Ltd. and SEGA® of America, Inc. can today reveal that the much anticipated third-person squad shooter Binary Domain™ will be released on PC from April. Having listened to feedback from fans of the title, SEGA are proud to announce that the truly unique story and setting of Binary Domain will now be available to Xbox360, PlayStation 3 and PC gamers. 

“As well as the excitement generated by Binary Domain in the console press we were seeing increasing numbers of players asking for a PC version. So we listened and we delivered.” said Gary Knight, Senior Vice President of Marketing at SEGA. 

Binary Domain will be released on the PC platform in both boxed and digital formats. Further information can be found from your preferred retailer. 

Binary Domain is a pioneering third-person squad shooter from the creators of the Yakuza series. Set in 2080 Tokyo, Binary Domain paints a vivid picture of a country in social and environmental meltdown; players will battle against robotic defences in a city where climate change has forced many to live in extreme poverty in the slums, while the others live in the near future upper city built on top of the lower city. With a central branching storyline, voice recognition in combat and conversation and AAA shooter mechanics Binary Domain offers something genuinely unique to the genre. 

For more information please visit http://www.sega.com/games/binary-domain/

New iPad Tops Three Million

SYDNEY, Australia?20 March, 2012?Apple® today announced it has sold three million of its incredible new iPad®, since its launch on Friday, 16 March. The new iPad features a stunning new Retina™ display, Apple’s new A5X chip with quad-core graphics, a 5 megapixel iSight® camera with advanced optics for capturing amazing photos and 1080p HD video, and still delivers the same all-day 10 hour battery life* while remaining amazingly thin and light. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G supports ultrafast 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada, and fast networks around the world including those based on HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA.**

“The new iPad is a blockbuster with three million sold?the strongest iPad launch yet,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Customers are loving the incredible new features of iPad, including the stunning Retina display, and we can’t wait to get it into the hands of even more customers around the world this Friday.”

The new iPad is already available in Australia, the US, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Switzerland, UK and the US Virgin Islands and will be available in 24 more countries starting at 8:00 a.m. local time on Friday, March 23 through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com/au), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorised Resellers, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macau, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

The new iPad Wi-Fi models are available in black or white for a recommended retail price of AUD$539 inc. GST for the 16GB model, AUD$649 inc. GST for the 32GB model, and AUD$759 inc. GST for the 64GB model. iPad Wi-Fi + 4G for ultrafast 4G LTE networks in the US and Canada and fast 3G networks around the world including those based on HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA, is available for a recommended retail price of AUD$679 inc. GST for the 16GB model, AUD$789 inc. GST for the 32GB model and AUD$899 inc. GST for the 64GB model. iPad is sold through the Apple Online Store (www.apple.com/au), Apple’s retail stores and select Apple Authorised Resellers. Additionally, the incredible iPad 2 is now offered at a more affordable price of RRP AUD$429 inc. GST for the 16GB Wi-Fi model and just RRP AUD$569 inc. GST for the 16GB Wi-Fi + 3G model.

*Battery life depends on device settings, usage and other factors. Actual results vary.

**4G LTE is supported only on AT&T and Verizon networks in the U.S. and on Bell, Rogers, and Telus networks in Canada. Data plans sold separately.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.