Iceberg Interactive harvests Family Farm (PC)

Haarlem, The Netherlands – 22 March 2011 – Videogames publisher Iceberg Interactive and Czech development studio Hammerware today announce that they have struck a publishing deal for PC farming simulation game Family Farm in several territories. The boxed product of Family Farm will be released in May 2011 by Iceberg in the UK and Ireland, as well as France, Scandinavia, Benelux, Australia and New Zealand.

Celebrating the agreement, six brand-new screenshots have been harvested and accompany this press release. The screenshots are also available here.

Family Farm is an innovative new sim game combining the addictive elements of both farming and life simulation games. Players can create and put themselves in control of a small Family Farm inhabited by various characters, each with different skills and needs. As the family grows, the house can be upgraded and the farm expanded into the surrounding area.

Iceberg Interactive CEO Erik Schreuder says: “We believe that with Family Farm we can make a significant entry into the casual market. So far we have focused on certain niche genres to establish ourselves, but with Family Farm we strive to reach a very broad audience indeed. Family Farm has a combination of cute graphics, tycoon and time management gameplay features and life-sim elements, such as feeding the working crew, newborns that grow up to work on the farm, caring for animals and much more. If you are looking for a farming game with more depth than current farming apps on social networks, then Family Farm definitely is the game for you.”

In Family Farm, the harvesting season is short with activities taking place in real-time, so players will need to manage their farm workers efficiently. They must prepare the soil, sow the seed and harvest crops, care for livestock and cook meals to stay energetic. Over time and when well managed, family members will improve their skills and work faster. External labour can be hired, but will be expensive. If the house is upgraded enough, perhaps new babies will be born, who will later contribute to the Family Farm. Farming was never this much fun!

“From the moment we announced Family Farm by releasing a short demonstration video, there has been a lot of interest from various publishers. We know Iceberg Interactive to be both indie-friendly as PC-focused, building its portfolio by adding remarkable titles of every genre. Family Farm is much more than just your typical casual game or tycoon title and we believe that Iceberg Interactive is the right publisher to market it well.” says Martin Prochazka, producer and lead programmer of Hammerware

Available in Hong Kong, Korea & Singapore in April

AUSTRALIA, Sydney—23 March, 2011—Apple® today announced that iPad® 2, the second-generation of its third post-PC device, will go on sale in 25 additional countries this Friday, 25 March. iPad 2 will be available at Apple retail stores and select Apple Authorised Resellers at 5 p.m. local time, and online through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com.au) beginning at 1 a.m. Apple today also announced that all models of iPad 2 will be available in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and additional countries in April.

“While competitors are still struggling to catch up with our first iPad, we’ve changed the game again with iPad 2,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re experiencing amazing demand for iPad 2 in the US, and customers around the world have told us they can’t wait to get their hands on it. We appreciate everyone’s patience and we are working hard to build enough iPads for everyone.”

iPad 2 features an entirely new design that is 33 percent thinner and up to 15 percent lighter than the original iPad, while maintaining the same stunning 9.7-inch LED-backlit LCD screen. iPad 2 features Apple’s new dual-core A5 processor for blazing fast performance and stunning graphics and now includes two cameras, a front-facing VGA camera for FaceTime® and Photo Booth®, and a rear-facing camera that captures 720p HD video, bringing the innovative FaceTime feature to iPad users for the first time. Though it is thinner, lighter, faster and packed with new features, iPad 2 still delivers up to 10 hours of battery life* that users have come to expect.

Pricing & Availability
iPad 2 will be available in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK on 25 March.

In Australia, iPad 2 with Wi-Fi will be available for a recommended retail price (RRP) of AUD$579 inc GST for the 16GB model, AUD$689 inc GST for the 32GB model, AUD$799 inc GST the 64GB model. iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 3G will be available for a RRP of AUD$729 inc GST for the 16GB model, AUD$839 inc GST for the 32GB model and AUD$949 inc GST for the 64GB model.

iPad 2 will be available in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and additional countries in April, and in many more countries around the world in the coming months. Further international availability and pricing will be announced at a later date.

iMovie® and GarageBand® for iPad apps are available for AUD$5.99 inc GST each from the App Store? on iPad or itunes.com.au/appstore. The Smart Cover is available in a range of colours in vibrant polyurethane for AUD$45 inc GST or rich leather for AUD$79 inc GST.

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

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 has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.

X-Men Destiny

Character Bio: Aimi Yoshida

Age: 15

Height: 5’ 1’’

Weight: 95lbs

Character Description

Balance Summary: Small in size but strong in mental focus, Aimi is the mutant ability expert. She specializes in efficient mutant power usage.  Aimi’s fighting style is very acrobatic and graceful. 

Back story: Smuggled out of Japan by her mutant parents before the entire family could be rounded up and incarcerated in the new mutant camps, Aimi arrives in San Francisco hidden on a tanker ship. She is too young and frightened to appreciate her parents’ motivations for sending her away, and instead feels only the bitterness and anger of abandonment.

A beautiful Asian woman bathing naked in a tub of cash would seem like a dream come true, unless of course the money was scammed from you.

Free and open source security solutions can prevent your information being lost or stolen from laptop computers.

Melbourne and Amsterdam, 22 March 2011 — Many SMBs are now recognising that laptop, notebook and netbook computers are risky endpoints for data loss. With significant numbers of mobile computers being lost or stolen, it corresponds that plenty of sensitive data is also being lost or stolen. Also it is now the law in some countries that customs or border security can ask to inspect laptops, phones, USB drives, data cards and other electronic devices. They can even make copies of the data or whole hard drives before returning the device to you.

So just what can you do to ensure the information on laptops stays safe?

Encrypt Everything

Lloyd Borrett, Security Evangelist at AVG (AU/NZ), says, “Thankfully, there is a cheap and relatively easy way to ensure laptop data is safe even if the device itself falls into the wrong hands — data encryption software.”

Most laptop encryption software products today support strong encryption using trusted algorithms such as Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), with acceptable 256-bit key lengths. Commercial laptop encryption software solutions are available from $20 to $100 per laptop depending on the management and support features offered.

There are also free and open source options available, such as TrueCrypt and FreeOTFE. In general, open source free solutions are only applicable for SMBs that can manage each laptop’s encryption individually, since management consoles with key recovery and other features aren’t available.

“I personally use TrueCrypt, with a 20-plus character long, highly secure password,” says Borrett.

For some organisations, the best option to protect laptops from the majority of loss or theft scenarios might be a combination of encryption methods. For most laptops, full disk encryption (FDE) or pre-encrypted drives are the best and simplest approaches.

However, if laptops are shared by multiple team members, files or content may need to be encrypted instead of the entire drive. Numerous commercial products today offer both types of encryption, and they’re generally managed from the same central console.

Password Protect Everything

Borrett advises people to password protect their laptop and smart phone. “Of course, with so many web sites and programs requiring the use of a password, you may have too many to remember easily. Help is at hand in the form of KeePass, a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage all your passwords in a secure way.”

Cloud Services Can Be Your Friend

While your laptop may be the most convenient place to keep your data, it’s hardly the safest when it comes to storing sensitive documents or lists of contacts.

Store your sensitive documents using a cloud storage service, such as Dropbox, a popular service with both free and paid plans. You can then access your information from anywhere with an Internet connection. Plus, if your laptop gets seized, searched or stolen, you’ll still be able to access your secure documents using another computer.

Stay Safe From Online Data Theft

“Of course,” Borrett says, “The other form of data protection you need to ensure the lockdown of information on a laptop is good security software. For the basic online activities of surfing the web, good anti-virus and anti-spyware protection is available free for home and non-commercial use from companies like AVG and others.

“If you’re also working, shopping, banking and gaming online, or out and about using public Wi-Fi connections to the Internet, then you really should consider purchasing a full Internet Security software suite. These products have the ability to deliver full anti-malware, web, anti-spam and enhanced firewall protection layers to ensure your valuable data stays safe from the bad guys while you’re using your laptop both in and out of the office.”

AVG (AU/NZ) has a comprehensive range of security tips on its web site at http://www.avg.com.au/resources/security-tips/. For more video tips from AVG (AU/NZ), see http://www.youtube.com/user/avgaunz.

Keep in touch with AVG (AU/NZ)

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Join our Facebook community at www.facebook.com/avgaunz

New Wargear and Achievements Free-of-Charge to All Retribution Owners

MELBOURNE, Australia. March 22, 2011 – THQ Inc. (NASDAQ: THQI) today announced that owners of Warhammer^® 40,000^®: Dawn of War^® II – Retribution™ will be receiving a free update for The Last Stand™ mode expected to go live on 6^th April.

The Last Stand, the game’s co-operative survival mode, will be getting an additional twelve new Steam achievements. Unlocking each achievement will grant a new piece of wargear, giving the player even more options when equipping their hero.

The Last Stand update for Warhammer^® 40,000^®: Dawn of War^® II – Retribution™ is scheduled to be available for free via a downloadable patch on 6^th April.

About Retribution

It is ten years since the events of Chaos Rising and Sub-Sector Aurelia has been in a constant state of warfare with the Imperium struggling to retain control. The apparent betrayal of the chapter by Gabriel Angelos and his Space Marines has shaken the Blood Ravens and now the Imperial forces are beset on all sides by hostile aliens. Retribution allows the player to select the race of their choosing in a battle to determine the very survival or destruction of the entire sector. In addition to the multi-race single player campaign, Dawn of War II – Retribution also features new multiplayer units, maps and an entire new playable faction.

About Games Workshop

Games Workshop is the world’s largest tabletop wargames company. Based in Nottingham, UK, it designs, manufactures and distributes its range of Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 games, miniature soldiers, novels and resin models through more than 389 of its own Hobby centers, mail order, Internet and independent retail channels in more than 50 countries worldwide. Further details on the company can be obtained at www.games-workshop.com.  Games Workshop, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution the foregoing marks’ respective logos, and all associated marks, logos, places, names, creatures, races and race insignia/devices/logos/symbols, vehicles, locations, weapons, units and unit insignia, characters, products, illustrations and images are either ®, TM and/or © Games Workshop Ltd 2000-2011. Used under license. All Rights Reserved.

About THQ

THQ Inc. (NASDAQ: THQI) is a leading worldwide developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software. The company develops its products for all popular game systems, personal computers and wireless devices. Headquartered in Los Angeles County, California, THQ sells product through its global network of offices located throughout North America, Europe and Asia Pacific. More information about THQ and its products may be found at www.thq.com. THQ and its logo are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of THQ Inc.

Research In Motion New Official Partner of the Wallabies

Sydney, Australia- 22 March2011 – Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ: RIMM; TSX: RIM) and Australian Rugby Union (ARU) have today announced the appointment of RIM as an official partner of the Qantas Wallabies and ARU.

Adele Beachley, Managing Director for RIM, Australia, said: “RIM’s partnership with the Wallabies and ARU is a fantastic opportunity to support a world class team and an Australian sport which is played and loved by many across the nation.”

“We believe that this partnership has great synergy, and both RIM and ARU will work together to use existing applications like BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and BlackBerry Chalk plus develop mobile communication tools and applications for fans, players and management.

“Our aim is to help the Wallabies enhance their use of technology and to take the team digital, using the range of BlackBerry platforms and devices.”

As part of the new partnership RIM will supply BlackBerry smartphones to the Wallabies’ players and coaches to ensure they stay connected in a World Cup Year, while fans will benefit from a newly developed fan application.

ARU Managing Director and CEO, John O’Neill said he was pleased to welcome RIM on board in what was going to be a huge year for Rugby.

“This is the year that Rugby makes its move on the National and International sporting stage with a new expanded Super Rugby competition, the highly anticipated Tri Nations and the Rugby World Cup,” Mr O’Neill said.

“To have RIM on-board to help take the Qantas Wallabies and the game to our fans on the digital level is fantastic.

“Our partnership with RIM will help the team stay in touch with family and help keep our fans up to date while we are on the road.

“We are looking forward to working with RIM and their leading edge technology to develop new applications and deliver exciting content, which I am sure our fans will really enjoy.”

Media Release: ViewSonic ViewPad 10s now available at Harvey Norman

Sydney, Australia, March 22, 2011 – ViewSonic, global technology provider and renowned worldwide leader of visual display products today announced Harvey Norman as retailer for the ViewSonic ViewPad 10s – the HD entertainment smart tablet. The ViewPad 10s is now available nationally from Harvey Norman.

William Tse, Country Manager at ViewSonic Australia, said, “ViewSonic is pleased to have the ViewPad 10s ranged in Harvey Norman stores. Harvey Norman is one of Australia’s top electrical retailers and with their support we are excited to be bringing our recent addition to the ViewPad range to consumers. The ViewPad 10s is a smart tablet that focuses on entertainment making it the perfect product for technology-savvy Harvey Norman customers looking for a personal multimedia device.”

Featuring Android 2.2 operating system and powered by a NVIDIA Tegra 2 mobile processor, the ViewPad 10s supports high-resolution 1080p video and HDMI digital multimedia files, Flash 10.1 and internet TV/broadcast streaming. The ViewPad 10s performs faster offering a smoother web surfing experience, shorter response time, unparalleled gaming exhilaration and longer battery life. Weighing in at 730 grams, the slender ViewPad 10s is only 14.35mm wide making it an ultra slim and sleek device equipped with HDMI, USB, MicroSD Card and SIM card ports, microphone, 3D speakers and 3.5mm audio output function.

Frank Robinson, National Product and Marketing Manager at Harvey Norman, said, “Harvey Norman is delighted to offer the new ViewPad 10s to its customers. Tablet PCs are all the rage at the moment and demand is rapidly increasing. The ViewPad 10s is a rising candidate in the Android tablet category and we foresee a positive response from customers with this addition to our rapidly growing range of mobile products. With Harvey Norman’s energetic spirit and enthusiasm we look forward to boosting the ViewPad’s standing in the market and being a part of Harvey Norman leading the way in the tablet PC segment.”

The ViewPad 10s is the third offering from ViewSonic’s ViewPad range in Australia. Experience over 200,000 applications through Android Market, in addition to Google Maps, Voice Search, Gmail, Youtube and other personal programs, social communications and mobile office software. Enjoy superior picture quality with its high resolution screen – watch movie and video clips, play games, or share full HD content saved on a wide array of storage devices.

The ViewPad 10s is the ideal device for professionals and players designed to provide a complete and convenient mobile entertainment experience.

About ViewSonic

ViewSonic® Corporation is a leading global provider of technology products. ViewSonic develops, markets and supports a broad range of innovative products, including media and PC tablets, LCD monitors, PCs, projectors, digital signage displays, digital photo frames and other technology solutions. For more information, visit www.viewsonic.com.au.