Round-Up: Ageia VPs, Atari Flashback 2.0, Mforma Executives

Today's round-up includes news of notable appointments for both Ageia Technologies and Mforma, as well as the latest instalment of the Atari Flashback console, and news on today's product news and job postings. - Ageia Technologies, creators of the first physics processing unit for use in PC games, has named two new vice presidents. In particular, the new Vice President of Content Acquisition has been announced as Kathy Schoback, the current Chair Emeritus for the International Game Developers Association. Prior to her employment at Ageia, Schoback worked at Sega of America and Eidos, as well as a recent stint at Infinium Labs. In addition, the new Vice President of Marketing will be Andy Keane, who has experience in marketing specialized gaming peripherals from his work with 3Dfx's Voodoo line. - Atari has announced the Flashback 2.0, a second standalone collection of classic Atari games that attaches directly to televisions. The lineup of 40 games in the 2.0 version includes Pong, Asteroids, Centipede, Millipede, Lunar Lander, Breakout, Missile Command, and Combat, amongst others. Furthermore, though not mentioned in the announcement, it's possible that this is the edition of the Flashback that will contain the winner of the Retro Redux competition, held in early April. The unit will retail for $30, as opposed to the first Flashback's price point of $45. - Mforma, one of the largest publishers of mobile phone games, has brought in a slate of new managers in its upper echelons. Jonathan Sacks, former president of AOL Interactive Services, will be the new President and COO; Jim Brelsford has been named general counsel; Paul Bianchi is now senior vice president of human resources; and John Brinacombe has been appointed as Chief Strategist, Games. "We are building a world-class management team of which I am very proud," said Dan Kranzler, Mforma's chairman and CEO. - Also updated today: product news involving new licensees for foliage middleware SpeedTree, as well as newly updated jobs from Datascope Recruitment, Linden Lab, Red Storm Entertainment, and Venan Entertainment.