Tech Blog

Toronto's Hand Eye Society is doing well with exclusives--after all, what other town can claim to have their own dedicated arcade machine , full of locally developed indie games?--and the collective's next social gathering (number five, to be exact) is to feature the world premiere of a new, previously unannounced project from the development team of Pekko Koskinen and Shaun McGrath. Read more...

The Wave tsunami tamed by followers. Microsoft slamming the door on Xbox mods. Apple opening the door to 'enforced advertising'. Twitter timid about ReTweets. Read more...

Less than 100 days until the Olympics roll into Vancouver and the myriad of ways you can wave your support of the games spans every genre of souvenir. There are knapsacks, jackets, tshirts, keychains, waterbottles, flip flops, hats, scarves, pins and memory cards. Read more...

Ah! it's good to be back. My blog writing has been (very) slow and sluggish lately, as I have been substituting keyboard and cameras for diaper changes and baby spit. Well inaugurated into the daddy club, I thought it fitting to share some of junior's first shots, but with a twist. I have been scouring the web for fun, easy-to-use image editors/manipulators that will make you grow a mustache (literally) or send you back to the dazed polaroid days of the 1970s. Read more...

This weekend sees the release of what is certainly the most hotly anticipated Nintendo Wii title of the holiday season, New Super Mario Bros. Wii . As the first 2D Super Mario title to feature multiplayer (the non-super arcade title Mario Bros. doesn't count!) there's a lot to live up to. Read more...

Ah Google's part of take over our computing world is proceeding nicely. Mac users should have a (real) beta of Chrome next month-Chrome for Mac due in December?-and now we hear tell that we could see the first betas of the Linux-powered Google Chrome OS next week-Chrome OS to come within a week? | 9 to 5 Mac-Google Chrome OS To Launch Within A Week? Have the holiday goodies come early to geeks? Read more...

Yep, it's holiday buying season again. So you've been given a vague sort of list from the geek in your life. Scratch that, geeks wouldn't give you a vague sort of list, we'll give you details to the model number and the preferred manufacturing window. So, you've been given a list from someone to get them "a DSLR" or "I'd love a new HDTV" or "You know a Blu-ray player would make movie watching awesome…" you then wander into your electronics retailer of choice (and we know what your choice is…) and are faced with the myriad of choices and the ever-so-helpful associates. Read more...

Profiling an affordable and easy to use microphone for podcasters, screencasters or regular webinar and skype users. Read more...

Microsoft has announced that next week--November 17th, to be exact--the Xbox 360 is to launch its much talked-about Facebook, Twitter and instant-on HD video Zune Marketplace features. I was lucky enough to have a wee go on them all earlier this year, so what do I think? Read more...

The National Film Board of Canada is a treasure to this country. It has in its archives more than 13 000 films that have collected more than 5 000 awards - not bad odds. In January the NFB opened up the archives to digitize for the web, placing the best of it's content in one place for you to view on demand. The website was a hit and this fall the NFB took the next step with the release of an iPhone app. "Canadians paid for these films - they should be able to watch them." Read more...

Not everyone wants to lug a laptop around with them between classes or across town to a study session at the library. Or perhaps you're moving between a work computer, your home computer and a remote worksite computer, yet want to make sure you've got your suite of regular-use tools at hand ('cause you certainly can't guarantee they'll be installed on computers you don't control). This is where the concept of the 'portable application' comes to the rescue. Read more...

Looking for the perfect gift for friends or family members who have everything? The Harmony 700 is a great way to help them clean up their remote bloat without having to buy a remote boat. Read more...

After weeks in beta, the latest update for Snow Leopard (10.6.2) has come out as well as some security updates for 10.5. It's a hefty update, my feeling is that 10.6.1 was pushed out fast to fix some key issues, but 10.6.2 is more of a refinement and fixing things that can only come out after enough people use it and start hitting issues. One of those key issues is the mysterious guest login-disappearing data bug (that's a pretty big bug, actually). Read more...

Some of you probably suffer from the same problem that I have; it's just not big enough. Sure, you confide in your close friends, they all nod sympathetically, tell you that 'size isn't important', yet really, we all know that it is. Especially when we're talking about hard drives in Netbooks! Read more...

Did you play 1 vs 100 on its first season on Xbox Live? Apparently lots of people did, because off the back off the success of that first season, it's back for a new and improved run, starting November 19th, at 5 p.m. Pacific Time (that's 8 p.m. Eastern Time.) Read more...

Last week Telus and Bell joined Rogers in offering the iPhone to customers. Sorta. You see the phone, like most mobile phones, is an expensive device. We don't really think about how expensive mobile phones are (especially ones of the smart variety) because when we get a new one we're usually picking them up at a steep discount from our carrier. Telus and Bell are no different, you can snag a 16 GB iPhone for about $200 (on a three year contract)--if you qualify for the discount. Read more...

Arguably the most artistic game ever released on Xbox Live, Jonathan Blow's Braid, is finally on its way to the Playstation Network on November 12, 2009. The game received widespread critical acclaim when it came out last year, and earned itself the distinction of being the highest rated Xbox Live game to date with a 93% average on Metacritic. Fifteen months later and Braid still holds that prestigious title. Read more...

Potpourri. That's the word I'd use to describe the news from the web this week. A real melange (oh, another good word) of themes, with fruty scents, hinting at the onset of the holiday buying season. Read more...