Tech Blog

Last week I wrote a little post about how I was disappointed in my PlayStation Plus subscription. Well, there's been a few developments on that front, not least that for all PlayStation Network subscribers--not just Plus subscribers--there's a sale going on until Monday that's better than anything Plus subscribers alone have received.

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Hell hath no fury like a Mommy Blogger scorned. Just ask Air Canada.

All Tanner Bawn wanted to do was wheel around NY's Central Park in the final few moments of his life with friends running beside him wearing tutus. Tanner has Muscular Dystrophy, his time left is limited and his cause was taken up by the Mommy Blogger movement, BlogHer, and he was to have his spin around the park coincide with the annual BlogHer conference.

Air Canada made it right, about 23 hours too late. A few social media monitoring practices would have helped them recognize the problem earlier and interacted with the complainants easier. Read more...

We've got 4 awesome Canadian DJs joining us as guest bloggers for the next few weeks to show us tricks, tips and demos on the turntables. I can't wait to read their blogs - if you're in Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal, be sure to check them out at the clubs. Read more...

I love using my iPad to work out and about and not need to lug my "giant" MacBook Pro (it's only 15", so note the sarcasm here) around, but there is one thing that drives me nuts and that's I can't send my docs I create or edit in iWork apps for the iPad (back) to Dropbox. It's really a crimp in my workflow (and document management). It's a crimp not at show stopper, I manage. I either email the doc to myself or just set it to export pull it off when I connect to my MacBook (let's not get into the whole wifi syncing, okay). But really Apple, couldn't you just let people use something other than your paid MobileMe service? Read more...

Apple is one of those companies that is simultaneously very predictable and very unpredictable. We can pretty much expect a new iPhone every June, but we don't really know what to expect with each successive generation. The same can be said about the iPod line and the September timeframe.

This year is no exception. We're fully expecting Steve Jobs and the rest of the Cupertino crew to unveil a refreshing of the iPod line in the next month or two. The new iPod rumors are already running rampant, including a 7-inch iPad, a camera-equipped iPod touch, and a touchscreen-enabled iPod shuffle. Yes, you read that correctly.

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Today Apple turned on Genius results for iPad apps in the App Store and like a good little fanboy I jumped right to my iPad to turn it on. Must to my surprise, and pleasure, I think the suggestions are pretty darn good. Yeah, I'm being offered a lot of games right now (probably because I've downloaded a bunch lately) and some of the apps look lame (but that's to be expected), however I'm impressed with the range of apps being offered and will make checking the Genius tab part of my regular routine (like checking for updates). Read more...

The folks from National PR and Sony Ericsson lent me a new Xperia Android-based phone to try out for a bit (I do have to give it back, though if offered I would be tempted to keep it). My first impressions where this (in order): Wow it's tiny! and Wow the display is gorgeous! I've had the phone for about a week to play with thus far and I have to honestly say that it's not really the phone for me. This isn't a slight on the phone, as much as I'm just not the right target for it. Allow me to explain.

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An interesting shift has happened in the smart phone marketplace. It's no longer about choosing the best hardware and then going with whichever network subsidizes the hardware, you can now choose the best network before choosing your smartphone.

In Canada it's not as much of an issue as the iPhone is spread across all the major networks, but in the US, where it's tied to the much maligned AT&T, the other smartphone options make choosing a Google Android handset on a superior network a reasonable choice.

However, when you're asking people who have been using the iPhone for a few years and are seeing their contracts expire, expecting them to switch to a new line of hardware is ridiculous. Read more...

Disney's mega franchise Club Penguin returns with Herbert's Revenge, the sequel to 2008's Club Penguin: Elite Penguin Force for the Nintendo DS. There's no denying this series's popularity with kids -- the original game has sold over 1.5 million copies to date, a feat that only a handful of third-party Nintendo DS game titles can claim. Read more...

You probably heard the news this week about the new BlackBerry Torch 9800 and how it's supposed to be yet another so-called iPhone killer. The last time that anyone remotely connected to Research in Motion made that claim was when we saw the first BlackBerry Storm and, well, that touchscreen smartphone wasn't quite as successful as Steve Jobs' counterpart. The iPhone's mission is mostly clear, whereas the BlackBerry mission is a little more muddled.

And therein lies the issue.

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Telus has teamed up with Microsoft to offer up a first for North American gamers. As of today, Telus customers can now turn their Xbox 360 into a digital cable box.

The software upgrade installs Microsoft Mediaroom on your console basically making your Xbox 360 act like a secondary digital cable box in your home. You can watch more than 400 digital channels, including HD content, as well as watch shows you have recorded on a Telus HD PVR located elsewhere in your home.

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Like it or hate it, Apple has significantly changed the way we interact with our devices and media. iWhatever devices have come to define the standard to which other hardware developers aspire. Software developers have, in droves, switched dev. teams to Xcode and Objective C. And this is not a bad thing, Read more...

Sony Computer Entertainment Canada (SCEC) held their inaugural PlayStation Charity Golf Tournament this past Wednesday, raising $50,000 for children with cancer. Read more...

There's been lots of news about RIM today.  They're releasing a new phone, a new operating system for their phones, and they're standing up to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia and saying no to giving these countries access to the secure communications that are handled over their networks.  In retaliation, the UAE and Saudi Arabia are blocking BlackBerry service in those countries.

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Call of Duty fans hungry to extend their game experiences have downloaded more than 20 million map packs the publisher revealed yesterday. Read more...

Netbooks may have been all the rage not so long ago, but they never really appealed to me, personally. The form factor was too small, but more than that, there was no differentiation in specs between the different manufacturers. Spending more on a decent laptop that could do so much more was a better way to go, I always thought. But now I wonder when tablets might overtake netbooks as the best way to go. Read more...

The iPhone commercials promoting FaceTime feature many heart touching moments of couples and families using the iPhone to see each other and share magical moments. But what about everyday uses for FaceTime? One Calgary iPhone 4 user has found that FaceTime can save a marriage - at the mall. Read more...

In a stunning display of "you couldn't have announced this last week?" RIM has announced the BlackBerry Torch - a sliding BlackBerry touchpad smartphone WITH a hardware keyboard. It's safe to say that this would have given some iPhone 4 buyers some pause, so it's strange that they couldn't get the news out the door, oh say five days earlier. Yes, I said touchpad - it's unclear right now whether the screen is a touchscreen (there are a lot of reports saying yes) but it's also got a touchpad at the bottom… talk about your kitchen sink design!

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I've been in the BlackBerry camp for a very long time, so it was a huge step for me on Friday of last week when I stood in line for six hours (not bad, considering) and bought an iPhone 4. There's something to be said for variety, so I decided it was high time to check out - in person - if the hoopla about the iPhone was accurate. I'm going to have a review of the iPhone later, after I've had more time to use it, but there's one conclusion I can make after just one weekend: RIM is still the undefeated champ in messaging.

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Now here's an interesting question: is an eReader a computer? There is a (hopefully small and not growing) trend for coffee places to ban computers during certain times of the day. While I feel this is heresy of the largest order, I guess having a bunch of geeks camping out in your place, taking up room and nursing a small coffee for several hours is bad for business (I always buy at least a large, btw). Today I saw a tweet by Barb Dybwad (@doctorparadox)—Twitter / barb dybwad: coffee shops banning eRead ...—pointing to a New York Times article where the author wasn't allowed to read his Kindle in a no computers allow establishment—No E-Books Allowed in This Establishment - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com. Which makes me wonder, what is the real reason a place is banning a computer, is it the loitering or something else? Also, is an iPad or Kindle really a computer in the first place? Read more...

Admittedly when I switched back to Mac in 2008, I felt compelled to get Office 2008 for the Mac because my hatred of MS Office was trumped by my need to work with others. As time went on, I eventually dropped MS Office for iWork, although I still need to use Word for book edits. My preference for iWorks doesn't mean that I ignore news about MS Office, it just means I'm rather cynical about it. Today's announcement of how much the next version of MS Office for Mac will cost and some less-than-charming new license terms hasn't done much to change that for me. Read more...

SanDisk was recently nice enough to send me a 32GB Class 10 SDHC card with 20MB/s read and write speeds to play with. Now then, this isn't one that I've seen on their site yet, so I don't know if it's an upcoming card, but speed and class wise, it shares traits from both their Extreme III and Extreme 30MB/s Class 10 cards.

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Ok. I’ve done it. I’m now one of the iPad minions. Even though previously I’d mentioned that I’d not get one of these things until the next version, in a moment of weakness I succumbed.
And I’m having a blast! Read more...

Video games have long been given a bad rap by the general media which has a tendency to cite, in a rather sensationalized fashion, the supposed negative impact they have on society, and on children and adolescents in particular. Many of the opponents of video games make claims that video games are linked to a growth in youth violence -- especially school violence -- and that prolonged use of video games not only leads to a decrease in social competency but also lowers creativity.

While the research on video games is not conclusive, an increasing number of scientific studies are finding that the alleged correlations may simply be untrue. Read more...

Apple makes a few interesting hardware announcements, as does the US Govt. regarding Jailbreaking. And Starcraft 2 launched...say no more! Read more...

Forget everything you know about traditional advertising. There's an emerging channel where, like video games, user interactivity plays a central role in the experience. It's called interactive advertising and I recently had a chance to speak with a company at the forefront of the industry, Monster Media. Read more...