Tech Blog

Slightly short notice--for which I apologize--but get yourself down to the Imperial Pub, just off at Yonge/Dundas Square at 54 Dundas St. East, between seven to midnight tonight and you can play a selection of the games that were created at this year's Toronto Indie Games Jam . Read more...

A recent court decision could put a goodly **bleep** in the armor of Microsoft. The Quebec Superior Court ruled that the Provincial government should have considered other options than upgrading workstations to Windows Vista and Office 2007. Yes, it means they should have considered looking at Linux, Mac OS, and Open Office. Read more...

Ever wonder how iTunes Genius recommendations work? Their suggestions and playlists are a black box no more! Well, let's call it a "dark gray" box, because we don't have all the secrets, but some insight into how the system works. Essentially it works through sharing and multivariate statistics. Read more...

Ow, ow, blinding flash of the obvious! Sony has called it (sorry Brad), ebooks are here to stay and poised to overtake print within the next 5 years. The folks at the Sony eReader division estimate that digital only books will outpace print books by about 2015, but don't worry it's not like paper books are going the way of beta tapes, eight tracks, and video discs, we're just going to have a lot more content produced digitally than ever before. Read more...

It's not magic nor rocket science...it's just Tech! Making DLNA work in your home media centre.. Read more...

I typically think of Acer as a PC manufacturer with tons of different models, but it’s now becoming clear that they want to play ball in other electronics categories too. Yesterday, the company announced that it was launching its first smartphone in North America, calling it the Liquid E. Read more...

In addition to hot 3D TVs, receivers, blu-ray players and a camera that can play back in 3D, Sony Playstation will be strutting what’s available in 3D gaming. You read that right, Playstation will be announcing the availability of some gaming titles in 3D. Read more...

If you’re a fan of Mario Kart, you might not initially take Sony’s ModNation Racers seriously. Give this game a chance and it will not only impress you on the merits of its racing experience, but most especially on how deep the user-generated content side of things is. Read more...

A few months ago I had the pleasure to attend a Samsung product demo that included some very cool HDTV and 3DTV technology. Today we look at DLNA. Read more...

Turn on your Xbox today and you have the opportunity, if you have an Xbox Live account and some Microsoft points to spare (or a credit card to hand), to donate some money to Children's Miracle Network and its 14 hospitals across Canada -- and get some exclusive Xbox themes and picture packs. Read more...

The new Canadian DMCA would be great if it didn't suck. It has specific inclusions to protect parody and satire, protects time and place shift, and does a lot of other great stuff. Except it won't let you break a digital lock put on content from stopping you from exercising the very rights the bill gave you. With this provision in place you'll never enjoy your gadgets and gear quite as much, ever again. It has to go. Read more...

Recently I bought a simple eBook reader online. My wife has one too, from a different manufacturer. All’s good; they both work great and make it easier to read books in situations where turning pages is harder than pressing a button (on the treadmill, for example). It’s also great to have a nice light device that I can carry with me in a form-factor thinner than most paperbacks. Or should I say, almost all’s good; unlike a physical book, we can’t share our purchased eBooks between our two different devices easily. Even if they’re in the ‘portable’ ePub format. Read more...

Hockey of the NHL variety isn’t new on the Wii, since EA’s rival, 2K Sports, has put out an NHL title on Nintendo’s console the last two years running. But EA announced today that they are developing NHL Slapshot for the Wii as we speak at EA Canada in Vancouver. The game is set to launch in September. Read more...

It is no secret that I have little love for MS Office. I'm essentially forced to use it on the always annoying "because I have to work with my publisher…" reason (which if I didn't really like my publisher and writing books for a living would be even more of a pain), but last week was the final straw. I needed to get a document out for a class I was teaching the next day and Word 2008 decided to completely, totally, beyond-all-hope-of-recovery corrupt the file. That was it, I was done. The third file in a month to have this happen (the first was the address list for my upcoming wedding, which made my fiancée almost lose her mind) and I'd had it. So I decided to cut the cord (so to speak) and switch to iWork.Yeah Read more...

As Teddy mentioned last week, Rogers officially took their premium online video streaming website out of beta and launched the full version, featuring new content and enhanced services, including free access to hundreds of TV shows and movies by anyone in Canada. To celebrate the roll-out, Rogers held a lively party called Casting Call on May 27, 2010 at Toronto's hip, upscale music-bar Cheval. Read more...

I’ve been involved with the Internet since the ‘90s. Over that time I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t always trust what you read online. Back in the day, it was ‘You can’t always trust what you read or see on TV’. Hoax email were the trade of the day, and eventually sites like Snopes helped distinguish the real from the hoax. The media has evolved since the end of the last century, but our need to be able to trust what we consume through that media hasn’t. Read more...

Square Enix don't only produce lengthy Japanese RPGs, they also publish a variety of titles including for downloadable services such as Xbox Live and PSN. I recently downloaded two retro shooter updates, Thexder Neo for PSP and RayStorm HD for Xbox Live Arcade, and one is pretty good, and the other is pretty bad. Read more...

Sega's been on a roll lately, announcing a flurry of Sonic updates on their corporate blog including a brand new game, and updates on the much-anticipated 2D revival of Sonic. Read more...

Love it or hate it (or hate to love it), Facebook is a huge force on the Internet right now. The problem (and not just "of late") has been how Facebook handles (or mis-handles) your privacy. To combat and make a statement about this, a group started a campaign that today (May 31st) is: Quit Facebook Day to quit Facebook in protest of Facebook's (perceived) disrespect of your privacy. The open questions are: will you quit and does it even matter if you do? Read more...

Have you been pining for the Sony Blu-ray remote for better playback of your streaming media, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs? If you have a 120GB or 240GB PlayStation (aka a PlayStation Slim) and you’re connecting it to a newer TV via HDMI, you may be able to take more control of your system than you thought possible. Read more...

One of the most popular (geek) things to do when getting an iPhone is to "jailbreak" it. Jailbreaking let's you use non-Apple approved apps and customize the device beyond what Apple "allows". Well, the iPad is really no different in those respects and and it can be jailbroken. I did today. Read more...

One of the most sought after iPad accessories when the iPad launched in the States last month was the Apple iPad Case. Sleek, black, adjusts to be a stand, and not too expensive. You have to wonder, though, if the Apple case is worth it. Yeah, it is. Read more...

I've had my iPad for over a month and one of the things that I had been trying to do is get one of my Bluetooth keyboards to work with it. The sad fact was that neither of the two were going to work with my iPad. So I decided to try the iPad Keyboard Dock, but the question you might be asking is: Do I need one at all? Read more...

Facebook announces plans to roll out new privacy controls that are 'less confusing', Apple jumps to the head of the business class, and Rock Band may get some new hardware. Oh, Towel Day too, and a few more things... Read more...

Though rumoured for months, the final move seemed to happen a little quietly this weekend when Skype released an update (version 2.0.0) that now allows the VoIP app to work on compatible smartphones with 3G. That means iPhone owners will now be able to make free calls using just their data and not their airtime minutes. Although it's only free till the end of August in the U.S., Canadians will get the feature free till the end of 2010. Read more...

Or "what I've found in my inbox and I think should be recounted to you, but I don't think it could stand up to a full post on it's own." Today I've dropped the word "Random" from the title (why not) and we see Square Enix reaching the iPad, released information for Pokémon and Halo: Reach, and drama for the Trauma Team. Read more...