Though I’m a long-time Windows user, I’ve certainly done my best over the last couple of years to warm up to Apple’s clearly superior mobile and tablet products. To be sure, though, I haven’t quite succeeded. Subconsciously, I keep asking myself the same nagging question: “Why can’t I do all the
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Canadian Trends: One big idea: Banking Oversight? Please.
Emerging from their resort world leaders have come up with one idea that just might work. Banking Oversight. No seriously, this is what they are spending money coming up with. Click the link, see for yourself. Of course their brand of banking oversight is new. It’s nothing like the banking
Continue readingThings Are Good: Etsy Encouraging More Women to Hack
The online craft marketplace Etsy has started funding a school that teaches people how to hack and use technology. That’s fine in itself, but what makes it good news noteworthy is that they are openly encouraging more women to get into the tech space and is having a positive impact.
Continue readingeaves.ca: The End of the World: The State vs. the Internet
Last weekend at FooCamp, I co-hosted a session titled “The End of the World: Will the Internet Destroy the State, or Will the State Destroy the Internet?” What follows are the ideas I opened with during my intro to the session and some additional thoughts I’ve had. To avoid some
Continue readingTrashy's World: George Orwell’s 1984…
… was supposed to be a warning about police states. Not an instruction manual on how to set one up! The Canadian Border Services Agency told The Ottawa Citizen that unidentified sites at airports and borders are already equipped with audio-video monitoring to boost security. The audio technology, though installed,
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Cell Phones in Junior High – My Bane.
You know who should not have access to phone/mp3 player/distractothon 3000′s? Junior high students. Responsible use of electronics seems out of reach of many of my students. The best part is that they are willing to die on that technological hill with all the ensuing teen-age drama that seems
Continue readingThings Are Good: Start-ups Founded by Women on the Rise
The tech industry is filled with men and a near-machismo culture that can be intimidating to both men and women. Fortunately inroads have been made by women into the tech world and are creating quite the splash. The emergence of young female tech founders and executives reflects sweeping change in
Continue readingeaves.ca: Open Postal Codes: A Public Response to Canada Post on how they undermine the public good
Earlier this week the Ottawa Citizen ran a story in which I’m quoted about a fight between Treasury Board and Canada Post officials over making postal code data open. Treasury Board officials would love to add it to data.gc.ca while Canada post officials are, to put it mildly, deeply opposed.
Continue readingSmartGlass, the universal app that keeps giving
SmartGlass is a new Microsoft technology that allows users of multiple devices tv, Xbox, smartphones etc. to link them together for a universal experience in entertainment. It’s a sophisticated application that allows you to use your phone or tablet as a controlling device for your TV, almost like a remote, but with tons
Continue readingDeSmogBlog: Dirty Energy Lobby Wins In EU – Shale Gas Now Considered “Green Energy”
lobbyist-payoff1.jpg In a headline that would appear to be ripped off the pages of The Onion, The Guardian UK this week reported “Gas rebranded as green energy by EU.” After billions of dollars spent in lobbying efforts over the years, the dirty energy industry in the European Union has managed
Continue readingeaves.ca: Control Your Content: Why SurveyMonkey Should Add a “Download Your Answers” Button
Let me start by saying, I really like SurveyMonkey. By this I mean, I like SurveyMonkey specifically, but I also like online survey’s in general. They are easy to ignore if I’m uninterested in the topic but – when the topic is relevant – it is a great, simple service
Continue readingeaves.ca: Lessons from Michigan’s “Innovation Fund” for Government Software
So it was with great interest that several weeks ago a reader emailed me this news article coming out of Michigan. Turns out the state recently approved a $2.5 million dollar innovation fund that will be dispersed in $100,000 to $300,000 chunks to fund about 10 projects. As Government Technology
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: We Must Force the Politicians to Go Post-Carbon
We need to leave the tarsands oil in the ground. We need an increasing carbon tax. We need to stop subsidizing carbon energy producers. We need public money invested in post-carbon energy. We need to do it now. I say all this, as does this NASA physicist: The science of
Continue readingsomecanuckchick dot com: New coins costing Canadians a lot of cash…
Last month, the Royal Canadian Mint put into circulation a new generation of loonies and toonies. The Royal Canadian Mint, however, did not give Canadian cities official notice of when the new coins would be distributed. Canada’s new loonies and toonies are costing Canadian cities, as well as retailers and
Continue readingeaves.ca: Public Policy: The Big Opportunity For Health Record Data
A few weeks ago Colin Hansen – a politician in the governing party in British Columbia (BC) – penned an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun entitled Unlocking our data to save lives. It’s a paper both the current government and opposition should read, as it is filled with some very
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Shaw Cable’s Dismissive, Dodging Customer Service
Shaw, the Corporation If you are a lower mainland Shaw Cable customer you may have noticed a quite vague notification of a $5 [plus HST] bill increase coming in June. It is followed by a great deal of vague advertising fluff indicating that something awesome was about to happen, but
Continue readingeaves.ca: Canada Post’s War on the 21st Century, Innovation & Productivity
The other week Canada Post announced it was suing Geocoder.ca – an alternative provider of postal code data. It’s a depressing statement on the status of the digital economy in Canada for a variety of reasons. The three that stand out are: 1) The Canadian Government has launched an open
Continue readingCanadian Trends: ARM and the return of the hardware hacker
Technology innovation has in a sense returned to the good old days where hardware and software had far less of a division between them. When Apple and Microsoft initially launched it was a huge gamble on Bill Gates’ part to believe software had value in itself, and even then initially
Continue readingeaves.ca: Canada’s Action Plan on Open Government: A Review
The other day the Canadian Government published its Action Plan on Open Government, a high level document that both lays out the Government’s goals on this file as well as fulfill its pledge to create tangible goals as part of its participation in next week’s Open Government Partnership 2012 annual
Continue readingeaves.ca: Beautiful Maps – Google Maps in Water Colours
You know, really never know what the web is going to throw at you next. The great people over at Stamen Design (if you’ve never heard of Stamen you are really missing out – they are probably the best data visualization company I know) have created a watercolor version of
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