A Solar Powered Combustion Engine May Be in Your Future
This may sound counter-intutitive, but researches have begun a project to build an internal combustion engine (a common car engine) that runs off of solar power. Instead of using gas…
technology
Technology in a 21st Century Learning Inc world
Not surprisingly, technology is almost always identified as a component of 21st Century Learning. But this isn't simply adding new technology to aid in the delivery of curriculum or to…
Ontario’s Open Data Policy: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and the (Missed?) Opportunity
Yesterday the province of Ontario launched its Open Data portal. This is great news and is the culmination of a lot of work by a number of good people. The…
ForestWatchers Wants You to Look at Forests
Forests around the world are in danger and a new group, ForestWatchers, is looking to the average person to save all the trees. It’s a very simple idea: use people…
The Innovative Advocate: Canada’s Legal Future
The way legal services are delivered in Canada is changing. Increased competition and a demand for lower prices has pressured law firms to slow hiring and deliver their services more…
What the Quantified Self Movement Says and Tech and Gender
Over the past year or two I’ve been to a couple of unconferences sessions about how people are increasingly measuring different parts of their lives: how far they run, how…
Speaking of peeps…
… with time on their hands… I just don’t see the point of having to have the latest and “greatest” as soon as available… (5) Trashy, Ottawa, Ontario
Requiring Facebook for Your News Site (or website) – the Missed Opportunity
Last week I published I blog post titled Why Banning Anonymous Comments is Bad for Postmedia and Bad for Society in reaction to the fact that PostMedia’s newspapers( including the…
Robots That Ride Waves for Science and Understanding
New surfboard sized robots are riding the waves and doing science! They’re autonomous robots called Wave Gliders and they are being used to monitor shipping and more importantly they are…
Is the Internet bringing us together or is it tearing us apart?
The other day the Vancouver Sun – via Simon Fraser University’s Public Square program – asked me to pen a piece answering the questions: Is the Internet bringing us together…
Lies, Damned Lies, and Open Data
I have an article titles Lies, Damn Lies and Open Data in Slate Magazine as part of their Future Tense series. Here, for me, is the core point: On the…
A New Stove Project Looks to Crowdsource Healthier Heating
Regular readers of this site may know that we are fans of efficient stoves. The Kenya Stove is a new project to get efficient stoves in the hands of Kenyans.…
Community Managers: Expectations, Experience and Culture Matter
Here’s an awesome link to grind home my point from my OSCON keynote on Community Management, particularly the part where I spoke about the importance of managing wait times –…
Built to NOT Last – Movie Monday
So, most of us have been there at some point, standing at an Ikea asking ourselves “do I need yet another Billy bookcase?” We know it will be of the…
Lying with Maps: How Enbridge is Misleading the Public in its Ads
The Ottawa Citizen has a great story today about an advert by Enbridge (the company proposing to build a oil pipeline across British Columbia) that includes a “broadly representational” map…
Is Civic Hacking Becoming ‘Our Pieces, Loosely Joined?’
I’ve got a piece up over on the WeGov blog at TechPresident – Is Civic Hacking Becoming ‘Our Pieces, Loosely Joined?‘ Juicy bit: There is however, a larger issue that…
A Stove That Uses Fire to Charge Electronics
BioLite is a company that focuses on creating clean-burning stoves. We’ve looked at stoves before and why it’s important to create efficient stoves for a better planet and healthier people.…
Living in the Future: My Car isn’t Flying, but it is Cheap and Gamified
I remember in the early 80’s when I was about 8 years old I walked up to my dad and said “you know the year 2000 really isn’t that far…
The Beneficial Impact of Newspaper Paywalls on Users
There continues to be fierce debate about the cost/benefits of newspaper paywalls, a debate Mathew Ingram has been helping drive with a great deal of depth and with excellent links.…