The State of Open Data Licenses in Canada and where to go from here
(for readers less interested in Open Data - I promise something different tomorrow) In February I wrote how 2011 would be the year of the license for Canada's open data…
technology
Province of BC launches Open Data Catalog: What works
As revealed yesterday, the province of British Columbia became the first provincial government in Canada to launch a open data portal. It's still early but here are some things that…
The Audacity of Shaw: How Canada’s Internet just got Worse
It is really, really, really hard to believe. But as bad as internet access is in Canada, it just got worse. Yesterday, Shaw Communications, a Canadian telecommunications company and internet…
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
Filmmaker Adam Curtis returns with a brilliant new documentary series that explores the ways in which many of our modern ideas and conventionally held beliefs have been perversely shaped by…
Mobiles Without Borders
International Institute of Mobile Technologies and Engineers Without Borders Toronto have joined forces to create Mobiles without Borders to encourage the use of mobiles in development. To start things off…
Why not create an Open311 add-on for Ushahidi?
This is not a complicated post. Just a simple idea: Why not create an Open311 add-on for Ushahidi? So what do I mean by that, and why should we care?…
The last of Nortel’s legacy sold off
Nortel’s patents sold for 4.5 billion dollars–a true indictment of the many dollars and years of R&D investment. Some of Canada’s top scientists worked there–it truly was an innovative company…
Mind. Prepare to be blown away. Big Data, Wikipedia and Government.
Okay, super psyched about this. Back at the Strata Conference in Feb (in San Diego) I introduced my long time uber-quant friend and now Wikimedia Foundation data scientist Diederik Van…
Links on Social Media & Politics: Notes from “We Want Your Thoughts #4″
Last night I had a great time taking the stage with Alexandra Samuel in Vancouver for "We Want Your Thoughts" at the Khafka coffee house on Main St. The night's…
When Roombas Attack: The Singularity
My next novel has a comedic take on the Technological Singularity, so I thought I’d start to do some more posts about the topic here on The Skwib. The following…
The next Open Data battle: Advancing Policy & Innovation through Standards
With the possible exception of weather data, the most successful open data set out there at the moment is transit data. It remains the data with which developers have experimented…
It’s Time To Stop Spinning Our Wheels On Climate Change
Much of the UN climate negotiations that went on in Copenhagen in December, 2009 was just so much hot air and spinning of wheels without any movement towards a liveable…
The Importance of a Technology “Anchor”
Not a long post from me today, but just a link to an article in the Globe and Mail that explains what RIM’s misfortunes could mean for the city of…
CBC Radio column: RIM stock dives, what’s next for the BlackBerry maker?
It looks like my predictions about Blockbuster and RIM are coming true. In this alberta@noon column on CBC Radio One with host Donna McElligott I discuss what options are available…
Ottawa Tech Sector / RIM
A while ago I was going to post a quick something that I saw about the Ottawa Tech Sector from the Ottawa Citizen, but didn’t post it. Unfortunately things didn’t…
CANARIE chirps about their funding
A follow-up to yesterday's post, "Setting a high tech government funded asset adrift," where the sunsetting of funding for CANARIE, Canada’s Advanced Research and Innovation Network, was raised. I did…
Setting a high tech government funded asset adrift
Here is an item today that may be an indicator of the ideological underpinnings of this government shining through. See this post from Dwayne Winseck at the OpenMedia.ca site on…
If the Prime Minister Wants Accountable Healthcare, let’s make it Transparent too
Over at the Beyond the Commons blog Aaron Wherry has a series of quotes from recent speeches on healthcare by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in which the one constant…
CBC Radio Column: Etsy, Urban Outfitters and Miley Cyrus?! (Plus iCloud)
In this alberta@noon column on CBC Radio One with host Donna McElligott I introduce listeners to the website Etsy and then talk about the he said/she said battle going on…
Using Data to Make Firefox Better: A mini-case study for your organization
I love Mozilla. Any reader of this blog knows it. I believe in its mission, I find the organization totally fascinating and its processes engrossing. So much so I spend…