Uncategorized

Confessions of a tablet overly early adopter

A friend at lunch the other day showing off his iPad 3G brought back this wave of tender nostalgia.
For three years I too carried a tablet around. It was the tablet that time forgot (no not the newton), the original Microsoft full slate tablet PC. That’s me chewing on a tablet pc stylus in [...]

Eye-control headphones clearly the best invention of Mobile World Congress

Leave it to the Japanese. I’ve speculated before about what kind of creative sensors you could load in to a mobile device. How about headphones that pick up the tiny electrical impulses emitted by your facial muscles when you move your eyes?
Here is a live demo of a Docomo volunteer controlling a cell phone music [...]

Why and how to ditch your slow-ass hard drive for an SSD

The setup:

Putting it to the test:

The Results:

SSD are the single best upgrade you can give your computer. This one a Runcore device is even compatible with older 1.8″ PATA drive systems found in common ultra portables like my Dell D430 or the Macbook Air. Remember when Apple was trying to sell SSD upgrades for $900? [...]

Forget the SuperBowl, the America’s Cup is on

Tonight, right now is the eve of the 33rd America’s Cup. Now two years late, this race is a culmination of 2 years of legal battles between Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli over the rules, venue, boats and every other aspect you can imagine. What it’s resulted in however is something spectacular for sailing and [...]

How to stream netflix in Canada

CRTC, want to fix something? fix this.
ps cablecos, broadcasters, crtc – a pox on all your houses

UPDATES: Speakerlist and New Venue for Lift Presentations @ Toronto 2009

NEW VENUE: The Canadian Corps Association Hall
201 Niagara Street, Toronto, ON [pics]
Got a couple of big update announcements for you regarding Lift@Home Toronto happening on Nov 17th. The first being that we have finalized our speakers list. We have an awesome roster future-minded designers who have bravely stepped up to impress you with [...]

What would the sport of racecar racing be like if the race cars were robots?

I was wondering today what it would be like for motorsports if you took the drives out of racecars. And made them remotely piloted or autonomous. We are on the cusp of this idea being technically possible. I bet those cars could go around the track even quicker if they didn’t have to haul around [...]

PROTIP #67 For Social Media Marketers:

Tom Purves’ Protip #67 for social media marketing:

STEP 1: Make a product actually worth talking about.
STEP 2: See step 1.
STEP 3: There is no step 3.

Originally tweeted, reblogged here for posterity.

Where is the “app store” for the greater internet?

A few recent observations:
1. Boy the iphone has a really slick/easy interface for buying little chunks of apps and content that are not only super easy to find yourself buying, and also don’t even cost that much. (Blackberry just announced one too)
2. On the web, ad revenues are out of whack with the value [...]

Of puppies and particles

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–
And why the sea is boiling hot–
And whether pigs have wings.”
And you could have thought I was the only tech/design blogger somehow also talking up both puppies and hadron colliders. Well I am but a rank amateur. Matt Webb [...]

Dividend theory at work, MSFT shareholders want their money back

On a down day on the market, Microsoft is up today, demonstrating a neat piece of market finance theory. Microsoft is up because they announced they’ll be giving back to shareholders a whole whack of money, 40Billion in share buybacks and an increased dividend rate. Theoretically speaking, share buybacks are functionally equivalent ways to return [...]

LHC and the end of the universe

So they fired up the Large Hadron Collider today, the gigantic particle accelerator 150m deep beneath a not-small chunk of Switzerland and France. Despite some people’s expectations, and as no-doubt a great disappointment to the media, the world and the planet did not explode out of existence. Last I checked anyhoo.
There, was however the possibility [...]

Design neutrality and why Google Chrome rocks

Last week, I gave Microsoft’s new browser a shake, now it’s time to look at the competition. There is a lot else to like about Google’s new browser. But this, this is my favorite feature:

Why does (almost) every product google touches, feel so refreshingly natural to use? A significant part of their competitive advantage comes [...]

The puppy has landed

Meet silver. More pics here and here. Regular updates to this and other blogs may be irregular as I’ve developed a new pastime of spending nearly every non working, waking moment chasing an 8 week old furry ball of terror around the house, when Michele isn’t doing the same. Ah… the joys of the [...]

Reminder: DemoCamp18 on the way. July 15th Toronto

DemoCamp Details:

When: Tuesday, July 15th, 2008 from 17:30 to 21:00
Where: Supermarket, 268 Augusta Avenue, Toronto
Registration can be done here

Sponsor tickets and the first tranche of free tickets are sold out but there are still plenty of cheap supporter and community allstar tickets remaining (you know what to do). Get a ticket while you can, it’s [...]

Back in town, almost recombobulated

Sorry for the lack of posts and general lack of comments around here, I was in a better place. Just now getting caught up on emails, posts, ideas and a lot of work to catch up on. If I haven’t responded to you, I should by the end of the day.
As a side note, it [...]

Trouble at the video store

I don’t think Michele will be taking me to the video store again. Just too much trouble. All stemming from incident a few weeks back. I hadn’t been to one in years, but an evening of unlikely desperation found us at the local blockbuster-esque corner video store. What surreal and bewildering experience. I recommend not [...]

“The internet is always great, until the marketers come in and ruin everything”

Sometime in November 2007, facebook hit a wall. We know that traffic to the site took a dip in dec/jan as students delved into exams and headed home for Christmas break. But why aren’t they coming back? Searches for facebook have flatlined (note that many users use the google box like an address box).
Could facebook [...]


 

 

 

A conference about
technology, the future
and people.