Technology and You

Bye bye, Bell Beavers

2008-08-03T23:51:00.000-07:00

The (in)famous Bell Beaver mascots have been fired, along with several middle management employees recently. Apparently it was meant to symbolize the recent change in ownership of the company.

They are creatively killing them off in advertisements by saying the beavers are being "invited back to forest to become teachers for a whole new generation of spokecritters."

Now I only have a few complaints:

1.) Why did it take so long?
2.) WHY IS THIS FRONT PAGE OF CBC.CA?
3.) Why is Bell making such a big deal out of this, such a big advertisement out of it? No wonder they need to steal jobs away from so many employees.

iPhone 3G released!

2008-07-11T15:56:00.000-07:00

Of course, the only news that matters to anyone who likes tech is the grand release of the iPhone 3G today, or if you were in New Zealand, that was already several hours ago. So why all the hype? It's going to save the world, cook for you, and do your homework. It's the best thing since Jesus! Or the first iPhone. Sarcasm aside, here's why.

Good
1.) App store! Now you can play games like Spore and Monkey Ball!
2.) 3G? Faster Networking! It's give-or-take twice as fast the old iPhone.
3.) GPS! And even though it's a bit jumpy, it's definitely nice to have, especially coupled with the Google Map App.
4.) Scientific Calculator (That's only great, because I'm a geek. Yup.)
5.) Flush headphone jack (This should have been in the first model. Now you can use any headphones with it.)

But what's still going to hold many people from getting this nifty gadget?

Bad
1.) Lower battery life. Having the 3G and GPS comes with a price. (Not significantly lower according to reviewers though.)
2.) Still no voice dialing.
3.) Still no copy and paste.
4.) No multimedia messaging.

So only one question remains... Will it blend? (Probably, since plastic tends to blend better than aluminum, and the first iPhone did.)

2008-07-09T12:27:00.001-07:00

iPhone plan for Rogers gets better

Who said whining doesn't make anything better? It seems like it made it heck of a lot better. After all those complaints about the overpriced and limited data plans for web browsing for the new iPhone 3G at Rogers, after pissing off Apple, Rogers has finally introduced a new data plan.

$30 a month, 6GB of data. Which is still not unlimited web browsing, but it's pretty close. The only people who still are unsatisfied with 6GB are probably businessmen who are addicted to facebook. Note, that it's +$30 a month. For example, you can choose any voice talk time, and simply add the $30 service on there if you want it-which you probably will if you're getting an iPhone.

Rogers, after denying that they redirected much of the iPhone shipments to Europe, are having a promotional event on July 11th at 6 stores across Canada, where you'll get a free breakfast, and a chance to win some Rogers Wireless products. (I'm betting that it's a certain phone?)

Toronto: 112-10 Dundas Street East
Montreal: 1015 rue St. Catherine Ouest
Ottawa: 690 Bank Street
Halifax: Unit 265, 7001 Mumford Road
Calgary: 5244 Falsbridge Gate, NE
Vancouver: 2097 West Broadway (About 40 minutes drive from my place... Hmm...)

2008-07-08T23:06:00.000-07:00

Don't buy an Xbox 360-Price Cut soon

If you considered buying an Xb0x 360, but haven't yet... Don't.

There's going to be a price cut, confirmed by leaked photos at Best Buy, K-Mart, etc. that shows that the price will drop to $299.99 US on July 13th.

For Canada, that's obviously going to be different, but we can only assume that it will drop on the same day, or shortly after. The version getting the price cut will, of course, be the premium version that comes with the hard drive.

It makes sense why they would do this though. After almost 3 years of its initial release, the sale rates seem to be slowly dropping, especially now that PS3 is starting to do well. Now, interestingly enough, E3, is on July 14th, and Microsoft might be announcing some new cool things then... Xbox 720 anyone?

2008-07-08T22:47:00.001-07:00

Creative Chinese Strikes Fear into My Heart

Chinese people are awesome. Really. I mean, if there was any ethnic group on this planet that can come up with a military deployment strategy that is able to cripple the terrorists via laughter just by the sight of them, it was the Chinese people.
Apparently, this was supposed to be a method of "rapid deployment" but I fail to see the fail of the "rapid". And cost-efficiency? Is the millions of dollars going in to these Segways worth it? Nope. Just by looking at the picture, you can certainly tell that these guys are embarrassed out of their lives, and can barely stay on the thing while aiming. At the same time, they'll need to shoot at terrorists, drive the Segway to dodge bullets, and somehow cover their face so it's not randomly tagged on facebook under the caption "retard."

Oh, and it seems, just to promote the stereotype that Asians like small things, these guys have tiny guns.

iPhone Competitor #2: Samsung Instinct

2008-07-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

The second touch-screen phone that competes with the iPhone is the Samsung Instinct. This phone was the Sprint-version of the iPhone, since CDMA networks (ie Telus) cannot carry iPhone which is GSM. The phone was actually a huge success due to the heavy marketing that's gone into promoting this product.

It measures 4.57 inches by 2.17 inches by 0.49 inch, smaller than the iPhone, but also has a smaller screen. The interface is very fun and easy as well, with home screen holding your most used applications, and little tabs in the bottom categorized into favs, main, fun and web.

Features? 3G, GPS, Bluetooth, 2MP camera, e-mail, 3.5 mm headphone jack (meaning you can use your regular headphones in it) and Micro SD card slot expandable up to 8GB.

It's keyboard is a full-qwerty on screen keyboard, and unlike the iPhone, it can be used in landscape mode whenever you want. You can also use the GPS to locate restaurants, hotels, etc. nearby, which is useful for travellers. It also has speakers which have a very crisp sound quality. Battery life is quite good at 5 hours of talk time.

The bad thing about the device? It has a internet browser is a full HTML browser, but its screen is too small to take full advantage of it. The call quality and video quality is a mixed bag, with erratic performance depending on your location and carrier.

Conclusion: Go with your instincts on this one. It's a feature packed phone, but compared to the multi-touch Safari browser of the iPhone, its failure as a usable HTML browser is a huge thumbs down for a consumer like me.

2008-07-08T20:04:00.001-07:00

F*ck Canadian Telecommunication providers.

Telecommunication companies are the worst type of corporations ever-they hold too much power in this new era of modern technology. If you use Bell for your internet provider, you've already been screwed in the ass. They throttle your internet. They limit your download speeds on P2P. That's not good. Net neutrality is slowly dying.

If you don't know what net neutrality is, that's the term to describe a situation where everyone has a fair access to internet. Throttling your internet is slowing your internet down. Why is Bell doing this? Because there are so many people downloading enormous amount of contents that their servers are at risk. But there's a limit... Limit which they have well crossed. And you know it's bad when a company that is from another country-Google-is criticizing our telecommunication provider.

What does this mean to you? It's not just Bell customers. When this goes allowed, other companies will do the same thing-not to maintain their servers-but to get money. They know that internet is a valuable aspect of our lives. They're going to abuse their power to provide that. The telecommunication companies will introduce internet service plan A and B. A is more expensive. Everyone will waste their money on plan A... Why? Because they will throttle plan B users like hell. But in the end, you're not getting faster internet by choosing plan A; you're just paying more for the service you should have got anyways.

But that's not where my telecommunication company bashing stops. Did you know that Bell and Telus recently announced that they'll charge you for receiving text messages? 15 cents for every text message received. Starting August. Now I'm not a heavy texter. In fact, I seldom use the text message function, for some minor reasons. I have no text message plan so it costs 15 cents per text message, I'm a slow texter anyways, and I have no friends. For the rest, texting is essentially costing you twice as much as it cost you before. 30 cents per exchange.

But why am I getting angry over it if I don't really text that much? Because there are advertising companies that will somehow figure out my number and send me spams. The solution is obvious it seems-bye Telus, hello Rogers. But what if Rogers does the same thing? We'll see. Roger's expensive plans are not worth it unless I get a lot more spams.

Rogers is being a dick too, though. You know that iPhone that everyone's so excited about? Overpriced. Way, over priced. If you're going to get it for the 3-year contract, you better have at least $2, 600 ready, because that's how much it will cost you on the long run at the least. Out of the 23 international carriers worldwide, Canada is charging the most for the iPhone. And it's contract will cost you about 67 dollars at least a month. That only gives you 150 minutes of airtime and 400 mb of internet. iPhone was meant to be a heavy internet browsing gadget-400 mb just took away the point of having it.

Take AT&T for example, an infamous, well-disliked iPhone carrier in US. Even they have a plan that has three times as much talk time and unlimited internet usage for a 2 year contract at the same price of the service provided by Rogers.

I thought about getting the iPhone before, but no thank you now. Even if I get the phone for free, I still wouldn't take the plunge into that kind of overpriced service fee. Oh, and there's no unlimited service, not that it matters because if there was, looking at the annoucned services, it'll probably cost about 100 dollars a month.

Of course, Apple criticized Rogers for that, and when they didn't respond, Apple gave them a "whatever, you're own your own" attitude. But deep inside, they know they screwed up, so why be stubborn about it? Proof? They redirected lots of iPhone shipments coming to Canada to Europe because they know it won't sell.

iPhone 3G release date: July 11th, 2008!

2008-07-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

As July 11th gets closer, we are nearing to a historic moment in cellphone history... Well, other than the release date of the 1st generation iPhone. July 11th, of course, is the release of the second generation iPhone with 3G. Now, albeit I'm not an Apple fan, and don't have an iPhone myself, it's undeniably a revolutionary device in the market. 3g and GPS is a bonus, as well as a lower price and NOT recessed headphone jack.

AT&T aren't very pleasant folks when it comes to service, but this time they dropped the bomb on us: only 200$ for 8gb and 300$ for 16gb seems to have been a lie. It's only that price respectively if you are upgrading from your previous iPhone. New customers have to pay $300 and $400. Of course, that's no problem for countries other than USA since there's no chance that you would have had an iPhone... without unlocking it, or just having an uglier iPod Touch.

But let's leave a poll up asking who'll get the iPhone 3G. And then, as we approach the date, let's look at what alternative "iPhony" touch-screen phone alternatives is available in the market.

iPhone Competitor #1: HTC Touch Diamond

2008-07-06T15:46:00.001-07:00

HTC claims their Touch Diamond to be the most important product for them in 2008. The product recently got a rating of 6.7/10 on CNet which is not bad. It's a very good, sexy looking device, with a very cool interface and 3.2 mega-pixel camera. It has a full VGA touch screen, GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and is one of the first phones to feature the Windows Mobile 6.1 edition. It sounds perfect when you realize that it comes in a package that looks like this.

But the huge problem is, its sexy interface is too... fancy... if that even makes any sense. It's too elaborate to the point makes the device slow as hell. It's been announced for Telus already, and can be bought unlocked in various markets in Asia and Europe, but my opinion is "who cares?". I see this device as a failure after watching this vide o on youtube. After all, the reason it got a mediocre rating on CNet.com was because it had such a slow interface. It demonstrates how slow the phone is. My current Nokia 6265i is the slowest phone I've ever played with, although it is feature packed: I hate it. Sounds like HTC Touch Diamond will provide a similar situation.

Otherwise, other notable things are it can watch youtube, it has a proprietary headphone jack and no expansion slot.

My thought is no matter how much feature packed and sexy the Diamond is, it's not practical to be worth the price. Just like real diamonds. Except real diamonds can at least get you a girl... Sometimes.

Out of 5 stars...

Hello World!

2008-07-06T15:37:00.001-07:00

This is a sub-branch of my primary blog. After writing news blogs so news "makes more sense" for my friends (as well as to entertain myself) I decided to create a seperate blog for technology, because many of my friends aren't geeks like me.

I concentrate on Canadian news for my primary blog, but this one is not restricted to Canada, just as technology isn't. So without further adieu...