From the category archives:

Technology

Whoa: Facebook Credits coming soon; a tax-free, global consumer currency

by Rod Edwards on March 24, 2010

A perfect end-run around online taxes. How long will it be before Facebook’s 400 million users, now armed with their own currency, start siphoning off material percentages of nation’s economies?

Add one more piece of evidence to all of those rumors about an impending launch of a Facebook virtual currency at the upcoming f8 conference in late April. Facebook recently applied for a trademark for its virtual currency platform, which is aptly named Facebook Credits.

via Trademark Application For Facebook Credits Reveals Globe Coin Logo And Other Details.

{ 0 comments }

Breakthrough Low-Power Desalination and Purification Technology

by Rod Edwards on March 24, 2010

I could use this at my cottage too… and it sounds like a better option for camping than my current ceramic pump-through from MEC.

Developed by scientists at MIT, the desalination device is about the size of a postage stamp, and can be fit together into larger daisy chains. An eight-inch-wide array of the desalination chips can produce four gallons of clean water every hour, while only using as much electricity as a light bulb.

via Breakthrough Low-Power Desalination and Purification Technology Brings Clean Water To Remote Villages | Popular Science.

{ 0 comments }

Dreaming the Possible Dream: Friedman on America’s Innovation Culture

March 8, 2010

Thomas Friedman writes in the NYT today about America’s innovation culture. Its interesting that Friedman’s two examples of American innovators are both immigrants, but Friedman doesn’t wade into the heavily politicized immigration & visa  issue. Its a great story – very inspiring and encouraging – but perhaps alarming for the fact that America’s real contribution [...]

Read the full article →

Twitter on Parliament Hill – Globe & Mail

February 25, 2010

“These MPs are building strong and engaged communities in the process, communities that could be important assets in future elections and leadership races.” via How MPs use Twitter – The Globe and Mail. I’m an innovation manager, and its my job to see the potential in things like Twitter. There’s lots there – as the [...]

Read the full article →

Palm Flameout

February 25, 2010

One-time tech darling Palm, after a surge of interest, two new handsets, and a new software platform last year, looks to be spiraling rapidly towards death. Even with cash injections from Bono and Elevation Partners, an eroding market position is equivalent to a death sentence for a company without the capability of scaling up research [...]

Read the full article →

Stem Cell Transplant Cures Leukemia Patient’s HIV

February 20, 2010

The article speaks for itself. An HIV+ person received a stem cell transplant to treat leukemia. The transplant was from someone with natural resistance to HIV. The donor’s HIV resistance was conferred upon the recipient: A 42-year-old HIV patient with leukemia appears to have no detectable HIV in his blood and no symptoms after a [...]

Read the full article →

Network Neutrality: Simple image explains what it is & why its important

October 29, 2009

Network neutrality, bandwidth shaping, megabits, the FCC, and the CRTC. NN is a confusing, acronym heavy mess that’s ill understood by policy makers and consumers alike (the FCC doesn’t get it). The simple image below explains it nicely. Right now, its implicit that our choice of internet provider (Shaw) doesn’t impact our choice of, for [...]

Read the full article →

Shitasmia

September 28, 2009

“It’s so terrible, it induces an entirely new emotion: a blend of vertigo, disgust, anger and embarrassment which I like to call “shitasmia”. It not only creates this emotion: it defines it. It’s the most shitasmic cultural artefact in history.” [The Guardian]

Read the full article →

Microsoft Courier: the uber tablet that will (hopefully) replace my laptop

September 23, 2009

This looks pretty sweet, I’m not afraid to say. I love the iPhone, but the small screen form factor becomes tiring when trying to conduct real business for an extended time. Lugging around a laptop is a pain, and a netbook just feels unsatisfactory as either a productivity machine or a communication device. A small, [...]

Read the full article →

New Democrats, Old Economy

June 15, 2009

In early 2009, I started trying to rally the political will to make Manitoba a globe-leading, high-tech, green datacenter hub. This post tells the story of how I quickly discovered that Manitoba under the NDP had had its chance to be just that – and let it pass by, missing millions of dollars in investment, [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries