Actual iPhone News!

In amongst the absolutely enormous number of rumours currently spinning around the iPhone, there is one piece of actual news. Rogers, already Canada's largest wireless carrier, has announced that it will roll out the iPhone later this year. The company was tight-lipped otherwise, saying only that contractual limitations prevent them from naming a date, any information on pricing, or if the iPhone in question will be the upcoming 3G model. Incidentally, Rogers started rolling out 3G in mid-2007 and currently covers the top 25 Canadian markets and plans to have 3G across the country by the end of 2008, according to their website.

For those of you who just hate wires, myself included, more and more products are going wireless. Sharp plans to introduce a line of HDTVs that can recieve 1080p signals from a base station up to 100 feet away. The article I've linked to calls this an act of obsessive-compulsiveness, but really - has anyone looked at that mass of wires behind their entertainment centre lately? Coax was a pain, and then - wiat for it... component audio and video came along! Three wires for the price of one! Right now these TVs carry a $700 premium, but it's a step in the right direction.

More iPhone Rumours

More 3G iPhone rumours today. Hardware maker Foxconn, which actually makes the iPhone for Apple, is rumoured to have landed a deal to manufacture 24-25 million second-generation iPhones. The report, relayed by Apple Insider, cites component makers and international investors as sources as Foxconn supposedly gears up for production. The company will probably deny it if you were to ask them, as Apple CEO Steve Jobs has a nasty habit of beating up on contrators who spill the beans prior to his dog and pony show the week before the actual release. I've also heard that Apple's legal department is pretty hardcore, too.

Really, I think 24-25 million units over the life of the device (which, lets face it, will probably be a year to a year and a half if Apple sticks to its MO) is foolishly optimitic if it only comes on the market in the limited number of countries the iPhone is currently for sale (I'm looking at you, US, UK, France, Germany, and Ireland, damn you!). Either the reality distortion field is at FULL POWER!!! or Apple plans on going after new markets. And yes, FULL POWER!!! does need to be written in all caps with a triple exclaimation point. In reality, I only care about one iPhone, the one that shows up on the shelves of a store near me so that I can buy it.

iPhone in Canada, finally, maybe?

Yet another iPhone rumor for Canada, according to the Toronto Star. This one ties into rumors of a 3G model sometime in June or July. If so, Canada would miss the original EDGE-based model entirely, which is not a bad thing, but does illustrate how horribly long its taking to get the gadget across the border. The 3G rumor is being treated as fact by some sources, including the National Post, and I quote " [Canadian smart phone maker] RIM also faces the threat of a 3G iPhone from Apple due out in June." That's not a slight shade of meaning, "due out" is not even close to "rumored for", not as I understand English. I tell you this, if it does happen, I'll be among the first in line. Now, can anyone tell me how to get my hands on a Kindle? How about Amazon MP3, also inexplicably not available in Canada, or anywhere else outside the US, for that matter.

One surprising item that is official is the Supreme Court of Canada's decision that random searches using sniffer dogs violates Canada's reasonable search and seizure laws. The reason this is a surprise is that I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times since 9/11 any country has moves to limit police powers. The major motivation for the decision is the case of an Ontario school were a random dog search turned up weed and magic mushrooms in a backpack and a student found himself facing drug charges. Problem is, the police in this case just showed up with no warrant and no prior complaints of drugs at the school. Of course, at this point we're so used to bowing down to anyone with a badge and a gun that it seems due process can be forgotten. So actually, this is a good catch by the Supreme Court in my opinion. Curiously, I wonder if similar searches conducted back when I was in high school (I'm in the class of 1999) would now be out-of-bounds.

Montreal is burning, but strangely, Windows is not.

Its that time of year again when roaring crowds cheer the arrival of the hockey playoffs. Its generally a time of boundless enthusiasm in Canada. In fact, fans celebrating the Montreal Canadiens game 7 victory over the Boston Bruins may have been a little to enthusiastic. Riots following the game resulted in 16 arrests, 5 burned-out police cars, and smashed windows along several blocks of Rue Ste. Catherine.

Things that ought to cause riots curiously don't, such as how horribly Windows sucks. The reasons why are outlined very nicely here, and by a long-time PC user to boot. Basically, Microsoft refuses to perform the radical overhaul Apple did between OS 9 and OS X and is suffering the consequences of solutions put in 25 years ago that are no longer valid.

Tell them I hate them!

You'd be surprised what comes out when a politician doesn't realize that his mic is still on. CBC reports on a recent Senate hearing on Bill C-10, which contains a controversial amendment that would allow Heritage Canada to deny tax breaks to film and television productions it deems offensive, that produced this sound bite from committee chair Dave Angus:

"The minister agrees. She told me she hates the law."

When questioned on this gaffe, Angus denies everything, even saying he never spoke with the minister in question, that being Minister for Canadian Heritage Josee Verner. And who can blame her? Bill C-10 has generated an enormous amount of unwelcome press for what was supposed to be a routine tax bill, not to mention every artist's union in the country crying foul.

Things aren't much better in Montreal, where the Mayor ordered two fire stations in the city's east side to clean up "graffiti" after the firefighters painted the windows in the colours of local heroes the Montreal Canadiens. Perhaps we should send all the politicians to an art appreciation class and be done with it.

Another subject near and dear to the hearts of Canadians is beer, so speculation that climate change may threaten the production of the drink that makes everyone look better got my attention. The theory is that changes in the climate of places such as New Zealand would reduce the area available for the growing of malting barley, a key ingredient in beer. I agree with Caroline McCarthy's sentiment: Nooooooooooooooooo!

I Saw the Witch Doctor

New antibiotics often come from unexpected sources. As you may know, penicillin is derived from a species of mold that was discovered when a petri dish was accidentally left open and unattended over the weekend. The latest crop may come from an even less likely source: alligator blood. It seems that these most ancient of reptiles are immune to damn near everything in part because their blood contains powerful substances that have been found to kill many drug-resistant bacteria and even partly kill HIV. All I can say is we had better be talking synthetic versions, cause I don't think anyone wants to be an alligator milker for a living.

The earliest evidence for human habitation in the New World is literally a load of crap. I didn't know that there was a technical term for fossilized feces, but it seem there is, specifically 'coprolite'. Which makes me wonder if there really is a technical word for everything. Anyway, the 'specimens' are 14 300 years old and were found in caves in a particularly dry patch of Utah. The practical upshot is that this lends more evidence to the theory that people may have reached the New World by boat before the land bridge over what is now the Bering straight formed.

And speaking of a load of crap, the RCMP has said that getting warrants in suspected child porn cases is just too darn slow. While I recognize the need for police to proceed quickly when investigating such a serious allegation, there is no crime for which I would support police being able to disregard due process in order to make an arrest a few hours sooner. The privacy implications and the potential for abuse are simply too high for my mind to be at ease. Wake the judge up at 3am if you need too, but the process is important to the validity of the end result as well as the rights of us all as citizens.

Now for a lighter subject: New York's Metro Transit Authority (MTA) can't spell. Several signs advising that a stairway at the Columbus Circle would be closed for repairs beginning April 7th directed riders to use the stairway across the street near the globe statue outside of Trump Tower, or as the MTA spelled it, 'Trumph'. No word on whether the Donald fired anyone over this rather obvious error.

The New York Times is also reporting a gold rush similar to that in Toronto a couple of weeks ago. The headline questioned which was more important, memories associated with family heirlooms, or $913 an once. If everyone has their price, I suppose there might be enough people right in around the $913 an ounce range to make it newsworthy.

Crave reports on recent attempts to find a replacement for the clamshell pack, that damn near bombproof plastic form-fitting package found on literally boatloads of consumer goods, mainly electronics. Turns out that many stores like this packaging on the basis that it deters theft without the need for display cases and gives a nearly 360 look at the merchandise. It comes with a downside, however, due to its high (and wasteful) use of plastic and the difficulty of getting it open. Consumers (myself included) often cut themselves while trying to get the packages open and in many cases this can result in a missing fingertip or severe laceration to the arm or hand. Please, people can we find a way to get rid of this and save ourselves both injury and hours of annoyance?

New York part 2

Okay, the second day in New York. After a late night, I was planning to get up for the model show, which ran from 9-4 in a building a ten-minute walk from our hotel. This proved to be a bit optimistic when I couldn't drag myself out of bed until 8:30. We went to get some breakfast, took a wrong turn and saw a flock of migrating Canada geese resting at a local park. Backtracking, we ended up having breakfast at a little spot just two blocks from the hotel.

The show itself was great, a fair number of entries turned up for the contests but there may have been too many categories as some of the less popular types of scale modeling, such as dioramas, had only a couple of entries. I took a lot of pictures, I find it helpful when I'm building a particular subject to see how someone else has tackled it. There was also an assortment of vendors and I ultimately came home with three kits, new brushes, some files and other small tools.

We headed back to Manhattan around 2pm and this time we made good use of the subway. First stopped by the Borders at Madison Square, then we went back to the Apple store to find that its very, very, very busy during the day and since its 24 hours you might want to check it out later in the night like we did. FAO Schwartz was open, and it is worth going in just to see the three-story toy store, not something you come across every day.

Next up was a walk down 5th avenue to get some pictures in the daylight. Saint Patrick's cathedral is particularly photogenic. After another subway trip, we were in Chinatown to buy some knock-offs and souvenirs, followed by another subway ride and more shopping. It all gets to be a blur after a while. We weren't able to find a place to eat as we wanted to sit down and Manhattan has surprisingly few sit down restaurants. Consider yourselves warned, the few that are are usually lined up around the block. We finally decided to go back to Penn Station and ate at the TGI Friday's there, which is surprisingly good considering it is in a train station. This time we made it back to the hotel at the perfectly reasonable hour of midnight.

The trip back went much better in terms of time than the trip down, punctuated by a couple of idiots who should have their licenses revoked, i.e. normal highway driving.

Back in Town

I arrived back from New York Sunday night and now Saint John feels so small. The drive back went well, completed in about 12 hours. This is more than I can say for the trip down. We were held up for over 3 hours by a crash on I-495, the outer beltway around Boston because some damn fool took out the side of a bridge. Traffic was backed up for ten miles or more while emergency crews cleaned up the scene and a road crew put made repairs to ththe bridge railing. As a result of this, we arrived in Hartford at rush hour and lost another hour or so due to traffic. Luckily we had left Thursday night and started the day in Portland, ME.

Finally at the hotel in Freeport, Long Island (which I highly recommend, by the way), we took the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) to Penn Station, under Madison Square Garden. It was already getting dark by this time, by the time we were done for the night it was 2 am and we where beat. We went to the observation deck on the 86th floor of the Empire State Building, it would have been nice if someone had told us that you had to go through an especially intrusive security checkpoint first. I was worth that and the $19 buck they charge for admission, I now have 20 or so great night shots of Manhattan, and a cheesy t-shirt as a souvenir. One might even be worthy of an 8x10. We walked up 5th Avenue as far as the Apple Store on 58th, which is underground and has a glass cube with a glass elevator and staircase as an entrance. I drooled over the iPhone, which is still not available (legally) in Canada, and my fiance is now the proud owner of an iPod Touch (16 GB).

We walked all the way back to Penn Station via 6th Ave., passing through Times
Square. After a 20 hour day I now got to sleep for all of 5 hours before the model show the next morning.