Tech Bytes

Universe hates Higgs boson, Chicago Cubs

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:40:06 -0500

By John Bowman, CBCNews. A physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider doesn't think much of the theory that the universe is sabotaging the project to prevent the discovery of the Higgs boson. Might as well say that Nature hates the Cubbies.

Large Hadron Collider goes Back to the Future

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:12:34 -0500

By Peter Evans, CBCNews.ca. Two respected physicists have put forward the theory that the Large Hadron Collider's stated aim of finding the Higgs boson might be so abhorrent to nature that mysterious forces are traveling back through time and sabotaging the experiment before it can succeed.

Multi-touch concept for desktops: 10/GUI

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:12:57 -0500

By John Bowman, CBCNews.ca. I'm a fan of alternative ideas for human-computer interaction, so this video caught my attention. It shows an idea for a ten-finger touchpad interface and associated changes in the way a computer would handle multiple windows.

Finland makes broadband a legal right

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:06:06 -0500

By Peter Nowak, CBCNews.ca. There's a debate going on in Canada right now over how we can get more people to sign up for broadband access. A recent industry-funded report found that 30 per cent of Canadian households still haven't signed up for it, whether it's because they can't afford it or they're simply not technically literate enough.

Google Maps goes it alone

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:00:54 -0500

By John Bowman, CBCNews.ca. The blog ReadWriteWeb is reporting that Google Maps will no longer get its U.S. map data from Tele Atlas and will instead go it alone, relying on its own data.

Globalive hits YouTube with funny ads

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:55:58 -0500

By Peter Nowak, CBCNews.ca. It's now two weeks until D-Day for Canada's prospective fourth (almost) national cellphone carrier — the CRTC has said it will rule by Oct. 23 whether Globalive meets Canadian control rules — but the company is already rolling out ads. And they're funny.

Street view sight-seeing comes to Canada

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 13:04:04 -0500

By John Bowman, CBCNews.ca. Google Street View has been live in certain Canadian cities for just over a day, and people have been busily combing the virtual streets looking for interesting sights capture by Google's camera cars.

A cellphone by any other name smells like broadband

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:55:03 -0500

CBCNews.ca Staff

While cleaning out my inbox today, I came across Merrill Lynch's annual wireless matrix, a measure of cellphone revenues, prices and other statistics from around the world. Although the survey, which has near-Bible status in the wireless industry, was released in June, it's particularly pertinent given the report released today by Canada's biggest ISPs about how the country's broadband service is world-class by every measure. [UPDATE, Nov. 5: To clarify, the word "every" was used to sum up the fact that the report says Canada is a leader in all the major measures commonly used in international studies to compare broadband services among different countries - availability, user adoption, speed and price. It wasn't intended to be taken to mean literally every comparison that could possibly be made. You can read the full report, and its evaluation of a number of aspects of Canadian broadband as they compare to other services around the world, here.]

BumpTop, the (multitouch) slippery desktop

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:54:31 -0500

By John Bowman, CBCNews.ca. More than three years ago, when I first starting writing about tech for CBCNews.ca, I wrote about a computer interface called BumpTop, which took the desktop model to the next level, giving files shape, weight and physics.

Staggered video game releases a good idea

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:13:49 -0500

By Peter Nowak, CBCNews.ca. If the size of Microsoft's annual holiday video game preview was any indication of the general health of the industry, then gamers might have cause for concern. This year's event, X'09, was certainly much smaller in terms of the number of game developers and titles present, which is not surprising given the abysmal summer the industry had.

Google Wave invitation day

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:36:10 -0500

By John Bowman, CBCNews.ca. Today's the day that 100,000 invitations for the preview Google Wave go out to a lucky few. Google has quite clearly stated on its blog who will get beta invites, but that hasn't stopped everyone else from begging for their golden ticket.

Three stunning high-res space images from Chile

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:47:19 -0500

By John Bowman, CBCNews.ca. The European Southern Observatory has released three high-resolution images of the night sky in Chile as part of its celebration of the International Year of Astronomy.

Google Wave gives up on Internet Explorer

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:22:34 -0500

By John Bowman, CBCNews.ca. The developers of Google Wave — the tech giant's next-generation communication platform that combines email, instant messaging, wikis and file sharing — seem to have thrown up their hands when it comes to supporting Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

PS3 picks up momentum, but will it last?

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 11:27:56 -0500

By Peter Nowak, CBCNews.ca. Sony says it has seen a big bump from its PlayStation 3 video game system since dropping the price and size three weeks ago, with more than one million consoles sold worldwide in that time.

Globalive tries the Chewbacca defense?

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:29:46 -0500

By Peter Nowak, CBCNews.ca. The CRTC kicked off a set of two-day hearings on Globalive's ownership today. The hearings will help the regulator determine whether or not Globalive will get to be Canada's fourth almost-national cellphone company. In its opening remarks, the company put forward a number of reasons why it passes muster as far as Canadian control rules are concerned, but one argument seems to sound like the Chewbacca defense.