I have been keep a vague eye on the events at E3 so I’ll just make this short. Microsoft has a delt a blow to Sony with the announenct that Square Enix, makers of the Final Fantasy franchise and Kingdom Hearts that the upcoming Final Fnatasy game will be multiplatform. Meaning it will be both on the 360 and the PS3, this was on of the exclusive games Sony had going for it but it’s now gone. As well, a price drop as been announced so it will cost $50 less and will include a larger hard drive capacity. For Sony, this isn’t surprising they announced Resistance 2, God of War 3, and MAG (Massive Action Game), a online game where 256 people can play at once set in the future. On Nintendo’s side they announced extra peripherals and accessories.
Apple, disgusted with Rogers Wireless for dumping egregious service plans on would-be iPhone 3G buyers, has decided that its Canadian retail stores will have no part in helping the carrier market the new handset to customers, AppleInsider has learned.
As a result, Canadian Apple Retail stores won’t be selling the new 3G touchscreen phones come Friday, representatives for the Cupertino-based company said during a private conference call on Monday evening. Instead, it will be up to Rogers and its partner Fido to lock subscribers into steep 3-year contracts that require a minimum monthly payment of $60 for just 150 minutes, 75 text messages, and 400MB of data.
Calls to Canadian Apple retail stores early Tuesday confirmed the move once over. Although the majority of the of stores contacted by AppleInsider said they were still unsure whether they’d be selling the new iPhone, one representative ultimately confirmed that Rogers and its partner stores will be the only place to buy iPhone 3G come Friday. Canadian Apple retail stores will, however, have demo units on hand the same day.
Asked whether the decision not to sell the iPhone was a result of Rogers’ poor service offerings, the representative would only say that: “We have nothing to do with the service plans. Those are Rogers’ plans.”
Word of Apple’s abandonment of in-store sales comes just days after the company was reported to have sanctioned Rogers by diverting a significant amount of Canada’s iPhone 3G shipments to Europe as initial retribution. As a result, the Canadian carrier will likely receive only about 10 to 20 units per store, and therefore should “exercise caution” not to promise ample stock on launch day, people familiar with the matter have said.
Apple’s knee-jerk reaction is believed to have been further stimulated by public outrage on the part of Canadian consumers following the release of the local pricing plans. Always concerned with its image, the iPhone maker has watched nearly 50,000 of its loyal customers sign an anti-Rogers petition at ruinediphone.com, which has in turn sparked hundreds of potentially damaging reports on the matter by bloggers and members of the mainstream media.
For its part, Rogers in official statements has attempted to justify the cost of its service and data plans by arguing that the “majority” of international iPhone carriers have capped data. As such, a spokesperson said Rogers believes its plans to be better than those of Orange France, for example, which include a 500MB ‘reasonable use’ limit versus the 2GB maximum on the top-tier Canadian iPhone plan that fetches $115 per month.
“Unlimited plans could end up costing customers more for what they don’t use,” the spokesperson said. “Our iPhone plans more than accommodate the vast majority of customers.”
If you were just skimming through the whole thing and didn’t really bother reading it, It basically means Apple isnt too happy with the plans Rogers has given to it’s customer for the Iphone therefor has decrease shipments less then what was expected to Canada.
Coming soon to a bestbuy in Canada near you… Best Buy will soon sell unlocked phones and allow you to choose the providers you want. This experiment will start in Toronto and expand further west and east from there.
Source BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/7465414.stm
According to BBC news a Father found 11 bullets in his sons room and instead of confronting the matter with his son chose to use the law. Tipped by the father, police searched the boys room and found a handgun sealed in a bag. The child was later ordered to court and pleaded guilty resulting in 3 years in jail. Not the best choice of action I would say though I understand the fathers concern. Smack talking to his son wouldn’t change anything but if he were to get trouble with the law then he would think differently about the situation. Unfournately for the father who only wanted the son to face only 2 years, the judge decided to give the boy 3 year jail sentence. The minimum year sentence for possessing a firearm is 5 years.
I may be a couple weeks late of posting this but who ever hasn’t heard lately, Apple’s Iphone is coming to Canada. It will be GSM so only Rogers Wireless and Fido will be allowed to use it (Sorry for the folks who have CDMA i.e: Bell and Telus mostly) For those out there who think that it’s the 1st generation Iphone guess again. it’s going to be the 2nd generation 3g Iphone with gps, more battery life and for the price of $199 on a 3 year contract. There is also talks that Apple has made a deal with Softbank, the third most popular cellphone provider in Japan to release the Iphon there as well. How that will affect the sales of Japanese Keitei phones only time will tell.
On a side note: Just got a ps3 so anyone out there with ps3 hit me up username is xMichio
As of 10:00am pst (my time) you can download the retail version of the next firefox web browser. The improvements came of no surprise to me as I have been using 3.0 beta to all the rc to date and let me say, It is way faster then before and Good News! Memory issues seem to have gone away so for those out there with only 128mb of ram or less then 1gb you can’t complain no more about it being a resource hog. Not all plugins that you may use in firefox 2.0 are compatible with 3.0 but don’t fret updates are soon to arrive. Visit http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox?p=downloadday to download firefox today!
For a up to date live statistic of how many downloads per minute are going on from certain countries (ie: U.S, Japan, Canada, U.k, France, and a few other ones visit http://downloadcounter.sj.mozilla.com/
It’s been a good few weeks since I posted about how some people on a certain tech forums I visit were to invited to be one of a few lucky participants to recieve a very special. We’ll lets just say yours truely has now happen to become one. The lucky item is *drum roll* A ZUNE!! More updates to follow later as currently I am in a rush and I will post pictures on facebook as well as here for everyone to enjoy and see as soon as I have the product in hand. If you guys are interested try heading here: www.matchstick.ca/mp3
Yesterday a bill was introduced to the Canadian government that would criminize Canadians who illegal download music and would forceablly make isp give out our information to the equivilant of the RIAA in Canada which is the MPAA I believe: Here is a more indepth look at the situation and details on what it means, how it affects us users. Article by Eric March from http://www.touchpodium.com/2008/06/04/canadians-your-digital-rights-are-about-to-be-revoked-read-and-sign/
The Harper government has sunk to a new low. Now, since he has taken office, Harper and his goons have been fairly vanilla as world leaders go. But proposed new amendments to the Canadian Copyright Act, secretly crafted in back-room dealings and carefully shielded from the prying eyes of the Canadian people, and apparently inspired by (but going much further than) the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the USA (17 USC [PDF link]) , could cripple your digital rights, affecting the enjoyment of iPod and iPhone lovers across the country.
The bill, which is slated to be introduced to tomorrow, could introduce a slew of new amendments, each more ridiculous than the other:
- A $500 per-infringement fine if you are found guilty of IP theft — which is more than the average per-item charge levied by the RIAA in the USA.
- ISPs would be required by law to turn over the IP addresses of users suspected of infringement, flinging the doors wide open for the CRIA. Until now, most ISPs have consistently denied the CIRA access to their logs on privacy grounds. Remember, we already pay a levy on blank media to help offset the cost of infringement, and don’t expect it to be rescinded if this bill passes.
- Copying of lawfully purchased CDs to digital media players would constitute infringement.
- Copying recorded television shows to personal media players for the purpose of time-shifting would constitute infringement if they are flagged as copy-protected by broadcasters. (You may recall the brouhaha recently of a US broadcaster that broadcast a few television shows flagged as copy protected, and the Vista machines that prevented them from being recorded because they paid attention to the copy-protection flag when they weren’t supposed to. Same deal here, only the law would side with the broadcasters, not the consumers.)
- Unlocking cell phones would be made illegal. Your jailbroken iPod Touch? Your unlocked and activated iPhone? NOT YOURS.
- Hardware or software designed to circumvent copy protection, even for personal archival or unlocking purposes, would be illegal. No CD or DVD backups or backup software, no mod chips, no virtual drive software that includes copy protection emulation, nothing.
And likely more. Supposedly, the bill has been drafted due to pressure from US organizations (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) to bring our copyright laws more in line with those of the United States, yet none of this was allowed to be vetted by the Canadian people.
Now, the Tories have a minority government, so there is a half decent chance that this bill will never be ratified by parliament, but it is a chance I do not want to take, nor do any other Canadians, who are incensed at our government’s presumptuousness and blatant disregard for the opinions and ideas of the very people these amendments will effect.
So what can do you about it? Write! Write to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Write to Industry Minister Jim Prentice. Write to Heritage Minister Josée Verner. Voice your displeasure. Tell them that this is not the way to approach the protection of intellectual property. You needn’t write them all individually, though. Fortunately, a new coalition, the Canadian Coalition for Electronic Rights, has been formed to take the government to task for this travesty, and they have provided a helpful form letter you can read and sign and have it automatically sent to the aforementioned ministers. This isn’t a useless petition — these letters are sent straight to the inboxes of the individuals in question. Simply click on the link I have provided here, fill in your particulars at the bottom, and click Send.
Don’t let the government take away your freedoms. Let them know that your rights to use the devices and the media you have lawfully purchased or otherwise obtained the way you choose are inalienable. Tell them that they need to truly rethink their approach to copyright protection and craft a much more fair and balanced bill that doesn’t heavily favour Big Media at the expense of your personal liberties and freedoms. Even if the bill may not have a great chance of being passed, we need to send the message that we will not stand for such draconian, autocratic measures passed before parliament without so much as a by-your-leave from the Canadian people. Sign and send the letter. The digital future of Canada may depend on you.
UPDATE 8:29PM: Sympatico MSN Tech news have posted an article stating that this bit of legislation has been put off until next week while industry minister Jim Prentice tries to further tweak the balance of individual rights against those of the industry. Even given this week reprieve, not much is likely to change — at least, not much that the consumer would appreciate; even minor concessions by the government would still amount to meaningless gestures. This is a bill that needs pretty sweeping changes in order to really pay any deference to the concept of fairness. Furthermore, parliament will break for summer holidays around the middle of the month, and while ACTRA are pushing to rush this thing through, the chances are more likely that it will die on the table before anything is resolved before break.
As an aside, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has classified Canada on a par with the likes of China and Russia when it comes to copyright infringement. I’m just going to go ahead and classify WIPO as an organization that needs to bite me. WIPO’s “standards” are set so heavily against the individual that they aren’t even in the same hemisphere as fair. WIPO needs to retool its standards in order to give the individual back some of the rights they ought to have, and as far as I’m concerned, while IP certainly needs to be protected, we Canadians ought to be the ones to set the bar for fair and balanced legislation — and that’s not going to happen with the bill the way it is. Again, let the government know this loud and clear. Let’s show WIPO, the RIAA, the MPAA, ACTRA and the rest how we roll up here in the Great White.
Now that I have my own car (Acura CSX) I now have to worry about gas prices and car maintence and the jazz. Was browsing through the world wide web and google of course and found a interesting site. http://www.vancouvergasprices.com/ is a site which has users post up prices of gas from specific locations. It shows where people have found the highest price in gas to the lowest prices, the site is updated roughly every 30 mins so its pretty much up to date. I know where I need to fill up my car I’ll be checking out this site first before heading out to fill up.
P.S: Generally late at night gas prices tend to be cheaper probaly because of the lack of cars during that time of the day and its cooler at night.
With each passing day the Olympic clock outside the Vancouver art gallery closes on the day that Vancouver will soon host the 2010 Olympics. As a Vancouverite I’m quite ecstatic on having the Olympics on coming in my neck of the woods. Get to see all the athletes, sporting events, competition, seeing our proud nation being represented and my favorite our national hockey team beating the American team once again ( it could happen ). Though something doesn’t seem right here….the problem is not everyone is happy that the Olympics are going to come, most noticeably the homeless & the many citizens that live in the DTES (Downtown East Side). There have been unknown sources that say once the Olympics are closer to date, the liberal ( or whoever is in charge ) will without hesitation “ask them to leave” say to calargy or to the inner regions of British Columbia. While I must say this was profound to me I can see where they are coming from. As a host city hundreds if not thousandas of reporters will be coming over to report the Olympics for their respected news corporation whether that may be for television, newspapers, radio or even on a blog website. Besides the reporters thousands of fans will also arrive to see the Olympics front and centre, this is when they will most likely see our problem. Vancouver unfortuantely has one of the worst downtowns in western Canada if not on the Pacific region. Poverty, Drug Addicts as well as Prostitutes are constantly roaming around the streets and one of the most common places they group up is by the downtown library ( not the central library ). As long as I have lived in Vancouver this has been a common problem, it is just now since the Olympics are coming the LIberal government is forced to take action. I know I am rambling alot but I’ll end off with this statement. The current government needs to take action, that doesnt mean kicking them out and let the dust settle, one can only hope this government does the right thing before and bloodshed begins.
