Tech Blog

Calgary may not have as many Twitter superstars as places like San Francisco, Toronto or Vancouver but those that do use Twitter make it easy to follow the herd by hashtagging. Almost everything that happens in Calgary on Twitter is hashtagged #yyc - a great model that each local Twitter community should adopt.

With just a few seconds of his keynote address this week, Steve Jobs through the first shovel of dirt on a device that was already dead.  With a new logo for iTunes, sans CD, the company that took digital retailing of music mainstream completely buried the old way of doing things.

Taking place about 3 years after the events of Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas spans an area about the size of the Capital Wasteland, but it’s not quite the post apocalyptic environment. 

Since Vegas wasn’t directly targeted in the attacks of the Great War, they still have power, which means there’s going to be a lot more colour in the new game.

I'm going to take some time off this Labour Day weekend (on my Honeymoon to be exact), and while I'm not planning on doing any work, that doesn't mean I'm going to untether completely. It isn't just that I want to stay in touch, it's also that I like to write and jot things down, so I need a certain amount of tech with me to do that. Not to mention, I'll be taking pictures, so there is that gear too. Beyond my usual "what I carry in my man-bag" stuff for just being out and about, I'm tossing in:

If there are two things that always go together it's geeks and space. Well my fellow geeks, at least those with iPads, you have got to stop what you're doing and download the new NASA in HD iPad app. It's free, don't worry about that, and once you have the app in front of you if your first words aren't "wow" you need your head adjusted.

It’s about time Apple finally started taking the living room more seriously, even if the word “hobby” is still attached to it in a tongue-in-cheek way. And while cramming in some great functionality in a little box is great, there are still some things the new Apple TV appears to be missing.

You and I can't use Twitter to be confrontational, we don't have any equity with employers to get over the hump.  When celebrities and athletes sound off on Twitter its an instant way to switch on a spotlight and ascend to center stage. There is only one man on the center of the CFL stage right now, Nik Lewis of the Calgary Stampeders.

Okay the Apple event is over. A goodly number of people have updated to iTunes 10 and are experimenting with Ping (I'm underwhelmed), but yeah that's what we could get and use now, but what about the stuff we have towait for? What are you most anxiously awaiting?

Do you stare at a computer monitor or screen all day? You need to protect your eyes regardless of the activity. From gaming, to surfing the web, or simply doing your job at work, protecting your eyes from the damage and itchy burn caused by a computer screen is becoming an important issue in today's tech dominated world. That's where Gunnar comes in.

So you get your first DSLR, you have your kit lens and you're ready to take some pro-looking shots of your family members, pets, things sitting around... etc. Then what happens? You point the SLR in someone's face hold down the shutter button and that built-in flash pops up to assist with brightening up the subject. The picture is eventually taken 2 seconds after you were hoping and now you have a photo of your aunt and uncle with bright, awfully lit faces, eyelids half-open and you start asking yourself... but this is a DSLR! Why do these photos look like I took it with my point and shoot?

Dana Sissons, Public Relations Manager for EA, talks to me about the latest version of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, developed by Criterion Games, makers of the Burnout series and set in the fictional Seacrest County, based on the California coastline. This offers up a variety of racing environments, with the four major variants being forests, mountains, desert and ocean.

Critics of Apple products have long pointed to the "Apple Tax" as a crux of their arguements against the products.  Apple's gadgetry is consistently higher priced that similar products with similar horsepower.  Fanboys respond by touting the company's esthetic qualities and point to the high profit margins that continously propel the stock<br><br>

Lovers of Apple products understand there is an Apple tax to be paid.  If you want the elegance of a BMW or a Mercedes, you're willing to pay a premium for the privelege - same with Apple products.  The problem comes when the Apple tax is extended to an all out money grab with an off base currency conversion.

Let's be honest here: if you have a basic understanding of the filmmaking technique known as machinima, you probably eat, sleep and breathe video games.

Easily the most popular machimina ever created is Rooster Teeth Productions' Red vs. Blue, a web series which debuted in 2003 using the game engine from Bungie Studio's Halo: Combat Evolve.  Rooster Teeth has gone all out with their latest DVD release for the series, Red vs Blue – The Blood Gulch Chronicles: The First Five Seasons.

Earlier today Apple unveiled the new look of the iPod product line, starting with the tiny Shuffle and ending with a slimmer and more powerful iPod Touch. New form factors, new hardware and new capabilities were evident across the product line, and a few of the iPredictions turned out to be pretty close to accurate

For those of you eagerly awaiting the BlackBerry Torch in Canada, both Telus, Rogers and Bell have officially announced September 24th as the release date for this device.