One of the ideas placed on the table at the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) ‘new media’ hearings last week was to impose a federal tax on Internet access to build a (C)$100 million fund to support the production of Canadian content for Internet and digital cell network broadcasting. That proposal was put […]

Canada’s text messaging resource centre, txt.ca, reports that Canadians more than doubled their use of SMS texting services in 2008, sending more than 20.8 billion text messages, compared to a mere 10.1 billion in 2007In fact, 2008 was the sixth consecutive year that Canadian texting activity more than doubled over the year before. According to […]

In response to an alarm back in 2007, about alleged health threats from home and office laser printers, researchers conducted controlled experiments to determine just what substances the devices release into indoor environments and how much they release. A report just published by a team from the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health at […]

Surveys last fall indicated that Internet access is one of the last things North Americans are prepared to give up in the face of hard economic times. But recent studies show that many users still on dial-up connections are content to stay there for now, for the sake of their budgets, rather than upgrading to […]

Republican politicians are proposing new legislation that would compel U.S. ISPs and WiFi service providers (such as hotels and Internet cafés) to collect and keep detailed records of all customer Internet activity for up to two years. The stated purpose of the record keeping is to aid law enforcement officials in their investigations. One of […]

Security leader McAfee Inc. reports that savvy cyber crooks are taking advantage of the annual international outbreak of Academy Award fever to foist some sleazy new scams on the move-going public. This crop of scams is not spam-based. Rather, it involves a host of new Web sites purporting to offer insider info on favourite films […]

TrapCall, a new Web-based service, claims it can give you caller ID information for most blocked or restricted calls you receive on your cell phone. How they do it is their secret. And there’s more. With the information TrapCall generates about your formerly anonymous callers, you can also set up your phone to block them […]

A new type of  ‘nano ink’, embedded under the skin, could act as a blood glucose ‘early warning system’ for diabetics. More importantly for patients, it could also mean an end to painful, invasive blood testing by the traditional method, using lancets to draw blood samples which are subsequently analysed by a portable electronic meter. […]

A new ‘super microscope’ with a light ‘as bright as a million-watt bulb’ could detect Parkinson’s Disease and other afflictions earlier than they can be diagnosed now, spotting telltale changes in brain cells before the diseases involved can destroy them. “Early diagnosis is key because we know that, by the time a typical individual presents […]

The OWLink FO2800 series of connectivity devices uses innovative optical fibre technology to distribute high definition TV signals anywhere you choose at distances up to 1,000 ft / 300 m. FO2800 make[s] it easy to set up whole house video and audio distribution. By using an external A/V switch, one set of source devices can […]

That’s now a reality, in remote controls for most household consumer electronics gadgets, at least. Green Peak Technologies of Utrecht, the Netherlands, has released a new design that not only eliminates the need for a clear line of sight from remote to TV but eliminates the need for batteries in the remote. Green Peak’s ultra-low […]

The Canadian agency that regulates conventional (radio and television) broadcasting and the cable communications industry there opens hearings tomorrow to revisit its current policy of regulation of ‘new media’ broadcasting. That’s loosely defined as any activity identified as ‘broadcasting’ on the Internet and digital media (cell phone) networks. The Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission […]