Entry #14 Saskatchewan Takes a Step Forward

Tech News

Today the Saskatchewan government announce that it and Sasktel will fund a 129 million dollar project to bring high speed Internet coverage to 100 percent of the province and also cellular coverage to 98 percent of the population for Saskatchewan.

I think this is a admiral feat by the Sask Party and Sasktel but I worry it will get bogged down in bureaucratic and cost inflation nightmares.

Lets hope that they can pull this off but also that they do not stop there. As this is fantastic news I worry that Sasktel is slow to innovation and dramatically behind in the technology. In fact if you look at the map here the first thing that glares out is the lack of EV-DO coverage (orange color). This coverage is minuscule compared to other providers and not to mention it is also old technology. today EV-DO is being replaced with 3G networks and in some location even 3.5G the upgrade to 3G. This puts Sasktel way behind the curve in regards to their cell technology and in fact Sasktel may find them struggling by the time they finish the upgrade because cell phone company like RIM, the maker of the Blackberry, Sasktel's Smart phone choice is now making cell phones that support 3G and other cell phone companies are starting to only offer phones to providers that have 3G coverage. if this trend continues Sasktel might be in a position of having to find a supplier of second hand phones because they can not get new one to sell.

Entry #13 I See Naughty Parts

Tech Humor

For those out there that have an iPhone beware it according to an innocent husband your iPhone might be taking pictures of you naughty parts and sending them to other people.
A recent form post to Apple a woman called Susan asked if it was possible for her husband's phone to take a picture of his genitals and sent it to another women without his knowledge.
Now I hope Susan is just doing this to embarrass her husband and has already kicked him to the curb. Because if this women is naive enough to think that this lame excuse is even remotely true, well then she deserves and moronic cheating husband.
First of all the man would have to be caring his phone in his underpants (nasty) and secondly since the iPhone does not have a flash he would have to be walking around with is pants open to get enough light down there to get any sort of picture. There is a reason they call it "the place where the sun does not shine."
So for the sake of humanity's intelligence will Apple please respond to this form post with a swift kick up the side of this woman's head.
On the bright side it appears that further down the forum Susan does claim she is suspicious of her husband but would like to remain open to the possibility. Susan also admits she is a former Apple Genius herself. Well now I can see why she is a former Genius if she thinks this is possible.
On the other hand you have to give the guy some credit for being gutsy enough to think this excuse might actually fly. Nice try sir, but next time you think of doing something on your phone you do not want your wife to see you might want to consider securing your phone first with a password.

Entry #12 Bore Me in 3D Now Please!

Internet

With the invention of digital cameras the world wide web would soon become bloated with pictures of drunken fools and a million pictures of each of your friends children. But now why settle for just 2D pictures when with Make3D, a online application developed by Ashutosh Saxena, a PHD candidate for Standford University that will allow you to take your photos and not only bore people in 2D but also in 3D! Ashuton says 3DMake is a program that explores "Learning algorithms to predict depth and infer 3-d models, given just a single still image."


The application examines the image and using what is call Markov Random Field (MRF), the application determines the dept of the image and objects in the image to try and extrapolate a 3D model.

Ashuton has written several papers on the subject and has also worked on other projects dealing with robotics and Navigation. So if you are into this sort of think the project is worth checking out.

Links http://make3d.stanford.edu/ http://ai.stanford.edu/~asaxena/

Entry #11 E-recycling is it Really Helping?

Tech News

While most time I like to write about the new and exciting news happening in the tech world, today I felt compelled to write on a more serious topic.
In today's times having the newest gadget has become an obsession and millions of people each year spend billions of dollars upgrading their computers, cell phones, and televisions. and with LCD TVs and monitors getting cheaper and more energy efficient more and more people are throwing out there old CRT monitors and buying LDC monitors.
So you might think you are helping the environment by buying an energy efficient LCD monitor. But what are you doing with the old monitor? A year ago you would have thrown it into the garbage devastating our land fills and polluting the ground because on average a 17" CRT monitor contains 8lbs of lead. Now today people can take those monitors and other electronics into a recycling depot and have them properly recycled and the hazardous material like the lead disposed of properly, or so you thing. CBS 60 minutes has just released a report that shows that in a lot of cases when you take that monitor into recycling to have the hazardous material disposed of properly the recycling companies are infact sending the electronics to poor parts of the world to fund gangs and poison children.
Places like China illegally buy the electronic and pay destitute people to meltdown the electronics to extract the precious metals within the compounds. Metals like copper, gold and silver are manually extracted using open flames and toxic baths. As shown in the 60 minute report these people are not only unprotected but breath the poison gases and are exposed to extreme amounts of lead in there water and food.
So next time you upgrade to the newest cell phone or larger computer and take the old computer to be recycled ask the recyclers what "actually" happens to the computer you might be surprised that being green does not always mean you are helping the planet.