When I was a kid, my mother and father handed me an Atari computer. When I opened the box, plugged it into the TV, and fired it up, well.. it didn’t do anything. Â As I quickly realized, I had to make it do something. Â The first thing I set out to do with this...
Why is it that every time a politician feels themselves sagging in the polls, they invoke some improbable, obviously impossible, pipe dream about the space program? Â This pantomime is almost invariably played out in front of a NASA audience in Cape Canaveral,...
** This post originally appeared on TechVibes. Go read it there. I have a spotty track record for timing on predictions, but that doesn’t stop me from making them. Having studied the influence of technology and media on societies, and having worked in the...
I have been struggling (quite publicly) to condense why Steve Jobs is so unique and important to us all into a crisp, clear thought. Â It’s difficult, of course, given the breadth and depth of his influence. Â When talking to a CBC reporter by phone this evening...
Every time I watch an Apple announcement such as this morning’s, I am reminded of a series of vision videos that Apple produced with Alan Kay in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Apple seems to be steadily and unflinchingly chipping away at every aspect...
Much glee and angst is being expressed over RIM’s current “transition”. The whole situation has become so theatrical and cliched that yesterday I was compelled to tweet my observation that RIM’s current transition in the SmartPhone market is...
Many columns of text and tweets are dedicated to the emulation of Silicon Valley tech companies in our industry. My obvious response to this is: why bother? We will never have all of the same advantages of Silicon Valley — if you truly think that it is the...
In 2008, PavCo, a crown corporation taxed with operating Vancouver’s 55,000 seat BC Place Stadium, announced a $150M renovation which would include the replacement of BC Place’s inflatable roof with a retractable cloth roof. This was likely their way of...
In 1999 I was an obscure Product Manager working in the Packet Telephony Division at Cisco Systems. After digging through the SIP specification I realized that, if implemented as I’d hoped it would be, SIP would be a tremendous catalyst for expansion within the...
