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Suneet Singh Tuli explains the origin of Datawind's products; a vision for equality in education. After the first product presentation to the Indian government in 2003, the format of the product evolved substantially: from television add-on to tablet bundled with free Internet access! Videoed at CDMN Canada 3.0 in May 2013.

The examination of the proposed Bell acquisition of Astral Communications took place last week in Montreal with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearing from a wide range of supporters and opponents of a deal that only last year was rejected as contrary to the public interest.

Don Tapscott discusses radical openness; the subject of a book he co-authored with Anthony Williams and a concept currently important in many areas of business and life. The interview was conducted at the Live Pitch-Off event of the 2nd Annual Backbone Start Me Up Innovation Campaign on May 6, 2013 in Toronto.

In early April, I attended a seminar on mobile technology and Canada's economy presented by Backbone magazine and the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance.

Soon after the publication of my column on the digital divide in Canada, I received the following email from a reader, who lives just north of Toronto (FWIW, I've received similar letters from people within the City of Ottawa limits). The reader reacts to both the lack of access and the efforts of Xplornet to stop the government from supporting communities without access.

The educational benefits of digital and interactive media are well established. Even considering this, I am surprised how seldom my young daughter has had the chance to use educational technology. Her schools have made spartan and prosaic use of computers. Even with me working in digital media, I haven't exposed my kid to that much tech beyond online and console games.

Last year at this time, I posted on the importance of recognizing Canadians working in digital media in both the content and technology sides. I urged people to nominate someone in the sector for Canada's Walk of Fame. So far, it's been a complete shut-out for this sector - which inarguably has a huge impact on Canadian culture, identity, and daily life.

People are once again talking about Yahoo! Its new CEO Marissa Mayer recently decided to reel employees back into the office, cancelling or curtailing the option employees had to work where and when they wished. This has left many grumbling as they say goodbye to home offices and hello to the daily grind of commuting to centralized cubicles.

If you’re still getting your head around the concept of the Internet of Things, I have bad news: there’s a new buzz term in town, and it’s even bigger and more complicated.

Canada’s federal government recently announced a Start-Up Visa Program aimed at attracting inter­na­tional entre­pre­neurs to the country.

Hot topic lately, and time will tell if old school work-at-your-desk policies will save Yahoo. Personally, I think remote working is great for certain types of people and situations, but for the masses, bad idea. Gee, can you tell that I work from home?

The movie Argo may have picked up the biggest prize in last week's Academy Awards ceremony, but it was the Best Documentary Short winner that had many on the Internet buzzing.

The world of IT employment has changed over the decades. When I graduated from Western University in 1969 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, computers were new, networks didn’t exist as we know them now and there were plenty of full-time opportunities to be had.

There is a weird story unfolding right now centred on business negotiations between US network AMC and cable giant Rogers. It seems the two are in some sort of dispute, that the disagreement has dragged on, and that AMC has set a deadline for its resolution.

Windows 8 is huge for Microsoft. It is a radical design departure, it is an attempt to unify tablet and PC interfaces (and by so doing make a larger statement on the direction of modern computing) and it is the pony Microsoft and its hardware partners are riding as buyers increasingly eschew traditional computers for tablets.

Amazon Canada recently launched its Prime service in Canada.

Primus Canada has spun its more-than-a-decade of data centre and managed services expertise into BLACKIRON Data—a division of the company made up of its eight Canadian data centres, cloud products and managed services.

Yesterday at the Dell World conference in Austin, Texas, a colleague made an astute observation during a BYOD panel discussion. My tweet of his comment read “Good point from the audience: companies face a flood of BYOD devices on Jan. 7, once the presents come to work. #DellWorld”

 

I recently signed out magazines from my nearby public library for recreational reading on a flight. I still like reading print, but don't like spending the $6 or more magazine now costs. Granted they were a bit old, but applicable to my research interests.

Don Tapscott talks on the possibility of rebuilding our civilization’s institutions, which date back to the industrial age, around a new set of principles. His engaging anecdotes include the role of social media played in his neighbour’s search for gold.

RIM shared some good news with the world recently. (The less charitable among us will characterize the news as “less bad than expected” but we’ll ignore those people for now.)

Our article “Ready to go cashless?” (September 2012 issue) is a good read and asks a good question: do Canadians want to get rid of their card-stuffed wallets and embrace electronic payment systems?

It is an important week for “infrastructure” in Canada. Starting today (09-10-2012), Regina will be hosting the second-ever National Infrastructure Summit. Hundreds of delegates from the public and private sector will come together to not only discuss the state of Canada’s infrastructure, but also to explore opportunities and solutions in finance, policy, innovation, and citizen engagement.

Summer is rarely a time of heated broadcast policy battles, but the proposed Bell - Astral merger has generated considerable public attention and fostered a growing war of words between Bell and groups that have banded together under the "Say No to Bell" banner.

Or: how to delight your users, appease Google and stop fearing each new update. For years now marketers have been using a combination of content, code, metrics and hearsay to nurture search engine traffic. It was like the Wild West, with SEO experts trying this or that new technique to game the search engines and rank better… until each next Google update.

Embedded below is a graphical look at what a Bell-Astral combined entity might look like in the United States (courtesy of Telus).