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Canadian tech: thriving, not vanishing

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By Mark Evans According to a feature story in Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Canada’s tech sector is vanishing. Not only that but “the air is quickly coming out of Canada’s high tech sector – or what’s left of it.” First reaction: this is a troubling situation. Second reaction after reading the lengthy story: It’s an […]

Think you bought that DVD? Think again.

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By John Klein (aka Saskboy) Imagine buying a house, and being locked out of the basement by the previous owner. That’s what digital locks do. If you’ve been following Canadian politics, particularly the new Copyright Act (Canada’s DMCA) Bill C-11, you’ve heard of “digital locks.” A digital lock, or Digital Rights/Restrictions Management (DRM), is a […]

RIM: An ex-insider on what will happen next

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By Ruth Haworth The Globe & Mail revealed earlier this week that Research in Motion is planning large layoffs in the next couple of weeks, probably more than 2,000 of its 16,500 worldwide workforce. I got out just in time: I resigned from RIM so recently that my last day was this week and I […]

RCMP: Really Carefully Monitoring People

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By John Klein (aka Saskboy) How can I write this without sounding, well, paranoid? I believe the RCMP is watching too many people, and abusing its resources. There are plenty of signs this is taking place. And proliferating tech gadgets and social media are only making the matter worse. It worries me. The police should […]

U.K. assaults Pirate Bay — and digital rights

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By Saskboy Children learn how to use computers and work around restrictions by experimentation and reading. So too must adults when they are confronted with restrictions. It’s a good idea to learn how to evade censorship before the flow of information is shut off — otherwise, working around the problem becomes much more difficult because […]

Carbon capture: Opportunity cost; opportunity, lost

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By Saskboy One of the more ridiculous logical fallacies that climate change denialists use is that carbon dioxide can’t be pollution because it can also be breathed by plant life. It’s really sweet they care so much about plants’ respiration, but I’m a little more concerned with the survivability of humanity. (Never mind that most […]

Let’s get this party started

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By Mark Evans South of the border, the party is raging. You can almost hear Prince’s “1999″ playing in the background as startups find themselves being courted by investors and snapped up for eye-popping amounts. The current case in point is Facebook’s $1-billion purchase of Instagram, which is staggering any way you want to slice […]

Ottawa ventures forth

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By Mark Evans While Canada’s venture capital sector is showing signs of improvement, it is a long way from being robust, let alone healthy. So it was encouraging to see the Conservatives commit $500-million to support venture capital initiatives. The support consists of $400-million into VC investment, although the details have not been disclosed yet, […]