Google gets Bingified

Although Microsoft’s Bing has only made a minor, though respectable dent in the search market, it’s certainly been more effective than Redmond’s past efforts, holding 2nd place, what with it providing backend support for Yahoo search, and making deals to get on the iPhone. Last month, Google‘s search results got a makeover, which gave them a much more ‘bing-like’ look, and now Google’s gone one step further.  The Google home page now has an image background, just like Bing.  Although it doesn’t feature the ‘hotspots’ of Bing where you can…

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NSFW – TCAF 2010 – Evan Dorkin Interview

Evan Dorkin, creator of books such as Hectic Planet and Milk & Cheese, and writer of the new Beasts Of Burden, gives us more of his time than he probably expected. In this wide ranging, NSFW, funny, insightful, some would say meandering – Alex and Evan talk about everything from Bangladesh to pop culture, cross dressing to ELO, and even the state of comics today.

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iPhone 4 Retina Display – pixel density does matter

At the WWDC keynote on Monday one of new iPhone 4 features that Apple focused on was the 960×640 Retina display, claimed to be the “highest-resolution phone screen ever”. While I initially dismissed its worth as typical Apple hyperbole, an interesting article on tested.com has made me think otherwise Computer screens aren’t getting any bigger — in fact, they’ve only continued to shrink. While larger displays continue to dominate the upper end of the spectrum, an increasing number of manufacturers are producing netbooks and tablets more suitable for Middle Earth…

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Crackdown animated part 3 “The Virus: What We Know” released

With the release of Crackdown 2 just a few weeks away (our hands on, and interview is here), the third part in the animated series, has hit YouTube.  This time around we’re treated to a public service announcement narrated by the Voice of the Agency himself, warning the population of the deadly Freak virus. It’s all part of laying the groundwork for the backstory of the game.  Of course, in the PSA, they lay the blame for the virus on one Catalina Thorne.  Having played the first Crackdown, I’d say…

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Rogers accidentally confirms that they will carry the Sony Ericsson X10 Mini and X10 Mini Pro

Rogers was the first North American carrier to release the Xperia X10, Sony Ericsson’s first Android smartphone (Our review of this 4″ screen flagship phone is coming soon), and soon Rogers will also be the first carrier to offer the X10’s younger siblings, the X10 Mini, and X10 Mini Pro.  Even though neither Sony Ericsson, nor Rogers  have officially announced that either of these phones will be coming to Canada, it has been rumoured for a while that they would. Now we have confirmation – on the Rogers on Demand…

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Bill C-32 and digital locks

When the Canadian government put forth it’s new copyright bill last week there were few surprises. The new bill still supports making circumvention of digital locks illegal, thereby negating many of the fair dealing provisions allowed for in the Conservative’s ‘new and improved’ version of bill C-61.  Support for freeing up the DRM section of bill C-32 has been growing since it’s announcement. Besides the large swath of consumers opposed to DRM’ed content, groups such as The Canadian Booksellers Association and the Retail Council of Canada are saying “some parts…

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iPhone 4 announced, coming to Canada ‘in the coming weeks’

Yesterday was Apple’s annual WWDC, where they have announced each new iPhone model since 2008. This year the worst kept secret in recent memory, the iPhone 4, was detailed in Steve Job’s keynote speech, and, unlike previous years, there weren’t that many surprises. Everything lined up with the leaked images and specs, and rather than repeat what most of you have already read, you can go to Apple’s iPhone 4 page here for more details. The keynote was notable, though, for what was not mentioned — the rumoured trackpad we…

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Bell Motorola DEXT review

At the height of the RAZR’s success, Motorola was a force to be reckoned with in the mobile space, but the migration to an increasingly smartphone world has left Motorola behind.  To make make a push back into the phone market, they’ve decided to hitch their wagon to Google’s Android train, with the announcement of the qwerty keyboard packing CLIQ in the US last fall.  To appeal to social networking aficionados, the CLIQ and it’s brethren are adorned with Motorola’s custom UI called MOTOBLUR, which provides a constant feed of…

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Apple’s Magic Trackpad leaked before WWDC?

A series of images has popped up on Engadget showing an as of yet unannounced Apple trackpad accessory aimed at desktop computers.  It may also include handwriting recognition.  Though there’s nothing official, it’s seems very likely to be real, as there have been trademark registrations for the name Magic Trackpad.  On that note, what is it with Apple’s need to brand everything as magical?  It strikes me as an abuse of Clarke’s Third Law, which states “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” With WWDC just a few hours…

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Steve Jobs: The Boy Who Cried HTML5

Ever since the Apple vs. Adobe tiff escalated to open letters and snark, the press has been eagerly gobbling this up as fodder to support the horse they’re backing.  I’d say that few have actually stepped back to say that both sides are at least partially to blame. Apple wouldn’t have any ammo to fire at Adobe, if Adobe itself had actually delivered better mobile Flash technology much sooner.  In the past it dabbled in Flash Lite, which gave some minor functionality, but it’s not until the past couple of…

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Computex 2010 – tablet fever

The Computex Taipei trade show is the largest computer and electronics trade show in Asia, and one of the largest in the world, with over 1000 exhibitors this year. Like CES held in the US every January, it’s a place where you really get a good pulse on where manufacturers are focusing their energies, and what to expect to hit shelves over the next 6-12 months. At the 2010 Computex, which just wrapped, one thing is clear. Expect a lot of tablets coming down the pike. There are a number…

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