Author: Doug Groves

dougplanet.com is his personal blog, which is withering on the vine. If you poke around it, you’ll find out that he’s an animator and broadcast designer by trade, usually pushing pixels in either After Effects or Lightwave 3D. If he absolutely had to pick a favourite all time writer, it would be Harlan Ellison more days than any other. If you don’t know who Ellison is, then Doug weeps for you. Doug also likes long walks on the beach, mainly to collect improperly discarded medical waste for an undisclosed project of epic proportions.

Zune HD coming to Canada

February 21, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Hardware, Microsoft, portable media player, x10, Zune HD2 Comments

Microsoft’s Zune HD portable media player, formerly only available in the US and UK, will be coming to Canada in the near future. Although first released in 2009, the hardware has never been available here. It’s curious that Microsoft would choose 2011 to bring their media player here, since they’ve been focusing on Windows Phone for their mobility solution as of late, including integrating many of the Zune features into their new phone platform. While the Zune software on PCs and the Xbox allows for both movie and TV rentals and purchases, it’s been noticably absent of music options here.

Netflix on Boxee Box – Happy Valentine’s Day

February 14, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Boxee Box, media player, Netflix, Software, streaming video, update3 Comments

It’s no secret that there are Boxee Box fans here at RGB. The coolest looking little media player has proven itself to be a very flexible workhorse. Today, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen posted that the newest update has started rolling out, and with it, the long-awaited Netflix compatibility for both the US and Canada.

Q&A with Telus on 4G

February 14, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves 4G, Canadian wireless, Dual Cell, HSPA, LTE, Q&A, rollout, Telus, WiMax2 Comments

Last week, Telus announced the arrival of its Dual Cell network, which could bring theoretical speeds of up to 42Mbps to their network, which doubles the HSPA+ technology being used today. The usage of the term 4G elsewhere has been met with some confusion, but with it getting wide use in the US for competing technologies, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing it happen here in Canada as well.

To get some clarification on the use of 4G, and what plans they have for LTE, we fired off some questions to Telus, and present the response below…

HTC HD7 now available on Bell

February 10, 2011February 14, 2011 Doug Groves Bell, HTC HD7, Microsoft, The Source, Windows Phone 7, Xbox Live1 Comment

While first announced a couple of months back, Bell has now launched the HTC HD7, including availabilty at The Source outlets, or at least the one I passed by when grabbing lunch. With the number of quality games that have already been released for the platform, the larger screen real estate makes for a great mobile gaming phone. The phone also comes bundled with Bell’s TV Remote PVR app, which allows Bell TV subscribers to manage their PVR away from home. Freatures include show search, schedule recording and remote control…

Clint Mansell to score Mass Effect 3

February 10, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Clint Mansell, Mass Effect 3, Pop Will Eat Itself, score composer, soundtrack, The Quietus2 Comments

In an interview with The Quietus, Clint Mansell let it slip that he’ll be scoring the third installment of Bioware’s Mass Effect franchise. Mansell is one of the best film composers working in Hollywood today. His work includes being the ‘go to’ composer for Darren Aronofsky, director of Pi, Requiem For A Dream and Black Swan. As the soundtrack for Requim so deftly illustrates, Mansell isn’t afraid to draw from a wide array of genres and styles to arrive at something unique. This blending of genres is nothing new for…

Bell admits to overstating customer data usage

February 9, 2011February 10, 2011 Doug Groves Bell, CRTC, UBB, Usage Based Billing1 Comment

In a case of extremely bad timing, The Star’s Moneyville site is reporting that Bell has been overestimating the data usage of some customers and charging them with data overage fees. This has forced Bell to take the data tracker offline for the time being.

Batman: Arkham City comics fill the gap between games

February 9, 2011February 11, 2011 Doug Groves Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Batman, Carlos D'anda, Comics, DC Comics, miniseries, Paul Dini, PC gaming, PS3, Rocksteady, Xbox 3602 Comments

I was really late to the game when Batman: Arkham Asylum came out in 2009. Even though it was a commercial and critical success, with most saying it was the best Batman game of all time, it struck me as faint praise, given what had come before. Last fall, I finally got around to picking it up, and I loved everything about it. The game captured the spirit of Batman better than anything outside the comics. Even if it were stripped of the Dark Knight’s trappings, the gameplay was fluid,…

Federal court kills Tory Wind Mobile decision

February 4, 2011February 10, 2011 Doug Groves canada, CRTC, Federal court, Globalive, government, legal, Public Mobile, Wind Mobile0 comment

It’s been a busy week for the Federal government and the CRTC. The latest is that Federal Court judge Roger Hughes has struck down 2009 Tory decision to overrule the CRTC when it comes to Globalive, best known as new mobile carrier Wind Mobile. The appeal to Federal Court was launched by new entrant rival Public Mobile, which claimed that the government had overstepped its bounds in allowing Wind to launch even though it didn’t meet CRTC Canadian ownership regulations. The judge has instituted a 45 day stay, which lets…

Duty Calls walkthough video

February 4, 2011February 5, 2011 Doug Groves Bulletstorm, CoD, demo, Duke Nukem, Duty Calls, FPS, Friday fun, humour, PC gaming, PS3, video, Xbox 3600 comment

Maybe it’s my lack of enthusiasm for the Call Of Duty franchise, or ‘real world’ first person shooters in general, but the above parody hit the nail on the head. On a related matter, if you haven’t yet tried the demo for Bulletstom, I can’t recommend it highly enough. The general mayhem in the demo suggests that unless Duke Nukem can bring his A game in the humour department, over the top FPS fun may have a new king.

Usage based billing debates are wrong… and here’s why

February 3, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Bell, CRTC, Jean-François Mezei, legal, net neutrality, Primus, Tony Clement, UBB, Usage Based Billing8 Comments

[Ed Note: this article was updated with new information] The Canadian government has once again promised to overturn a CRTC decision if the CRTC doesn’t do so itself. This time around, it’s the the contentious Usage Based Billing ruling that would have crippled 3rd party ISPs from differentiating themselves in the marketplace. It’s rare for the government to step into CRTC affairs, but with the UBB issue growing in public awareness and a deadline looming less than a month away, they’ve pulled out the big guns. After all, it was…

Android 3.0 Honeycomb event video

February 3, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Android, Honeycomb, marketshare, Motorola Xoom, Nvidia, tablet, tegra, Tegra 2, Xoom5 Comments

On Wednesday, Google held a major event to showcase its new Android 3.0 OS aka Honeycomb. The new OS is aimed squarely at the growing tablet market. The new design offers a cleaner look for Android, as well as a number of new features including the web accesible market.android.com and a new push on gaming. inclduing reusable “application fragments”. If I were the conspiratorial type, I’d say that Google is deliberately attempting to redefine ‘fragment’ in the context of Android. More seriously, the OS was demonstrated running on the Motorola Xoom tablet, powered by Nvidia’s Tegra 2 dual core chipset.

Canalys shows Android overtaking Nokia in the world

January 31, 2011September 26, 2012 Doug Groves Android, Apple, Blackberry, google, iOS, Microsoft, RIM, stats, Windows Phone 7, WP71 Comment

The latest US numbers from Canalys show that Android has now surpassed Nokia as the best selling smartphone OS in the world. Though it started off slow, Android grew from 8.7% of the market in Q4 2009 to a massive 32.9% in Q4 2010. The big drop was for Nokia, which plummeted from 44.4% to 30.6% in the same timespan. All other smartphones saw a drop as well, with Apple’s iOS dropping less than a percent, while RIM dropped almost 6%. Since Windows Phone 7 launched in the middle of…