Gizmodo
taser
Posts Tagged “Canada”
taser
apple
Canadian iPod Owners Get $44 Each For Crappy Battery Life (Thanks, Budday!)
I love when life imitates art. A few weeks after a South Park episode where indignant Canadians go on strike and are rewarded with Bennigan's coupons, indignant Canadian iPod owners go to court and win roughly the equivalent of a meal at Bennigan's: $44. Why? Because the 1G, 2G and 3G iPods that were supposed to have battery life of up to 8 hours instead delivered a paltry 3 hours, according to two separate rulings in Canadian court. Still up for settlement: the lawsuit by the Canadian gentleman who discovered that his 8GB nano only has 7.45GB of storage. He wants $220, but he'll take $92. [InformationWeek]
gaming
Weird Combo of the Day: More Cowbell Hat With Purchase of Rock Band or Guitar Hero III
If there's one thing Canadians know how to do, it's party it up with either Rock Band or Guitar Hero III. Seen in this flyer by reader John, you get a free "More Cowbell" hat whenever you buy either of the two games. Walken, who made another appearance on SNL over the weekend (monologue was great, the rest was meh), would approve. [Thanks John!]
happy hookah
Hookah Table Not What It Sounds Like, Thank Gawd
Not something that you frak your lady of the night on top of, nor anything to do with William Shatner, Adrian Zmed and Heather Locklear, the Hookah Table is a customized table that you can get high on, as well as under. Costing around $600 bucks, there's a bowl on top, which I guess you can put the salt in when your folks come round for dinner, and four hoses for you and your mates to suck on after your Mom has done the washing up and the coast is clear. You can choose from loads of different finishes (sadly, Happy is not one of them) but I'm sure if Ms Locklear makes it to yours you could ask her if she's up for it. [Hookah Tables via BallerHouse]
gadgets
Gen-X Author Douglas Coupland Claims that Technology Makes Idiots of Us All
Douglas Coupland has been drafted in to fill Stephen Fry's shoes on his tech column Dork Talk, while the British polymath recovers from a broken arm. The Canadian author and artist has tackled the subject of gadgets and obsolescence, taking as his starting-point the fact that the box of techno-baubles he received from The Guardian in London were all unworkable in North America. And this got him thinking, about how time is now measured in "tech-waves." If that's the case, then what era are we currently in? More »
moose
The secret of a moose's exceptional hearing is down to its antlers, apparently. Scientists have discovered that those cool, gnarly things that look so fabulous perched atop the furry freaks act as amplifiers, allowing Mr Moose to be able to hear things up to 2 miles away. Added to the animal's already acute hearing—it's to do with its large ears that rotate in almost every direction, apparently—antlers improve the beast's audio capacities by as much as 19 per cent.
More »
Scientists Discover that Moose Antlers Act as Amplifiers
The secret of a moose's exceptional hearing is down to its antlers, apparently. Scientists have discovered that those cool, gnarly things that look so fabulous perched atop the furry freaks act as amplifiers, allowing Mr Moose to be able to hear things up to 2 miles away. Added to the animal's already acute hearing—it's to do with its large ears that rotate in almost every direction, apparently—antlers improve the beast's audio capacities by as much as 19 per cent.
More »
identity crisis
Photographer Mistaken for Gunman
Sheridan College in Ontario was locked down last Friday because it was suspected a gunman was on the premises. Thankfully, it was a false alarm, but how do you mistake a gunman? Apparently, all it took was a lone photographer, some camouflage cargo pants and his free-standing tripod. More »
ces 2008
Right this minute, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is taking the stage to face the adoring throngs at CES for the last time. Before he moves on to the greater task of solving the world's problems, he will look back on his previous keynotes, talk about where Microsoft is headed, and make a few final announcements. Here are the Cliff's Notes to his last CES speech ever:
More »
Bill Gates Farewell CES Keynote Cheat Sheet
Right this minute, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is taking the stage to face the adoring throngs at CES for the last time. Before he moves on to the greater task of solving the world's problems, he will look back on his previous keynotes, talk about where Microsoft is headed, and make a few final announcements. Here are the Cliff's Notes to his last CES speech ever:More »
made fresh daily
Umbra Concept Store Gets a Replicator
Umbra, known for low-cost designy plastic kitchen and bathroom tchotchkes, seems like the perfect brand to start doing in-store fabrication of its less microchippy wares. Up in Toronto, Umbra's concept store features a 3D printer, and designers come to the store to work, creating models of their designs—you can see what looks like little candleholders or something to the left of the system. This isn't a full-fledged factory, but seeing this makes it easy to appreciate the old wax-toy machines, updated for the 21st century. Now, if only someone could make a 3D printer that didn't look so, well, 25th century. [Make]
alienating aliens
Boffins Say E.T. Too Bored By Our Messages To Phone Home
Radio messages we've sent whizzing out into space over the years to try to contact aliens may simply be too boring for extra-terrestrial beings to answer, say a couple of Canadian astrophysicists. Tedious bits of math, physics and biology normally on offer may just be intellectual spam to alien minds. Find out what boffins Yvan Dutil and Stephane Dumas suggest we should send instead after the jump. More »
lights
Neighbor-Networked Christmas Lights Are Four Shades of Awesome
Whatever Christmas light scheme your dad cooked up as a kid most likely pales in comparison to these four Canadian families, who connected their Xmas lights together in a network-choreographed way. As you can see in the video, the lights go off according to pre-programmed timers (like the water fountains at the Bellagio) that are posted on their website so you can sync your own house up to them. Better yet, you can even log on and change their patterns yourself either from your desktop or your BlackBerry. Best. Lights. Ever. [Calico.whittaker.ca via BlackBerry Cool]
read the fine print
Canadian Hoser Runs Up $85,000 Mobile Phone Bill
How do you manage to run up an $85,000 mobile phone bill you ask? Apparently, 22-year-old Calgary native Piotr Staniaszek was under the impression that his $10 "unlimited browser plan" on Bell Mobility gave him carte blanche to use his cellphone as a PC modem. Unfortunately, when a $60,000 bill arrived in his mailbox for the month of November he learned the hard way that this was not the case. The charges were later upped to $85,000 "because the company was charging him on a per-kilobyte basis." More »
7:30 PM on Thu Dec 13 2007
By Sean Fallon
15,123 views,
72 comments
Latest by ethanlechcharles: Has anyone else realized that bell doesn't support gsm phones? more »
apple
Apple Takes iTunes TV to Canada
Today, TV programming from Canada and the US—plus the NHL, eh—will be available north of the border on iTunes. You lucky ducks (looneys?) get such CBC and CTV smash hits as Corner Gas and Little Mosque on the Prairie along with US programming from the likes of Comedy Central, including the strangely inappropriate South Park. (What ever happened to "Blame Canada"?) Canada has only had to wait two years for access to TV shows on iTunes. By my calculations, that means Apple is still well ahead of TiVo in terms of serving the media needs of our hockey-loving northern brethren. More »
jesus wept
Canadians Finally Get TiVo
Every once in a while we read a mundane press release—in this case, announcing that Canada gets TiVo—and just start laughing. Poor Canada is finally getting TiVo service, "just in time for the holiday season." But that's not the funniest part. The only hardware available will be the TiVo Series2, standard def, last gen DVR for 199 CAD. Merry Christmas, Canada. Now I know how Koreans look at American cellphone technology. On an unrelated note, Gizmodo will be starting a DVR drive for an unspecified, commercial-pausing-impoverished North American country. Here's the full TiVo press release: More »
aiko
I can't see Aiko, seen here last week at the Ontario Science Center, being the world's favorite fembot — For starters, she's a dowdy dresser. And secondly, she will slap your face if you try and get busy with her breasts without chatting her up first. She's the creation of Le Trung, who has developed the B.R.A.I.N.S (Bio Robot Artificial Intelligence Neural System) software, controlling Aiko's speech, reading, math, vision, colors, hearing, automation and sensors. Her attitude makes a change from the last laydee android we featured on the Giz, who looked like a missing teen forced to do rude things to her kidnappers. Anyway, the poor girl needs a new wardrobe. Anyone like to help her out? [Project Aiko and YouTube via The Raw Feed]
World's Worst Fembot Slaps Your Face When You Touch Her Boobs
I can't see Aiko, seen here last week at the Ontario Science Center, being the world's favorite fembot — For starters, she's a dowdy dresser. And secondly, she will slap your face if you try and get busy with her breasts without chatting her up first. She's the creation of Le Trung, who has developed the B.R.A.I.N.S (Bio Robot Artificial Intelligence Neural System) software, controlling Aiko's speech, reading, math, vision, colors, hearing, automation and sensors. Her attitude makes a change from the last laydee android we featured on the Giz, who looked like a missing teen forced to do rude things to her kidnappers. Anyway, the poor girl needs a new wardrobe. Anyone like to help her out? [Project Aiko and YouTube via The Raw Feed]
toronto
Biggest BSOD of All Time?
At one of Toronto's locations of The Bay department store, four giant screens have suffered from the infamous Blue Screen of Death for days. You'd think that someone would, I dunno, turn off the freakin' screens. Or, at minimum, there's gotta be some 2.4gHz nanny cam feed they could leech for at least a few days before anyone complained. Because after the first 24 hours or so of BSOD, we begin to think that they like the aesthetic. [freshdaily]
lame
Copyright Board of Canada Plans to Tax Legal Music Downloads
Oh, Canada. You already tax MP3 players and blank CDs. Now you want to tax downloads themselves? The Copyright Board of Canada has given the thumbs-up to a tax of at least 2.1 cents for individual tracks and 1.5 cents per track for whole album purchases from online stores. Even subscription services will have taxes tacked on—5.7 to 6.8 percent of the monthly fee. Better still, the tax would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 1996. More »
hockey
