Lots of neat discussion in the United States in the wake of last Sunday's column by Frank Rich in the New York Times. The piece was titled "Napster runs for president in 04". In it Rich says that Big Media -- the NY Times, the Washington Post, American network television ...   more »

Matt Goyer is almost finished his studies at the University of Waterloo, a school famous for turning out top techies. (Research in Motion and lots of other top Canadian tech companies set up shop within spitting distance of the U of W campus). He was keen to put ...   more »

Following up on my earlier post about the popularity of Apple's retail stores with customers in Tokyo, we're now hearing from an Apple vice-president that says it's harder to get a job at Apple's retails stores than it is to get into Stanford University. Apple VP says the company has ...   more »

Canadians would rather buy wi-fi access by the hour than by the day, says a study published this month by the Ottawa office of Decima Research, a polling and market research firm. In quizzing actual and potential users of wi-fi hotspots, Decima found that Canadians would rather pay-as-they-surfed, buying ...   more »

Consultancy International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass. has published its predictions for the IT industry for 2004 and they're relatively thought-provoking, as lists at this time of year ought to be. Here's what Frank Gens, senior VP, research at IDC has to say about 2004: A tech resurrection will occur...   more »

Apple Computer has seens sales of its products revitalized partly by a neat retail strategy, that has seen Apple stores open in trendy urban shopping areas, such as Chicago's Miracle Mile. Apple recently opened its first store in Tokyo. Interest in Apple products there is apparently high -- and their ...   more »

The Guardian has named Britain's best bloggers, a fairly daunting task if you ask me but that's what newspapers are supposed to do; initiate discussion and I'm sure this list will do just that. Even if you're not interested in the best blogs Britain has to offer. Some good ...   more »

Tara Calishain, super-searcher and compiler of the excellent Research Buzz newsletter reports that Google has quietly added some new search capabilities, many of which will be boon for reporters. You can now search by certain kinds of classification numbers -- UPS and FedEx tracking numbers, for example, or U.S. ...   more »

There were two other competitors ahead of Canada's Becky Scott when she finished the 5-km cross country skiing pursuit event at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Earlier this year, we learned that the second place finisher, a Russian woman, was cheating with banned performance-enhancing doping. Today, it ...   more »

Seth Jayson misses the point or, perhaps worse, misses the real reasons to criticize a recent Copyright Board of Canada decision. Among other things, Canadian consumers will pay up to $25 extra for an MP3 player, money which will be distributed to Canadian songwriters. Jayson missed the big point ...   more »