If you’re pressed for time, scrub ahead and start watching at the 27:49 mark to see:

• Ian Morrison proclaiming that there’s insufficient bandwidth to watch television online. O RLY? Here, let me Google that for you…
• Norm Bolen talk about increased ad revenues from US programming, like that’s a good thing for Canadian content…?
• (best of all) Norm’s head on the verge of ass-ploding as #copyfight superstar Michael Geist talks about his own TV viewing habits.

If you’re not familiar with the current fee-for-carriage war between cable companies and broadcasters in this country, this essay echoes my own feelings on the matter.

Anyway, another win for The Agenda!

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous

Click here to watch video.

Considering that text messages cost my carrier absolutely nothing to provide, I find it a bit ridiculous that when abroad I have to pay an additional ¢75 per sent message, or purchase a temporary SMS travel package in advance.

Fortunately, there’s another, better way. Check out the video above to see FishText in action. It’s a Java app so it’ll work on pretty much every handset out there, even your stupid iPhone — and if you don’t want to pay for data roaming it’ll even work over WiFi.

How brilliant is that?

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous

Hollywood has claimed that they don’t know how to market the film or that it doesn’t have an audience, and what BitTorrent has done in the last four days is prove, unequivocally, that Hollywood is wrong.

via torrentfreak.com

First thing, here’s the direct link to the BitTorrent file so you can start downloading your own copy now. If you don’t know how BitTorrent works, call me up and I will burn a disc of the film and walk it over to you.

It’s that good.

Furthermore, it stands to be the first major success of BitTorrent as a distribution model. It’s not the first — Nasty Old People will go in the record books for that — but with upwards of half a million downloads it’s now one of the top 20 feature releases in the world. And all without Hollywood’s help.

At this point the filmmakers no longer need Hollywood. Instead, they’re appealing directly to their audience to monetize their efforts:

We’re not looking to get rich, but would like to pay back our investors and the enormous amount of personal debt we’ve gone into making the film. We’re also not looking to make Hollywood films (Jamin has had several opportunities) and plan on continuing the march of making fiercely independent films. In order to do that we have to count on the power of the people, eyeballs all over the world and torrenters to throw our film a few bucks apiece. It’s the indie film model of the future and we appreciate each and every person who takes the time to watch our film. It appears we’re all rebels here… so let’s wave that flag proud.

This is the second reason why you need to see this film. The first is because it’s fucking fantastic!

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous

The mind-blowing CupCake 3D printer…

Walking into something like HackLabTO can a little intimidating for a n00b like yours truly, but man, am I glad I went!

Highlights include:

• My first successful lock-picking (hi mom!);
• A future promise of playing with an OpenMoko FreeRunner handset, courtesy of Mike from Germany;
• Knowing that the future is in good hands with dedicated young journalists like Luke and Steph from Ryerson, and their MakerCulture blog.

Many thanks to my new friend Jaya for insisting that I attend. And in case you missed it, here’s a Qik video tour I took on-site:

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous

via youtube.com

Contrary to what you might think Nokia does indeed spend great gobs of money on marketing — they just do it largely on the interwebs, where it’s often harder to get noticed.

It may or may not help matters that the N900’s key features aren’t spelled out for you like you’re some kind of mouth-breathing idiot, but rather embedded in a dramatic scenario that would be right at home in an episode of LOST.

So what do you think? Does this ad make the N900 a must-have, or does it just confuse the hell out of you?

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous

ACTA: WTF? (.mp3)

Between secret talks and leaked docs, word has spread that U.S.-made copyright laws are headed to Canada through the back door. Is it true? A call for answers.

via tvo.org

If you meet any of the following requirements — i.e. you:

1. Live in Canada;
2. Care about copyright reform;
3. Want to keep our Internet open.

Then you must subscribe to this podcast now. End of story.

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous

Kudos to Emily Afan for finding extra time over and above her day gig at Kidscreen to pen no less than the cover story for the latest issue of Playback magazine.

Because it’s an industry insider thing you’ll have to pay for the privilege of reading it online, but if you live in Canada you can at least buy an olde tyme paper copy at your local newsstand.

Could this be a sign that Canada’s old media guard is finally catching a clue about — you know — what citizens are actually doing with their leisure time? Dare to dream…

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Download Episode

via dyscultured.com

I seem to be loosening up a bit more with each new episode, but feedback is always appreciated as this is my first foray into “serious” (i.e. non-parody) podcasting. For the parody stuff set your wayback machine to 2005 and check this out.

I also didn’t realize that I dropped the word jewfro twice. Please understand that I’ve nothing but respect for the tribe, but that hairstyle? Oy vey…

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous

(Check out the exclusive-to-TELUS “Canada Red” version of the Nokia E71… Beauty, eh?)

So today TELUS Mobility has also joined the HSPA party with their own SIM card (and therefore unlocked handset) friendly network. Earlier this week Simon Sage snuck me into a special preview of the new toys — behind the velvet ropes I was surprised to see my pal Hilen Wong, who had let me have a play with the then-secret HTC Hero at a dinner party a few weeks ago. Sometime that same afternoon, no less than Howard Chui got Hilen to demo the Hero and the new LG Chocolate for him:

TELUS has also stepped up to the plate with a very reasonable $10 CAD SIM card — for a new customer with their own unlocked handset that’s an absolute steal when compared to the $40 that Rogers charges for the same thing. More importantly, Canada finally has a level playing field for competition, though one or two additional options certainly couldn’t hurt…

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Yeah, it’s still the usual suspects — Bell Canada, Rogers and even (ugh) the iPhone — but at the very least Bell has finally broken the stranglehold that Rogers has had on GSM-based services in this country since they gobbled up Fido in 2004.

Staying true to the carrier spirit of rate obfuscation Bell has chosen to release different plans to different device platforms, because surfing the web on an iPhone is entirely different than doing the same thing on a Palm Pre — just like it is on Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux (not). Oh, and you’ll also be ponying up an additional $6.95 for the bullshit system access fee.

Still, as a whole the rates aren’t disastrously bad, and special offers are surely on the way as we get closer to the holiday season and Telus launches an HSPA network of their own. Personally I’m waiting for someone to step up and offer a contract term more reasonable than three years.

Any takers?

Posted via web from Andrew Currie on Posterous