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Banning gadgets while driving in Canada

The Canadian Automobile Association is going one step beyond banning just cellphones while driving in order to cut down on distractions while driving.  MP3 players and other portable electronics are the next thing on the list that they want Ottawa to consider, but the ban would only apply to new drivers in Canada.

The CAA called on all provincial governments to legislate a restriction on the use of electronic devices by novice drivers.

“We don’t want their minds taken off the driving task and we want them to keep their hands on the wheel,” said CAA president David Flewelling.  [lfpress]

The B.C. government has weighed in on the suggestion[vancouversun], sparing the west coast for now.  Their position makes sense.  Doing more to make the education of the driver is the better route to go.  You can only regulate so much before it becomes ineffective.

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It’s been flagged. It’s been in the bathroom.

iCartaThis is going a little bit too far. The iCarta lets you take your iPod into the bathroom with you. Why and for what reason? Because you can? But do you want to? I mean, I thought the click wheel on my mini got kind of filthy from my sweaty hands making mid-run adjustments, but this takes things to a whole new level.

The four external speakers are not the only cool feature of this “accessory”. It comes with two USB ports and charges your iPod while you… um… wait? It’s also waterproof and requires AC power.

Oddly enough, there is this news story coming out of Santa Clara, CA.

A pink iPod Mini, just four inches long, caused a huge headache for maintenance workers at the Santa Clara University for the last few months.

A female student accidentally dropped the iPod in the toilet.

It got stuck in a way that maintenance crews could not get it out. They told NBC11 News they first tried to break the iPod into pieces, but that failed. One maintenance worker called the device “indestructible”.

In order to get the iPod out from under that building, crews simultaneously flushed as many toilets as they could and they turned on every sink. That caused a water surge which pushed the iPod into a larger more accessible pipe.

It cost the university $1,000 a week to fix this problem. It took months.  [nbc11]

Something to make a mental note of when mounting your iCarta.

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The Bill Gates bomb just went off

Suddenly the richest man in the world wants to step down from his throne at Microsoft and the world erupts in a gasp. That might be overkill to say, but checking my RSS feeds yesterday and today, news of Bill Gates departure[googlenews] by 2008 was the headline all over the place.

Taking billions from his empire and applying his efforts towards his foundation is a very respectable move. I could say something about this being good for his company, but I won’t. It’s about time some one with influential power did something good for the world, and PC operating systems won’t solve those problems.

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Weird Al says he gets less when you go digital

I caught wind of this from Slashdot[article] and navigated back to the horse’s mouth, aka Weird Al Yankovic. According to the “Ask Al” section of his website, he claims that he’s actually losing money when you buy his music digitally from sources such as iTunes.

Tim Sloane of Ijamsville, MD asks: Al, which of these purchasing methods should I use in order to make sure the most profit gets to you: Buying one of your albums on CD, or buying one of your albums on iTunes?

I am extremely grateful for your support, no matter which format you choose to legally obtain my music in, so you should do whatever makes the most sense for you personally. But since you ASKED… I actually do get significantly more money from CD sales, as opposed to downloads. This is the one thing about my renegotiated record contract that never made much sense to me. It costs the label NOTHING for somebody to download an album (no manufacturing costs, shipping, or really any overhead of any kind) and yet the artist (me) winds up making less from it. Go figure. [weirdal]

I’m sure this can’t be said for all recording artists out there as this comes from his renegotiated contract. I wouldn’t put it past record companies to snag artists in situations like this, so it is something to really consider when signing with a label.

When it comes down to it, staying independent is a plausable way to go if you can handle the work. If you are working for yourself instead of a label, you might be able to support yourself better rather than having profits like this being plucked away from you, while being legally binded, I might add.

Additionally, Weird Al fans might be interested to know, if you don’t already, that you can expect a new album from him soon.  Apparently the album was slated to come out this month, but, you guessed it, problems with his record company has delayed the release.  In situations such as these, I should say that you shouldn’t expect the new album soon but instead that you can hope to see it be released by the end of the year.  The music industry can be kind of crappy like that.

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Flock to a new web browser

I’m using Flock to make this post as an experiment. I recall hearing a little about this web browser during its initial phase of development, but the beta 1 of the program was released today.

What’s the big deal? Well, users of FireFox would be interested to know that it is based on your beloved browser. Flock goes a little bit further to integrate many of the web tools that are quite popular these days, especially bloggers.

Flock is a free web browser that makes it easier than ever to share photos, stay up-to-date with news from your favorite sites, and search the Web. [flock]

That doesn’t sound overly impressive, but there’s more.

Some of the features include drag-and-drop photo uploading for Flickr and Photobucket, an in-built RSS aggregator, direct blogging tool(Blogger, Drupal, LiveJournal, MoveableType, Typepad and WordPress), and shared favorites/bookmarks. [slashdot]

The current release is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux, but remember that this is a beta. There are still bugs to work out of the browser, but my initial look at it is positive. Flickr support is pretty cool, but I haven’t really tried doing too much with uploading anything new. I have a handy widget for doing that.

We’ll see how this posts as my final test with it for today.

Blogged with Flock

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Problems with sweatshop labor and patents for Apple

There are a slew of problems brewing for Apple right now. It seems that Creative is going on the offensive once again about the iPod patent.

The U.S. International Trade Commission plans to launch an investigation into Apple Computer’s popular iPod digital music player for possible patent infringement, Creative Technology said Wednesday.

The ITC is an independent federal agency that reviews patent disputes for possible infringement and unfair trade practices. The commission’s decision to review the matter follows two lawsuits filed last month by Singapore-based Creative and its U.S. subsidiary, Creative Labs.

Creative, maker of the rival Zen portable digital media player, alleges that Apple’s iPod infringed on its user interface patent for its Zen and Nomad digital media players. [cnet]

The iPod woes continue with recent claims that factories in China, where iPods are manufactured, have extremely harsh working conditions for its workers.

Over the past week, a firestorm has brewed over a report in Britain’s Mail on Sunday which claimed extremely harsh working conditions at iPod factories. The original story is not available online, but Arstechnica has posted a good summary of the article.

In brief, two factories were visited by Mail on Sunday reporters. The first factory was found to be forcing its staff to work 15 hour days for $50 USD per month. The second facility benefited from being in closer proximity to Shanghai, and workdays were shortened to 12 hours/day and workers were paid almost $100 USD per month. Security guards were paid up to $150 USD per month, although much of that had to be paid back to the company for housing and food. In addition to long hours, work days were said to often be accompanied by military-style drills. [macrumors]

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Vancouver video podcast: ThisCityRocks.com

ThisCityRocks.comI read a post[upinontario] some days ago about ThisCityRocks.com and finally got around to watching the first episode today. I have to say that I liked what I heard and saw. The production quality is pretty impressive, and their concept has plenty of material. At least it puts my video podcast work to shame, but I’m not using superb cameras or video editing equipment. There’s a little more talent going on here.

ThisCityRocks is a weekly video magazine, focusing on the music scene in Western Canada and the Vancouver Area. The 5-7 minute magazine-style show features live footage and profiles with musicians, plus a “what’s on” preview for the week ahead. The video podcast is distributed free through iTunes and the Internet. [thiscityrocks]

The hardest thing to do with podcasts is providing timely information. The “what’s on” segment at the end of the episode displays days of the week and not the actual dates of the events they highlight. At the same time, I’m not a person who rushes to each and every podcast that comes in. Watching this episode, all these events have passed. I like getting the info, but tweeking how it’s delivered might help with the “podcast time delay”.

Other than that, I have to say that I dig it. There is plenty of content to choose from within Vancouver alone. They’ve already gone passed their promise of delivering weekly episodes, but all good things come in due time.

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RadioZoom Episode #96

Published and released today, episode #96 of my podcast is out for the world’s listening.

An all World Cup episode with no preperation at all. I won’t claim to know anything about anyone in the tournament, but experiencing it in Vancouver is amazing. I captured some audio of people celebrating Korea’s win this morning from the balcony of the apartment. Otherwise, just some general discussion on what it’s like being in the international city that Vancouver is during such an international event. [radiozoom]