And yet, despite such a resounding thumping, there is still a ring of truth to the original article. A niggling, unsettling je ne sais quoi that speaks to a core injustice that unsettles Canadian technophiles. It’s not that Vito’s arguments aren’t sound – it’s just that they’re so unsatisfying.

Sure, you could develop iPhone applications in the simulator - but you would miss the experience of using the device in your daily life, of truly understanding the implications, applications, and untapped potential of the device. And yes, you could curl up with an ebook on your laptop or smartphone - despite the fact that the form factor is completely uncomfortable, and the screen technology strains your eyes. And yes, you could take comfort in the fact that you’re no worse off than consumers in any other country outside the US.

But every day, you’d still be getting pummeled with advertising on TV, in magazines, and on the net about The Next Big Thing, How Great It Is, only to discover it’s Coming Real Soon to Canada. And it would eat at you.

It’s neither a new problem, nor is it limited to technology. If you’re Canadian, you probably have noticed there’s an awful lot of extremely successful Canadians and, oddly enough, they all seem to have become extremely successful by leaving Canada, working outside Canada, and living the rest of their lives outside Canada. And you’ve probably suffered the simultaneous sensations of both giddy pleasure and guilty shame when any of these representatives of the Great White North receive any recognition in international press. The un-articulated outrage expressed in the Macleans article is an extension of this festering inferiority complex that riddles the Canadian national psyche.

It reminds me of an American Express ad that ran in Canada a couple years ago: the advertisement espoused that you could live the life you wanted (presumably using an American Express), but carried the laughable legal rider “Offer not available in Quebec” – apparently if you lived in Quebec, you were out of luck. And that’s how technophiles feel when the invisible, intangible web of national borders and legal frameworks or the lack of an insufficiently large population base denies them access to new technologies. These technologies promise freedom, capabilities, possibilities - they promise the future, and yet in a cruel twist of fate, these promises are held just out of reach by rules that many technophiles regard as either antiquated or out of touch with the borderless landscape of the Internet.

So while I can’t say that Vito is wrong, I can’t bring myself to say that he’s right either. Yes, there are other, more complicated issues that retard the Canadian technology industry (Vito names telecommunications regulation, investment regulations). But getting people to stand up and force politicians to take action on these issues requires them to understand what’s at stake, and what’s in it for them. Macleans’ attempt to point out how Canada is missing out on the future, however small a piece of it, seems like a valid tactic despite the weakness of its execution.

And then my wife noted that the URL specified at the end of the alert led to a porn site. Whoops!

It turns out, some clever/enterprising/unscrupulous operator has hit upon an unusual opportunity. It turns out that the emergency alert was actually a commercial for a new show called Hotbox , and the associated URL for the show (www.hotbox/thecomedynetwork.ca) is incorrect. If the user enters this URL, then the user’s browser will attempt to correct the malformed URL into “www.hotbox.com/thecomedynetwork.ca” – which is a porn site. New versions of the commercial attempted to correct the URL to hotbox.thecomedynetwork.ca; however, this is still prime for a unique typing error – if the user simply mistypes the URL as “hotbox/thecomedynetwork.ca” they’ll end up at the same porn site.

Now, this could all be a coincidence/an error. But it’s especially funny given the faux Emergency Alert/ad states a “hotbox warning” is in effect for several towns with somewhat rude names: Shag Harbour, Crotch Lake, Little Bullhead, Beaverlodge.

It’s not that I’m against the border per se. Borders exist for a couple good reasons - ensuring the government’s ability to enforce laws, collect taxes, and keep out undesirables (although that seems to be increasingly interpreted as “primarily poor, unskilled immigrants”). That stuff is all good. Unfortunately, as technology becomes increasingly content-rich and network-dependent, we’re seeing a new generation of technologies that get tripped up at the border in the intricacies of international copyright law and licensing schemes.

I’m not the first one to lament the technologies not available in Canada from our neighbor to the south - Hulu, Mint, Netflix, an Amazon.com that doesn’t suck, hellooo? But this is nothing new for Canada - remember the iTunes store? Introduced in the US in April of 2003 and shortly thereafter in Canada in…December 2004. The streak continued with the iPhone (introduced in June 2007 in the US, July 2008 in Canada), and continues to this day with the continued unavailability of Amazon.com’s Kindle device. And, in case you didn’t realize, that last one also includes the Kindle iPhone App - it’s not available in Canada, which seems silly for a software application that can downloads books over wireless Internet.

In a world of technology that’s supposed enhance our capabilities and remove barriers to markets, it appears the last true barrier to market is still firmly in place. But why should we care? After all, all the innovations I’ve listed could be easily dismissed as trivial entertainment products. It’s not like we’re not getting access to lifesaving medical devices, right?

Wrong - that’s an incomplete and flawed argument. While it’s true these devices may appear to be frivolous, the future often arrives in unexpected forms. The real reason to be concerned about the unavailability of these services in Canada is that they impede Canada’s ability to innovate and to exploit new markets. In some cases, it is possible for engineers and others to work around the border - a US credit card here, a Washington state drop box there, a US IP address proxy service somewhere else - but these are all hacks. These hacks introduce friction, friction which slow down the system and places the country at a disadvantage to gain momentum.

If you’re a fan of Malcolm Gladwell, some of this argument might sound familiar. In his latest book, Outliers, Gladwell notes that many of the hockey players in the NHL are born between January 2nd, and the end of April. The reason? The cutoff dates for age brackets in the minor leagues is January 1st - meaning that anyone born on January 2nd ends up in a lower age bracket. These players’ age advantage translates into superior motor control and size - characteristics that predispose the players to appear more capable than others in their bracket. This means these players get picked for special coaching, which kicks off a virtuous feedback cycle. The players get better, and because they appear to be better players, they get more coaching, which makes them even better players. And so on.

The same is true for innovation. Without access to these products, Canada is placed at a disadvantage, just like a player born on January 1st. Smallest of the litter, slowest of the pack. Not only do our entrepreneurs not get the opportunity to build on top of these platforms, but our own companies are not forced to compete in the global market. This not only means that Canadians don’t get access to better products, but also that Canadians don’t learn how to build better products themselves for export to the world.

Canada needs to move quickly to remove this barrier, or we may end up finding ourselve out of much more than the latest shiny toy.

someone explain the logic behind cutting the CBC, maker of Hockey Night in Canada, and bailing out GM, maker of the Hummer?

Now, I’m hardly one to defend the bailout of the auto industry, but given that cars are amongst Canada’s biggest imports and exports it seems a prudent decision. After all, if you’re going to violate the laws of the free market, you might as well go big.

But that alone doesn’t seem like a justifiable reason to leave the CBC out in the cold, now does it? Yet I still have no sympathy for the CBC – why? Here’s why:

Unlike the BBC, which is typically led by a board-appointed media veteran, the CBC is often led by a political appointee. Like most of his predecessors, Mr. Lacroix has never had a top job in a media company. At the same time, he is accountable only to the Prime Minister.

So…the CBC is run by a guy who doesn’t have the requisite skills to do the job. And is a political appointee.

Relatively speaking, not bailing out the CBC is actually a sensible decision in comparison.

Shelfari Scanner is an Adobe AIR-based application that turns any high-quality webcam into a barcode scanner you can use to quickly generate an inventory of your books suitable for use with Shelfari. The application uses my Scannerfly SDK to provide the barcode scanning capability, which provides barcode scanning that has been tested with the MacBook Pro’s internal iSight camera, but should also work with decent external webcams, or webcams with manual focus capabilities.

To install the application:

1. Download and install Adobe AIR 1.5 or later (supported on Windows, Mac OS X, Linux)
2. Download and run the Shelfari Scanner installer.

Once the application is installed, run the application, and grab a stack of books. To scan a book:

• Make sure you have adequate lighting
• Position the book so the three red lines in the Shelfari Scanner video window intersect with the book’s barcode
• Each red scan line will show you where the application believes a barcode might exist with a blue line
• When a barcode is detected, you’ll hear a beep, and the application will confirm the scanned barcode with a lookup on Amazon.com

Once you’ve scanned all your books, hit the save button to have Shelfari Scanner export an inventory file suitable for importing into Shelfari. Voila! You’re done!

This is, of course, a first pass at the application to get something out the door - if the response is positive, I’ll roll in feature requests posted in the comments as my time permits.

Now, I’m not one to applaud privacy-invading technologies. I dislike the trend towards border laptop searches, and recent developments requiring defendants to disclose encryption passwords scare the hell out of me (what happens if you forgot your password?). But it’s not all bad news - having “big brother” track my every move could actually lead to some interesting benefits.

For one thing, maybe marketers could start to figure out that I’m in not now, nor likely ever to be in the future, interested in their products. Think of how much simpler life could be - no more commercials on TV for stuff you don’t want, no more magazine ads for products that you not only wouldn’t buy, but strongly believe may be one of the seven signs of the apocalypse. Less paper, less interruption, less “static”.

Maybe street lights would actually display some evidence of sentience, and change to let me pass when there’s no traffic in the other direction - instead of making me sit for five minutes, uselessly whittling away what little fossil fuel remains on the planet.

Perhaps my shopping experience would even get easier. I’ve long hoped that Safeway would finally do something useful with the bajillions of transactions I’ve performed using my rewards card. They know what I buy, they know how often I buy, and they know where I buy. Is it too much to expect to find a fully-stocked cart with my groceries ready to go when I show up to my usual Safeway on my regular bi-weekly trip?

One can only hope it gets this easy. But I’m willing to bet that it’s a long time before we get to that point. Most software companies I’ve worked for have had little capability to dissect their customer base. That’s right - the companies who make technology for a living are usually clueless about who buys their products. It’s not that they don’t have the data - it’s just that the data is complete crap. Sales guys don’t enter all the details, and the systems are incapable of drawing the most basic useful conclusions. Hence, a lot of effort goes into gathering data that is noisy, incomplete, or just plain wrong.

Of course, that last point is what really scares Schneier. What’s worse than all-seeing, all-knowing surveillance, than technology that people believe to be all-seeing, and all-knowing if you can’t trust its output? And until we have that capability, I’ll just have to be content to shop at the Safeway the old-fashioned way.

Apparently the FAA’s been a bit sticky about use of unmanned drones in civilian airspace, citing safety concerns. When military commanders wanted to use drones to survey the damage, the FAA stopped them on the basis that the drones weren’t certified for civilian airspace. The military responded by proposing to bolt the unmanned drone’s sensor package to a helicopter. Again, the FAA denied the request, noting that bolting the package to the helicopter resulted in a new configuration that would require re-certification of the helicopter.

Sigh.

In the end, the military overcame the objections of the FAA by duct taping the sensor package to the helicopter. Apparently, this configuration would not require re-certification, as the alteration did not result in a permanent change to the aircraft.

Keep in mind that, at this point, New Orleans was a disaster zone - even if the unmanned drone fell out of the sky, it’s doubtful that it would have any worse effect on the population than what had already occurred. A perfect example of bureaucracy run amok and working against those it was designed to help and protect.

Contrast that incident with this video of the response executed by New York’s ferry operators when US 1549 dropped into the Hudson. In less than five minutes, there were not one but three New York Water Taxi ferries picking up passengers from the disabled plane’s wings. One can’t help but marvel at their responsive to the emergency (see the 5:45pm entry):

“Someone came into my office and said a plane crashed,” said Tom Fox, general manager of New York Water Taxi, “and we ran out the door.”

Fox rode out to within several hundred yards of the plane on one of three Waterways boats that responded, but authorities indicated that additional help was not needed, apparently because most of the people had already been rescued.

It was probably not the smartest thing to do. That response probably violated a lot of the company’s rules. And yet, it was the right response.

Now, it’s probably not fair to compare the two incidents. Katrina was a slow evolving disaster with many facets hidden from plain view, whereas the US Airways crash was a clear and easily understood event. The water taxi manager’s response to the aircraft crash was likely further provoked by more recent experience with disasterous events (I’m thinking 9/11 specifically).

Yet, as I look at the multitude of global challenges we currently face, I hope that we will respond more like the guys driving the water taxis and less like the FAA.

The need for new business approaches has become increasingly apparent. While publishers have reacted, this has not always been at a sufficient pace. Given this context, up to one out of every ten print publications could be obliged either to reduce print frequency, cease physical printing or, in some cases, shut down entirely in 2009.

Duncan made an interesting point by connecting the decline of newspapers to BC’s pulp and paper industry. In short: failing newspapers is bad for BC. When you look BC’s reliance on the forestry industry, it’s pretty clear why:

• The forest industry accounts for at least 15 percent of the province’s economy.
• Direct 2006 forest industry activity totaled $10 billion, representing 29 percent of good producing industry GDP and 7.4 percent of total provincial GDP.
• Forestry activity contributes approximately $17 billion to the province’s gross domestic product (GDP).
• In 2006, forest products made up 41 percent of all B.C. exports, with a value of roughly $13.6 billion a year.
• 90 percent of BC lumber exports and 71 percent of pulp and paper products are exported to the United States.

John Diack, former CEO of Circon Systems, put the magnitude of the problem in perspective for me - the Los Angeles Times newspaper uses approximately one-half of the pulp and paper output of the entire town of Port Alberni. Ouch.

• Crazy products: It’s an historic time in the US - with the election of Barack Obama, change is in the air, and it’s time to celebrate…with a sweet collectible commemorative plate! Only $20! Comes with a certificate of authenticity! And a warning that you shouldn’t use it to serve food!
• Sweet tea: There’s iced tea and then there’s sweet tea. Sweet tea is sugar held in suspension by the minimum amount of water possible. It makes my teeth hurt just thinking about it. Two gallons for $5, this week only at Walgreen’s.
• Carnitas: Technically not an American thing, but I’m not about to travel to Mexico just to get a decent taco. If eating fried pork is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
• Bumper sticker politics: Why bother to articulate your thoughts carefully through public speaking or other political discourse when you can say it all with a humorous yet topical bumper sticker? Tell the world how you support John Kerry in 2004!

Fast forward to today. We’re rapidly approaching the kind of “fabrication on demand” envisioned by science fiction from Star Trek to The Diamond Age. Already there’s a 3D printer that costs less than $5K and can fit comfortably on your desk. Meanwhile, the Open Source community is working hard to make the same capabilities available for free through the Fab@Home project.

More interestingly, a number of services have appeared online that provide creators with access to sophisticated rapid prototyping capabilities. Offline services, such as TechShop in the Bay Area, provide creators with access to tools. But that is just a stopgap between dedicated hardware, and on-demand online services that print custom objects. Online services such as eMachineShop provide the ability to perform heavy-duty machining to create custom components in a wide array of materials, whereas providers like Shapeways provides the ability to create 3D objects in a variety of plastics. And it probably won’t be long until we see services allowing users to print circuit boards using cheap inkjet technology.

One of the more interesting services I’ve seen so far has been Ponoko, which allows creators to use laser cutting to punch out shapes in cardboard, felt, wood, metal, or plastic. While this service is slightly more limited, given that it can only create 2D shapes, it has a unique ability to create objects from photos - no CAD software required.

As these rapid prototyping services have come online, many have incorporated a marketplace for creators to sell their wares. Which begs the question: how long until we see a clandestine trade develop around electronic blueprints for common goods that can be cheaply manufactured using these services? The “Napster of Things” can’t be too far behind…