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Author Archives: Peter Nowak

Judgement Day has arrived for Canadian wireless

17 May

mobilicity

Thursday morning netted one of those surprising-but-not-really bits of news, with the announcement by Telus that it is acquiring small wireless carrier Mobilicity for $380 million. The deal is subject to government approval, which is in no way guaranteed. I wrote a piece over on Yahoo detailing why the acquisition is bad news for everyone, from consumers to the incumbent carriers themselves – and especially the government.

With additional funding unlikely to come from either within Canada or without, and other similarly cash-strapped new entrants Wind and Public Mobile unable or unwilling to buy the bleeding entity that is Mobilicity, there really doesn’t seem to be any other alternative. The deal has been rumoured for some time and was widely expected to become official ahead of the June 11 deadline for putting down deposits on the next wireless spectrum auction, which is scheduled for November.

With the wireless industry a giant mess of the government’s own creation, Industry Minister Christian Paradis and his colleagues are now under immense pressure to do something drastic. With Canadian bills already the highest in the world and edging higher, and the first of the low-cost competitors about to fall, there really is no delaying dramatic action any longer. What form that will take will be the fun thing to watch over the next few weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on May 17, 2013 in mobile, telus

 

Now Magazine is so, so wrong about space

16 May
Ground control to Now Magazine: get a clue.

Ground control to Now Magazine: get a clue.

Every now and then someone comes along and criticizes space exploration – and inevitably makes an ass of themselves in the process. Add Now Magazine to the list.

In a wildly dumb piece that ran this week, the Toronto alt-weekly trashed both Commander Chris Hadfield and space exploration in general as PR-seeking glory hounds and wastes of money, respectively.

Hadfield – the first Canadian commander of the International Space Station – of course returned to Earth on Monday evening, but not before posting a video of himself performing David Bowie’s Space Oddity… in space. That capped off a 146-day stint aboard the ISS that was punctuated by frequent tweets, photos and even an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on May 16, 2013 in NASA, space

 

BlackBerry’s fight even harder in emerging markets

15 May

q5With BlackBerry announcing its new Q5 smartphone, it’s clear the company is looking to shore up its offerings in emerging markets. The device, which features a QWERTY keyboard and runs the latest BlackBerry 10 operating system, will be available in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America as early as July. While the company hasn’t yet announced pricing, the Q5 is intended to be a low-cost option for people who obviously don’t have as much disposable income as people in the West.

It’s a necessary move. Emerging markets have largely kept the company aloft over the past few years while its popularity swan-dived in more developed countries.

However, with the dual competitive reality of Google’s Android and Chinese phone manufacturers in these markets, the question quickly becomes: will the Q5 be enough? Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on May 15, 2013 in africa, android, Google, mobile, nokia, RIM

 

Ubisoft’s Watch_Dogs already thought provoking

14 May

watch-dogsI had the chance last week to see a preview of Ubisoft Montreal’s newest big-budget game franchise, Watch_Dogs, and boy is it looking good. The game, scheduled for a November release, appears to mix all the best parts of Grand Theft Auto, Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry and Splinter Cell, which should be no surprise given that those last three are all Montreal creations.

Watch_Dogs stole the show at the last year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, where it was unveiled, not just because it’s an entirely new property, but mainly because it looks like it’s going to capture the zeitgeist of the super-connected era in which we live. Protagonist Aiden Pearce is a vigilante who can hack into the central operating system that runs near-future Chicago, and in doing so can control much of the city itself and access information on its inhabitants.

The idea, according to the game’s designers, is to have players think about how far they want connectivity to go. Read the rest of this entry »

 
1 Comment

Posted by on May 14, 2013 in ubisoft, video games

 

Netflix is going to need a lot of exclusive shows

13 May

house_of_cardsI’ve had a few intriguing chats recently with David Purdy, Rogers’ senior vice-president of content, about the status and prospects of Netflix. They were good conversations because they were very level-headed, which is contrary to a lot of the conventional wisdom flying around out there, which surmises that cable companies must surely view Netflix as the devil incarnate – a bitter rival to be crushed and destroyed.

There’s certainly no doubt that traditional television providers are threatened by the over-the-top provider, which is why, according to Purdy, they’re all looking to duplicate its services. But I found it interesting how he views the company overall.

“Right now it looks and smells very much like a premium pay service, like The Movie Network,” he said in an interview last week. Read the rest of this entry »

 
11 Comments

Posted by on May 13, 2013 in netflix, rogers

 
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