Do these people look like their choice of dog?Fido Canada's new website lets Canadians upload their photos for comparison against a gallery of trained dogs. Visitors can browse through the photo sets and vote on the resemblences between human and pooch on a scale of one to ten. More than just a marketing giggle, Fido plans to look at the votes on August 31st and invite the Top Ten to travel to Montreal to audition for an upcoming Fido ad. It's clever idea, but hampered a bit by the fact that all the dogs look rather normal compared to all the goofy humans. If people could upload photos of their own dogs as well, then it would be awesome. [More]

Using satellite maps from Microsoft's Virtual Earth service, Trulia Hindsight is creating a number of animated maps that show how major communities within the United States have grown over time, from say the year 1890 to present. Miami, for example, saw the first major change with the introduction of the first railroad in 1896 which lead to a major real estate boom in the 1920's. As you watch the zoomed view of Miami, you'll see it's real estate change as The Great Depression takes effect, as Hurricanes had their impact, especially Hurricane Andrew in 1992 which became one of the US' worst disasters. The history portrayed on the maps is taken from property assessor records and prior sale records recorded for US tax assesmment purposes. Unfortunately the website can only offer histories for the US. The website is a companion to Trulia's main page where you can search any of the homes marked on the map in green and pull up prior sales data along with comparisons with surrounding properties. [More]

What's Cooking Grandma? is a website where Grandmas of the world can upload video or audio clips of themselves sharing their favorite recipes. If you are looking for a YouTube-style website where you can get good cooking lessons, look no further. From Nannie Web's Apple Crumble, Grandma Anna's Berry Quark, to Mémée Denise's spiced bread and 92 Year-old Gran Hilda's (pictured) Parkin. The website has only just recently launched, so there's only a few clips for now, but they offer instructions for anyone to upload their own and share with the world, so its definately a website to return to again and again. [More]

Palm’s latest gadget is called the Foleo. It’s due to arrive this Fall for approx $600 to $700 CND and it’s a bit of a riddle. It looks like a laptop, uses a mouse and keyboard like a laptop, connects to and surfs the internet like a laptop, but is not actually a laptop. The main reasons why it’s not a laptop is because it doesn’t have a hard drive, or a DVD drive, or processor fast enough to handle YouTube videos for example. It is a miniature laptop-like device designed to act as a back-up to a Smartphone such as [More]

Although there is only one Canadian university featured in today's launch of iTunes U, that would be Queen's in Kingston, Ontario, Apple Canada Representative Simon Atkins assures me that there are currently several Canadian campuses that are collaborating with Apple to offer educational content and that these partnerships are in various stages of participation. Over time the Canadian content in iTunes U will grow. [More]

The Canadian iTunes Music Store has launched two new sections today. iTunes U is a collection of free course lectures, lab demonstrations, and language lessons from top American universities and colleges. iTunes Plus is the first collection of DRM-Free music to be offered by Apple, meaning that the song files come with no restrictions as to what mp3 player you can use them with. Both of the new sections can be accessed from the [More]

Starting with just five cities in the US, Google Maps has added an interactive panormama mode where you can access photographs of the cities from street level in order to virtuallly walk and look around to explore them. San Fracisco, Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, and New York are the first cities to get the Street View treatment. When you visit Google Maps, click on the "Street View" icon. These five cities will appear with camera icons on them. Choose one city and zoom all the way in. You'll notice that the streets are now coloured blue and there's a little yellow person icon. When you click on any blue street, a little window opens and displays [More]

Inspired by the original party game, Finger Twister replaces the vinyl mat with your keyboard and your body with your fingers. The one big twist is that, because the game knows when you've lifted a finger off of a key on your keybaord, it's a lot harder to cheat. You begin by first holding down your mouse button and then follow the directions as you try to extend a finger (while still keeping the mouse button down) to reach a key and so on as the game goes until your fingers can bend no more. The score is decided by a timer, the faster you are at hitting thekeys, the better the score and for each time you make a mistake, time is deducted from the clock. [More]

Pictogame is another website that has popped up where you can upload your own photos and use them to create personal video games that you can send and share with friends. Unlike PlayMyGame which I featured yesterday, Pictogame requires you to register and offers just four game types for now, but at least they are very different. You can use any kind of photo for the sliding block puzzle or the breakout clone, but its the last two outrageous games that are designed for your face. The fist one will create a series of virtual pimples across your face and players will have to use their mouse to pop them. The second places your head on an animated body which bends over so that players can give you a swift kick and see how far you go flying. You can choose to either e-mail or embed your finished game on your blog or website. I've created a sample using a photo of Seamus in our big, comfy chair. Click on "more" to play. [More]