It’s a reminder that you should always ask questions about the claims made by companies, especially those trying to sell you something. Computer chip maker Intel passed off a pre-recorded video as a live demonstration at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Before a gathering of the press and industry representatives, the company's Manager of PC Client, Wooley Eden, used a racing game to demonstrate the prowess of their new Ivy Bridge graphics for Ultrabook computers. The game suffered a noticeable pause at the beginning and a closer look at a video of the event taken by BrightSideOfNews.com reveals that Intel’s Manager of PC Client Wooley Eden merely pretended to play the game, playing a video of it instead. Eden openly joked at the end that his driving wasn't real and was actually being controlled "backstage" although that wasn't very clear. 

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There’s a great deal of trial and error that goes into designing and building a new machine. One of Leonardo Da Vinci’s many astonishing traits was his ability to complete this process in his head. Throughout his busy career as an influential painter and sculptor he kept a sketchbook to jot down ideas in mechanics, hydraulics, architecture, automation, and flight. The way some people like to solve crosswords or Sudoku puzzles, Da Vinci invented cranes, gliders, gunships, and mechanical knights. Mere drawings no more, a new exhibit at the Ontario Science Centrepresents his work as freshly built wonders in wood, rope, and iron. Even in our modern world they have a presence that is magical.

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It’s one of Toronto’s best-kept secrets no more. Fact? Or Fiction?, a party game that challenges would-be detectives to out-think museum curators, is starting to spread to cities outside of Canada and around the world. Invented by the Royal Ontario Museum, it’s must-play popularity has helped it become an important fund-raiser for research and that, combined with the excitement shared in recent years by players across Facebook and Twitter, has ignited the interest of other museums, galleries, and institutions eager to run their own detective parties.

 

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On a special night each year the most curious minds gather inside the Royal Ontario Museum to be told the most fantastic of lies by by the institution's curators and resident experts. It is an exquisite detective game and party fundraiser called Fact? Or Fiction?. Attendees are challenged to view a number of extraordinary specimens selected from the museum's hidden collections and then must sort out just what exactly they are through siftng through stories supplied by the curators, some of whom are lying while others tell the truth.

I wrote about being one of the detectives at the event in 2009 and can't recommend it enough. This year's night will be hosted by Dan Riskin and Ziya Tong of our own Daily Planet series on Discovery this coming October 18th You can still get tickets here

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It's a nocturnal adventure as a bedtime story. Burton & Isabelle Pipistrelle: Out of the Bat Cave will be the first children's book published by the Royal Ontario Museum. Crafted by their own in-house creative staff the book draws inspiration from the museum's most popular exhibit, the Bat Cave, for a night in the museum tale in which a little bat becomes lost within the halls of the large building and must use the power of echolocation to find his way back home. 

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Home to designer footwear both rare and delicate, the Bata Shoe Museum has been curated around an experience that's more look than touch, until now. This week the Toronto institution has launched a set of Design-A-Shoe Kiosks within their exhibition hall, massive LED touchscreens made to match the expansive surfaces of the drawing tables used by professional designers. Visitors can choose from five different styles of footwear - moccasins, sandals, high heels, oxfords, and the sneaker. From there they can access slideshows and videos detailing it's origin and what it is that makes each shoe distinct, then set out through the process of making their own by selecting each part - the tongue, heel, vamp, etc. - and assigning a material or decorative embellish. With rhinestones and rayfish leather amongst the choices, users can go as wild with their designs as they want. 

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From San Francisco – With the release of two major software downloads Apple plans to introduce hundreds of new features and tweaks this year to their current line of Mac computers and mobile devices. Many of the changes offer the usual tweaks and updates, but significantly this time, the company plans to help users looking to get by with just an iPad to ditch their computer, help Apple fans copy paid iTunes content across all their devices, and tackle the popularity of RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger with a new service aptly named iMessage. [More]

Even with the beautiful spring weather it seemed like just another day at the Ontario Science Centre, until the clock struck noon. Then, spontaneously and just like they do in the musicals, three hundred kids between the ages of 7 and 14 swarmed out of the walls to fill the main hall, bopping and dancing to the song "Crabbuckit" by k-os. Flash Mobs, as they are known, are a phenomenon borne of the internet where the ability to use e-mail and social networks makes it easy to co-ordinate such mass gatherings in secret and, although originally created for outogoing adults and expressive bloggers, is quickly being picked up as a fun activity for kids. 

Today's Flash Mob, or Dance Mob, was organized by the National Ballet School through carefully crafted YouTube videos distributed to kids and parents interested in taking part. Hearing that his song "Crabbuckit" was to be used, Canadian musician k-os made a secret appearance at the Ontario Science Centre to watch the performance and meet with the kids afterwards.

You can watch the spontaneous performance below plus my interview with choreographer Courtnae Bowman and one of the dancers, Olivia McAlpine of the National Ballet School, below.

 

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It was a three-day festival of Victorian-inspired fantasy and ingenuity. Canada’s first National Steampunk Exhibition, held this past weekend in Markham, Ontario, delivered an elaborate mix of wild gadgetry, exotic dancing, daring sideshow escapes, and mad tea parties. In one hall eccentric scientists gathered to compete in evil laughs while explorers enjoyed a mummy unwrapping in another. There were lessons in fashion and prop-making, chemical etching, and digital painting. You could take in a Victorian séance or partake in an evening of extraordinary gin-tasting. An unconventional convention it most certainly was and hopefully the first of many.

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If you want to see the political commentary fly online, just wait until one of the major candidates makes an appearance on television then perform a search for any of the parties across Twitter or Facebook. The retweets, responses, and links seem to boil and expand with amazing speed. That social media is playing a role in this year’s election is without question, certainly in the way the parties spread their messages and react to each other, but has it become a substitute for having your say through a vote? If you’ve already spent days expressing yourself online, are you more or less likely to do so at the voting booth?

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