As close neighbours of the United States we share a common market for consumer goods. As long as we can remember we’ve had the same selection at the same time. The same movies open on the same dates, the same DVDs and CDs hit stores on the same schedule, and in most cases, the same TV shows air at the same slots. Somehow that changed with the arrival of the internet and cell phones. Despite our status as one of the most-connected countries in the world in terms of internet usage, despite our long history as a consumer of popular culture, Canada has found itself placed on a massive waiting list when it comes to the latest wireless devices and digital content services. The iTunes Music Store took more than a year to arrive. Satellite radio came after a three year delay and Tivo finally crossed the border seven years after launching to acclaim in the United States. In some cases, the delays are so long that Canada never sees the first generation of a device, getting the second model or later instead. Apple’s iPhone, the Microsoft Zune, and Flip Pocket Camcorder are prime examples. [More]

After holding a series of regional competitions to find the fastest texters in Canada, LG brought in representatives from across this nation's provinces including challenges from Alberta and British Columbia, but after several rounds of pounding mobile keyboards on stage in front of a live audience at Toronto's Younge and Dundas Square, Kathy Spence from Scarborough, a neighbourhood right here in Toronto, emerged as the country's texting champion and might go on to compete in Korea as our national representative. [More]

Missing In Canada is a weekly feature where I will profile gadgets from other countries, consumer items that aren’t available here and (except for rare import shoppes) probably never will be.

A gemstone boutique in France has taken it upon themselves to create their own limited edition version of RIM's BlackBerry Bold, adorning it with a lavish amount of diamonds, white gold, and exotic animal skins. Diamondine's BlackBerry Bold Tellor features 205 round diamonds in a brilliant cut (a total weight of 2.50 carats) that decorate the bottom panel, just below the keyboard, with sections of the chassis itself redone in white gold. [More]

Sony Canada issued a correction today regarding the Vaio P-series mini notebook computer they announced at CES last month. The ultra-wide 8" notebook designed with women in mind was initially announced to include embedded GPS functionality, with turn-by-turn directions and the ability to calculate travel time between two points. While this will be true for the models being sold in the United States, this will not be the case for the models being sold here in Canada. Here's the statement from Sony Canada: [More]

Missing In Canada is a weekly feature where I will profile gadgets from other countries, consumer items that aren’t available here and (except for rare import shoppes) probably never will be. This week we travel to China where Aiko Electronics has unveiled a new screen that can quickly transition from being a reflective mirror to a brightly lit LCD display. The KO Digital RM 2300 is a small, portable device capable of storing and playing music, photos, e-books, and movies. That itself is a fairly common set of features, but it’s the unusual screen that gives it a unique and desirable aesthetic. The glass on the player’s display has been tinted with a special plasma coating. When the device is turned off, the coating becomes opaque, reflecting the light of the world around it. Combined with the polished, metallic casing, it creates the illusion that the screen has simply disappeared. [More]

Missing In Canada is a weekly feature where I will profile gadgets from other countries, consumer items that aren’t available here and (except for rare import shoppes) probably never will be. Pandora is the best online service for discovering new music and listening to it for free. It remains one of the most addictive websites, a top application for Facebook, and one of the best free applications for Windows Mobile smartphones and Apple’s iPhone. You simply type in the name of a favorite artist and select a song. Pandora then uses an analysis of that song’s characteristics to create a playlist of similar songs listed within the site’s database. The results are extremely effective and powered by The Music Genome Project, which has spent eight years analyzing songs based on 400 different characteristics. [More]

Missing In Canada is a weekly feature where I will profile gadgets from other countries, consumer items that aren’t available here and (except for rare import shoppes) probably never will be. Dick Tracy lives on thanks to LG’s new cellphone watch, due to arrive in Europe and Asia later this year. It offers touchscreen controls, both text-to-speech and speech recognition for voice dialing, plus two cameras, with the second offering video conferencing capabilities. It includes high-speed, 7.2 Mbps HSPA (3G) internet access and can even play MP3s. The watch itself will be a mere 13.9mm in thickness (so no, it won’t suffer the high nerd factor of the big calculator watches from the 80’s) and like most digital watches will offer some degree of water resistance. Oh, and it will also tell you the time. [More]

Missing In Canada is a weekly feature where I will profile gadgets from other countries, consumer items that aren’t available here and (except for rare import shoppes) probably never will be. For my last “Missing” entry of the year I’ve decided to change the rules temporarily and focus on some devices that do have a hope of launching here in Canada. It’s a list I’m calling “Canada’s Most Wanted”, five gadgets that have captured the interest of Canadians, have proven very popular in their home markets, and would already be on sale here if it were not for a few niggling issues. All of these gadgets are due for a Canadian release, it’s only a question of time. As we reach the end of 2008, let’s look at five ways for the Canadian tech scene to catch up to our neighbours in 2009. [More]

Missing In Canada is a weekly feature where I will profile gadgets from other countries, consumer items that aren’t available here and (except for rare import shoppes) probably never will be. The G-Dog is a robot kit that you assemble and program yourself, using your home computer and a controller that looks an awful lot like a PlayStation video game controller. It can walk, sit up, stand on its hind legs, even shake a paw. Compared to the Robosapien or Spykee robots, it’s fairly low-tech. You can’t program it to guard a room or place a VOIP phone call over the internet for example. The intended joy here is in the building and programming of the robot yourself, of exploring the range of motion you can guide it through with its four legs and nine joints. What sets it apart from the all the others is the look of the dog. Not the typical cutesy, cartoon-like caricatures that populate our toy shelves, the G-Dog uses a simple minimal design that suggests a realistic head and paws that also gives it some personality. I’d love to see more hobby robots follow that line of inspiration. [More]