Peter Nowak
Why your house is about to get a lot more talkative
Artificially intelligent voice assistants like the Amazon Echo and Google Assistant are poised to change how we interact with our homes
The 2013 Buffer Festival: YouTube filmmaking celebrated in Toronto
It seems inconceivable that there has yet to be some sort of major event devoted to YouTube videos and their creators. Even the iPhone has its own film festival, while YouTube itself just held its own inaugural music awards.
Netflix aims to become 4K video leader, ditch 3D
Peter Nowak on the company’s next big move
The next steps for Next Issue
Peter Nowak on the all-you-can read service coming to Canada
Grand Theft Auto V foreshadows our future in the Matrix
I didn’t get much writing done Monday. I was on vacation in San Andreas. That’s not a real place, of course, it’s the fictionalized world of Grand Theft Auto V, which is sure to become the biggest game of the year after its release today.
The iPhone as a gadget gateway drug
Peter Nowak considers an interesting effect of the iPhone
Verizon’s out: It’s 5 minutes to wireless midnight
So now what? Where does Canada go?
Why hasn’t Microsoft already bought BlackBerry?
Peter Nowak examines the logic
Air Canada’s check-in crackdown needs fixing
Peter Nowak on missing his flight by five minutes
The real point of Sharknado’s online frenzy
Ratings weren’t great, but SyFy got big social-media buzz
NOW Magazine is so, so wrong about space
Every now and then someone comes along and criticizes space exploration – and inevitably makes a fool of themselves in the process. Add NOW Magazine to the list.
The Toronto alt-weekly trashed both Commander Chris Hadfield and space exploration in general as PR-seeking glory hounds and wastes of money, respectively, in a piece that ran this week.
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.
Hadfield’s return couldn’t happen “too soon,” according to the article, since he was wasting so much time conducting public relations for himself and space agencies in general, rather than actual scientific research:
“Everyone else – the other astronauts who spent the term of their mission aboard the ISS as something other than a launchpad for a public speaking career – will shake their heads, embarrassed at the display: mortifying, needy, totally typifying Hadfield’s tour of duty as Canada’s first-ever ISS commander.”
The verdict on Poutine Soda
A genius move for Jones Soda, but just try to drink a bottle