That Time of the Year
The CBC's list of top tech news of 2011. Definite Canadian slant, with usage-based billing being the top issue of the year. Also making headlines: the death of Steve Jobs, Sony's Playstation Network breach, and the RIMpocaypse. SOPA didn't really crack the list here, though we will have our own bad copyright law returning. The odd thing about our bad copyright law is that the conservatives keep proroguing before it comes up for debate in the Commons.

Speaking of UBB…
Bell is backing off from Internet throttling. Starting March 1, 2012, Bell will cease using equipment to throttle file transfers. CRTC regulations and policies may be the reason for the telecom company ending its controversial throttling. Eyes can now be turned to Rogers to see if they will follow suit.

Cyberattacks
South Korea is on alert for hacking attempts on military systems by North Korea. North Korea denies the allegations. The fallout from Kim Jong-Il's death is going to take time to settle. We may be seeing the start of a new battlefield here.

Wireless Mergers?
The CEO of Wind Mobile believes that consolidation may happen in the wireless industry. His reasoning is that the deep discounts by new wireless providers is not sustainable. However, right now, competition is starting to give Canadian wireless users real choice outside Bell and Rogers.

TCP/IP Off the Corner
Researches at UC Santa Barbara, working with Intel, are working on a method to increase signal speed by 30%. To improve transmission speed over that through wires, researcheres looking into bouncing the signal off data centre walls. The research should prove useful for anyone working with large data centres.

When a Problem Comes Along, You Must Print It
3-D printing is coming along as a technology. General Electric is using the process to manufacture jet parts, items that require high tolerances. Niche markets are also jumping on to the 3-D printing bandwagon as it provides accuracy without high costs compared to traditional methods of manufacturing. Although it might be too expensive still for the tabletop minis niche.

–Scott D

Google is working on a project to preserve the pre-tsunami memories of Japan. The company is asking for pictures and videos from people who lived in the affected area to be posted on the site, Memories of the Future.

French company Atos is aiming to phase out internal email by 2014. Replacing email will be instant messaging, video conferencing, Facebook, and software like LiveMeeting. Might work. However, this is just going to transfer the time spent on email over to the other methods. Video conferencing is going to require more work to coordinate than just sending info out to the required people. Facebook introduces a risk of leaks.  Hopefully, Atos will follow up in 2014 on how well the phase out went.

Locally, a group of parents are trying to get Wi-Fi removed from schools, citing the World Health Organization reclassifying RF energy as possibly carcinogenic. WHO's findings run counter to Health Canada's, though; HC maintains that the frequencies aren't dangerous.  Some of the reasoning is correlative, though not causative.

Twitter received a $300 million boost from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's investment company. Kingdom Holding Company, who also has stakes in Apple and News Corp, looks like it wants to take advantage of the increasing number of Arabic users on Twitter. Might be worth keeping an eye on Twitter in the near future to see how things shake out.

Some RIM shareholders are wondering if the Blackberry should be ditched to keep the company afloat. The idea is that RIM would continue with its Blackberry network, opening it to current smartphone rivals for a fee. Could be a fallback position for the beleaguered company.

–Scott D

Over the past ten weeks, I've looked at a mix of hits, misses, and cannonball caroms. What can we take away from the morass? Well, again, taking care of the original work plays an important part.  How the Grinch Stole Christmas! is a sterling example of not only having the creator take part in the process but also finding the right people. In contrast, Johnny Mnemonic, shows what happens when the creator is left out of the loop. The former had Dr. Seuss involved at several levels, including producing and lyrics. The latter had an exec take the final product and recut it before sending it out to theatres.

Executive meddling can be an issue. Flash Gordon had producer Dino DiLaurentiis and his wife casting the leads and making deals for cross-promotions that could have torpedoed the movie. However, the director was able to cast for the supporting roles and brought in veterans who could hold their own and make the inexperienced lead look decent at the same time. Coupled with a kick-ass soundtrack by Queen, the movie survives as a cult classic. Sure, not a financial success, but the movie is remembered. Having the right people can save a movie.

As Steve pointed out, sometimes the best thing is finding the right fit for the work.  A Game of Thrones definitely fit best as a TV series over a movie. There is just too much happening that is too important to cut. The build up of the threats and conflicts required the time that a weekly episodic format allows for. Likewise, the weekly format is working for Once Upon a Time, allowing for the mystery of the story to be built properly. As movies, both would lose far too much in the translation.

Sometimes, going from TV pilot to cinematic feature causes problems. Star Trek: The Motion Picture was originally the pilot to a second Star Trek series. However, the decision was made to turn the script into a full-fledged feature film. Unfortunately, this required the script to be extended. Most of the filler came from loving shots of the USS Enterprise, as the camera flew around and over her. Long shots became the order of the day, giving the movie a far slower pace than a pilot would have. Compare Star Trek: TMP to "Encounter at Farpoint", the pilot for Star Trek: The Next Generation. Both are cerebral, but "Farpoint" builds up the action through character interaction and twists while TMP relies more on lengthy approaches in space.

What about works where the creator is either long gone or a corporation? Where the work is part of a larger franchise? For this, I looked at three movies.  Rookie of the Year adapted the game of baseball into a family narrative. The plays on the field were believable; in fact, there have been stranger in the game. The movie was faithful to the sport while telling its story. It is obvious that the writers, the cast, and the crew have been to a ballgame or two. The other two, however… Oi.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was, in short, a mess. It had several good scenes tied together with a plot a 3rd grader could find plotholes in. The promise of the opening scene – Cobra's assault on an US Army convoy – provided a glimpse of the potential that was never reached. Meanwhile, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li just really wasn't a Street Fighter movie. What happened? In the case of GI Joe, it looks like the license was available and was used with a quick script that did take into account the characters and groups but, well, forgot about cohesion.  Chun Li, on the other hand, felt like an available script was taken and had the Street Fighter aspects grafted on. Both movies had potential never realized.

And that leaves Dungeons & Dragons. The movie had decent scenes and a decent plot, but completely fell apart during execution. It seemed to be suffering from having the wrong people involved. It missed on what made the game D&D interesting and didn't have many of the game's iconic monsters. Unfortunately, many studios decided that the takeaway was, "Don't make movies off tabletop RPGs".

Overall, again, respect for the creator and the work heads the list of how to make an adaptation successful. Followed, though, is making sure the adaptation is in the right format. The right format can get the work's full impact; the wrong one can mute it or draw out the impact to the point where it's not felt at all.

Next time, year-end round up.

RIM's execs have announced that they have slashed their salaries to $1 (assumed to be Canadian) after a year of disaster piled on top of disaster for the company.  Delays in the Blackberry 10 smartphone and the low sales of the Playbook didn't help, either.

The slashing may be symbolic, but it could mean that the execs want to turn the company around.  Playbook OS2.0 is in development and will be aimed at businesses already using Blackberries, and the new Blackberry is just waiting for energy efficient chips.

–Scott D

RIMpocalypse Update
Research in Motion's revenues are still falling. The lowered levels are blamed on poor sales of the Playbook and on an aging line of smartphones.

Smartphone, Smart Shoppers?
The use of smartphones by shoppers to do product research, price comparisons, and online sales are changing the retail landscape. It might not just be bookstores that will feel the crunch of online shopping.

Triple X'ed
A grab of domain names in the new .xxx TLD came from business and others trying to secure their names away from potential porn sites. Among those trying to prevent a tarnishing of their images include universities, Scouting, galleries, and multinational corporations. PETA has also snapped up their .xxx domain, but, well, given how they've advertised in the past, they probably want to put their purchase to use.

Another Steve Jobs Book to Come Out
The Zen of Steve Jobs by Caleb Melby will be a released as a graphic novel, focusing on when Jobs left Apple to found NeXT. It's a different way to produce a biography. Forbes has a four-page preview.

Google Buzz Gone
Alas, no link. Google did warn, but as of December 14 at 6pm EST (at least locally), Buzz was removed from Gmail. I already miss it.  

–Scott D

China Still an iRisk to US Companies, Government
Geeks interested in security may find jobs with the news that at least 12 different Chinese hacking groups are responsible for cyberbreak-ins, stealing billions of dollars worth of data. In a related issue, there is the possibility that hacking could upset the supply of oil.  Security geeks should see the demand for their services continue to grow.

Tech Industry Wants Canadian Goverment to Migrate to Cloud
Dave McDonald, CEO of Softchoice Corp. and the chair of the Information Technology Association of Canada (ITAC) board of governors, feels that the Canadian Government should migrate to cloud computing or risk being "technologically incapacitated". Nice thought, but given the above and the nature of the data used by the government, the big question becomes, "How secure is it?"  

Bell Runs Afoul of CRTC Regs
Related to the discussion of Tamara's news about the sale of MLSE, Bell has been found in breech of CRTC rules by limiting the streaming of NHL and NFL games to just Bell wireless subscribers. "Canadians shouldn't be forced to subscribe to a wireless service from a specific company to access their favourite content," said Konrad von Finckenstein, chair of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.

English to English Translation App
Tricolour Software of Newfoundland has developed a Newfoundland to English translatation app for the iPhone. The Whaddaya App allows users to enter the Newfoundland phrase to get a plain English explanation, with proceeds from the 99 cent app going towards a no-kill shelter. While this app has a humourous bent, it could be the forerunner of apps allowing visitors to understand local idioms, even if both the visitor and the local allegedly speak the same language.

Reading for Pleasure in Decline
Recent studies are showing that Ontario schoolchildren aren't reading for pleasure as much as in prior years. Normally, I would have passed on this for a news round up; however, an article in the November/December 2011 Scientific American Mind ("The Death of Preschool" by Paul Tullis, behind a paywall) shows a disturbing trend. The push for standardized testing may be working against getting an education.

–Scott D

More Phones Hacked
Okay, not quite so bad as the above would imply. However, the News of the World's phone hacking scandal has reached over 800 people whose phones have been hacked. Coupled with products such as the one from CarrierIQ, phone privacy should be a far more important issue than it currently is.

RIM's Anno Horribile Continues
The Indonesian government is threatening to cut Blackberry data services unless RIM provides state access to users' messages. RIM is trying to work with Indonesia's government, though, and has installed the mandatory filters.

–Scott D

Social Media Brought Together
A new device called MagnetU will let you broadcast your social media (including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) profiles to everyone around you. The device will also alert you when it detects a profile in the area that is similar to yours. Great for extroverts; not so great for those who like some privacy.

Online Memorials
Working from an idea already in use in Seattle, a Regina, SK company, Remco Memorials, is offering a way to bring up memorials on smartphones while visiting a grave. The company will provide a QR code to be added to grave markers that, when read by a smartphone, will go to a webpage that can be added to by family and friends with the password.

Canadian R&D Spending to Rise
Canadian firms are intending to increase their research and development expenditures, the first such increase since 2007. However, Canadian R&D is still lagging in terms of GDP. Most of the R&D work (approximately 75%) is done in Ontario and Quebec.

Samples Missing
Geeks interested in sapce exploration may want to develop a tracking system for NASA, who has lost or misplaced 500 samples of material from space since 1970. The missing pieces, including moon rocks and meteorites, were part of the 26 000 samples loaned out by NASA. Some of the missing samples may have been returned but not checked in.

Kill Your Cable and Phone
Washington, DC, is funding a 100-gigabit network to be made available to universities, businesses, and anyone willing to resell the service. Such a service bypasses the backbone that was built by a telco or a cable company, and was created to serve areas of Washinbton not served by those companies. A step like this could be the first in turning high speed Internet service from luxury to public good.

The 80s were a turning point in media. Between the heyday of the music video, the breakout of shows like Miami Vice, and a new crop of writers. the approach to storytelling changed. One of the literary movements of the 80s was Cyberpunk, a mesh of man and machine in a distopian world where corporations have become monolithic and governments exist only at their pleasure*, where people outside pleasant society act as go betweens and expendable assets for the corporations and for the criminal organizations. The vanguard of cyberpunk was "Johnny Mnemonic", a short story written by William Gibson** and published in 1981 in Omni magazine.

The title character of "Johnny Mnemonic" was a data courier, with the equivalent of a hard drive*** implanted in his head. He ran into a problem with one client and had his bacon rescued by Molly Millions, a razorgirl with mirrorshade eyes and razors implanted under her fingernails. The criminal organization from whom the client stole the data now in Johnny's head wanted the data back and traces of it eliminated, sending a killer who had more replacement parts than original body to clean up. Johnny and Molly turned to Jones, a war vet dolphin with a smack addiction, to retrieve the passcode for the data and to the Lo-Teks, a anti-technology gang, for protection while sending a snippet of the data to the criminal group to get them to back off. The killer, meanwhile, has tracked the duo down and takes on Molly on the Killing Floor.

In 1995, Gibson worked with director Robert Longo to bring the story to the silver screen. Althought the original script was more an art film, desogned to be made for under two million, they pair went with Sony who saw the Internet as a potential draw. Sony provided $30 million. Several changes were made to the story. Because the character of Molly was already licensed out to another company, she was replaced with Jane. Unlike Molly, Jane was on her way down, having been infected with Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (NAS). The criminal organization was replaced by a pharmaceutical firm that had discovered a cure for NAS but wanted it buried because their treatment program would be more profitable.***** Johnny, played by Keanu Reeves, became the main mover in terms of plot and action, where as in the original short story, he directed the plot but left the heavy lifting for Molly.

With Gibson and Longo working together on the movie, what could go wrong?

Executive meddling. According to William Gibson himself, the movie was recut at the last moment by the American distributor, and recut badly. The flow fell off. There was some criticism of Keanu Reeves's acting ability, but, in retrospect, he managed to portray a man who had part of his brain removed and altered to become a data courier believably. Unlike How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Johnny Mnemonic didn't keep the creator in the loop at a crucial stage in editing, and the movie suffered as a result.

Next time, a summary.

* So, all we're missing today are USB ports in our heads.
** Other early cyberpunk works include /Neuromancer/ and /Mona Lisa Overdrive/.
*** I really hope IBM isn't going this route with racetrack memory.
**** Superconducting quantum interfence detectors.
***** Okay, cyberpunk waned because it started to look good compared to reality.

Hewlett-Packard is releasing WebOS as open source software.  While the company will still support WebOS, the move allows other programmers to take the source code and modify it to their own needs.  This could be a move to get people to use both the Palm Pre smartphone and the HP TouchPad, both of which use the OS.

–Scott