danvill news

By Amil Niazi

After a crisis hits, will bloggers be the first responders?

That’s what media blog Gawker asks after compiling some of the early posts on the web reporting the details of the recent L.A. quake.

By John Bowman

Last week, Michael Geist launched the C-61 in 61 seconds competition, challenging Canadians to make a video speaking out against the planned copyright law reform.

By Amil Niazi

Hockey fans, consider yourself freeped.

The most viewed, most commented and most popular entry in the Hockey Night in Canada theme song competition is driving some people crazy.

But don’t worry folks, it’s all a joke.

By John Bowman

When Twitter is down, it puts up a page featuring a drawing of a sleeping whale being carried aloft by eight little birds. It looks a little like this:

By John Bowman

While news reports are focusing on Iran’s missile launch tests, the blogs are talking about the country’s inelegant Photoshop work in one of its official photos.

The debate continues as to whether the MSM or the blogs noticed the photo manipulation first, but many newspapers did print the photos without noticing the strangely similar billows of smoke coming from some of the missiles.

By Amil Niazi

It’s been a bumpy few days for telecos and their consumer base.

Uproar over Rogers’ proposed pricing plan for the hotly anticipated iPhone dampened the celebration of the flashy phone’s Canadian debut. An online petition with over 50,000 signatures even caused the company to lower their prices on new iPhone data plans.

But even with the price reduction, they aren’t out of the woods with their customers just yet.

By Amil Niazi

75 people were recently named to the Order of Canada, but there was one name in particular that had everyone talking.

Dr. Henry Morgentaler’s work in the field of reproductive rights and his belief that access to abortion is a basic human right has meant his current appointment has been controversial, to say the least.

By Amil Niazi

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved new guidelines that would loosen restrictions on internet names. The move opens the door for a plethora of suffixes to live alongside the basic .com or .ca.

It may well be the biggest change to the internet in its 25-year history.

It means we can have specialty domains like .eBay and .goog, heck we could have a .you and a .me. Well except for the pesky price tag of over $100,000 apiece. Full story.

So is this change good news?

By Amil Niazi

Microsoft recently announced that its answer to the iPod – the Zune – would finally hit Canadian shelves this summer.

Whatever excitement there may be for the product could be tempered by the fact that Canada’s Zune won’t come with the online store offered to U.S. consumers.

But maybe Zune should be more concerned about comments like this from BlogNerds:

“Hear that? That’s the sound of dozens of Canadians rejoicing as they finally get a launch date for the Zune in Canada, a year and a half after Zune’s debut in the US.”

Or this one from Waiting For History:

“Well, just over a year after my original post, Mr. Bill Gates himself officially announced that the Zune will make it to Canada in the Spring of 2008… if anyone still cares ”

By Amil Niazi

Some of the anticipated excitement over the Canadian debut of Apple’s iPhone has been diminished by the less than jubilant reception of carrier Rogers’ pricing plans.

While Canadians are somewhat accustomed to larger cell phone bills than our neighbours to the south, limited data plans for the iPhone could set customers back a lot more than they bargained for.