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  • Predicting Technology Innovation through 2025

    From the source article, via Slashdot:

    What will likely be the most important scientific and technological breakthroughs with significant commercial value and impacts on the lives of consumers out to 2025?

    To begin to answer that question, S)T’s Technology Foresight program conducted a virtual, global focus group of experts in technology, innovation, and business strategy. The group included experts from the Association of Professional Futurists, Tekes, Duke University, Hasbro, Worldwatch, General Motors, Shell, Johnson Controls, and Oxford University, among others.

    I wonder if the Paleo-Future blog will still be around by then, so we can look back on this around 2026.

  • PopSci's Best of What's New 2007

    From this year’s Best of What’s New:

    Innovation begets innovation. Efficient thin-film solar technology leads to panels so inexpensive, they could blanket city skylines. GM atones for killing the all electric EV1 with the plug-in Chevy Volt Hybrid. The iPod begets the iPhone. Click around to see these and 97 more of PosSci’s picks of the latest revolutionary technologies that will drive the next 20 years of innovation.

    I agree with PopSci‘s 1st place choice, but I also really like the Infinitely Geared Bike.

  • Anyone else sees a disturbing pattern?

    All three stories are on the front page of CNEWS as I’m writing this (2007-11-15 22:12).

    The current poll on the same front page is entitled “Should there be a judicial review on the use of tasers?“. I think they might want to push that review a little further.

    The RCMP should be, can and has often been one of Canada’s prides. What’s happening to the “Organization of Excellence” thing?

  • Release: WPhone 1.4.1: Winner Edition

    I can hardly contain myself: we won the challenge that got us started with WPhone! 🙂

    Well, the true starting point was a question/challenge sent by one of my teammates, Doug, to the wp-hackers mailing list and the animated thread that ensued. A true ode to OSS, in many ways.

    So to celebrate, we decided to release version 1.4.1 tonight, which brings the first bundled translations into the mix (Russian and French), and addresses issues discovered through our truly helpful user base.

    Now, what am I gonna do with an iPhone in Canada, uh Apple/Rogers? *nudge nudge, wink wink* Well, who knows, maybe I can get Android running on it. :-p

  • FaceBookCampMontreal

    One more! Tonight was FaceBookCampMontreal, an unconference for everyone with an interest in building on the Facebook Platform. Once again, great event, great crowd, very interesting subject.

    I’d venture to say that the event was actually a bit late for the developer crowd, since we’ve all drunk the Facebook API Kool-Aid months ago, and most of us have been playing with it publicly or in private sandboxes. On the other hand, the PR crowd was there in full force and was visibly excited by the torrent of opportunities the FB ecosystem truly is.

    So if you need a Facebook application and don’t know where to start, a good first step is to call Plank. :o) We’ll hook you up with a strategy that makes sense for both you and your users/audience.

    I also have my own pipe dreams, but I’m just too busy to take on yet another project right now. Maybe in December…

  • BarCampMontreal3

    I spent the afternoon at BarCampMontreal3 yesterday, and let me tell you, it’s good to be in Montreal! Startups, Open Source projects, successful ventures, etc. You name it, we’ve got it. But most of all, it’s the people that really make the difference. And we’ve got that too!

    Can’t wait until FaceBookCampMontreal next wednesday, especially in light of what is expected to be launched by Facebook on tuesday. Despite the event’s name, I’m fairly sure OpenSocial won’t be a stranger at this event though. ;o)

    Edit: Be sure to check out Heri’s complete report on the event, as well as Sylvain’s notes on the OpenSocial BOF.

  • Release: WPhone 1.4.0: “Tada!” Edition

    We were planning on releasing a WPhone 1.3.2 tonight. Then we figured the new Plugin Management feature and some of the backend improvements called for a 1.4.0 release instead.

    Moving forward is fun!

    On a related note, I though the following was just brilliant: We got our first confirmed post from a BlackBerry. What’s so interesting about this? Well, Sergio, the author, embarked on a 4×4 expedition to Morocco (and its desert) last Friday, and will be using WPhone to blog for his family and friends back home.

    Thanks a lot of for your quick support. I want to post for my family and friends in my recent blog http://www.sergiorico.com with my blackberry traveling into Morocco (from this friday)… probably nothing is going to work… least wphone!! Great extension!!

    Lucky him.

  • First Day at Plank, aka Sponge Monday

    What a great first day!

    The sponge analogy explains itself when you take in consideration the amount of information you’re exposed to on your first day in a new company. Dataset acquired, time to parse.

    One sure thing is that I lucked out, because this team sure knows how to make someone feel right at home. Can’t wait to be productive, so I can carry my own weight. And then some.

    Like good old Stimpy would say: happy happy, joy joy.

  • Last Day at McGill. Counting the Minutes until Monday.

    Yesterday was my last day as McGill University‘s Web System Architect.

    It’s always sad to leave a team you’ve so enjoyed working with for five (long/short) years, but how could I refuse taking on the role of technology director for the dynamic Plank Design?

    As Doug, a teammate on the WPhone project, would so elegantly put it: *grin*.

    And as Buzz would, since one analogy is never enough (…): to infinity, and beyond!

  • Apple's New iPhone Developer Center

    I’ve just been through most of Apple’s new iPhone Developer Center (ADC membership required), and I find they’ve done a very nice job of aggregating all the info we’ve so far had to dig for, whether through Apple’s own information channels or the countless tidbits published by third parties scattered around the web.

    As I’ve voiced through the iPhoneWebDev list earlier tonight, it is great to have one consolidated and dedicated resource to live by in keeping up with the momentum Apple’s mobile devices are reaching.

    On the other hand, I would urge the development community to focus on the term guidelines, and not overly fall into design patterns that would ultimately lock them in (just think MSIE/ActiveX). As Apple itself notes, emphasis should be put on accepted standards, which in term allows for greater code and experience portability.

    The web is always evolving, and as it does, so will Safari. You’ll want to keep informed of the evolving standards emanating from WHATWG and W3C standards bodies.

    Even though the WebKit/WebCore combination is increasingly becoming the mobile industry’s dream team, with examples such as Nokia’s S60WebKit browser and maybe [hopefully] even the yet-to-be-released consumer version of the OpenMoko platform, let’s not dismiss other platforms such as Opera Mini and Mozilla’s revived mobile efforts.

    I, on my end, am indeed pretty hyped that our own WPhone app scores very high when it comes to adherence with Apple’s published guidelines, but I’m just as excited by the fact that it in fact support close to any web-capable mobile device released in the last 3-5 years. Unobtrusive Javascript, how I love you so.

    This said, now we also want to make the same rich experience available to the Apple user base to the scores of other fun tools and toys that are starting to and will surely flood the market over the next three to five years.

    As I often say: fun times ahead! :o)