News: Oh, Vancouver...

I'm in  a condo, staring out over False Creek and a gorgeous boardwalk area in Vancouver. Then I turn a bit to the right and blooms of smoke rise from the downtown core. Three helicopters hover over the area and on TV I wonder if I'm witnessing the beginnings of WWIII. Nope, it's just Vancouver losing to Boston in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup. What?

Sigh. I can't believe it. A disappointing family event to be sure. It hurts to lose after going 3-3. We could have used the burst of hope of winning. Earlier there had been such pride in the streets. People wearing Canuck shirts and symbols proudly. As the game got closer, random people began shouting in the streets, getting a head start on the anticipated celebrations. People left their cars at home and took transit in. Everything was ready.

Unfortunately, not for a celebration... but shame on the streets. A bunch of hooligans without anything better to do, determined to cause a riot.

Social Media Explosion

On Monday, May 2^nd, at 1 AM Pakistani local time, a Twitter user with the handle, 'ReallyVirtual', tweeted this to a San Francisco-based microblogging service:

Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)

Shortly afterwards:

A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S

This was soon followed by a succession of rapid-fire tweets telling of a helicopter crashing, a family dying and then soldiers cordoning off part of the neighborhood and searching door-to-door.

Welcome to live coverage of the death of Osama Bin Laden by an unwitting computer programmer

…and a new era in social networking.

Science Fact or Fiction: Wearable Computers

Imagine this…you arrive at a party, all decked out to the nines. It's an important event. A woman comes up to you, smiles. "Hello, Frank. Do you remember me?" Unfortunately, you don't because you have a memory like a sieve and are about to fumble through, faking an acquaintance you don't recall, hoping she'll drop some clues before you make a fool of yourself. Her name would be nice.

The Future of Reading - Or How I Learned to Love My Kindle

What is the future of the publishing industry? The consensus appears to be…no one really knows and anyone who claims they do must have precognition and as scientists will tell you, that is a class 3 impossibility.

Change is happening. That's a given. But what is that change?

Science Fact or Fiction: Teleportation - Or Take Me Home the Quick Way

Just imagine it. You're in dreary cubicle, working your life away on some mind-numbing project. What you wouldn't give for a short break. Maybe a quick jaunt to Paris to enjoy a golden croissant and a perfect cup of coffee at a sidewalk café.

Step onto my teleport and I'll have you there and back in a jiffy.

Fantasy, you say? Science Fiction surely.

Captain Kirk and crew step onto the transporter platform in Star Trek, and get whisked away to an alien planet.

In Blakes 7, Kerr Avon and his crew step onto the teleport pad, wearing a bracelet that enables the transmission of matter as pure energy.

In SG-1, Jack and his intrepid team steps  through a  stargate built by the ancients.

But is teleportation possible?