Marcus Troiano

Late last month, the stunningly beautiful Alice Panikian, was crowned Miss Universe of Canada 2006, at the Casino du Montreal. The 6’1”, 20 year old and professional model was representing Toronto in the event, and was up against 48 other contestants from across the country. Alice was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and immigrated to Canada when she was five years old. She’s in her second year at York University, majoring in English and Communications.

The 2006 Miss Universe Pageant (in which many countries will be represented) will take place on Sunday, July 23, 2006 in Los Angeles, California. Last year’s winner was Canada’s very own Natalie Glebova (who was also from Toronto). The event has never been won back-to-back by one country, but I think it may just happen this time. Take one good look at Alice…how can’t she win? . In any case, I would like to wish her best of luck in this event, and also congratulate her for how far she’s come already, definitely something to be proud of! Good Luck Alice!!!

For more information about the event, go here. Also, if you’d like to see a video slideshow of all the contestants (for the Canadian event), just download it here (Please note, the movie is an .AVI file and is encoded with the XviD codec, in order to view the video in WMP, install the XviD codec first). Alice stood out as a definite winner (in my opinion), but that’s not to say it wasn’t close! See for yourself.

written by Marcus

In a bold move by Toronto Hydro Telecom Inc., Toronto will join cities like San Francisco and Philadelphia, in a new era of wireless internet connectivity. Toronto Hydro Telecom plans to utilize its 450KM of underused fiber-optic cables and recently acquired telephone poles (they purchased 18,000 of them from the city for $60 mil.) to provide Toronto with Internet; available for use in coffee shops, parks, offices, or at home. They will place transmitters on the poles and link them up to their already established fiber-optic network.

The network is currently in construction, and service should be available in the financial district by June. The area from Spadina Avenue east to Jarvis Street and from Front Street north to Bloor Street should be covered by the end of the year. The network will reportedly cost the company anywhere between 10 to 100 million, and will cost users absolutely nothing for the first six months of use. Pricing plans haven’t been finalized, and all we know is that it will be affordable, but won’t undercut currently available service. So don’t expect to get service for, lets say $9/month, it just won’t happen.

David Dobbin, the man in charge of the project, is quoted as saying: “I think this is going to be a completely different model that anyone’s ever rolled out,” he said. “This is bigger, better and faster. This is a WiFi zone backed up with fibre optic everywhere.” And, this could give Rogers, Telus and Bell something to worry about. If users can subscribe to Toronto Hydro Telecom’s city-wide WiFi for a fee that will likely be competitive, they might move from their current ISP.

The network is meant to mainly target the business community, although consumers can use it as well, this just means it won’t be marketed as a residential service. They could go down that route, but it would require them to beef up customer support and marketing. Toronto Hydro Telecom also plans to link the wireless service to its “smart meter” plan, which will monitor electricity usage in homes and businesses.

I’m extremely pleased with this news, as is anyone who has a WiFi enabled device. The convenience of being able to connect to the internet wherever you are is great. Sure you can do that now by using your cell-phone’s data plan, but thats costly and slow. This will also help make UMPC’s (Microsoft’s Origami devices), more attractive to mainstream users. Once the service is rolled out…I’ll be first in line!

written by Marcus

Over the past month Sony has let a lot slip about their upcoming gaming console, the PS3. Firstly, they finally admitted to the already widely believed fact that the PS3 would indeed be delayed. Even the most die-hard Sony fanboys knew deep down in their hearts that Sony wasn’t going to make the Spring 2006 shipping date, and it was just a matter of time until Sony admitted this themselves. Well on March 15th they announced that the PS3 would be released early in November 2006. Sony claims that Blu-ray’s copy protection (AACS) was the main reason for the delay.

Sony has also revealed that the PS3 will come standard with a 60GB hard drive, something which should make developers and users quite happy. Microsoft’s stand on the subject has been a little different, allowing the Xbox 360 to be purchased either with or without a hard drive (if purchased without, it can be added in later). The 360’s 20GB HDD is definitely not enough, considering quite a large portion is not useable to the user. It’s not all good news that the PS3 will have a 60GB HDD though…This won’t help with bringing down the already high price point.

Speaking of price, the latest rumours suggest the PS3 will sell for a minimum of $425 US, although other reports have been surfacing which see an additional $300 added to that figure. One thing is forsure, it won’t come cheap.

Sony has also confirmed earlier reports that the PS3 will be region free! That means that you can buy a game in any country, and be able to play it no matter which region your PS3 was purchased in. This is definitely good news for consumers, as region codes have been inconveniencing people for quite some time now. Sony has also announced its online serviced aimed squarely at competing with Microsoft’s very successful Live service. Dubbed “PlayStation Network Platform”, Sony’s online service will allow users to use video chat, create avatar, view player rankings, and partake in other community activities. It will even allow non-subscribers to play some multiplayer games.

Lastly, Sony has also revealed that their boomerang shaped PS3 controller is being re-designed. This is great news, as the controller didn’t look too great, and it didn’t look like it would feel to good in ones hands either. Could it possibly look like the concept controller below?

written by Marcus

Earlier this month at CeBIT 2006, Samsung unvelied two new and noteworthy smartphones. The SGH-i310 (pictured above) is a music smartphone, boasting 8GB’s of internal memory to store both media (they advertise that it is capable of holding up to 2,000 MP3’s) and data. It also sports a 2MP camera with flash, video recording and playback, TV-out and a microSD slot. Samsung has also loaded this phone with the popular and feature rich OS, Windows Mobile 5.0. The SGH-i310 can play back MP3/WMA/AAC files, has Bluetooth with A2DP, is Plug&Play and USB 2.0. Definitely an impressive phone feature wise and also nice to look at (check these pics out). No word on how much these will go for when they’re released later this year in Europe, though we can assume they will be quite pricey. Samsung used a HDD in this phone, instead of flash memory, so that should help keep the price in check.

Samsung also took the wraps off their new 10MP camera phone, the SCH-B600 (pictured left). It comes packed with 3x optical zoom, flash, S-DMB support, Bluetooth, EV-DO, TV-out and more. It will be released in Korea sometime in Q2 of this year, for yet again, an unkown price, although we can definitely assume correctly that it will be very costly ;).

Between these two phones, I’d have to say I’m happier with the SGH-i310. It’s great to see that Samsung finally made use of Windows Mobile 5 for their OS, and also having 8GB of storage in a phone is amazing! Flash wopuld have been nicer, but for the extra cost it would add, it’s not worth it. Mini HDD’s still have quite some life left in them, and I think we’re going to see a lot more of these little wonders in all sorts of devices in the near future.

The SCH-B600 also looks like an awesome phone…..10MP camera??? Those are barely available as standalone models, at least not widely. It’s definetly impressive, but for the time being I think I’ll use a seperate phone and camera…just think of how much battery power that would take to power ;).

written by Marcus

Microsoft’s recent unveiling of their UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) concept, dubbed “Origami” definitely made a huge splash! Did it live up to the hype that was created by the three week long viral marketing campaign? Well the answer tends to differ depending on who you ask, but in my opinion, I think it definitely did!

The UMPC is basically a cross between a Tablet PC and a Pocket PC. It inherits much of the Tablet PC’s power and functionality, while keeping the formfactor closer to that of a Pocket PC’s. Microsoft, and their partners in this project (Intel, Samsung, Asus, Founder and more), are targetting a broad market with this product, hoping it will become a popular item. Microsofts foray into the mobile pc market to date hasn’t been to successful, with the Tablet PC failing to become the mainstream item that it was touted as being, and Pocket PC sales seeing little growth. The UMPC concept has the potential to avoiud the shortfalls of its siblings, offering the best of ultra mobility and power.

Some of the products many attributes and uses are outlined below, in an excert taken from the official UMPC website.

Checking out your favorite movie during a road trip. Downloading and listening to the latest hot tunes at the coffee shop. Surfing the Web at the beach while your friends surf the waves. More than ever before, people around the world are demanding simpler, more convenient ways to access and enjoy their favorite digital content while on the go.

The Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC) addresses these needs with small, stylish products you can carry with you everywhere you go. The UMPC devices offer ultra-portable sizes and long battery life, plus full PC and Internet capabilities, so you can access your favorite web pages anytime, virtually anywhere!

At the unveiling, Samsung, Asus and Founder had working models of their respective UMPC’s (shown in the image below). The specs on these three pruducts vary slighty, each one offering slightly different hardware components and features. Samsungs Q1 weighs in at 779g (1.7 pound), has dimensions of 9 x 5.5 x 1and sports a 7″ touchscreen LCD. It’s powered by a Celeron M ULV processor, and comes equipped with a 40GB drive, 512MB RAM, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.0, GPS and DMB options, and runs Windows XP Tablet with Touch Pack.

Both the Asus and Founder UMPC’s appear slightly more impressive, with the ASUS model having a sleek, brushed alluminum case and 1.3-megapixel front mounted camera for WiFi video conferencing, and the Founder UMPC using a 1GHz Pentium M processor compared to the 900MHz Celeron M in the Samsung and ASUS.

These first generation UMPC’s will definitely come at a premium, putting you back at least $1000. I’d advise one to wait at least a year before getting one, as battery life and performance will greatly increase (Intel mentioned an 8 hour battery life in later models), and the price should fall to a more manageable $500+ range.

Other manufacturers are beginning to release their own UMPC’s, with TabletKiosk recently announcing their V-700 UMPC. It comes equipped with a VIA C7M at 1GHz, max RAM of 1GB, 2.5-inch HDD up to 160GB, 7-inch 800×480 display and several other addons.

Will I get a UMPC? Definitely! Now? No, I’ll be waiting until the price drops and the performance increases. This device is what I’ve been waiting for, something which can replace my laptop when I’m on the go or even in my house. I’m very impressed, and it’s going to take all my will-power not to grab one of these when it comes to a store near me!

written by Marcus