Yep, today is the day most Canadians take some time off, BBQ, drink beer and light off fireworks. Canada Day (formerly known as Dominion Day) is the Canadian version of American Independence Day, in which we celebrate the anniversary of the July 1, 1867 enactment of the British North America Act. Long story short, we’re celebrating the birthday of our country. If you’d like to learn more about Canada Day, check out the Canadian Government’s Heritage website. There’s some good info there.

To all of my Canadian family, friends and colleagues, let’s party it up today. But not too hard, most of us have to go back to work tomorrow…… right?

Note: The image above should work very nicely as an iPhone wallpaper. Give it a try!

Happy 142nd Birthday Canada!

There’s no doubting that my bud Phil over at PreThinking is in love with his Palm Pre. I always knew it, but this latest exploit simply confirms it. After Phil picked up the matte Touchstone battery door, his glossy cover was of no use to him. To his delight, a reader (@spckeishou) stepped up and offered laser engraving services via the Sprint (NYSE: S) Studio he happens to work at. The rest, as they say, is history.

The results and even a video are all available after the jump >
Read the full article »

British Skier David Fitzherbert was doing some skiing off-trail in the Matterhorn and Monterosa peaks in Switzerland when something terrible happened. The snow gave way beneath him, and he plummeted some 70 feet into a crevasse.

“The snow gave way beneath me and I fell down a very deep crevasse. After 70 feet it narrowed and I became stuck like a cork in a bottle between the walls. Fortunately the extra inches of the Blackberry (NSDQ: RIMM) were enough to block the fall.”

David broke his jaw, some teeth, his nose and a bone in his chest… But his BlackBerry was still working well enough to use. While in hospital he used it to message his wife that he was still alive.

I always thought that a thin device was more optimal. Next time I go skiing I’m packing the trusty old BlackBerry 8700 in my jacket pocket… Just in case

[Via: TheSun.co.uk]

Whilst writing some posts this evening/early morning, I have been listening to music - like most of the IntoMobile team when they are writing I think!

Of course, with recent events, Michael Jackson is at the front of many peoples’ minds, and I’m no exception - the man brought some amazing music that crossed boundaries, defied genres, and enriched our lives. So here, whilst I am posting, are my top 10 MJ tracks - ranked in descending order:

10: Jam (another MJ - Michael Jordan - in the video. Heavy D on rap duties!)

9: In The Closet (Naomi Campbell in video. Nuff said)

8: Who Is It (bad-ass percussion on this)

7: You Rock My World (Darkchild is a legendary producer)

6: Stranger in Moscow (underrated track - great Todd Terry remixes….)

5: Human Nature (incredibly delicate track, but superb instrumentation)

4: Billie Jean (one of the best intros to a track ever…)

3: Smooth Criminal (awesome, even if just for the Alien Ant Farm cover years later!)

2: Beat It (talk about an another awesome intro, and some hard pop lyrics!)

1: Thriller (had to be, didn’t it - but listen to the instrumentation on it, amazing for the time - and interpolated cleverly by Prodigy years later on ‘The Way It Is’ - check it out if you have 5…)

Of course, everyone has their own Top 10 - post yours in the comments below (you can get the full singles discography here at Wikipedia).

Another NetLingo word of the day that fits a gap in tech-vocabulary perfectly:

courseware

Another name for instructional software, courseware can come in the form of a CD-ROM, a Web site, a floppy, an instructional video, or a program tutorial. Courseware is often used to train people on computer business applications, and is the term given to ancillary material in computer training classes.

This is another area where the Mobile device can come in incredibly handy - already today, kids now receive their homework and submit it over email (which presumably if you have a USB dongle inserted is mobile school-working!), but there’s scope for this to extend further in to using Mobile devices for certain projects and coursework.

Can we see a not-too-distant future perhaps where touchscreen devices auto-download the necessary coursework over wireless connection, and then use Apps with clever map/direction/orientational features to make learning a portable, interactive, experience? Only time will tell

Check out the cool tech language site that is NetLingo, right here.

[Via: NetLingo]

In an effort to show devs just how many fat wads of cash they can make working on the iPhone platform, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) set up this impressive display at WWDC which shows a colour-organized grid of iPhone apps that blip whenever someone downloads them. Those ones that ping over and over again would be your beer, lighter, and/or fart apps, although it’s probably not really “live from the App Store” as captioned, and those repeats are just catching up from lag.  By my count, you’ve got about 25 by 45 apps per screen, across 20 screens, which works out to roughly 22,500 apps represented here - a number we think that was surpassed in March, but still a sample big enough to really wow passersby.

[via TechCrunch]

We all know President Obama is a BlackBerry user, in fact, most might consider him an ‘addict’ (First Lady Michelle Obama is a BlackBerry user as well!). This surely was the fuel for the fire that led comedy troupe Kasper Hauser to create and publish ‘Obama’s BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM)’. The book is all fiction (it’s all made up, so please don’t take it seriously!), and provides us with a hilarious look into what President Obama’s BlackBerry might look like from time to time

A snippet from the official description of the book:

This giftable, imagined glimpse into Obama’s beloved Blackberry traverses the mundane and momentous contours of the Commander in Chief’s life, from security briefings to spam, basketball practice to domestic bliss, and the panic of oops-I-hit-reply-all, to, of course, the trauma of dealing with the First Mother In Law.

To wit:

BidenMyTime: Hey U, whatcha doin?
BARACKO: M rly busy
BidenMyTime: Right Can I lv at 4:45?

Fun stuff You can check out all the details or pick it up for $10.97 over at Amazon.

[Via: BBCool]

My fave tech-word-of-the-day site, NetLingo, has come up with another really applicable term for the Mobile world:

merchantainment

If you think this sounds like a Mickey Mouse term, youre right. In the Internet commerce world, its the meshing of entertainment content with product information. Ralph Laurens Polo.com has employed it extensively, but the term was created at Disney World. In fact, Disney staff are trained to be “Merchantainment Hosts” or “merchantainers.” The goal is to create a positive experience for park visitors so they will be inclined to buy more goodies.

Of course, we’ve seen loads of merchantainment Apps on the iPhone, haven’t we - many branded “applications” or “games”, that actually lean heavily on the brand of the company that supplies the App (usually via a developer)…. this is a trend that I see set to continue - and now we have a name for it!

[Via: NetLingo]

I’m thinking the Syrians have something here… Perhaps Canadians should band together and put the screws to our major carriers as well!? Subscribers in Syria have worked together to boycott mobile phone use on the two carriers in the region, Syriatel and MTN Syria. Subscribers are fed up with the high costs of running a mobile device in the country. The protest is aimed at knocking down prices to price-points comparable to other countries in the region. Facebook and Twitter were used to help spread the campaign message:

Boycott Mobile Phones on 1 June 2009
Contribute with us in the national campaign to lobby the telecom companies to lower the bills to become similar to neighboring countries… Contribute with us and spread the news to reach as many people as possible.

You know when your subscribers band together in protest that something has to change. Should be interesting to see if Syriatel and/or MTN Syria make any moves to appease the situation. Sounds like a great opportunity for one of these carriers to step forward to move into the mobile-minded’s good books.

[Via: Global Voices]

Are you an iPhone Dev guy? Or you just like having an obscene level of detail about your device? Well then the UDID finder App is for you!

The UDID of your device is kinda like the serial number, but is the key for locking content to your device only - that might be useful, for example, if you want to issue test builds of apps or games. Normally it’s quite irritating to find out what it is, because you need to connect your device to iTunes, then click on the serial number listing for your device to temporarily display the UDID! This App streamlines the process by just pulling it out of your device, and putting it in an email so you can send it to people - great!

Right now it’s not clear if the UDID will be used more expansively for consumers, but for right now certainly, the App makes it easy to quickly find your UDID if you’re a dev guy (or someone reviewing content!). It’s simple and basic, but it doesn’t need to be complex - and it’s easily found in the App Store under (unsurprisingly) ‘UDID’!