Posts tagged technology
The new risk capital reality: What now?
Feb 18th
By Francis Moran and Leo Valiquette
In our previous post, we explored the massive changes that have occurred in North America and Europe that have led to a contraction of traditional venture capital investment.
These long-term trends have left early-stage companies in a tight spot. They must become increasingly creative to shorten time to market, become more capital efficient and generally figure out how to do more with less. The cash-burn of years past is no longer an option, if it ever was.
Rise of the super angels
All is not bleak, however. While traditional VCs may have become easily spooked by the prospect of sinking cash into an unproven startup, many angel organizations have stepped up to fill the void. Ronald Weissman, chair of the Software Special Industry Group at one of Silicon Valley’s oldest angel organization, Band of Angels, said many angel organizations have come to act like early-stage VCs. Read the rest of this entry »
Canada’s Atwood ahead of Lady Gaga, will.i.am in bringing sexy back to tech?
Jan 26th
It’s no longer just a matter of Avril Lavign vamping for Canon versus Ashton Kutcher’s antics for Nikon.
Tech companies seem bent on recruiting celebrities not just to pose for their products but actually “star” as designers of their gadgets.
Nestor Arellano
The latest recruit in this recent trend in Black Eyed Peas front man will.iam who was named Director if Creative Innovation for Intel. Will.i.am’s appointment came at the heels of Polaroid’s announcement at the CES 2011 that Lady Gaga was the new creative director for the company.
The practice of hiring celebrities to front for tech products is nothing new. But as far as marketing celebs as product designers, Canadian literary icon Margaret Atwood probably had the jump on Will and Lady Gaga in helping tech get its sexy back. Read the rest of this entry »
The Golden Gobblers Awards
Nov 26th
By Robert X. Cringely (InfoWorld (US)
Think of it as an appetizer before the big meal on Thursday. For the fourth year, I’m trotting out my nominations for the biggest turkeys of tech.
Last year’s winners included Fox News’ Glenn Beck, everyone’s favorite skank gracefully aging cover model Liskula Cohen, Apple tablet fiends, and Mr. Crunchy himself, Michael Arrington. In the past I’ve honored such notables as rocker Axl Rose, Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang, escort-friendly AG Eliot Spitzer, and everybody’s favorite capitalist-communist-tyrant-Facebook fanboy, Chinese Premier Wen Jaibao.
Surf’s up at the Ex – thanks to mobile, computer automated, perpetual wave
Sep 1st
Surfing and Toronto’s waterfront don’t often go hand-in-hand.
Brian Jackson
It’s not that some desperate beach bums don’t try to catch a wave on Lake Ontario every now and then, but there’s just not much wake to ride on. Surfing, most North Americans know, is best left for ocean beaches along the west coast. Unless the FlowRider drives into town – as it has for the Canadian National Exhibition.
New Brunswick releases 21st century learning plan
Jun 8th
On May 14th the Anglophone sector of the New Brunswick Department of Education released its proposal on how to shift our public education system to a 21st Century learning model. The plan was developed using a co-leadership model with principals and district leaders, and the consultation document will now be used to engage our teachers.
John Kershaw
As New Brunswick teachers were each allocated a notebook computer, for the first time in history we were able to forward a copy of a draft learning strategy to every teacher, for their advice and counsel.
The plan, entitled 21st Century Learning (NB3-21C) is available for review at our departmental website: http://www.gnb.ca/0000/index-e.asp.
While the three year plan is quite comprehensive, four key elements are emerging as critical pillars to success. Let’s call them the CRT2 formula, where C is Creativity, R is Relevance; the first T is Time and the second, Technology. Read the rest of this entry »
The Coolest Stuff in Digital Media: Checking Out Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone
May 5th
I’m often asked at IDC what the coolest technology is that I’m seeing in Canada from tech startups. In the Digital Media space, and in Toronto specifically, a good place to source out hot new digital media technology is at Ryerson’s new Digital Media Zone (DMZ), which officially opened on April 7, 2010 (http://www.ryerson.ca/dmz/).
Located on the 5th floor overlooking Yonge-Dundas Square, the DMZ connects Ryerson students, graduates and alumni from different disciplines to take digitally inspired concepts and make them real solutions and marketable products. Ryerson’s President Sheldon Levy explained that Ryerson does not take a stake in the technology being developed; instead it provides the space and equipment for students to test and try their ideas in a safe environment supported and funded by the school.
The result? Some pretty cool and marketable technology. Examples include: Read the rest of this entry »
New Brunswick teachers receive new laptops
Apr 26th
New Brunswick’s Department of Education is serious about building a 21st Century model of learning. On April 16, 2010 the Department announced that every teacher in our system will receive a new notebook computer. The multi-million dollar investment involves over 8,000 teachers. The New Brunswick Teachers Association applauded the investment and all agreed that a 1:1 teacher-computer model is essential in today’s 21st Century learning environment.
The Department of Education first offered a personal notebook computer to teachers in 2006. At that time teachers were offered a computer to support their daily teaching activities, including the delivery of provincial curricula, programs and services and accessing online information and resources. A high percentage of teachers accepted the offer in 2006. The more recent announcement to refresh all the notebook computers will keep New Brunswick teachers at the leading edge of using technology and their profession.
The New Brunswick teaching force is now among the highest trained in the world on using ICT applications for teaching and learning. They depend on their computers for creating, storing and sharing lesson plans, report cards and formative assessment information. A growing number are using email, twitter, Facebook and other web based applications to communicate with students, parents, and their local communities. They are collaborating electronically with other teachers in their own school or elsewhere in the New Brunswick system, accessing information on the internet, and increasingly partnering with schools in other parts of the world. With the growing number of interactive whiteboards in New Brunswick’s classrooms teachers now have the capacity to link their notebooks with the whiteboards and create engaging lessons for students. Having their own notebook also allows them to access the department’s on-line portal that offers a host of information, ranging from curricula to on-line resources and best practices. The 1:1 teacher-computer model also facilitates the development of our electronic special education plans for children with disabilities and special needs. Read the rest of this entry »
School district boosts Web strategy with open source software
Mar 10th
Juggling daily classroom duties and other responsibilities make it very difficult for school staff and students to maintain and update school websites.
This was the case with School District 16 in eastern New Brunswick, where upkeep of the school websites often fell on the shoulders of one staff member who had little or no web design experience. As a result, many of these sites were rarely updated.
However, since developing a content management system based on the open source Drupal server software, the district has streamlined its web services. Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Read the rest of this entry »
1:1 computer model for students gains international approval
Mar 5th
“The world is finally accepting the inevitability of the 1:1 computer model in the classroom.”
Bruce Dixon, a globally renowned learning visionary, made this pronouncement at a conference in Vienna, Austria on February 23, 2010. The conference, hosted by the Austrian Ministry of Education, was sponsored by the OECD, the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank (www.bildung.at/nml-conference2010). Dixon’s declaration was heard by 120 delegates representing 42 countries, including many developing nations. What delegates had in common was their effort to introduce one computer per child models into their public education systems to meet the needs of New Millennium Learners. Read the rest of this entry »
