As I had predicted by the product page being up on the weekend, Virgin Mobile Canada launches the new BlackBerry Pearl Flip. The pricing on the new phone is very competitive and beats out the big players in Canada. Virgin Mobile has it priced at $0 / 3 year … $299 / 2 year … $349 / 1 year … and $399 / no contract.  Comparing that to Telus puts the pricing all $50 cheaper (Telus would have the upper hand in terms of plans though… Smartphone Combo!). The Flip comes with newer software than whats is on the Curve or Pearl thus making the phone a little bit more attractive. Unfortunately, Virgin isn’t throwing in an 8gb card with this phone like they did with the Pearl and Curve at launch (probably reducing costs).  Overall though, for a $0 smart phone this is a great device, fully capable of much more than people will give it credit for.
Virgin Mobile Canada Set To Launch BlackBerry Pearl Flip
I have been snooping on the Virgin Mobile Canada site and just stumbled across this page. At first glance it appears to be nothing… but closer examination of the title bar will reveal all with “BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230”.  Right now there is no indication of a release date but the fact that its on their webpage suggests it should be soon.
Bell Mobility aquires Virgin Mobile Canada
Bell Mobility (TSE: BCE) acquired 100% of Virgin Mobile Canada on May 7th, for a cost of $142 million CAD. Bell, who already controlled 50% of the company, was purchasing the remaining 50% of the company controlled by Virgin Group. Virgin Mobile Canada will continue to operate independently and maintain the Virgin branding. Virgin Mobile was created in 2004 by an equal partnership between Virgin Group and Bell Mobility. Virgin Mobile has been successful at targeting the youth market with its prepaid phones and more recently with its monthly plans.
Blackberry App World Goes Live
One day into the new BlackBerry App World and I am liking it. I have been able to download a lot of new apps and really enjoy the ease of downloading. I have only downloaded free apps so far but in the future the pay apps seem like a very good option for me. I was really impressed to see Shazam for BlackBerry. Its cool stuff being able to walk around a mall and for my Storm to tell me what song is playing. Overall I would recommend the App World to anyone with a compatible BlackBerry.
Anddddddd your keyboard is now Daft Punk
I saw this site on diggnation and thought it was awesome.  There is a flash application that allows you to be a DJ and custom mix the Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger song… very cool indeed. Nick this Daft Punk link is for you since I know you will like it but you might also enjoy this youtube video as well.
Top 10 Things That Annoy Programmers
Programmers all have their pet peeves e.g annoyances. Whether it’s scope creep, Hungarian notation, or smelly coworkers, we’ve come to accept that there are certain nuisances that come with our line of work. The following is a list of the top 10 things that annoy programmers.
70 New, Useful AJAX And JavaScript Techniques
I just read through a great site on some new(er) techniques for web design. I have been out of the loop recently in regards to all this Web 2.0 stuff so I found this to be informative and useful. The article presents 70 JavaScript and AJAX techniques, all of which are of the highest quality and are more or less easy to configure. I may very well find some of them useful enough to include in my future projects. Definitely a great resource.
14 Abandoned Game Franchises that Need to Make a Comeback
Gamepro’s list is great, however I feel that Earthbound, and Super Mario RPG deserve to be placed on the list as well. Looking over the list, I feel that a couple of the franchises will be revived fairly soon (Killer Instinct).
“Popular video game franchises are rarely abandoned. Usually a series that sells well is milked until gamers finally refuses to give a damn after the twenty-third sequel. This feature is dedicated to game franchises that, for various reasons, didn’t manage to stick around. Here are our picks of 14 game franchises that died way before their time.” – Gamepro
40th Canadian Federal Election (2008)
The Canadian election results are in and they prove how our system of ‘first past the post’ fails to provide fairness to voters and creates a system of false authority.
There is a serious problem with the Canadian electoral system and the most recent election deeply highlights the issue. Canadians need electoral reform as the current process is broken. In the election the results appeared as most people could have predicted, with a Conservative minority government. What most people haven’t been looking at is the issue with proportional representation. By taking a look at how the popular vote carries over to the number of seats a party wins we see major disfunction.
Party – Popular Vote – Seats – Percentage of Voting power in Parliament
Conservative – 37.6% – 143 – 46.4%
Liberal – 26.2% – 76 – 24.7%
NDP – 18.2% – 37 – 12%
BLOC – 10% – 50 – 16.2%
Green – 6.8% – 0 – 0%
By looking at these figures, we see that the Conservatives and Bloc are receiving too much power from their votes and parties like the Liberal, NDP, and most especially the Green Party have their power in parliament reduced. This is a slap in the face to voters who had voted for the Green party as their vote will now translate into zero say in parliament even though the party holds 6.8% of all voters views. Electoral reform needs to happen, and it must happen soon. Voter turnout reached an alltime low in the latest election and its no surprise. Voters are left feeling helpless and that their vote will not matter in the big picture.
Please take a look at the great site, Fair Vote Canada for more information on electoral reform and please get involved. Take a look at Orphan Voters to really highlight the issue of votes not really counting. All statistics can be found at the Elections Canada site.
Sirius and XM Merge Complete
The Sirius takeover of XM Satellite Radio is complete. The company has changed its name and is now called Sirius XM Radio Inc. Shares of Sirius XM (NASDAQ : SIRI) were down following the takeover and were seen trading around 1.34 on August 13. It is an exciting time for the new company. I am most interested in how this is going to affect exclusivity deals, such as NHL which was previously exclusive to XM. Since its a single company now, I really hope that the exclusives will be able to flow to the other providers radio. It should also be interesting to see the next generation of radios that will have access to both sets of signals. This is an exciting time for this company, and I hope that they will be able to continue to attract subscribers and really make things happen.