OhRyan.ca

My desk neighbour showed up to work this morning with a brand new iPhone 4S. He let me play around with Siri a bit.

Looks like Siri is not fully functional in Canada.

Referencing location (eg. “Where am I?”) results in an error message stating that directions and maps are unavailable in Canada.

Update: Now with a screenshot.

My friend @iamhabitat on twitter just pointed out that Siri is not listed as one of the features on Apple Canada’s iPhone 4S page.

Does this imply that the feature will not be available in Canada? How disappointing would that be?!

I had assumed that it would. I guess we’ll find out when iOS5 comes out tomorrow.

Update: Yes, Yes it does. But it doesn’t seem to know how to map in Canada (at least not yet).

This just in, the government plans to overturn the CRTC’s UBB ruling!!!!11!!

This is great news! But the fight is not over.

Lost in all the reddit posts and media buzz is the fact that there is currently nothing stopping any ISP from charging their retail customers bandwidth overages.

The fight is not over, but hopefully the dialogue will continue and real competition can be fostered (west of Ontario even!).

I listen to a fair few tech podcasts every week, I often find myself quite frustrated by the US-centric nature of the stories they cover. While most of the major tech stories have global implications, just as many – if not more – are about US companies and issues. In an attempt to keep myself up to date on  clearly Canadian tech stories I’ve decided to seek out 5 or so important tech stories from North of the 49th every week.

Ontario Parents Try To Ban Wi-fi in School: Parents group blames wi-fi for headache and nausea reported by their children. Health Canada rejects their claims, citing science. Teacher’s federation rejects proposal. Chalk one up for science.

iPhone Competition, Galaxy S Comes to Canada: To my knowledge this is the only phone in available on a Canadian carrier capable of running Android 2.2. Bell launched the Vibrant August 6th. Rogers, SaskTel and (possibly) Virgin are following suit…soon.

CRTC Requires ISP’s Financial Data: I’m totally sure exactly what this is about, it almost sounds like the CRTC is trying to get a handle on just how much profit the telecommunication industry is making. In any case, the industry seems ticked and I can get behind legislation that’s going to make those money-grubbing grubber’s lives harder.

Digital Lock Rules “Fundamentally Flawed”: Canadian Library Association is sticking it to the man, well, as much as they can without raising their voice.

Police “Body Cameras” Becoming Common-Place: cameras worn by police officers directly on their person (on an ear clips or helmet) are making there way into forces across the country. Good move, imho.

Lifehacker reposted my Hulu Hack a few days ago. Over 130,000 views to date!

The instructions are a little more straight-forward if you’re on a Mac.