Vapourware [vaporware] is, according to dictionary.com: “Computer Slang. a product, esp. software, that is promoted or marketed while it is still in development and that may never be produced.” We may just have seen the first reported instance of VR hardware vapourware.

Law.com Legal Technology reports, under a posting captioned “Is That Your Phone or Your Imagination?” that

“Many mobile phone addicts and BlackBerry junkies report feeling vibrations as if they’re wearing a cell phone when they’re not.”

Law.com also reports, in the same piece, that

 Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams wrote on his blog, dilbert.org, that he

Take a look at / listen to CBC’s Spark. Nora Young offers “a surprising and irreverent look at tech, trends, and fresh ideas” each week, broadcast twice on radio (Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. and Saturdays at 4:00 p.m.) and available online (with requisite podcast and mp3 download).

The online version tells you what’s upcoming and gives you the show notes, with links, for the already aired shows. So, for example, on this week’s show:

• Nora rides David McCallum’s Warbike
• Boost your WiFi with aluminum foil and a glue stick
• Jesse Wente unwires his house with Internet over Power Lines
• William

As we sit down, in Canada, to honour the Great Turkey in the sky, and we recall Columbo’s place in the litany, let us not forget the distinction between the butterball turkey, the wild turkey and Wild Turkey, and let us intone, in unison, the immortal words of WKRP’s Athur Carlson:

“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

For the play-by-play, listen to Les Nessman‘s “Not since the Hindenberg” (follow the Real Audio link). Video clips are no longer available on YouTube on account of copyright. . . . [more]

This is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada, and so posting may not resume in full strength until Tuesday. In the meantime, because, after all, the ‘r’ in Slaw stands for research, I thought we Canadians might like to know something about what we’re about to eat or have already eaten or regret having eaten… I’m speaking, of course, about that seasonal food, turkey.

As if by plan, StatsCan’s Daily for Friday points us to Health Canada’s Canadian Nutrient File which in turn has a table of the nutrient value in some common foods, available in PDF. The full story . . . [more]

I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but in Ontario it’s still summer — and it looks like a gorgeous day pretty much all across this land according to the weather map. This means that it’s going to be hard to work this afternoon, harder than usual on a Friday, that is. Ever thoughtful, I’ve got just the solution: a Friday Fillip that will keep on giving for perhaps three or four hours. Here’s the deal.

One of my favourite sites is that of Coudal Partners, a graphics and advertising firm in Chicago. And my current favourite . . . [more]

A few days ago I posted about forensic linguistics and the unreliability of some witness statements. So I thought it might be interesting, though a stretch for Slaw I admit, to show you how photos are becoming even less reliable pictures of the truth than you thought they were, and incidentally introduce you to a set of graphics tools in the making that are going to be very hot.

What I want you to see in action is a “smart image resizer.” This exists now, thanks to Dr. Ariel Shamir, who now works for Adobe, and his technique known . . . [more]

As the tragedy in Burma has unfolded over the last week, accurate information has been extremely hard to come by. In a country with no traditional media worth speaking of, blogging has attempted to fill the void. I won’t comment at length here, but I would like to leave you with a few articles discussing the brave attempts of Burmese bloggers to tell the world about what is going on in their country.

Burmese Government Clamps Down on Internet (NY Times)
Burmese blogs expose junta atrocities (Telegraph)
A vivid cyber window into a violent crackdown (Globe and Mail) . . . [more]

Simon wrote yesterday about Adobe’s purchase of Buzzword, an online word processor. In an almost simultaneous announcement yesterday, Microsoft announced the launch of its own Office Live Workspace, an online service that will allow Office users to store and access their documents online.

Each user will have 250 MB of space to store documents. The catch? Although you will be able to share the documents with other users, who can read and leave comments on your documents online, only a desktop coy of Office (2003 or 2007) will be able to edit them.

The service isn’t yet available, so . . . [more]

A miscellaneous grab-bag, today, which happens to be both the first of October and the first Monday of October, 2007.

As I type this, it has the potential to be today’s first Slaw.ca post. I’ll be optimistic and type that it is today’s first Slaw post. (I haven’t checked comments but there also aren’t any, yet, in my feed.)

Over on the to-be-bookmarked LLRX.COM, Sabrina I. Pacifici has uploaded Competitive Intelligence – A Selective Resource Guide which is described (on my feed) as a 

revised and updated pathfinder focuses on leveraging selected reliable, focused, free and low cost sites

In the past week a somewhat disturbing story has been making headlines about access to information in Canada or rather, the lack thereof. An initiative of the Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA) the CNA Freedom of Information Audit 2007 shows “…persistent delays and misunderstandings in the very system that is designed to guarantee the public’s right to information about government decisions.”

For those of you who attended the CALL/ACBD conference in Ottawa last May you may remember a session entitled Are we becoming a secret society? Press Bans, Privacy and Access to Information. For those of you who . . . [more]

gadget – Used as an indefinite or general name for: a comparatively small fitting, contrivance, or piece of mechanism / An accessory or adjunct; a knick-knack or gewgaw

[Origin obscure. Not found in print before 1886.]

But now found online at Boing Boing Gadgets, a recent child of Jackhammer Jill’s venerable Boing Boing. Sporting its own mascot — Jack Hammer? — it brings to our attention the necessary, useless, ornamental, latest, nifty, silly, ingenious…gewgaws and kickshaws and -aws of all kinds.

Today, for instance, there were: three-wheeled cars, mini-robots, new EV-DO interfaces from Novatel, and a long-slot executive toaster. . . . [more]

. . . [more]