Field Notes 2

USA Roaming Charges

USA cellular carriers love Canadians. They love to charge $2-$3 a minute for cellular calls plus long distance. Sure you can buy a Canadian travel pack and pay 60 cents a minute for calls but that is still excessive when traditional land line long distance is anywhere from 1-5 cents a minute. Does it really cost $3 to transport a call on cellular? No it does not

Innovation

There have been various high schools and ham radio operators launching balloons into space and finally a couple of teenage locals took an innovative spirit plus $400 to do this.

Two teens from Toronto, Canada have launched “Lego Man in Space” using a helium filled weather balloon and captured stunning video of the miniature toy figure back dropped by the beautiful curvature of Earth and the desolate blackness of space that’s become a worldwide YouTube sensation.

17 year olds Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad lofted the tiny 2 inch tall Lego figure from a local Toronto soccer field up to a height of about 85,000 feet, or 16 miles (25 kilometers), where the 22 foot (7 m) diameter helium balloon burst in what is technically known as the stratosphere. The homemade styrofoam capsule – equipped with two video cameras and four digital cameras – then parachuted back to Earth.

AT&T Cellular Data Usage

80 per cent of their sales were for Apple iPhones and I can only assume the bulk of the rest is Android. Actually I am one of them who bought an Android and while spending 45 minutes in the store saw no activity at the Blackberry kiosk. The average data usage is almost 700MB. I guess that explains Fido changing their data plans from 6GB for $30 a month to 500MB for $30 a month. Canadians continue to get squeezed with 200 minute plans the norm. The USA offers unlimited plans without worry. Good thing I can beat the cellular charges using my ShoreTel Mobility client on my iPhone and iPad using wifi anywhere I travel. I figure I saved over $300 in roaming and long distance charges on my recent trip to Chicago.

DataWind

Gotta love these guys from Montreal taking a chance at making millions of tablets for India. They are selling them for less than $60 so if they can make a buck or two at it...then they will make millions. The poor in India will get access to the internet through this tablet and it will really help transform them. So why does a Kobo Vox or Kindle Fire cost $199...?

Columbian Roses

How is that we I import over $25 million dollars of roses from Columbia? Can we not hot house these locally and keep the Ontario farmers working instead of going bankrupt?

Chinese Garlic

Can we not buy Garlic bulbs from Ontario farmers anymore?


Don’t forget to live local - eat local - be local….support your local community