Category Archives: Design

AMAZON ALEXA, AMAZON CANADA DAY, Amazon.ca, Best Speakers, Design, lifestyle, shopping, smartphone technology, Technology

ALL TOGETHER NOW WITH ALEXA. “OH CANADA…”

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Amazon’s Alexa joins Canada Day celebrations and her very own first year anniversary in Canada with Anthem singing, party ideas, Canadian jokes and tongue twisters and more. If you have an Alexa speaker you are all set. If not, check out Amazon’s Alexa smart speakers: Alexa Echo $99.99, Alexa Dot $39.99 and the newest Alexa Spot with screen and cameras, available at www.amazon.ca. Alexa tries Canadian accents, but she can’t pronounce Regina quite right, eh! Still, this new catalogue of voice command utterances are available now to make Canada Day special.

Continue reading ALL TOGETHER NOW WITH ALEXA. “OH CANADA…” →

Autonomous driving, cars, Design, Hands free driving today, lifestyle, safe driving, Technology

ONE SMALL SUPER CRUISE BUTTON, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR AUTONOMOUS DRIVING

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Last week I was invited to try out the Cadillac Super Cruise on a leisurely 400 km drive along the St. Lawrence River to the picturesque town of Kamouraska, North East of Quebec.

Super Cruise kept the Cadillac CT6 rock steady even as a semi passed me in gusty winds

Continue reading ONE SMALL SUPER CRUISE BUTTON, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR AUTONOMOUS DRIVING →

Best Speakers, Colour Theory, Design, lifestyle, Photography, smartphone technology, Technology

LG G7 SERIES MATURES INTO A NICE PHONE WITH A TOUCH OF AI

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TORONTO/June 1, 2018 — Today LG Electronics (LG) launches its latest premium smartphone, the LG G7 ThinQ focused on bringing smart and convenient AI features to consumers.

Powered by the latest Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 845 Mobile chip platform, the LG G7 ThinQ comes with  4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. It features an extra bright 6.1-inch bright display nearly half an inch larger than its predecessor but keeps the same width making it easy to use with one hand.

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Design, lifestyle, shopping, smartphone technology, Technology

SONY RE-THINKS ITS NEW XZ2 PHONE WITH ALL THE RIGHT STUFF

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Sony’s redesigned and noticeably improved flagship phone, the Xperia XZ2, launches in Canada.

What’s the big deal? Costing several hundred bucks less than the top tier competitors, the XZ2 has unique features like gently curved Gorilla Glass 5 body shell with aluminum rim, fitting nicely in your palm. Despite the rear curvature, the XZ2 still stays flat when you lay it down to use its sensitive touchscreen on your desk.

 

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Creative Computing, Design, laptops, lifestyle, shopping laptops, Technology

STUDENTS, SMALL BUSINESS WINNERS AT ACER GLOBAL NY LAUNCH

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New York, NY May 23, 2018
By Steve Makris

Acer is on a roll. A full parade of well-designed and performing Pads, notebooks, and chromebooks along with cutting edge gaming laptops and desktop PC’s launched at the next@acer global event in New York.

What impressed me the most were devices for the everyday consumer, student and budget minded business user. Let’s check some out:

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Creative Computing, Design, Photography, smartphone technology, Technology

SAMSUNG S9 SLOWS TIME WITH SMART EASY TO USE SUPER SLOW-MO

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Although slow motion photography has been a specialty for professionals, smartphones have been getting better at giving users a taste of slowing down time.

I recently put the new Samsung S9+ through the paces of capturing fast moving events using the phone’s SUPER SLOW-MO camera setting.

Slowing down time 1/960th of a second with the S9 Slow Mo

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Design, lifestyle, smartphone technology

NEW LG PHONE SPORTS BRIGHT 1000 NIT DISPLAY AND INTELLIGENCE

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Following the announcement two weeks ago of the new LG G7 ThinQ May 2 launch in New York, LG is starting to share hints on its newly designed phone. It will feature artificial intelligence, ThinQ, to make it easier to use the phone as well as communicate with other LG products, like appliances and TV’s.

One specific feature is the much-improved screen viewing in bright, sunny days – the equivalent of 1,000 nits (that’s real bright in TV screen lingo) using LG’s latest Super Bright Display technology. An early pre-release phone (under embargo, except for the features in this story) I saw this week, showed natural colours, even in bright outdoor lighting.

 

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Design, health, IFA Berlin 2018, IFA GfK, lifestyle, shopping, Technology

SHARP 70” 8K TV SELLING ACROSS THE POND AT MONTH’S END FOR…11,199 €

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That’s $17,422 CDN folks. From screen and TV maker SHARP, after a seemingly long hiatus from store show floors the Japanese electronics company is blowing the dust off its unique IGZO fine screen technology for next Father of all TV’s.

The 8K screen was shown this weekend in Rome, hosted by Berlin based global Tech Show organizer IFA at their annual three-day Global Press Conference for more than 360 journalists flown in from around the world.

Global tech media gather around Sharp’s 8K TV in Rome

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Colour Theory, Creative Computing, Design, lifestyle, Printers, Shopping Printers

CAN COLOUR THEORY CHOOSE THE RIGHT PRINTER BASED ON YOUR FAVOURITE COLOUR? EPSON THINKS SO

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There’s more to colour than meets the eye.

I recently got a whimsical pitch from Epson through their Canadian Media Profile marketing gurus with a novel idea on how to match the best Epson printer model with one’s personality based on their favourite colour.

A long shot? That’s what I first thought, but it turns out Epson’s idea of mixing personality, colour and printer is based on colour theory first used in 1947. That’s when Swiss psychotherapist Dr. Max Lüscher  published the Lüscher Color Diagnostic Test, a tool for measuring an individual’s psycho-physical state based on his or her colour preferences. Lüscher believed choosing from dozens of primal and secondary colours, was an unconscious and objective way to best reflect your moods and feelings that we as humans have associated for thousands of years.

Fast forward to 2018 and Toronto based colour expert Jane Lockhart, principal and founder of http://www.janelockhart.com/ who partnered with Epson’s colour personality printer matchup.

Although Max Lüscher’s colour theory is more than 70 years old, is still stands up to today’s colour gurus like Jane Lockhart in Epson’s colour personality printer match-up

Continue reading CAN COLOUR THEORY CHOOSE THE RIGHT PRINTER BASED ON YOUR FAVOURITE COLOUR? EPSON THINKS SO →

Creative Computing, Design, lifestyle, Photography, smartphone technology, Technology, Travel

LET YOUR FINGERS DO THE WALKING ON SMARTPHONE SCREENS FOR BEST SUNSETS

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Love photographing sunsets? Learn how smartphone apps can help you predict sunrises and sunsets in my just published feature in the Spring Edition Canadian Photo News magazine.  Check out the article here.  Continue in the picture book format to lot’s of other helpful articles by seasoned photography writers on tips for shooting wildlife photos, helpful macro photography techniques, inside secrets shooting in RAW format and more.

You can also pick up the free magazine issue at the following locations across Canada:

  Henry’s Photo, Lozeau Photo,  Gosselin Photo, The Camera Store, Kerrisdale Camera, Don’s Photo, Forest City , Camera Kingston, Photo Central, Burlington Camera and London Drugs in the western provinces.

Finding the perfect spot to shoot an old castle lookout tower a modern lighhouse and a fireball dip in a wall break was easy with Sun Position and a tide table for the best date to be on dry land during sunset

Continue reading LET YOUR FINGERS DO THE WALKING ON SMARTPHONE SCREENS FOR BEST SUNSETS →