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Until recently I was unequivocally convinced that aliens would in theory be able to pick up our radio and TV broadcasts and watch them wherever they may reside in the universe. I have been told these signals will propagate through space for all eternity by physics teachers, NASA scientists and many other reliable media sources. Everything changed in an instant when a friend of mine asked me a simple yet insightful question that I had not considered for some reason. “Why don’t the TV and radio signals disperse as they travel farther away from Earth?”. I literally had no answer to this question because when I thought about it, it made complete sense that the signals would get fainter and fainter to the point where they would no longer be recognizable compared to the background static of space.

It turns out that my rather intelligent friend was right on the money. Despite many years of being told that aliens can watch our TV broadcasts, it is very unlikely for this ever to occur. The reason is due to the inverse-square law of propagation that applies to all types of electromagnetic radiation. This law states that signal strength is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the source (Earth in this case). This means that by the time any signal leave our Solar System, it is already extremely weak and almost unrecognizable without huge radio dishes the size of the Arecibo dish (305 meters in diameter). And considering it only takes ~21.9 hours for any signal from Earth to leave our Solar Systems, that is nowhere near eternity or even long enough to reach the nearest star system.

It has been estimated by researchers that the average TV or radio signal broadcasted from Earth will have faded into the background static of space about halfway before reaching our nearest neighboring star (Alpha Centauri - 4.4 light years away).

So although the thought of aliens watching an episode of Survivor or cheering on their favourite NFL team is rather amusing, it seems as though this old myth is officially dead. And this is probably for the best because it is beleived that the first high-powered television signals that aliens could pick up are Hitler’s broadcasts at the Nuremburg rallies.

Way back in June I wrote a post about a new Google project that was under development named Google Wave. I was eagerly awaiting a chance to try it out but I knew it would be a long wait. Yesterday I finally received an invite to Google Wave (via my sister!). I quickly made the plunge and was in my first “wave” within minutes.

My initial impressions of Google Wave left me feeling like it was nothing more than a glorified online chat program. Although the more I played with it the more I understood what capabilities it can bring to the table. I will go out on a limb and claim that Google Wave is now the best program for online collaboration.

Aside from the fact that Wave makes it easy for many users to come together and discuss and share whatever they please, the inherent advantage of Google Wave is that it is part of the line up of Google applications. This will make it simple for anyone to start a Google Wave account since they likely already have a Google email and password (or atleast everyone should).

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It’s time for you to take out a bank loan because you are going to need it if you intend to buy this innovative keyboard. Russian designer Art Lebedev has combined technology and artistic design to develop a $1600 keyboard that has an amazing “WOW” factor.

The insanely priced but still desirable “Optimus Maximus” keyboard features a tiny screen on each key for a total of 113 screens in all. Having an OLED screen in each key means the keyboard can dynamically change its display depending on what you’re doing.

For example, hold down SHIFT and all keys go uppercase. Set specific hotkeys depending on what program you are using. Set a key to monitor your CPU usage or display what iTunes track you are currently playing. You can even play videos or animated gif images on a key.

Here is a video showing the Optimus Maximus keyboard in action:

Here is the latest installment of the “Did you know?” series of videos. These videos are great because they are always up to date and show how the media landscape is changing around us. (217,541 text messages sent in one month by one guy… That’s crazy!)

Here are the previous videos in this series:

• Did you know 3.0?
  
• Did you know 2.0?
  
• Did You Know, Shift Happens
  

The Canadian mobile marketplace has been a pretty boring and outdated scene for a long time. Not only are the average monthly plans among the most expensive in the world, but the cellular networks that we rely upon are outdated and unreliable. Until recently, Rogers was the only major Canadian company to have a 3G network while Telus and bell were lagging behind with older technology. What this meant was that Rogers was the only company that could offer 3G smart phones and could charge outrageous prices for the phones because they had zero competition. Things were looking pretty bleak for the past couple years until Telus and Bell announced that they were working together to launch a brand new 3G network that was among the most technically advanced in the world!

3G for all

Bell and Telus launched their brand new 3G networks on November 4, 2009 and November 5, 2009 respectively. This was very exciting because it meant that Bell and Telus could finally offer new and more exciting smart phones to their customers who had been stuck with older and out of date phones. It was also exciting to see the pricing plans they would unveil as they would now be competing directly with Rogers in the smart phone marketplace.

The iPhone

In Canada, Rogers was the only company to sell the iPhone because they were the only 3G carrier and hence was the exclusive iPhone carrier by default. Since Rogers knew that they were the only game in town for the iPhone they decided to charge ridiculous prices for their iPhone plans ($68/$83 per month). Many Canadians took offense to the outrageous price points but in the end the iPhone still became the most popular phone in Canadian history. I’m sure that Bell and Telus took great satisfaction when they had the chance to finally launch the iPhone on their new 3G network. I was watching intently to see if Bell and Telus would undercut Rogers and make their iPhone an affordable choice. They did not disappoint and started offering the iPhone on monthly contracts for only $50! (Take that Rogers). Needless to say, I’m sure there are many upset Rogers customers at the moment.

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