Almost Half of Canadians Would Give up TV Before Phone or Internet: Survey

A new survey conducted on the Angus Reid Forum and commissioned by Primus Canada, reveales that almost half (46 per cent) of Canadian respondents would give up watching television before they would give up surfing the Internet or using their phone.

Recent reports show that Canadians are some of the world's heaviest Internet users. In the last quarter of 2010, Canadians were on the web an average of 43.5 hours per month. That is 8 hours more than our closest competitors – the Americans, then the British at 32.3 hours. The global average is 21 hours per month, according to a recent ComScore report. 

Click to read more ...

CEA Report: Flat-Panel TVs weigh 82 per cent less than predecessors

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) today issued a report detailing the dramatic reduction of TV and computer monitor sizes and weights since the advent of flat-panel monitors and TVs.

The report, Materials Footprint Reduction of Televisions and Computer Monitors: 2004-2010, found flat-panel TVs are 82 percent lighter and 75 percent smaller than their cathode ray tube (CRT) TV predecessors of a similar screen size. The report also found today’s 40- to 70-inch flat-panel TVs weigh 34 percent less than 13- to 36-inch CRT TVs.

Click to read more ...

Apple's roaring Lion enjoys 1 Million first day downloads

OS X  Lion is enjoying an early milestone.

Apple today announced that in just one day, over one million users bought and downloaded Mac OS X Lion, the eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system. Available through the Mac App Store for $29.99 (CAN), users are buying Lion faster than any other OS release in Apple’s history.

“Lion is off to a great start, user reviews and industry reaction have been fantastic,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Lion is a huge step forward, it’s not only packed with innovative features but it’s incredibly easy for users to update their Macs to the best OS we’ve ever made.”

Lion introduces more than 250 new features to the Mac, including Multi-Touch gestures; system-wide support for full screen apps; Mission Control, an innovative view of everything running on your Mac; the Mac App Store, the best place to find and explore great software; Launchpad, a new home for all your apps; and a completely redesigned Mail app.

Read about our inital impressions of OS X Lion in Marketnews.ca here.

Photo by Gadjo C. Sevilla

Corporate tablets from Cisco and Lenovo look to change things in enterprise

Lenovo's recently revealed ThinkPad Tablet and Cisco's little known Cius tablet have their work cut out for them. These are two enterprise grade Android tablets that have no consumer aspirations and will be offered directly to corporate buyers for corporate uses. Lenovo is leveraging the famed ThinkPad name and goes back to the brand's roots since the very first ThinkPad was, you guessed it, a tablet PC.  Cisco's got the Cius geared gor business grade users (see below) and they even have their own developer community for Cius specific apps.

Pricing and avalabilty for both have not yet been revealed but we're betting they will be more expensive that the current crop of consumer tablets slugging it out in the market today.