Paul B
Sun

LOS ANGELES – Just what the television industry needs, increased competition from those wacky YouTube videos that 68 million people watch every month.

Only now, it will be easier than ever to view them on television screens.

Beginning Thursday, TiVo will offer thousands of its subscribers the ability to stream YouTube videos onto their television sets through their broadband-enabled TiVo boxes.

It’s TiVo’s first deal for streaming online content, though the company has partnerships with 60 Internet sites that provide content to TiVo. Unlike with those relationships, TiVo users won’t be able to store YouTube video clips, just watch them and bookmark them for easy retrieval later.

TiVo’s most popular Internet content partner thus far is Amazon Unbox, which features rented movies that are downloaded to TiVo set-top boxes for viewing on TV screens just as if they were recorded TV shows.

Tara Maitra, GM of content services at TiVo, said the company’s users have downloaded 27 million pieces of content from the 60 Internet partners. Beyond Amazon Unbox, product reviews from the likes of CNET and comedy shorts from such sources as the Onion and Break.com are popular.

YouTube, though, is expected to quickly outdo them all. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, YouTube attracted 68 million unique users in May who streamed 3.8 billion videos, making it by far the most popular video brand on the Internet. Fox Interactive Media, which includes MySpace, was second with 18 million unique users and 328 million video streams.

“Will there be a time when people turn on their TV sets and watch YouTube videos instead of TV shows? Time will tell,” Maitra said.

Not in big numbers anytime soon, though, because while TiVo has 3.8 million subscribers, only about a fifth of them have the necessary equipment — a TiVo Series 3 or TiVo HD — for grabbing YouTube content and displaying it on TV screens.

Many of the clips at YouTube, in fact, already have aired on TV as portions of full-length TV shows that were recorded, pared down to a few minutes, then posted to the site without permission from those who own the rights. Viacom and others are suing YouTube parent Google over the practice, but Maitra said the legal squabble won’t affect TiVo.

“TiVo isn’t explicitly making the content available, it’s just a window to YouTube,” she said.

TiVo first said in March that it was working with YouTube and that a product would be available in six months, so a launch today puts the initiative two months ahead of schedule.

Apple, via its Apple TV, which isn’t nearly as popular as TiVo, also allows users to play YouTube videos on TV screens, though neither Apple nor YouTube will say how often the feature is used.

© Reuters 2008

 

Gillian Shaw
Sun

HTC Diamond, $150 with a Telus Mobility three-year contract.

Telus and Bell Mobility are hustling out alternatives for Apple’s new iPhone 3G, although they’re bound to be a tough sell with one million of the new iPhones selling in its first weekend. The HTC Diamond is one of the so-called iPhone killers, but it lost a lot of its punch when Rogers bowed to consumer outrage and dropped its data-plan pricing, at least until Aug. 31.

Bell and Telus had capitalized on the anger over Rogers’ first-announced higher price plans for the iPhone by highlighting their lower flat-rate plans but then minimized that advantage by announcing a charge of 15 cents for every incoming text message. Data plans for the Diamond come at $15 for unlimited e-mail and instant messaging or $30 with web browsing added (www.telusmobility.com).

Samsung Instinct, $150 with a Bell Mobility three-year contract.

Another smartphone and iPhone-killer wannabe, the Instinct is being introduced Aug. 8 by Bell and has also been promised in the upcoming Telus lineup. This can be had with a $10 unlimited mobile-browser plan from Bell for Internet surfing.

The most important point to remember in the competition for your wireless dollars is don’t buy the hype. Read the fine print, or you could find yourself paying a monthly phone bill that could finance a Caribbean cruise (www.bellmobility.com).

EOS Rebel XS, Canon, $750.

If you’re ready to graduate beyond a point-and-shoot digital camera, Canon has a new entry-level SLR (single-lens reflex) model coming out in August, the EOS Rebel XS. It offers the features of an SLR camera but keeps them relatively simple.

It has optical image stabilization, incorporates Canon’s auto-lighting optimizer to automatically adjust brightness and contrast when there are dark areas in an image, a 10.1-megapixel CIMOS sensor, a three-frames-per-second continuous JPEG burst rate that lets you shoot a scene until you fill the memory card, plus other features. It’s compatible with Canon’s lineup of more than 60 EF and EF-S lenses, including the EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, the standard zoom lens included in the box (www.canon.ca).

Carry-On Expandable Upright U420NX , Briggs & Riley, $300.

We haven’t tested this bag’s claim of offering 30-per-cent additional space and still being small enough to take onto a plane as a carry on, but with luggage costs rising faster than a 747 we’re willing to give it a try. Now if they could only figure out how to fit our skis into carry on (www.briggs-riley.com).

© CanWest News Service 2008

 

Marc Saltzman
Sun

Bluetooth is a smart technology that’s making our high-tech lives less wired.

Most commonly seen in a wireless headset for a Bluetooth-enabled cellphone, it lets you chat hands-free up to 30 feet (about 10 metres) away. Today, Bluetooth can be found in other products, too, including car stereos, portable music players, toys, GPS navigation units, video game remotes (including the Nintendo Wii), headphones, speakerphones, mice and keyboards.

Named after a 10th-century Danish Viking, Harald Blatand (“Bluetooth” in English), who helped unite Denmark with Norway, this short-range radio-based technology was invented by Swedish cellphone giants Ericsson in the mid ’90s.

Whether you want to talk until you’re blue in the tooth or would rather un-tether your music enjoyment, the following are a few recommended products.

Hear it all

Most new cellphones feature integrated Bluetooth technology, and if it offers Stereo Bluetooth (also referred to as A2DP), you can listen to your music wirelessly with a pair of compatible Bluetooth headphones. For example, the comfortable Cardo S-2 ($89.95; cardosystems.com) behind-the-neck wireless headphones can play your favourite songs while your phone is tucked away in your pocket, purse, briefcase or backpack. Buttons on the right earpiece also let you pause, change tracks or adjust volume. When a call comes in, the music is automatically muted so you can chat using the S-2’s built-in microphone. Battery life is about 7.5 hours for music and talk, and up to 150 hours for standby time.

Speak to me

BlueAnt Wireless’s Supertooth 3 Bluetooth Handsfree (US $129.95; myblueant.com) is a clever speakerphone with integrated text-to-speech technology. When a call comes in, the Supertooth first announces the caller’s name (or caller ID) and then you can verbally accept or reject the call. Easily mounted on the car’s sun visor with a two-sided magnetic clip (included), the Supertooth can be paired with up to eight devices and supports voice-dial activation and redial, and can be used with multiple languages including English, French, Spanish, Italian and German. Also built in to the small speakerphone is Digital Signal Processor (DSP) for noise and echo cancellation. Battery life tops 15 hours of talk time or 800 hours on standby.

Even in the loudest moments

Now available in Canada through Rogers, Bell and Telus stores, the new and improved Jawbone by Aliph ($139.99; jawbone.com) is now 50-per- cent smaller than its award-winning predecessor. More important, it features “military-grade” noise-reduction technology. In fact, Aliph claims this 10-ounce wireless headset has 10 times better voice clarity than competing products.

Along with its new funky design and better battery life (more than four hours of talk time or eight days on standby), the new Jawbone also offers streamlined buttons on the outside of the earpiece.

Navigation integration

Many GPS units these days, such as the Garmin Nuvi 760 ($599.99, garmin.com), include Bluetooth wireless connectivity, which turns it into a hands-free speakerphone for your car – so if you must use the phone while driving, at least your eyes remain on the road and hands on the wheel. By pairing with your Bluetooth-enabled cellphone, you can now hear – and be heard – on the GPS unit if your phone is somewhere in the car. The second advantage of integrated Bluetooth technology is the GPS unit can splash the caller’s information on the GPS screen (such as a phone number or name), so, with a quick glance – when it’s safe (and legal) to do so – you can see who’s calling and decide to take the call or not. Bluetooth-enabled GPS devices can also be used to call points of interest (POI), such as restaurants, hotels, banks or gas stations; simply tap the phone number on the GPS screen and you’ll hear the number being dialed.

Party on the patio

If you plan on spending time at the beach, in the park or at the cottage, the Logitech Pure-Fi Mobile speaker system ($149.99; logitech.com) can wirelessly stream music from your Bluetooth Stereo (A2DP) cellphone or MP3 player. The compact one-piece speaker system features 2-inch high-excursion drivers, dual 2-inch pressure drivers and two integrated microphones: one to block out unwanted background noise and the other that turns the Pure-Fi Mobile into a speakerphone for when a call comes in. Also included is a protective carrying case and lithium-ion batteries that last about 12 hours between charges. A built-in 3.5mm audio jack also lets you attach other music players.

© The Gazette (Montreal) 2008

 

Update personal collections by digitizing slides and photos

Steve Makris
Sun

It’s time for your old photos and slides to come out of drawers and shoeboxes and see the light of day again … digitally.

Whether you have old faded prints, negatives or hundreds of slides, there are several ways for your treasured family photos to come back to life in computers, large TV screens, MP3 players and online photo sharing.

“We have noticed an increasing number of slide owners with difficult-to-replace old slide projectors needing to see their slides again,” adds McBain Camera manager Bryan Young

Your old photos have to be “scanned,” a process that can be done in any photo lab or with home scanners you can buy.

GET IT DONE FOR YOU

First, the easy option; have it done for you. Most photo labs will gladly scan your old prints, negatives or slides, print them and/or burn them on to a CD-ROM or DVD disc for safe keeping.

Costs vary depending on the quality of service and the volume. Local outlets can charge as little as 59 cents or as much as $4 for converting an old picture to digital. In addition, it can cost up to $100 to restore badly damaged pictures.

If you have hundreds of photos, expect a discount of 20 per cent or more, so it pays to be organized and digitize all your photos at once.

Here’s what to look for when getting your pictures scanned by a service:

– Original small album prints should be scanned at a higher resolution, 600 dpi (dots per inch) so they can be enlarged to bigger print sizes. Larger prints can be scanned at 300 dpi, basically making duplicate prints as good as the original. Higher resolution scans cost more.

– Negatives and slides should be scanned at much higher resolutions due to their small original size. Most labs use megabytes as scan sizes, so a typical five megabyte scan of a slide or negative means it will print an excellent eight by 10 inch photo lab quality print or a larger homemade print. It will look sharp on a high definition flat panel TV. Larger size scans, to equal the original quality of a negative or slide, have to be scanned to 50 MB and can cost as much as $10 each.

– An index thumbprint of scanned photos showing their corresponding frame name or number is helpful when searching for the right photo.

– You get what you pay for. A too-good-to-be-true scan deal, offered online, for much cheaper rates involves you shipping treasured photos in a box from home and the scan quality is low. Look for reputable dealers. “The quality of our scans are far ahead of cheaper shoebox services we have tested,” said London Drugs president Wynne Powell. “Even our basic good quality at 18 megabytes is a better start than the competition.”

SCANNING AT HOME

If you are looking at spending several hundred bucks on converting your old photos, you might consider buying a suitable scanner to do it yourself.

A word of warning — although it’s easy to scan your old photos at home, especially prints, scanning negatives and slides is time consuming and can take up to five minutes of scanning time per frame. It will take even more time to organize your scans and burn them on a disc.

Consumer photo scanners are affordable and do a good job. They come in flatbed design that also double as negative and slide scanners.

They are also available in smaller portable negative and slide-only models.

Flatbed scanners are a logical choice if you have mixed media, as long as they offer a maximum

“optical” resolution of 4,800 dpi. Better models from Epson, HP and Canon save time by scanning a sheet full of negatives or slides on included frame holders.

They can also handle larger negatives, up to four-by-five inches, from your grandfather’s photo collection.

I have tried several generations of Epson flatbed models with excellent results, even scanning to beyond the original quality of negatives and slides. They come with useful software to automatically name each new scan and save different scan settings for future use. They include photo editing and dust and scratch removal software, a real time-saver for older imperfect photos.

Here are some recommended models I have tried:

– HP’s Scanjet G4050, $209.99, is reasonably priced for its ability to scan large files (up to 4,800 dpi) quickly and includes film holders for all popular sizes. It can hold 30 35mm negative frames or 16 slides. The included HP Photosmart OCR (text recognition), faded colour restoration, dust and scratch removal and very effective HP Adaptive Lighting and editing software makes this a good buy for budget-minded folks.

– Epson’s Perfection V700 Photo, $549.99, offers better quality scans for bigger enlargements with 6,400 dpi optical resolution. Casual scanners might check out lower priced Epson models like the Perfection 4490, $149, which like its sibling, offers tried and true Digital ICE Technologies for automatic dust and scratch removal.

– Negative and slide scanners are more expensive, requiring higher quality scans for information-rich film. The Plustek OpticFilm 7300 film scanner, $300, offers serious consumers smart features and noise reducing multi-sampling. Its high 7,200 dpi resolution, quick scanning and included SiverFast software for tweaking scans is a good deal. It includes a small built-in backlit slide viewer, carry case and film and slide holders, which scan one frame at a time, a time consuming effort. There is a higher learning curve and room to experiment with this system, but the results are excellent.

TIPS

– Use your digital camera to copy old prints as a quick free backup. Most point-and-shoot cameras have a close-up macro setting. Some cameras even have a black and white setting so your old monochrome photos look better. Get as full frame of each album photo as you can. Turn your flash off and place prints in a well-lighted area but away from direct light to minimize reflections. Steady your camera as your shutter will likely be slow.

– Check with local photography clubs who may provide member services for getting your “analogue” photos scanned from serious photo-hobbyists for fair compensation.

© The Edmonton Journal 2008

Sun

Researchers in Japan are developing a gadget that could enable people to hold a three-dimensional image of someone in the palm of their hand.

They hope the gCubik, which is still at the prototype stage, will later be developed to move in real time and appear to speak.

“The ultimate image we have in mind is having a small person in your palm,” said Shunsuke Yoshida, one of the researchers involved in the study at Japan‘s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology.

“Suppose you have a picture of your girlfriend smiling on your desk. She could be smiling as a 3D image in a cube,” he told AFP at a recent gathering of imaging researchers here.

Grandparents could use the device — which comes in a 10 centimetre (3.9 inches) cube — to see a 3D image of their grandchild living far away, while business people could view a prototype product from afar and school teachers could use it in science classes, he said.

At the moment the device has a still image but efforts are underway to make it move in real time, Yoshida said.

The panels have many tiny lenses on liquid crystal displays. Unlike conventional 3D displays, which are viewed only from the front, the gCubik can be seen from three sides, giving different images from various angles. And unlike conventional 3D users will not need glasses to see the benefit.

Yoshida said the team hopes to put the technology to practical use within about three years by improving picture quality, getting rid of cords now attached to the cube and allowing viewing from all six sides of the box.

The team also wants to give vocal sounds to the 3D image in the future, making it appear as if the person in the cube is speaking.

© AFP 2008

PDAs are a boon . . . but they can also shackle us

Wendy Mclellan
Province

They’re supposed to make life easier, but it seems those addictive little personal digital assistants are more likely to make you work harder — even when you’re supposed to be off duty.

“They’re changing our idea of work time,” said Darci LaRocque, a self-confessed BlackBerry addict and president of Vancouver-based Swirl Solutions, which provides BlackBerry training to companies and individuals.

BlackBerrys and the other similar PDAs allow people to work away from the office, which can improve the work-life balance, but they also give you the “freedom” to work after business hours.

Or while waiting to order your morning coffee.

Or while crossing the street.

Or while having dinner with your family.

All of her clients use their PDAs after hours and on weekends, LaRocque said, and most employers aren’t complaining about staff who are willing to work more. But she encourages people to learn how to change settings to filter

e-mails and reduce the beeping so they can take control over their BlackBerrys.

“People are grateful because they have access to e-mail. But now they’re doing business when there used to be free time,” LaRocque said.

“You can get more done, but eventually there will probably be corporate policies saying you’re not expected to work any more than the hours you signed on for.”

Recently, off-hours BlackBerry use was the subject of a dispute at ABC News when the company’s news division presented waivers to three writers stating they wouldn’t be paid for checking their PDAs after office hours.

The writers had no problem checking e-mails late in the evening, but they didn’t want to find themselves scheduling interviews and writing after finishing work for the day, according to their union, the Writers’ Guild of America, East said. The issue has since been resolved.

“People are entitled to time off the job,” said Lowell Peterson, executive director of the East Coast guild.”BlackBerrys can be liberating; they can help people keep tabs without going into the office. But they can also shackle people to their jobs.”

Here in Canada, the federal Citizenship and Immigration department has implemented a BlackBerry blackout between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. to reduce the intrusion of PDAs into people’s homes and reduce work stress.

The “PDA pandemic” prompted one Vancouver advertising agency to set a new policy to curb BlackBerry use during meetings. Staff at DDB Canada’s offices across the country are issued yellow or red misconduct cards if they’re caught using their PDAs in client or staff meetings.

“Over the past year, I’ve become increasingly aware of and annoyed by staff who use their BlackBerries during meetings,” said Frank Palmer, chairman and CEO when he announced the new policy recently. “Whether it’s done openly or covertly under the table, using a PDA during a meeting is completely unacceptable, disrespectful and hinders the progress of the meeting.

“While these devices are considered time-savers, they’re also extremely intrusive.”

Employees caught using a PDA during a meeting are shown a yellow card by a fellow staff member. A second offence results in a red penalty card and the offender has to pay their own PDA invoice for the month.

“This could turn out to be an expensive, yet worthwhile etiquette lesson for those who continue to use their BlackBerry in the boardroom,” Palmer said.

Drew Railton, a partner in the Vancouver office of executive search firm The Caldwell Partners, said he only turns his BlackBerry off at the last minute before bedtime and it’s the first thing he reaches for when he wakes up in the morning.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

Company says customers will not be charged for junk text messages

Fiona Ande
Sun

Vancouver-based Telus Corp. has set up an easy way for people who receive spam text messages not to be charged — just forward the message to “spam” or 7726.

Put the word “spam” in the text and the charge will be taken off the bill, Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said in an interview.

On Monday both Telus and Bell Mobility revealed plans to charge 15 cents for incoming messages starting in August. Under current wireless plans, pay-per-use customers are charged for outgoing messages only.

The new charges created an outcry that even got federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice to take a stand.

“The decision this week by Bell Mobility and Telus to begin charging for incoming text messages has raised serious consumer concerns, particularly with regard to charges for unsolicited, unwanted, spam text messages,” Prentice said in a written statement.

Prentice called on the CEOs of both companies to meet with him by Aug. 8, 2008 to explain the new pricing “with a view to finding a solution that provides the best service to consumers at the best price.”

On Friday Telus said it has always been its policy to credit customers for spam messages they received and that policy will continue.

“We don’t believe it’s fair to charge customers for spam and we’ve never asked customers to pay for spam,” Hall said.

“And we’re making it easier for them to make sure they never get charged for spam.”

Hall would not comment on Prentice’s statement or say whether Telus would be meeting with the minister.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Sun

1. Qosmio X300 laptop computer, Toshiba, $2,000

Pricey but built for gaming purists who are looking for power and great graphics in a portable gaming machine. The X300 is one of three laptops in the latest models in the Qosmio line and it combines a NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GS graphics card with four gigabytes of DDR3 memory and 500 GB of hard disk drive space. It connects to Toshiba’s LCD HD televisions for big-screen play and it has Harman Kardon speakers with a built-in subwoofer. The other two in the line, the Qosmio G50 and the Qosmio F50 are priced at $1,700 and $1,500 respectively. www.toshiba.ca

2. Nokia 3500, available with Fido for $15 with a three-year agreement

There’s good news for other cellphone manufacturers now that Rogers has managed to prompt a wave of anti-iPhone sentiment among Canadians with data plan rates that are way pricier than other countries where Apple’s popular phone is sold. Disgruntled iPhone wannabes could be shopping around and Nokia is adding constantly to its lineup, with the 3500 its most recent summer addition. It’s no iPhone but it’s also $15 with a three-year contract instead of $200 so you can save money. A bar-style handset, it has a 4.6-cm (1.8 inch) smoked screen, it’s Bluetooth-enabled and offers a 2.0 megapixel camera, stereo FM and music player with internal memory of up to 8.5 megabytes and Flash Lite 2.0 for web browsing, with video.

3. Starpex, Peak Products, $180

Hoping to capitalize on the popularity of Guitar Hero and Rockband, Peak Products has just introduced an instrument that has the look and feel of a real guitar to use with these games. Billed as a “handcrafted” authentic guitar controller it is compatible with both PS2 and PS3 and it can be hooked up with a cable or use a 2.4 Ghz wireless connection with both options included. www.Go-Peak.com

4. Designer Sleeves laptop protection, from $35

Give your laptop its own wetsuit this summer with a Designer Sleeve. Not that these sleeves will turn your laptop into diving machine but at least the wetsuit-grade Neoprene material will protect it from some of the abuse that befalls laptops on the go. Colourful, shock and scratch resistant as well as water resistant, the Designer Sleeves will help your laptop stay looking new even you jam it into a backpack. www.designersleeves.com

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Jim Prentice asks to meet with CEOs of Telus, Bell over ‘ill-thought-out’ plan to charge for incoming text messages

Fiona Anderson
Sun

Federal Industry Minister Jim Prentice has publicly taken Telus Corp. and its rival Bell Mobility to task for making customers pay for incoming text messages.

Under current wireless plans, pay-per-use customers are charged for outgoing messages only. But on Monday, Telus and Bell Mobility, a division of BCE Inc., both revealed plans to charge 15 cents for incoming messages starting in August.

In a statement released Wednesday, Prentice said he had sent letters to the CEOs of both companies asking them to meet with him to explain the new pricing structure.

“While I have no desire to interfere with the day-to-day business decisions of two private companies, I do have a duty as minister of industry, when necessary, to protect the interests of the consuming public,” Prentice said in the statement.

“I believe this was an ill-thought-out decision,” he added.

Prentice said the decision to charge for incoming messages had raised serious consumer concerns, particularly with regard to unwanted, unsolicited spam messages. The minister hoped his meetings with the CEOs would find “a solution that provides the best service to consumers at the best price.”

Bell will begin charging the fee Aug. 8 with Telus customers having until Aug. 24 before being faced with the new charge. Rogers Communications Inc., Canada‘s largest wireless provider, says it has no plans to charge a similar fee. Rogers is facing its own customer backlash over pricing for the new iPhone, which is being released Friday.

Yet Bell and Telus customers who don’t like the new charge may not be able to avoid paying it. Even with pay-per-use plans, some contracts are expensive to cancel, with penalties of up to $400, said Michael Janigan, executive director and general counsel of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.

So the only option for many will be to buy a data plan that includes unlimited text messages or pay the fee, even for unwanted messages such as spam, he said.

“That doesn’t seem to be appropriate,” Janigan said. “If they’re choosing to introduce something that looks like a material change in the arrangements between the parties then [customers] should at least have the option whether they want to stick with that company or not.”

“What they are effectively trying to do is to strong-arm the purchase of a data package because people are going to be scared they are going to be inundated with text messages for which they ought to pay,” Janigan added.

Telus and Bell have blamed increased text messaging, which is now up to 45 million messages a day, for the fee.

But wireless technology expert Ken Chase doesn’t accept that rationale. The consultant with the Toronto-based firm Heavy Computing said that while 45 million text messages sent daily sounds like a lot, the amount of space this takes up on a network and related costs to a telecom company are minuscule.

A text message sent via mobile phone can be no more than 160 characters, and each character is about a byte. If 45 million text messages are sent throughout Canada every day and each message is about 100 characters, this totals 4.5 gigabytes, he said. This amounts to about the same amount of gigabytes required to download two or three high-resolution movies from the Internet.

Telus had no comment on the industry minister’s statement.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Subscribers who activate before Aug. 31 can pay $30 a month extra for six gigabytes of data

Gillian Shaw
Sun

Rogers Communications has caved into consumer pressure and is offering a limited rollback of rates for the new Apple iPhone 3G being launched Friday.

However, it remains to be seen whether Wednesday’s announcement represents a temporary move aimed at ensuring the company isn’t embarrassed by a promised consumer boycott or whether the lower rates will last past the announced Aug. 31 cutoff date.

A growing online consumer protest movement launched over high rates wasn’t appeased by the offering, which still leaves iPhone rates in Canada higher than those in other countries and doesn’t offer the same unlimited data. Rogers is the only carrier in Canada with a network the iPhone can operate on.

The new Rogers rate, available only for subscribers who activate their phones before Aug. 31, is $30 a month for a six-gigabyte data plan that can be added to new or existing voice plans with Rogers — but only if they sign up for a three-year contract. Rogers is also limiting sales to two phones per customer.

“I read it as they want to sell their inventory,” said Rob Sheinbein, co-founder of the company OilChange.com, which runs the consumer protest site ruinediphone.com. “If I was trying to sell it, I would make limited product availability and a limited time offer to get people to sign up.

“It’s game playing, but we’re not children. I don’t think this is a time for game playing, I think this is a time to be honest and true to your customers.”

Sheinbein, whose company switched from Rogers wireless service to Verizon in the U.S. to cut its bills by up to two-thirds off the $2,000 to $2,500 a month it had been paying Rogers, said Canadians are still being “gouged” by high wireless prices.

“I want unlimited data and I want a voice plan equally as competitive as in the United States where you can drive [everywhere] with Verizon and there are no long-distance charges and no roaming fees.

“How can Americans talk with unlimited long distance and roaming and we can’t? That is not fair.”

Ruinediphone.com, which has almost 60,000 names on a petition it plans to deliver to Rogers, and more than 1,100 Rogers customers, who said they are leaving the company, plans to host a Webinar Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time. Liberal Member of Parliament David McGuinty, who is calling for an end to the system access fees charged by most Canadian wireless carriers, will participate.

When it first announced pricing for the iPhone, Rogers offered plans ranging from $60 to $115 for the highest data package that caps data use at two gigabytes. That’s considerably less than in the United States, where the iPhone carrier, AT&T, offers a range of plans, all with unlimited data.

The new short-term offering is also outstripped by Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility that are both touting flat rate unlimited e-mail and Internet surfing plans for their smartphones.

Rogers isn’t the only iPhone carrier to face a consumer backlash over high rates.

Swedish consumers were incensed by initial iPhone plans offered by carrier Telia Sonera, which came with limited data with an option to pay an extra a 199 kr/month (about $34 Cdn) for unlimited data. Telia Sonera responded to the outcry by letting customers add the unlimited data to existing cellphone plans that start as low as 99 kr/month, or the equivalent of $17 Cdn.

Rogers plans an early 8 a.m. opening for six Rogers Plus retail stores across the country on Friday to promote the launch of the new iPhone, including one at 2097 West Broadway in Vancouver.

Along with Rogers Plus stores, the company said the new iPhones will be available at Rogers Video and Rogers Wireless retail locations and through a few authorized Rogers Wireless deals including WirelessWave, TBooth and Wireless etc. The company is also selling the phones on its website through its phone customer service at 1-888-764-3771.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008