If you haven't heard, Rogers finally released their long-awaited, and much-dreaded, rate plans and data packages for the upcoming iPhone 3G launch in Canada. Across the country, and very quickly around the globe, people were aghast to learn that Rogers decided to defy all common sense with a 3-tier pricing system with NO UNLIMITED DATA option, a mandatory 3-year contract, and prices that are way higher (with less minutes and less text message) than anywhere else in the world.

Not content to sit idly by, some enterprising Canadians picked up their keyboards and sprung into action. Within hours after the announcement the blgosphere was buzzing and online petitions went up. Initially conceived as FuckYouRogers.com, a more family-oriented version called RuinediPhone.com has been gathering names and comments that will be delivered to Rogers on July 11, the date the new iPhone comes out. You can click on the graphic above to add your name (and vitriol) to the growing list. As of this morning there are over 30,000 names on the list. The question is, will Rogers change their pricing and plans to appease the masses and ultimately maximise potential sales of the revolutionary new device, or will they be stick to their guns and continue sapping the lifeblood out of the Canadian mobile market by taxing the people for as much as they can? Hmmm... I wonder.

In mobile news today, Nokia announced that they were buying up the remaining shares of Symbian, and would be donating the whole shebang to the Symbian Foundation to manage as an Open Source mobile operating system. So what does this mean?

First of all, it means that Nokia is worried that the Symbian platform's dominance of the smart-phone market is threatened by Google's upcoming Android platform and Apple's iPhone platform (and to a lesser extent Linux for mobile). Until a year ago, Symbian was sitting pretty as the number one mobile platform with anywhere between two thirds and three quarters of the global smart-phone market share, while Windows Mobile was a distant 2nd (as of Dec 07 Microsoft only had 12% market share). Since then, a lot has changed (i.e.: Apple released the iPhone, and Google announced Android). Google decided to take the open source route when they first announced Android late last year. That model has done well for them in terms of getting a lot of developers (and bloggers) excited, but they have had some challenges getting it out the door. Apple has been getting nothing but adoration from the development community ever since it announced their SDK, and more recently, an integrated storefront (the iTunes App store) that developers can sell applications through. If Nokia wants to go head-to-head against Apple and Google, it needs its own platform and ecosystem of developers.

Secondly, it means that Nokia is betting that by going open source, Symbian might eventually become the mobile-platform-of-choice for developers. Without a strong development community cranking out exciting applications (and now presumably making improvements to the core code), the platform will whither on the vine. Even with Nokia's popularity as a handset manufacturer, they've got a real selling job ahead of them, because as the hardware components becomes more commoditised, and more manufacturers spring up to leverage Android and Linux, the future of mobile technology will be software-centric. This much Apple has proven with the iPhone, and Google has confirmed with Android. Whether or not going open source will actually help remains to be seen. From what I've read, the Symbian platform is a pain in the ass to develop for.

Om Malik has a great analysis of the game so far over at GigaOM. Make sure to read the comments.

Image source: CNET

Exciting news if you're a web-geek like myself: Mozilla has just announced the official launch date for the 3rd generation of the Open Source Firefox browser. Mark it on your calendar folks: Tuesday June 17th, 2008. In addition to their attempt to set a Guinness World Record, they are also hosting and encouraging launch parties around the world. The official party in Toronto will be held at the Mozilla Toronto office, starting at 6pm.

UPDATE: the official download site is DOWN, but these links will allow you to download Firefox3 directly:

Mac OS X

Linux

Windows

Thanks for the direct links go to MG Siegler (aka parislemon) at Venture Beat.

Well it turns out the rumours were true, and Apple will soon begin shipping its 2nd generation iPhone, dubbed the iPhone 3G, to Canadians (and residents of 21 other lucky countries) on July 11. You can almost sense the clouds gathering now so that when they part on launch day and the sun shines down upon the blessed mortals lined up around the block, rainbows and doves will fly forth and life will be good again. Uhh... right.   read more »

Those crazy grassroots marketing folks over at the Mozilla Foundation have come up with another great initiative to help make Firefox the world's most popular browser. They plan to host a worldwide Download Day (click on the image for more info) following the upcoming official release of Firefox 3 (currently in beta). The total number of unique installer downloads will be submitted to the Guinness World Records organization for evaluation and potential inclusion in the Guinness World Records.

For the real keeners like myself, you can show your support (and get a reminder by email) by signing the pledge at the Spread Firefox web site.

Mark your calendars folks, DrupalCampToronto 2008 is this coming weekend in Toronto (May 23/24). Last year was a phenomenal success, with registration maxed out at 150 people. This year is shaping up to be even better, with the recent release of Drupal v.6 and upgrades to most major modules providing plenty of new material for the workshops and presentations. If you haven't signed up yet, do so quickly as space is limited to 150 again this year. As with last year, official t-shirts will be handed out to all participants who pay the $20 registration fee. The t-shirts have once again been designed by Substance Communications, the agency I run with my partner Patricia Rodriguez, with input from Andre Molnar and Andrew Mallis. This year we are also working on the attendee badges and other conference material using the DrupalCampToronto logo we developed last year (seen at right). Substance Communications is a proud sponsor of DrupalCampToronto 2008.

These photos were taken at a depth of about 20ft along the sloping side of Half Moon reef, just off the coast of Guanaja, in the Bay Islands of Honduras. The fantastic creature is a Spotted Eagle Ray. It's wingspan was about 6ft wide and its tail was easily over 10ft long.   read more »

It's that time of year when CNET polls the citizens of the Intarweb to determine the best applications, services, and platforms. The Webware 100 Awards will be announced April 21st, but voting only goes till Monday March 31st. Categories include Audio, Publishing & Photography, Browsing, Communication, Commerce & Events, Productivity, Search & Reference, Social, Utility & Security, as well as Video. The winners from each category win $5000, so for some of the smaller startups it's a pretty big deal to win in their category. Last year's winners included Drupal (the CMS that powers this site), Last.fm (a great music sharing/exploring site) and Deviantart (a social network for artists). Get out and vote for your favourite online technologies!

There's a new tool out that wants to provide a real-time geolocation services to anyone interested in letting the whole world know where they are at any given moment. It's called Loki, and it's basically a mashup of Google Maps and the cool WiFi location-finding technology from Skyhook Wireless, the company that provides GPS-like functionality to the iPhone and iPod Touch.

By installing the Loki toolbar and clicking on "Locate me", the toolbar uses your WiFi antenna to ping local hotspots and triangulate your location. This information is then fed to Loki, which updates your location status. If there aren't any WiFi hotspots nearby, you can update your location manually through their website. But that's not nearly as cool as the automatic feature. Check it out:   read more »

Back in January during his MacWorld Keynote Address, Steve Jobs hinted that Apple was going to be really busy launching new products and innovations this year. True to his word, there's a lot coming out of Cupertino these days.

Here's a rundown of announcements and rumours for February:

• New iPod Touch and iPhones were released earlier this month with twice as much memory as previous models
• New MacBooks and MacBook Pros just shipped, with another refresh due in June
• O2 annouced the iPhone launch for Ireland, with Austria rumored to be close behind
• A media event scheduled for March 6 will discuss "Enterprise" and launch the official SDK for the iPhone (and iPod touch).
• More rumours are circulating about a 3G iPhone coming sometime mid-year

Since the beginning of the year, Apple's stock has dropped by 40%, from a high of $198 per share at the end of December '07 to a low of $119 earlier this week. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that now would be a good time to order a slice of AAPL pie "a la mode". :)