The new iPod Shuffle has launched and it’s a goes back to a design like the original. It features a text-to-speech option for hearing the artist and title of the song.

Dell is going to launch a new laptop to compete with the Macbook Air. This sleek and slim laptop is called the Adamo and they just put out this new teaser video:

A lot of my friends have switched to Macs, mostly the notebooks. Given the smaller resources available on notebooks, it’s important to run software that efficient and doesn’t bog the computer down. When Mac owners want to run a Windows program they’ve had two commercial products available to them – Parallels and Fusion. MacTech did some pretty exhaustive tests and found out that Parallels is almost always faster.
Stick with Parallels.

Yuzu is a new sushi restaurant on Adelaide street. I went last week with friends and it was quite good. The make rolls were great with spicy sauces not overdone or too “mayonaissey”. Sauces are also put on the plate to avoid too much sauce on the maki.

We started with tempura and edemame, and moved on to dynamite and spider rolls, an assorted set of sashimi and a dragon roll. All were really good.

Here’s a set of reviews on Yuzu:
Now Magazine
Chowhound
Martini Boys
Toronto Life

Yuzu Sushi and Sake Bar
236 Adelaide Street West
Toronto, ON
(416) 205-9808

Innes & Gunn is a beer discovered by accident. Originally meant to impart taste to oak barrels used to make whiskey, it was tasted upon finishing and was highly rated as a standalone beer. It’s been my favorite for the past year after reading about it in the Toronto Star.

I’m not sure how it happened, but collectively the auto industry has started offering the same type of car all at once: the cube. It started with the Scion Xb in the USA and the Honda Element here, now Kia and Nissan have jumped into the mix offering a tiny cube-like car to the market. I can’t imagine there is enough demand for all this supply, but we’ll see. the Kia and Nissan are being offered for sale here this year.

Kia Soul

Nissan Cube

Honda Element

Scion XB

The Toronto Star has created a few new “children” sites dedicated to specific topics such as automotive, parenting and health. Healthzone.ca is their health care offering and recently they’ve added a tool that will allow you to find a clinic or find a drug store in your area.

In 1993, I was just starting university. Noone heard of the Internet and almost noone owned a laptop. The only online connectivity came from “BBS”‘s via dialup modems. However, AT&T came up with a series of ads on what “will” be possible in the future – and it’s amazing what they predicted came true just 15 years down the road:

I’ve often tried to picture how the image stabilization optics work inside a camera lens. Both Nikon and Canon offer this technology in many of their lenses. Even compact cameras now come bundled with this feature more often than not. The camera compensates for movement of the camera in an attempt to capture a better image. This works well in low light situations where the camera increases the time the shutter is open to let in more light.

This video at Gizmodo shows how the electro-mechanices of a Canon lens with image stabilization works.