From nearby Stratford, Ontario, teen pop singer Justin Bieber has achieved worldwide fame in just one year, becoming a phenomenon.

He can thank the internet as the vehicle that helped him shoot up to stardom.

Another bad day for consumers in Canada.

The Conservative minority government is set to revive yet another attempt at implementing US-like DMCA.

See the Globe and Mail: Pending copyright bill to mimic U.S.: Geist, and CBC: Anti-consumer copyright bill on way: expert.

The CRTC, the regulator for Canada's telecommunication market, has granted Bell the right to bill customers by usage, i.e. charge more for downloads. This applies to both retail and wholesale customers. Which means that people who bought from smaller providers who use the Bell network as well.

This is bad for Teksavvy, bad for their customers and a bad day for the internet in Canada!

Via the CBC.

US President-Elect Barack Obama was on an interview with Barbara Walters on ABC yesterday.

Among the things that was discussed, was his intention on keeping the Blackberry he currently uses.

What struck me was this quote:

"One of the things that I'm going to have to work through is how to break through the isolation -- the bubble that exists around the president.

According to Peter Nowak of the CBC, a hostile bid for Yahoo by Microsoft could change the future of the web.

The article says that the such a bid is likely and would have a good chance of happening too.

They also mention that Microsoft's "closedness" and the mentality of controling everything would cause a major shift, followed by a lot of Yahoo's talent leaving due to the differing cultures.

I use the Linux dump program to do backups. I use a set of scripts making the process as unattended as can be. The scripts send me an email with the result so I am informed of the outcome.

Viewing today's email status message in Gmail had a hilarious surpise in it. Look at the ad on the right hand side.

Google thought that the email subject and text here has "Dump" in it, an display an ad about "She dumped me" ... "Get your girl back".

Over the span of a few days, three undersea cables were cut in different areas of the world. Two in the Mediterranean, and another in the Perisan Gulf.

The site of the first cut is 8 km away from Alexandria, and was cut on January 30 by a wayard ship anchor. The third cut is 56 km from Dubai. The cause of that latter cut was not confirmed.

These cuts have affected Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Iran and India.

All over news outlets over the last two days is the fact that Microsoft has bid $44.6 billion for Yahoo.

The implications of such an acquisition are far reaching.

The OLPC has started deployment to schools in some countries.

The way the students interact with it, learn how to use it, and interact to each other is already amazing. There are stories of school drop outs coming back to school for the sake of the laptop, aggressive kids who become experts in the OLPC, and help others out using it, and more.

Two recent reviews of the XO One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) are very interesting. The first is by a 12 year old, and the other is by a 9 year old.