The good ‘ol United States of America is going to employ Predator drones on the US Canada border within a few days. The unmanned arial drones have been used for years on the southern Mexican border, but they are now needed to keep a watchful eye on Canadians seeing that the US has a booming jobs market. After all, we need to keep Canadians from defecting as it’s common knowledge that Americans enjoy better health care, hockey, and maple syrup than our friendly, northern neighbors.

We spend most of our time searching for the ultimate convergence devices and I truly believe that I’ve found the one to beat. It’s the Pomegranate NS08 from Nova Scotia, of all places. The millimeters-thin touchscreen phone handles voice, web browsing, and e-mail with ease but also tackles tough tasks that no phone to date has attempted.

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I have to say, as interesting a phone as the E71 is, I’m not sure a three year contract is something I’d be willing to agree to. I mean, who does anything for three years? Well, laying out only $50 for all the capabilities of the E71 — full HTML browsing, GPS, tons of stuff available for the S60 OS — is a pretty good deal if you’re already into that Symbian thing. Of course, it’s only available to Canucks at the moment, but if it sells I’m sure we’ll see more of it on this side of the 49th Parallel.

If you’re the type of person who lives in Europe (a “European”), you can always go with the E63, although the performance problems I encountered in the E71 would be exacerbated in that little guy.

[Mobilesyrup via Uber, Unwired]

Fresh off the his and hers Dodge Rams CrunchDeal comes a similar deal for his and hers Microsoft Zune players – if you live in Canada, that is. Pick up a manly 16GB Zune at $179 from Best Buy Canada (online only) and you’ll have a soft and sensual 4GB lady Zune added to your cart for free. Not bad… not bad at all.

Microsoft Zune 16GB Portable Media Player [BestBuy.ca via Electronista]

We can jokingly say things like “buy a cellphone jammer to silence those annoying people on the bus” but that would be irresponsible. Quite irresponsible, it turns out, as criminals are now using such devices to impede law enforcement efforts.

It happened last month in Canada. Two Mounties had pulled over a car, and as they approached to car their radios went out. It turns out that the two guys inside the pulled over car had turned out one of those $200 eBay cellphone jammers, putting the officers at unnecessary risk.

This is a good time to remind y’all that using cellphone jammers is illegal in the U.S and most other places. In fact, a first time offender faces up to a $1,000 fine for using a jammer in the U.S.

Seems to me that an iPod is a much cheaper way to avoid hearing a fellow commuter’s conversation. And anyone who uses a cellphone at a restaurant should be promptly shown the door.

It doesn’t get much more easy to relate to than this, folks. This endearing team, Mr. Chow and Mr. Lau, will show you a super easy way to tether your iPhone after jailbreaking it. Of course, most people who know to jailbreak their phones are already clued in to the whole tethering thing, but if you’re still new at it — and I’m looking at you, new-iPhone-owning brother of mine in BC — these Canada-specific but easily localizable instructions should make things simple for you.

Even if you know this stuff already, it’s worth it to hear the kid at the end saying “Apple rules?!” [via Hack n Mod]

Bloomberg reports that Canada’s Prime Minister will be allowing telecoms industry regulators to “ban fees for unsolicited text messages on mobile phones and other ‘unfair charges.’” While that seems like a pretty narrow scope, consider that (with history as a guide) “unfair charges” is an extremely flexible term. It could spell the end of outrageous overage charges like a quarter per text, which one could argue are “unfair” given the extreme disparity between that cost and normal cost. This is assuming, of course, that you are Canadian, which I’m sure most of you out there are.

It’s part of a push on the PM’s part for consumer rights, an area sorely needing attention in the US, where frivolous claims are rewarded with millions while legitimate concerns like arbitrary bandwidth caps aren’t given a second look. Another reason to move to Canada — unless of course you have an iPhone.

Canadian travelers will soon be able to emulate their favorite CrunchGear blogger, Peter Ha, as they glom on to Aircell’s Gogo wireless internet service aboard their next international Air Canada flight. You’ll recall that Sweet Pete recently blogged from 37,000 feet using Gogo service aboard American Airlines. What fun we all had!

You’ll have to wait until at least spring of 2009, as that’s when Air Canada hopes to start rolling out the service on its fleet of Airbus A319 airplanes that fly between Canada and the United States.

Look. If I was an old Canadian playwright who couldn’t get on the Internet, I’d be mad too. People over 50 generally don’t understand the relationship between an Internet connection, a router, and an Ethernet port (or wireless connection). That is to say, when an old person’s connection goes down, they automatically just assume that it’s the ISP’s fault without realizing that it could be the router or the computer instead.

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If you live in Canada, have 11 friends, and like to play Xbox 360, then you’ve got what appears to be a dyn-o-mite formula for what I’m about to tell you. As of last Friday, Cineplex Entertainment, which owns 29 theaters across Canada, started renting out screen time for playing Xbox 360. The theaters have a library of games, too, so you don’t have to worry if you don’t own Halo 7 or whatever number sequel it’s up to now.

The theaters will rent out screen time mostly in the mornings – they have about 12 to 24 hours of downtime each week, according to CBC News. Up to 12 players can participate in each session and sessions cost $179 (Canadian) per two-hour block.

[via SlashGear]

Rogers has conceded that its pricing is a bit outlandish and is now offering a $30/6GB monthly plan for those who intent to download “105 hours of YouTube” or maybe 10 emails a day. No word on Visual Voicemail or whether Apple stores will carry the phones.

This “Apple hates Rogers” story is hotting up!

Now it looks like Apple won’t sell the iPhone 3G at its Canadian retail stores, leaving Rogers (and Fido, its partner is crime) flapping in the wind.

You can feel the annoyance in Apple’s voice in this quote:

We have nothing to do with the service plans. Those are Rogers’ plans

Hell hath no fury!

Keep bitching, Canadians. It looks like your complaints aren’t going unnoticed.

Attention Canada-

By now you’ve read that Rogers will be bending you over on data plans if the iPhone 3G is something you’re lusting after and you’re none to happy about it, so I suggest you look down a different path. Why not stick to a homegrown company like RIM and wait a couple weeks for the Bold?

The just-announced iPhone 3G pricing plan for Rogers in Canada isn’t going down too well. One intrepid Canadian started a Web site, RuinediPhone.com, that has a petition targeting the rather unfair prices. So far, more than 17,000 people have signed the petition, which is intended to make Rogers drop the price of the iPhone data plan.

The site’s creator has even written an open letter to Steve Jobs, asking him to do “something” about the unfair prices.

We applaud your struggle, Canada. There’s no reason for Rogers to charge what it wants to charge compared to what AT&T charges. Unless here’s some Canadian tax thing we’re not familiar with.

via iLounge

Take this with a grain of salt, but a user over on HowardForums who’s been known to leak credible information in the past has apparently leaked some pricing information about the iPhone 3G that’ll be heading to Canada on the Rogers network.

Here’s the short version:

• Pricing looks very similar to U.S. pricing in that the 8GB version will cost $199 and the 16GB version will cost $299
• The subsidized prices require a three year commitment instead of a two-year commitment. Can any of our Canadian readers comment on this? This seems to be a growing trend in Canada, huh? Three years instead of two?
• Data plans will be similarly priced at $30 for consumers and $45 for businesses. They’ll have to be added to qualifying voice plans, which will likely start at $40 per month.
• The device will be sold in Rogers, Fido, and Apple stores.

So basically it looks like everything’s about the same as it will be here in the states if this post over on HowardForums is legit, except for the contract length.

via Engadget Mobile

Apparently Rogers of Canada will get the 3G BlackBerry in one week, June 25. I thought AT&T was getting the Bold in July? According to the BGR we may have to wait a bit longer for the Bold to hit stateside.

AT&T corporate is still telling their Fortune 500 customers that the Bold will launch in “July/August”.

I hope it’s not really August. It’s the one thing I’ve been looking forward to this year.

Flickr’d

Now British and Canadian users can download moves from the iTunes Store. The UK Store has a selection of 700 movies from Disney, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, and so on. Most of the major studios, it looks like. Even nicer, more than 100 of these are available in HD. The Cousins pay £10.99 for a new movie download (£3.99 library) and £3.49 for a new rental (£2.49 library).

Canada has a little more to choose from, with 1,200 movies available from the same lot of studios. New movie downloads are Can$19.99 ($Can9.99 for library) and new movie rentals are Can$4.99 (Can$3.99).

Both countries’ rentals expire is 48 hours.

To our British and Canadian readers I ask, how much do you care? I haven’t a whole lot of commotion about not being able to download movies off iTunes or anything, and I wonder if this will even appear on your radar. You also seem to be screwed on the price, but I bet you’re used to that by now.

via iLounge