The Canadian economy has been the talk of the town recently with the dollar reaching parity with the American dollar for the first time since 1976 and the housing market really heating up. These things are both offsetting the effects of inflation and helping to keep the economy running along smoothly. Luckily our economy right now is really based on trading natural resources and with our agriculture. Grain prices are reaching their highest levels in a long time and thats helping farmers make money. Oil is always at or near the highest level it has ever been so thats helping out the Oil companies. The problem with such a hot economy is that it is bound to cool off eventually its just a matter of when. The USA is having a lot of problems recently with its crisis on sub prime lending, a cooling housing market and the poor state of their economy. A lot of that will have trickle down effects into Canada. Today, to add to the whole mess, is a strike by GM workers at their Saginaw plant. This is going to cause over 80,000 workers in Canada to be layed off as a result of the disruption in the automobile creation chain. With such a large lay off this will be a devastating blow to our economy. Unemployment numbers are going to rise big time and the longer the strike lasts the more harm that will be caused to the economy.
So with the high Canadian dollar hurting exports and then the GM layoffs raising unemployment, the economy is going to be in for a great shock. It is hard to believe that this will all just pass by and we will be unaffected. My prediction is for a recession in the USA followed by a recession in Canada. The USA will be harder hit but Canada will be going along for the ride with this one.
It has been rumoured that Sony is going to drop the price on the newest model of their Playstation 3 once the existing supplies of the 60gb model have been sold through. They are expecting the old models will be sold out by October which just so happens to be the time that Microsoft AAA titles will be releasing for the Xbox 360. The 80gb PS3 is currently retailing for $599 and the 60gb is selling for $499. With news of future price drops it only leads to speculation that Sony fears they are losing the console war. Sony has a lot riding on their console as it is also pushing their Blu Ray movie format. Consumers will ultimately decide whether this price drop will be enough to keep the PS3 alive and the Blu Ray format for that matter.
Google is a company that seems to care about the future. They have many programs in place to train the future computer scientists and to assist them as they develop their skills. In the past I have attempted to try to bring their Google ambassador pizza program to the university but failed at that. I guess the University of Regina isn’t on their list of schools that they want to be supporting. Maybe someday I suppose. Now, they have a new program called Google Code for Educators. It has a number of items targetted at profs to use in their classes. There are video lectures, sample course content, and tutorials on new technologies. All of this is available for free and is given away with the creative commons license. It is my hope that more profs will use resources like this as the material is very well written and a lot clearer than many of the profs. The program itself was actually announced July 26 but old news can still be new news to me.
Sirius Satellite Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) announced today that they are partnering with Loral Space and Communications (NASDAQ: LORL) to build a new high powered satellite. The satellite will have a 15 year service life with 20 kilowatts at its end of life. This will be the 6th satellite in their fleet. The fifth satellite is currently in production and is scheduled to be launched next year. They also have a fourth satellite that sits in storage. This new satellite will more than double the power of the fleet and let Sirius enhance performance for the customers.
With this new increase to power I expect we will start to see the Sirius Video coming out shortly. I think this will be an interesting market for them as they will be able to challenge the likes of portable dvd players and portable video games for the entertainment in the vehicle market. As well, it would be interesting to see further developments to portable devices that allow for receiving satellite video on the go. Imagine iPod video device with streaming video from the satellite. Sounds good but its still a few years away.
Microsoft officially announced a pricedrop for all models of their Xbox 360 console. The premium model normally at $499.99 has now dropped by $100 to $399.99 which should stimulate sales. I have noticed that sales have been slowing recently but they are still selling. The PS3 price drop really did increase sales as they have been selling out recently for the first time since its launch. This is a good move on Microsofts part. I really like how they dropped it by $100 Canadian since that will bring us closer to being inline with the American price. If I didn’t already have a 360 I would be buying one for sure now with this price drop. There are already a lot of good games out and even more will be coming out this fall. I just need to buy a new HDTV to enjoy these higher resolutions.
Yesterday was a good day for new releases. I bought the new 300 Movie on HD DVD. The movie itself was very awesome in theaters and I had been looking forward to buying it for a while now. It seemed like it went through theaters to DVD pretty fast.  I also picked up Planet Earth on HD DVD. This is an amazing look at the planet we all call home. The picture is breathtaking and the image seems to pop out of the screen and present itself as 3D. I very much recommend this show to everyone. I also picked up some older stuff like, Uncle Buck, Dare Devil, Tigerland, Phone Booth, and Wartech for the 360.
Sony cut the price on the PS3 by $150 Canadian today to set the price at around $550. Online site Futureshop already has the new pricing reflected while Bestbuy still shows the older price. The new price cut comes as sales of the next-gen console have been poor. Sony is hoping to double their monthly sales numbers as a result of the price cut. The price cut should help to promote sales but it is very likely that a price cut by Microsoft will take away some of its thunder. There is some speculation that the Microsoft price cut on its 360 will come before the end of the week. If that is the case, Microsoft will probably continue to dominate the sales. The announcement last week about three year waranty and then a price cut will surely allow them to increase sales.
Gmarket Inc. (ADR) (NASDAQ : GMKT) shares has been steadily decreasing in value for the last week after they announced their 4Q profit being up 78 percent. The shares have found themselves just above the $15 mark, which is getting closer and closer to their 52 week low of $12.28 and a far cry from their 52 week high of $28.00 which makes me wonder why is the stock slumping. Could it be that the auction market for Korea isn’t that big? Could it be that, even though they are making a profit, it just isn’t that much revenue? Whatever the case, with the stock readjusted to its current pricing, it seems like it could be a takeover target. The current lower demand for Asian stocks is surely just temporary and this stock is bound to bounce back sooner than later.
Microsoft announced that they will be releasing a new 512mb memory card for $49.99 on April 3rd. With the announcement also comes a price reduction on the older 64mb memory cards from $39.99 to $29.99 which still seems overpriced. My comment on the new memory card is, why stop at 512mb? They could have easily released a 1gb or 2gb card for a little more and it would have allowed for more flexibility on the part of the consumer who enjoys a choice.
The increase in memory card sizes allows for Microsoft to increase the limit on Xbox Live Arcade titles from 50mb to 150mb. This should allow for developers to create more impressive and more freedom when creating their live arcade titles. This increase was probably asked for from developers as Microsoft’s competition, Sony, does not have such a small limit. Although this new limit still pales in comparison to the Playstation 3, these two services are completely different. Sony just in the last week, released a downloadable stripped down Tekken 5 game that was close to a 555mb download. This is basically Tekken 5 minus a lot of the features. Microsoft has been releasing original new games and classic titles.
SIRIUS Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: SIRI) are making some lineup changes for February 14, 2007. On their Canadian site, they list the changes that will be affecting their customers. They removed the Who channel, ABC news and talk, ESPN Deportes, EWTN Catholic, and Hot Jams. They are bringing in Nascar, some Play-By-Play channels, Foxxhole, Siriusly Sinatra, Metropolition Opera Radio, and 90’s alternative.
The American Site has some different updates. They are losing Hardcore Sports Radio, C-Span, Sports Byline, and Revolution while gaining the 90’s alternative, Sinatra, and Foxxhole. I have a feeling people will be upset by losing any of their programming. Some people probably liked the Hardcore Sports Radio, or C-Span and losing them will only make people upset.  I wonder if there will be any consumer backlash because of these changes. We will find out soon enough!
. The movie itself was very awesome in theaters and I had been looking forward to buying it for a while now. It seemed like it went through theaters to DVD pretty fast.  I also picked up