Canada Has Its Very Own Version of the AT&T vs. Verizon Ad Lawsuit Telus and Rogers are sworn enemies in the Canadian wireless carrier arena, sort of like AT&T and Verizon but on a much more quaint, socialist and cold scale. And like our own two big dogs, Telus and Rogers have been at each others’ throats recently about advertisements—Rogers has ads claiming it’s “Canada’s most reliable network” and that its speeds are twice as fast as any other network. Telus hit back, claiming it’s not true (Telus did after all just launch a 21Mbps HSPA network) and Canadian courts actually forced Rogers to pull the offending ads, an interesting twist on the lawsuit pattern we Americans pioneered. Anyway, I know we’re going to be crushed in the comments with high-larious anti-Canadian jabs, so let me pre-empt:

Igloo, cold, eh, hockey, The Arcade Fire, Bob and Dave MacKenzie, Pamela Anderson, who cares. [Boy Genius Report]

CollegeHumor Tackles Modern Warfare 2 (With Bonus Giz Appearance) CollegeHumor just posted a video in which comedy nerds play (and are subsequently killed during) Modern Warfare 2, with a bonus appearance by our own Adam Frucci. I can exclusively report that Adam Frucci is a very old man who is several years removed from college, but the video’s pretty funny despite this factual error. Discussed within: MW2’s similarity to Crash Bandicoot, Dick Cheney quotes, a tax-funded sequel to Psychonauts, and why the glamorization of war is awesome. [CollegeHumor]

LG BL4 Gets Christmas Edition You know, in America, Christmas editions are usually red and green, but in South Korea, it looks like they hang black tinsel on gold trees, because the LG BL40 Christmas edition is decked out in those colours. It’s a small upgrade from the original BL40, with an 8MP camera (up from 5MP, though who knows if it’s any better), a fancy case and entry into a contest with lots of prizes. It’s in Remainders because only those black-and-gold-loving South Koreans can get their hands on it so far. [Engadget]

VUDU Adds Wikipedia, Possibly the World’s Most Boring Update VUDU is a pretty nice media service, built into set-top boxes and TVs and offering nice 1080p streaming, and adds to its repertoire Wikipedia integration. It’s previously added Rotten Tomatoes, which is a little more obvious (and dare we say useful), and I personally might prefer IMDB rather than scrolling through prose paragraphs on my TV in Wikipedia, but it’s good that Vudu is constantly updating its product. If you have to ask why it’s in remainders, you probably haven’t read this far: Vudu, Wikipedia, snore. [Engadget]

[WSJ]

The WikiReader isn’t a connected device. Instead, Wikipedia comes on an SD card. You can pay $US30 to have two updates sent out per year, or freely download a 4GB archive that’s specially tailored to the WikiReader’s screen. Speaking of which, the monochrome screen is touch-enabled and has a virtual keyboard for typed searches. It’s not backlit, but two AAA batteries can power the device for several months.

The WikiReader also seems pretty well constructed. It has a scratch-resistant tempered glass screen, and a plastic case geared for durability. Fun fact: it was designed by Thomas Meyerhoffer, who used to work at Apple, helped design the Chumby, and makes surf boards that look like snowboards.

But here’s the weirdest thing about the WikiReader: it can’t display images, monochrome or otherwise. I get that they want to maximise battery life and keep the SD card updates manageable, but really? That screams fail. [Wikireader via DVICE]

If this sounds an awful lot like Wikitude, the AR Android app that just can’t seem to eek its way into the App Store, that’s because it is an awful lot like Wikitude — except with a more polished interface, and, well, iPhone support. (Sort of: non-3GSers need not apply). As with Wikitude, firing this thing up around a familiar location won’t really blow your mind, since Wikipedia’s geographic article density is still pretty low.

But if you’re visiting a new place—that is, a place Wikipedia editors care to write about—Cyclopedia ceases to be an AR tech demo, and with adjustable search radii, a top-down map mode and non-geocaches Wikipedia searching, actually starts to be useful. Available now in the App Store for $2.49; video demo at the source link. [Chemical Wedding]

NPR News: The unaffiliated Public Radio Player was great great great, but this is somehow better. It brings twice as many stations, adds written news content along with offline reading, on-demand NPR shows and a surprisingly navigable interface. Guiltily free, since you don’t even have to sit through pledge drives.

Wikipedia: I just assumed this app already existed, but in reality, it didn’t come out until this week. Weird! It’s sort of a website-wrapped-in-an-app snooze for now, though it’s open source and Wikipedia would very much like you to help make it into something decent, that people might actually want. Free.

Fluent News (Update): A personal favourite news aggregator of mine, Fluent now supports Google News-style searches across sources and emailing from within the app. The search feature is more useful than it might sound, especially if you want to dig right into a news story right after hearing about it. Free.

WHOA? You know Telephone, the group game where you pass a complicated, whispered message around a circle of people until it turns into something about penises, usually? This is that, with writing and drawing, on the iPhone. Here’s what you do: You write a word, the next person draws it, the next person writes what he thinks the drawing is, and so on. $1.19.

Simplify Photo: Simplify’s other app lets you listen to your home music library from anywhere with a sort of zero-setup server app, and it’s absolutely indispensable. This one does the same thing for photos, letting you access your entire home photo library wherever you are, without taking up much space on your iPhone’s dinky drive. The experience is surprisingly seamless considering how much it depends on the iPhone’s data connection, and the app is just $3.99.

This Week’s App News On Giz

• You Can’t Read the Good Part of Google’s FCC Response

• Apple and AT&T Answer FCC About Google Voice Rejection: It’s All Apple

• App Store Approval Process Slowly Getting Less Horrendous?

• iPhone’s Sonar Ruler App Measures Distance Using Sound

• Native Twitter Location Data Means More Stalker Power With Every Tweet

• Blow Virtual Kisses with Happy Dangy Diggy

• i.TV iPhone App Grows a Remote Control Framework, TiVo Gives It a Whirl

• Apple Exec Phil Schiller Reaching Out to Rejected App Developers

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. For even more apps, see our previous weekly roundups here. Have a swell weekend everybody.

Yes, please join with me in admitting that you spent a fair share of time reading the Human Reproduction article on your beige IBM Aptiva back in the day. Or produced/plagiarised many a fine middle school research papers, culling facts from its bounty. Encarta, you will be missed.

If anyone hasn’t figured it out already, paid encyclopedias have been straight murdered by something called Wikipedia. In fact, I went to the Wikipedia page for Encarta to research this post. Oh, the irony; sorry to rub in the pain in your final hour, Encarta. The plug will be officially pulled in October of this year. [Reuters]

Online Young Journalist of the Year Asher Moses over at SMH (congrats Asher!) tells us that  the politicians changing their own entries to remove information that is either incorrect or biased. What’s more, Parliamentary Librarian Roxanne Missingham is emailing MPs instructions on how to do it.

The problem with this is that it contravenes Wikipedia’s conflict of interest guidelines. And while most edits have been done simply to correct factual errors, there are some changes that remove criticisms of the politicians, or remove biographical information, like Alexander Downer’s wealthy family background.
The most surprising aspect about the politicians changing their Wikipedia entries is that 12 months ago, Asher broke the exact same story when the Howard government was doing the same thing – and they were slammed for it. Why the current crop of officials believe they can get away with it now is beyond us.

So what happens next? Probably nothing. Unless somebody goes and changes those Wikipedia entries back, and adds in some commentary about how the politicians changed their own entries…

[Kottke]