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Changes to SRED Program Threaten Canada's Global Competitiveness

Following numerous discussions and activities over the last six months, and recent rumours circling around on this topic, it is time to comment. I am deeply concerned about the potential changes to the Scientific Research and Experimental Development—or "SRED"—program in the upcoming Federal Budget, and the impact such changes could have on R&D investment, commercialization, and Canada’s competitiveness.

To be clear on my vested interest, I speak from my personal perspective as an early stage entrepreneur and investor—not as an advisor in a professional services firm. Having spent 20 years in the Canadian technology industry, I have been fortunate to visit dozens of technology centres around the world and had a chance to gauge our global competitiveness as an industry.

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Kevin O'Leary: Cementing a Legacy with the Cold Hard Truth

There's no question that Canadian entrepreneur Kevin O'Leary is an asshole. But he's earned the right to be one. 

Kevin O'Leary was a benefactor of the $3.8 billion exit for The Learning Company (also known as SoftKey) in 1999. While in retrospect the acquisition was called one of the worst business deals of all time—Mattel lost hundreds of millions—O'Leary had cashed out just before the dot-com bubble imploded.

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Toronto Non-Profit and Millipore Collaborate to Design Stem Cell Bioreactor

Photo: The GuardianStem cells are all the rage these days, and it’s not just a medical fad. With the ability to differentiate themselves into just about any other type of cell in the human body, they can be used to combat cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and many conditions.

The problem with stem cell research, however, is that stem cells are notoriously difficult to harvest.  While there are many locations in the body that they can be harvested from, it is quantity that matters, and quantity is hard to get. It is no surprise then that stem cell bioreactors, machines capable of producing large batches of stem cells, could have a huge impact in the way we fight disease.

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One-Third of Us Will Own Tablets by 2016, Research Forecasts

As the larger brethren to the smartphone, tablets have rapidly emerged as a driving force in the mobile revolution. Apple, for example, sold more than 15 million iPads during its last quarter alone, and tablet sales now outpace PC sales in many countries.

So, grand a statistic as this may be, it might not be so surprising: in just four years, one-third of North Americans could own tablets. This is according to new research from Forrester; in a report titled "US Consumer Tablet Forecast Update, 2011 to 2016," analyst Sarah Rotman Epps said that Forrester "expects 112.5 million US adults to own a tablet in 2016"—or over 34% of the country's population. And given that Canadians have been fairly aggressive adopters of technology in recent times, it's relatively safe to say that our penetration will be roughly equal.

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TEDxHalifax: Spreading Ideas In the Maritimes

TEDxHalifaxTEDxHalifax, an independently organized production of the very popular TED presentation series, was hosted this past weekend at Dalhousie University in Halifax. The theme, Connections Can, denotes the multitude of accomplishments possible through connections and culture.

Covering a wide range of topics, the conference covered everything from whale culture to coffee, neurobiology to musical performance. Briefly, the conference included:

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How to Accelerate the Search for Cancer’s Cure

There’s an experimental drug in the works that has been able to kill cancer cells. It’s called Dichloroacetate (DCA), and it’s being refined and perfected at the University of Alberta.

I’m no doctor or even a medical student, but this resonates with me. My grandfather died of lung cancer six years ago, and my grandmother died shortly after of pancreatic cancer.

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If Your Smartphone is Lost, There's a 96% Chance That the Finder Will Rifle Through Your Private Data

Curiosity is a difficult temptation to resist. Some hands-on research from Symantec reveals alarming statistics about the dangers of losing your smartphone.

Symantec deliberately "lost" 50 smartphones across Canada and the U.S. in cities like Ottawa and New York. Left in high-traffic public spaces such as malls, these trackable devices were all obviously picked up by people eventually. The question is, what did the finders of these lost smartphones do with the devices?

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