So us Canadians are finally gonna get our shot at an iPhone, big deal right…but analysts say it’s aimed at a niche market and spending on the phone may not live up to its buzz.  Canadians will finally get their chance to buy the mobile phone that lets users play music, watch video, surf the Internet and check email when it rolls out Friday after hype and a price controversy.

Exclusive Canadian carrier Rogers Wireless (TSX:RCI.B) lowered the iPhone’s data price to $30 a month for a limited time just days before the launch.  Analysts said Thursday that while there’s a lot of pent-up demand for the high-end, touch-screen phone, only a small segment of consumers will buy it because of the costs associated with running it.

“The average person is going to look at this thing and say ‘Very cool, very nice phone,’ but am I willing to spend the money for a three-year contract at probably $70 to $80 a month minimum when you talk about voice and data,” said U.S. telecom analyst Jack Gold.

The new, faster 3G iPhone now sells for $200, less than half its price a year ago when the first generation of the phone was launched in the United States.  Rogers has the only Canadian network capable of running the new, faster iPhone and it has announced it’s cutting the data fee to $30 monthly for Web browsing, email and video on a three-year contract for customers who activate their iPhones by Aug. 31.

The iPhone will use 3G wireless technology on a GSM network, which is widely used in Europe and Asia and is about 70 per cent to 75 per cent of the global market.  Analyst Carmi Levy said Apple Inc.’s products generate a lot of buzz but that doesn’t always translate into sales.

“They generate a lot more awareness in the broad media than they do actual numbers of people purchasing them,” Levy said of Apple products.  Apple is a master at creating “aspirational buzz,” said Levy of Toronto’s AR Communications Inc.  “Apple wants that even if you can’t afford one of their products, that you will still want to buy it, you will still keep it on your wish list so that some point in the future you will be in a position to buy it,” Levy said. 

“It’s a relatively small, but devoted segment. The first (generation of ) iPhone sold about six million phones, give or take. The overall smartphone market is 10 times that much, 20 times that much,” he said of worldwide smartphone sales.  Apple has said it hopes to sell 10 million iPhones worldwide by the end of this year.

Rogers hasn’t said how many iPhones it has received to sell in Canada or would like to sell, but has said it has sufficient inventory.  Select Rogers stores will open up at 8 a.m. to sell iPhones in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and Halifax.

Research In Motion’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone are competing against each other, and other smartphone makers, in both the consumer and business markets.

Gold said the iPhone is still more of a consumer device even though some business people may want to use it. “The bottom line is that for most enterprises, the iPhone is not a legitimate competitor to BlackBerry at this point he said. Stewart also said he sees the iPhone as more of a consumer device than the BlackBerry.

“BlackBerry, it’s a work phone. It looks like a work phone and acts like a work phone,” he said, adding it’s the preferred choice for enterprise.  However, the iPhone is trying to attract business users.

Research In Motion’s new 3G BlackBerry Bold, out later this summer, could present a further challenge to the iPhone in the business market.  The BlackBerry Bold is designed for high-speed networks and is aimed at business professionals globally, allowing them to send and receive e-mails while also talking on the smartphone or surfing the Internet. I refuse to go on a data plan until our prices here in Canada get down a lot lower, closer to our US neighbours.

Would you give up your underwear for peace?  Canadian women are being asked to volunteer their undergarments in an international effort to shame Myanmar’s ruling junta into giving citizens greater access to humanitarian aid and human rights. Organizers launched the Canadian edition of the Panties for Peace! campaign Tuesday with a call for women to send their underwear to the Myanmar embassy in Ottawa.

The campaign plays off regional superstitions that contact with women’s panties can sap a man’s power. Activists claim the fear is shared by the leaders of the country’s military regime. Spearheaded by a pro-democracy group based in Thailand, the campaign was launched in the fall to draw attention to human rights abuses against women in the country.  At the time, the junta was violently suppressing a pro-democracy uprising by the country’s Buddhist monks.  

The Canadian version of the international campaign, co-ordinated by the Quebec Women’s Federation and Rights and Democracy, hopes to also raise funds for victims of Cyclone Nargis.  More than 130,000 people are thought to be dead or missing in the wake of the cyclone that struck in early May. The United Nations estimates that 1.5 million survivors have not yet received any aid.

News organizations reported Tuesday that humanitarian workers have only just begun reaching the remote, hardest hit areas of the country.  Levesque said Rights and Democracy will funnel any money raised to known aid groups working along the Myanmar-Thai border. She refused to name the groups for security reasons.

Observer say the junta is worried successful aid operations will undermine its authority following the protests in the fall. According to the campaign’s organizers, Myanmar’s embassies in Europe, Australia and Brazil, among other places, have been receiving female underpants in the mail.  Personally I think they should only collect nasty soiled underwear and drop them on the military headquarters.

Tired of squeezing into cattle class and looking for somewhere to stretch out? Pay just 12 dollars more to sleep in the overhead luggage compartments of Canada’s Westjet … on April Fool’s Day.
 
“The overhead compartment has traditionally been a place where guests have placed their carry-on baggage,” Westjet vice president Bob Cummings said in a joke statement.

“Given that the overhead bins on our fleet are among the most spacious of any airline, we made the decision to offer sleeper cabins in that space,” he said of their fleet of 73 Boeing 737s.

“By offering our existing overhead bins as sleeper cabins, guests will now have the opportunity to lie down for a period of time and arrive at their destination refreshed, rested and ready to go.”

The statement was accompanied with a picture of a traveler comfortably nestled in an overhead bin bed with a pillow and a blanket.  I have seen hotel rooms in Asia that looks similar to those overheads, so I guess a lots of folks fell for this one.

Peter Brouwer and his girlfriend were both born in February and like to celebrate their birthdays in style.  They organize trips every year to mark the occasion, hitting the slopes in the Rockies, Carnival in Brazil and other interesting locations. This year, for his 13th birthday, they plan to head to a beach to bask in the California sunshine.

But while she normally has 364 sleeps before officially blowing out the candles on her cake, his wait is more than four times as long.  Brouwer is among the 21,400 Canadians born on leap year day, according to Statistics Canada - the last day in February marked every four years.

More than a decade ago, the Duncan, B.C., resident decided he wanted to connect with others who share the birthday and he created a website with a Feb. 29 theme.  Prior to its launch, Brouwer said the only time he had ever met anyone born on the day was in the 1970s when he spotted an ad in a Vancouver newspaper placed by a man looking to meet other “leapers.” 

There are now about 7,000 members worldwide registered on the site - including roughly 450 from Canada - in celebration of their special shared birthday.  The honour roll even has a special section for leapers who are related, including New Brunswick quadruplets and 72 sets of twins.

Brothers John and Jeff Durrant, both B.C.-based accountants, were born on the leap year day in 1956 and 1960, respectively, and plan to celebrate their birthday together Friday.  Sounds like a fun way to enjoy a rare birthday.

In some parts of the U.S. the word “Canadian” has ugly connotations and it is not because we refused to join the war in Iraq.  In the south, “Canadian” is a racial slur referring to African-Americans. The term has its roots in the word Canuck, says an expert.

“Canuck, that very same term of endearment Canadians use now,” was used by racist southern Americans to insult French Canadians with dark skins, said Stefan Dollinger, editor in chief of Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles. Over time, we gave the word Canuck a totally different spin and it now refers to any Canadian, he said.

“In the U.S. some people still use Canuck as a slur,” said Dollinger, who is also the director of the University of British Columbia’s Canadian English lab.

Internet message-board posters have been discussing the issue of southern Americans using the word Canadian to replace racial epithets for black people.

A Texas district attorney got into trouble and have left others wondering what exactly it means when he used the word “Canadians” to describe blacks on a jury.

In an e-mail to a junior prosecutor, district attorney Mike Trent wrote: “He overcame a subversively good defence by Matt Hennessey that has some Canadians on the jury feeling sorry for the defendant and forced them to do the right thing.”

Reports indicated there were no Canadians, but a number of black people.

“Never heard of that here in Edmonton,” said Michael Broodhagen, local chapter president of the National Black Coalition of Canada Society.   There goes the US being dumb again, it must be an effect of George W. Bush.

Thousands of Quebecers can thank an extra 2.1 centimetres of snow for a free trip, part of a vacation giveaway based on the amount of snow that fell on Jan. 1. Canadian online travel retailer itravel2000.com confirmed Wednesday night that 14.8 centimetres of snow fell at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Montreal on New Year’s Day.

That amount surpassed the minimum of 12.7 centimetres or five inches required for a free trip under their “Let it Snow” promotion
Quebec customers whose departures were scheduled between Nov. 1, 2007, and Apr. 30, 2008, and who booked their trips between June 12 and Dec. 7, 2007, earned free vacations.

The offer was based on snowfall in Calgary, Toronto, Montreal or Halifax. Toronto measured in at 9.4 centimetres, while Halifax recorded 0.8 centimetres and Calgary had 0 centimetres. The number of winners could be in the “tens of thousands,” itravel2000 vice-president Brad Miron told the CBC on Tuesday.  It looks like it still might have worked out.