This week, a look at the new tech fund announced by the B.C. government, the options available if you want to give the gift of streaming media, and some wicked gadgets that are the perfect size for those holiday stockings.

New BC Tech Fund announced

The provincial government is making $100 million available for investing in technology start-ups in a venture capital fund.

It’s all part of a tech strategy plan.

In a release last week, the government listed these details:

• The technology sector directly employs more than 86,000 people, and wages for those jobs are 60% higher than B.C.’s industrial average.
• B.C.’s technology sector is growing faster than the overall economy. In 2013, it grew at a rate of 4.7%, higher than the 3.2% growth observed in the provincial economy.
• In 2013, the technology sector added $13.9 billion to B.C.’s GDP.
• B.C.’s 9,000 technology companies combined generated $23.3 billion in revenue in 2013.
• New technology companies are emerging at increasing rates throughout the province. In 2013, there was an addition of more than 700 new technology companies in B.C., an increase of 8% over the prior year.

It’s about time the province recognized the potential of the high-tech sector, which the Globe and Mail reported employs more people “than B.C.’s forestry, mining and oil and gas sectors, combined.”

Providing start-ups with access to capital is certainly closing a gap in the tech business sector. The province is also increasing the number of companies that can access tax credits for working in digital animation, visual effects, or interactive digital media.

There is more to the tech strategy, and the province promises to reveal it all at the BC Tech Summit, being held in Vancouver on January 18 and 19.

Streaming music, movies, and games

Gifts during the holidays don’t have to be objects. They can also be services. And there are many media streaming services available to Canadians these days.

For movies and television, there are Netflix, and Canadian offerings Shomi and CraveTV, which will be available to all Canadians in the new year.

For music, there’s Apple Music, the newfangled Google Play Music, and a host of other streaming services like Spotify.

And all gamers benefit from a subscription to PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold, which are required for online and multiplayer gaming these days, and also come with free games each month. And the game streaming service PlayStation Now, which provides access to more than 250 PS3 games, can be locked in for a year at only $100. Normally the cost is $50 for three months.

My picks for awesome gadgets for stuffing stockings

The Globe & Mail asked me to collect and write about stocking stuffers for the tech gift guide.

Among my favourites:

• Little Sun solar-powered lamp: A portable light, in the shape of a little sun, that gets its energy from the sun. Five hours of charging nets four hours of reading light, or ten hours of ambient. Sales of the Little Sun go to providing them to people in developing areas of the world who don’t have access to ready electricity.
• Cyntur JumperPack Mini: This battery pack can charge your tablet or smartphone, sure, but it packs enough power to give an eight-cylinder truck a jumpstart. I’ve got one of these packed in the emergency kit for my family’s winter road trip through the Rockies this holiday.
• Sennheiser sports earbuds: The OCX686 are the best headphones I’ve yet found for being active. They aren’t wireless, but the iOS model that I’ve been trying out has a long cord and the inline microphone has proven to be very good for taking calls. Not everyone likes the earhooks, but I don’t mind them because they keep the earbuds in place. And the OCX686 have the quality sound I expect of Sennheiser.
• Anker PowerCore battery packs: There’s a whole range of Anker devices that are small enough to fit into a purse and will give you what you need to get through a long day (or night). The PowerCore+ models support smartphones that are equipped with QualComm’s Quick Charge, which can get your device charged to 60 percent of capacity in thirty minutes.
• Razer Nabu smartbands: Razer makes devices for gamers, and these wearables are no exception. They connect to Android and iOS devices to provide notifications, they track physical activity and sleep patterns, and you can automatically share your Twitter handle with other Nabu users you shake hands with.
• Star Trek transporter coasters: These are awesome. From ThinkGeek, these coasters have an LED light that shines up through the bottom of your glass and illuminates your beverage. And when you set your glass on it, the coaster emits the transporter sound effect from the original series. Don’t let Scotty get your drink.

This week, comparing tablets with some thoughts on the iPad Pro and the new Pixel C from Google. Also, my picks for the best tech toys for the holiday, an update from two video game awards ceremonies, and a report from the second annual PlayStation Experience.

Heavyweight iPad Pro packs a punch

Let’s get this out of the way: the iPad Pro is massive. It’s only just over three inches bigger (on the diagonal) than the iPad Air 2, but you detect the difference even without having them side by side. With just a glance you’ll catch your breath it’s so noticeably larger.

It’s also more than a half-pound heavier than the iPad Air 2.

In fact, if you’re going to use the iPad Pro, you have to relearn how to carry it. You can’t just one-hand the thing like you’ve been doing with your iPad Air 2. You have to carry it like it’s an old Oxford dictionary, or an atlas, on the forearm held against the chest.

One of the things that I loved about the iPad Air when it first came out was that I could sit in a chair and use it for reading a book without my arm falling off after five minutes. I can’t do that with the Pro. It’s too big.

But with the size come some benefits.

The most obvious is for watching videos. The extra size in the screen makes a difference, especially when watching high definition video. And the speakers in the iPad Pro are vastly superior to any other iPad.

I believe it will be appreciated by artists and designers, who have a robust palette to work on. And with the Pencil – it’s sold separately – the Pro becomes a great tool for them. But I’m not an artist, and I’ve not yet found a way that I can use Pencil.

Taking a page from Microsoft’s Surface, Apple has also released a keyboard case that turns the Pro into a true laptop replacement. I tried to use the Pro as a replacement for my laptop while in San Francisco on assignment last weekend, and mechanically and physically, the Pro and its keyboard work great. The drawback for me was that I hadn’t come up with a workflow, and Dropbox just doesn’t play very nicely with iOS.

So until I figure out how to streamline my document creation – and my need to manually save everything in a place that makes sense to me – I’ll keep my laptop, thank you very much.

I’m going to keep playing around with this Pro, though. If nothing else, it’ll be great for watching movies over the holidays.

iPad Pro comes in three configurations:
32 GB with Wi-Fi: $1.049
128 GB with Wi-Fi: $1,249
128 GB with Wi-Fi and cellular: $1,429

Google’s Pixel C is magnetic

There’s some amazing things going on with magnets in consumer products these days, and the Pixel C is one example.

Designed by Google, the Pixel C ($649 and $799) is a hybrid tablet that works best with the keyboard ($199) that was designed to go with it. The two easily snap together with some clever magnet configuration. You can put the keyboard on the back while you use the Pixel as a tablet, or on the front to protect the screen when you’re carrying it around.

And when you want to use the Pixel as a laptop, the magnets pair up differently, and the screen folds up.

The display is a beauty, bright and with a resolution of 2560 × 1800 (308 pixels per inch). It’s a reasonably sized 10.2 inches, which works fine, but because of the way the Pixel is designed, it means that even though the keyboard is full-sized, there is no extra space around the keys. So while in theory the two pieces are held together well enough that you can use the Pixel on your lap, you’ll need a narrow lap for it to rest on. Otherwise you’ll be trying to figure out how to balance the thing on one knee.

In terms of hardware specs, the Pixel is built to deliver desktop-quality performance, with NVIDIA’s Tegra X1 “super chip” and 3 GB of memory. The Pixel comes with either 32 GB or 64 GB of storage. While it’s got Wi-Fi and Bluetooth communications, there is no cellular option.

Pixel is built for Google’s latest Android operating system update, 6.0 Marshmallow, which integrates voice commands, just say “Okay, Google” to initiate, and Google Photos. And, of course, it completely integrates with Google’s other apps, from YouTube to the business productivity software, Google Docs.

Google reports that battery life should be about 10 hours, depending what you’re doing with the Pixel.

It’s a sweet little package when it’s all closed up with the two halves magnetically attached to each other. People are going to be watching you with great interest as you slide them apart and snap them together to get to work. And they’re going to like what they see.

Toys for the holidays

So many fun toy gadgets and gear to choose from. Check out my picks for the best in the Globe & Mail’s tech gift guide.

Included are write-ups on:

• BB-8 and R2-D2 robots
• Goldieblox
• Blockitecture
• Lego Architecture, Mindstorms
• Ozobot robots
• Anki Overdrive
• VTech Kidizoom Action Cam

Some video games win some awards

Last weekend, the Canadian Videogame Awards were handed out in Toronto. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate was the big winner. Local developer Klei Entertainment picked up trophies for two games, Invisible Inc. and Don’t Starve Pocket Edition. More on the CVA winners

A few days before, in Los Angeles, the Game Awards recognized the year’s best. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt picked up game of the year. The only Canadian winner was Square Enix Montreal for the sublime Lara Croft Go mobile title. More on the Game Award winners

Sony’s second annual PlayStation Experience had plenty of surprises

Held in San Francisco last weekend, the second PlayStation Experience didn’t feel quite as celebratory as last year’s debut, but the more than 15,000 gamers who attended the weekend orgy of gaming certainly seemed to come away satisfied.

Read more at the Georgia Straight

Here’s what Destiny’s Sparrow Racing League looks like.

The annual computer science education week is next week, so this week, I get you ready. Also: the clever University of Waterloo students who won the Dyson Award, another reason to love Sonos speakers, and Epson’s new line of printers are eco-friendly.

Computer Science Education Week

Running December 7 to December 13, Computer Science Education Week is an opportunity to celebrate computers and those who put them to work.

There are more than 150,000 events happening around the globe, including dozens in B.C.

Code.org predicts that by 2020, there will be 1.4 million computing jobs in the U.S., but at today’s rates there will be only 400,000 students to take them. That’s one million jobs to be had.

Kids learn to code with Star Wars and Minecraft

One of Steve Jobs’ best quotes is, “Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think.”

You can help your kids learn how to program with Hour of Code, which, in only an hour, drops the building blocks of programming into those little brains.

And there are different flavours of Hour of Code, depending on what your kids are interested in.

“Star Wars”: http://code.org/starwars starring Rey and BB-8 from The Force Awakens. If your kids couldn’t care less about the galaxy far, far away, there’s also Minecraft.

And at Code.org, you can then build on the knowledge from that first hour with an entire series of fun tutorials that teach more sophisticated programming concepts.

Canadian students win engineering design competition

Every year, British inventor James Dyson hands out a prize for the best engineering solution in the world. This year, a group of students from the University of Waterloo took top honours. It’s the first time a Canadian team has won the James Dyson Award.

The group of four engineers created Voltera V-One, which is a 3-D printer that can generate, in minutes, circuit boards. This enables rapid prototyping of computer solutions that would normally take months and could balloon start-up costs.

The Voltera V-One is the size of a laptop, and operates like a 3-D printer that can also flow solder, a key component of circuit boards.

The four winners – Alroy Almeida, Katarina Ilic, James Pickard, and Jesus Zozaya – are using the $54,000 prize to ramp up production on the V-One, which started off as a Kickstarter campaign in February. The group was looking for $70,000 but raised over $500,000 in 30 days.

The V-One has a price tag of US$2,199, and is expected to ship in 2016.

Apple Music coming to Sonos

Quick update from Sonos…

The wireless speakers already allow you to play music from a number of sources, including your home iTunes library, local radio stations, and streaming services including Spotify, Sirius, Soundcloud, and a couple of dozen more.

Now you can add Apple Music to the list.

Starting December 15, the music streaming service from Apple will be available to Sonos owners in a beta version. There are bound to be some hiccups in the preview version of Apple Music on Sonos, but I, for one, can hardly wait to get that working in my home. It’s an easier way to listen and discover music.

Get instructions on how to sign-up for the Apple Music beta on Sonos. The full release is expected early in the new year.

Holiday gift guide: Epson Eco Tank printers

Epson seems to understand that the biggest pain in the ass with printers is having to change the ink cartridges. It’s wasteful, for one, and if you’re not using your printer on a daily basis, you end up wasting ink while the cartridges clean out the dried-up stuff that’s clogging the jet.

The new line of EcoTank printers aims to change all that. The “supertanks” on these contain sufficient ink for up to two years, equivalent of about 20 to 50 ink cartridges depending on the model.

There are five models of EcoTank printers for personal use, home offices, or even larger businesses. Each of the models can copy, print, and scan, and connect to your home’s wireless network so you don’t have to worry about running a cable.

The ET-4550 ($600) I tested in my home office connected without trouble and quickly printed my kids school photos in great quality.

What you can become by learning to program computers

Here’s an empowering video from Code.org. Good role models here.

Bronwen, who appears here, works at Valve, and makes it clear that there’s nothing special about programming computers. It’s not hard and does not require a massive intellect. “Do you have to be a genius to read?” she asks, and then goes on to say, “Computers are everywhere.”

She’s right. No matter what field you might want to work in, computers are there. And they are becoming more important, more entangled.

It’s the future.

Drex and I had a lot to talk about last night.

We talked about Sonos wireless speakers and how great they are, about Einstein and the anniversary of his general theory of relativity, about the recent vertical take-off and landing executed by Blue Origins’ rocket, about some video game picks for the holidays, and the two droid toys that every kid is going to want this year: BB-8 and R2-D2.

But really, you’ll want to listen so you can hear me put my foot in my mouth. Hard and deep. You’ll know it when you hear it.

This week, setting up a new Sonos system for a friend, having fun with droids BB-8 and R2-D2, video game picks for wish lists, Blue Origin shows some VTOL.

Setting up a Sonos system in a heritage home

As a tech journalist, I field lots of questions from friends and family who are wondering what products they should be considering, what new services they should check out, and how they can solve the problems they may be having.

Often, all of these things are wrapped up together.

Recently, my friend Brian asked about the Sonos wireless speaker that has a prominent position in our home’s kitchen. I had talked up the Sonos functionality before:

• connects to your Wi-Fi network
• streams music from your computer
• gives you access to audio services like Spotify
• can be independently controlled

But Brian wanted to know if Sonos could help him get music throughout his home. The answer is, simply: Yes.

We live in a modest, single-storey, 1,800 square foot home. It’s easy to get music in my house. Brian lives in a large, heritage house with three floors. I figured getting him set up would be much more complicated.

It wasn’t. Thanks to Sonos.

Before I got started, I got Robert Sergiel on the phone. He oversees the retail experience for Sonos in Canada, and I wanted to ask him what components I might need.

Was he ever a good person to talk to. Not only does he work for Sonos, but he’s got dozens of speakers configured in 17 different listening zones in his in the metro Toronto area.

The first question he asked was whether there was any existing stereo equipment that I was integrating with. With the Sonos Connect, you can hook up existing amps and speakers to play music through.

In Brian’s case, though, we’re starting with a clean slate. The simplest set up is to just get a Sonos speaker and have it connect through a Wi-Fi network. But the objective is to get music throughout Brian’s house, so Robert suggested getting a Sonos Boost, which plugs directly into a router and creates a mesh network for Sonos components.

And every Sonos speaker that is then added to the system also acts as a repeater to extend that mesh network.

The next step was trying to figure out in which rooms Brian and his family wanted to have speakers.

One of the cool things about the way Sonos speakers work is that they can be operated independently, or in the aforementioned listening zones.

Not everyone needs 17 zones like Robert, from Sonos. But I figured that it would be nice if Brian could have one thing playing in the kitchen while he worked on supper, while his wife listened to something else in the office, while their son listened to something else upstairs.

And there are different sizes of Sonos speakers depending on the size of the room.

• Play:1 is for small- to medium-sized spaces like bedrooms and bathrooms; these can be paired for stereo sound
• Play:3 is for larger spaces like kitchens; when placed horizontally it projects stereo sound, and when placed vertically it can operate as a stereo pair with another Play:3
• Play:5 is for large living and family rooms; it’s the loudest and carries the most bass
• For home theatre use, Sonos also has a soundbar (which can be complemented with pairs of Play:1 speakers for surround) and a subwoofer

So for Brian’s home we ended up ordering a Boost, and one each of the three speakers.

When it came time to set them up, I was prepared for the usual hiccups and frustrations when hooking up technical equipment.

But I was done in about 20 minutes.

It was the easiest setup I’ve ever done. I plugged the Boost into the router, then set up the speakers in the respective rooms:

• Play:1 in the upstairs office
• Play:3 in the family room
• Play:5 in the kitchen/dining room

After doing that, the components kinda set themselves up. The only other thing I had to do was push buttons on each speaker while the Boost detected and connected to them.

It took longer for the Sonos Controller app on the family’s iMac to index iTunes than it took me to get the speakers set up.

If Brian wants to move the Play:1 from the office to the master bedroom, he can just move it. The entire family can have control over what the various speakers are playing either using the main computer or using one of their mobile devices.

The Play:5 that they’ve got in the dining area, which provides sound for the kitchen, dining room, and living room area, fully half of one floor of the large house, is one of the “brand new models”:http://www.sonos.com/en-ca/shop/play5. You can turn up or down the volume of the speaker by simply tapping it. Swiping the top skips to the next track.

All three speakers are equipped with Sonos’ “Trueplay tuning”:http://www.sonos.com/en-ca/trueplay-speaker-tuning-software, which uses your iPad or iPhone to measure the acoustics of your room, and adjusts the output settings of the Sonos speaker accordingly.

And if they want another speaker for the master bedroom or the bathroom, it’s dead easy to add components.

Like Robert said: “Sonos is like Lego. You start with one and build it out as you want, with different shapes and sizes.”

Sometimes it’s fun being the resident tech guy.

BB-8 vs R2-D2

Drex and I didn’t get to talking about the two droids that were my holiday gift guide pick for last week, so the BB-8 and R2-D2 are on the agenda again this week.

Video games for the gamer on your list

I’m contributing to the Globe & Mail’s technology gift guide again this year. Last week, my picks of games for players of all ages and games rated for teens and older players ran.

Among the highlights:

• Lego Dimensions
• Minecraft
• Halo 5
• Destiny: The Taken King

Move over, Elon Musk. Here comes … Jeff Bezos?

Private space exploration company Blue Origin, which was set up by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has successfully landed a rocket after launching it into the stratosphere.

It’s the first successful test of a reusable rocket, something that has thus far eluded Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

This is significant enough that Bezos figured he should Tweet the news. Despite having a Twitter account since 2008, it was his first, and as of right now, his only tweet.