Drex makes fun of me for wearing a Scottevest, which is designed for carrying all the electronic gadgets — it’s like a utility belt without the belt — but I’m sticking with the function over the fashion here, despite the attempted intervention.

And we talk about the convenience of watching the Star Wars films in digital high definition, and we talk about some of the remastered video games that are appearing for PS4 and Xbox One.

This week in tech, vests for tech geeks and everyone else who hates backpacks, why there are so many remastered video games for the PS4 and Xbox One, and the Star Wars films debut in digital.

Apparel for gadget lovers

Scott Jordan solved a problem of our age: How to carry a multitude of gadgets simply and easily.

His solution wasn’t a utility belt, but a vest with pockets. Lots of pockets.

The Featherweight vest that I just picked up has 14 pockets, including one that has RFID-blocking material to keep your credit cards and ID from being skimmed.

It’s got pockets for pens, and mobile phones. You can string earbud headphones through the vest from an interior pocket to the collar. You can carry a full-size iPad and there’s an elastic in one pocket that will keep a one liter bottle of water upright.

Most amazing about the Scottevest products is that they are designed to carry the weight of all the gadgets, so it won’t hang low on one side and it’s not bulky, even with stuff packed into all the pockets. You’ll know that you’re carrying the extra weight, but nobody else will know.

Remastered video games to play

If you’re among those complaining there aren’t enough good games to play on your PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, add the remastered releases of Borderlands 2 and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! to the growing list of games from the previous generation of consoles being made available for the new ones.

And if you haven’t played Borderlands 2, you need to get on that, because it’s one of the best shooter-RPGs made for any generation.

Also remastered and released recently are high-definition remasters of Homeworld 1 and Homeworld 2, both originally developed in Vancouver at Relic Entertainment (released in 1999 and 2003, respectively), and République, originally developed as a serialized mobile game.

Read more at The Georgia Straight

Star Wars films getting released on digital

People like me have owned the Star Wars films in dozens of formats, and now there’s another one we can pay money for. On Friday (April 10), the six films in the series are being released in high-definition digital, and there are dozens of bonus videos that are part of the collection.

Purists should note that the versions of the films being made available are the special editions, in which George Lucas added a bunch of content, including Greedo shooting at Han Solo before the nerf herder killed the bounty hunter in the Mos Eisley cantina.

There are some nine digital distributors that will be selling the films, individually and bundled as a box-set of sorts, including iTunes, Google Play, and Xbox Video. The price is the same no matter what service you use, $25 per film or $125 for the bunch, but for those who purchase all six films, Microsoft is throwing in the R2-D2 avatar for Xbox 360 and the Star Wars Pinball pack for Pinball FX 2 (available for free on Xbox One and Xbox 360).

Microsoft has decided that there’s no shame in video games, and Phil Spencer is the lucky guy who gets to tell the world about it. In San Francisco last month, Mr. Spencer told the people who make video games that it was going to get easier, and he told gamers that they would have more and better options for playing. All because of Windows 10, and an executive decision to make games a part of it all.

Read more at The Globe & Mail

Oh, the comedy of it all. The death of Future Shop, the testing of drones, and the ridiculousness of bluenoses. All in ten minutes, and all on Drex Live.

This week, April Fool’s jokes abound. Except these aren’t jokes, even though we may want them to be.

Clean Reader is not an April Fool’s joke, but it should be

There’s a new app available for Android and iOS that “prevents swear words in books from being displayed on your screen”.

I’m not linking to the app here because I believe that the software is a bad idea. In a blog post, the creators encourage people to buy Game of Thrones and read it with Clean Reader “so you won’t have to read any of the swear words in the series!”

For christ’s sake. It’s hard not to swear at the inanity of it all.

This is from author Chuck Wendig
          “I am an author where much of my work utilizes profanity.
          Because fuck yeah, profanity. Profanity is a circus of language.
          It’s a drunken trapeze act. It’s clowns on fire. And let’s be clear
          up front: profanity is not separate from language. It is not lazy
          language. It is language. Just another part of it. Vulgarity
          has merit. It is expressive. It is emotive. It is metaphor.”

Authors choose words carefully and with purpose. If you don’t want to read a book that has profanity in it, you should opt not to read the book. There are plenty of others you can enjoy.

More from Wendig, in response to the “I don’t want to read profanity” notion:
          “To which I say, then I don’t want you reading my books.
          Nothing personal, but I wrote the thing the way I wrote the thing.
          If that troubles you, then I don’t want you reading it. No harm, no foul.
          Surely there are other sanitized, anesthetized stories that will
          grant you greater comfort. But don’t sanitize mine. Don’t anesthetize
          my work or the work of any author. Do not take that consent away from us.”

Cory Doctorow, on the other hand, believes so strongly that this is a free expression issue, so while he condemns the people who would use the app, he defends their right to use it.

The question seems to be whether you think somebody scrubbing the profanity from a book is the same as editing the text. If so, then changing it is actually violating the moral rights of the author.

Debate among yourselves.

Future Shop is dead. Long live Future Shop

Another April Fool’s joke that wasn’t. I was surprised to learn this weekend that Future Shop was being shut down. Ever since Best Buy, the U.S.-based company, purchased Future Shop in 2001, I’ve been waiting for this to happen. Frankly, I’m surprised that it took so long.

At the same time, because the two brands have been operated independently for so long, I was starting to think that it might never happen.

For many Canadians Future Shop was the electronics retailer, especially those in Western Canada where the first stores were opened in the 1980s. But online shopping is simpler, cheaper, arguably more informative, and certainly free from sales staff working on commission. Even at attempt to leverage bricks-and-mortar stores for online shopping wasn’t enough.

I suspect the surprise shuttering of the Future Shop brand is a matter of good timing. Better to transition to Best Buy now and build on that franchise, rather than let two businesses languish. Frankly, by next year is anyone going to remember anyway?

Amazon testing delivery drones in B.C.

Amazon, frustrated with the time it was taking for the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) to grant them permission to test drones for its Prime Air delivery service, has started testing in B.C. again. Reportedly within sight of the U.S.-Canadian border.

The Guardian broke the story on Monday.

The joke is actually on the FAA, which last week, after eight months, finally granted Amazon its exemption. But the model of drone for which the exemption was granted — the one in the video below — is obsolete. The model being tested in Canada is newer, and being kept very secret.