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Going digital (at last!)

After postponing the conversion twice to let the public catch up, the U.S. finally switched the airways from analog to digital last Friday, June 12.

After postponing the conversion twice to let the public catch up, the U.S. finally switched the airways from analog to digital last Friday, June 12. It's estimated that three million Americans woke up to find themselves without television reception, either neglecting to pick up a converter box allowing them to intercept the signals, or completely unaware that the changeover was going to take place. Or mistakenly assuming that their TVs are new enough to be compatible.

People can be forgiven for the lapse - ATSC DTV tuners were not mandated into televisions until 2005, although a lot of televisions included them far earlier than that. I have a Toshiba from 1999 that came with a digital tuner, and many models had them before that - a legacy of Asian manufacturers that have been making digital-ready sets since the '80s.

While it sucks to be one of those three million people (although they probably don't watch their sets much, because there have been commercials about the upcoming conversion for the past two years) the benefits for everyone else are huge. The digital picture is clearer, digital sound is better, and for everyone with a high definition television at home all the standard definition channels are going to come in crisper and clearer than before, whether you have cable or still get television through a set of rabbit ears.

Urban areas might even see a return to the days when every home had an aerial on the side of the house. If enough local channels are still broadcasting on the airwaves then it may not make sense to pay extra for cable, as those free channels will be coming in clearer than ever before.

But one of the real benefits may be in mobile technology. For years people in Japan, Korea and other Asian countries have used their cell phones to watch television. Now, with the move to digital television, there's no reason we can't pick up digital signals on phones, laptops and other portable devices. Archos (www.archos.com), for example, is releasing a new mini-tablet computer for North America that will run Windows 7 and comes with a built-in digital video broadcast tuner. This is a device I can actually see myself buying some day.

Canada is lagging the U.S. by almost two years on the conversion front. We're not scheduled to make the airwaves digital until Aug. 31, 2011, although many Canadians living in border towns will have to make the jump to a new converter box or new television sooner than later if they want to continue to watch U.S. channels.

According to the Industry Canada website, there are a few things Canadians need to know. First of all, your converter box has to be BETS-7 compatible to work with U.S. stations broadcasting in digital. If you're buying a television that's new or used the Industry Canada website at www.ic.gc.ca has a list of all ATSC-compatible televisions, as well as advice on how to purchase a new television.

The switchover is expected to generate a huge amount of waste as people rush to get rid of older televisions. Industry Canada also provides advice what to do with your old television to keep toxins like lead out of the landfill.

Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7

The latest update to Apple's OSX and Windows 7 will hit stores at roughly the same time this fall, and tech geeks are falling over each other to compare the two operating systems.

That's a tough thing to do because Snow Leopard is really an interim update to Apple's Leopard, while Windows 7 is a whole new start for Microsoft in a lot of ways.

Price is the first big difference. Apple is keeping the cost of the update low at $30, while Windows 7 will probably cost around $200 for the home premium edition that most people will purchase.

Snow Leopard's biggest upgrade, aside from some updated functionality, is its compact size. Programmers at Apple reportedly freed up about six gigabytes of disk space by optimizing some features and removing all the PowerPC support code. Snow Leopard will take up less disk space than the most scaled down version of Windows 7, which can make it faster to start up, operate and shut down. It also improves its portability, suggesting that Apple may be ready to dive into the mini laptop/netbook/tablet market.

Both operating systems emphasize 64-bit computing, parallel processing (using multi-core processors) and tweak graphic power, optimize memory usage, increase laptop battery life, enhance video and music playback, and more.

Snow Leopard has an advantage in the backup department with their Time Machine, but Windows 7 enhanced its file backup capabilities as well - it's not as intuitive as Time Machine, but it works well and is easier to customize.

Reviewers also liked Windows 7's graphical user interface a lot, an area where Apple has held the edge for the last four software generations, but Snow Leopard appears to have reclaimed the lead with some tweaks to the Dock, Expose, and Stacks features that Windows 7 can't match just yet.

If you're on the fence over what kind of computer to buy, and operating systems matter to you, my advice would be to hold off until late summer when the two systems can be benchmarked a little more thoroughly. I expect Apple to keep its edge, but by a narrower margin that may make it difficult to justify the extra cost for a Mac.