5. Angel Innovation - As the first entrepreneurship-based innovation centre in Canada, this is obviously big news. A partnership between angel investors and Microsoft Canada provides an environment to help foster and develop ideas and innovation, free of charge. An incredible investment in the country and in our future.

4. The Zune phone - Although little is known about the product, and some may suggest that the Zune has flopped and Zune-phone is a reaction to the iPhone, there are two things to consider. First, the Zune took less than 8 months from idea to release, which is fairly respectable, and provided something that many other mp3-like devices lacked - innovation, as in the wireless connection. Paul is right in his statement that all PC manufacturers would look at developing an integrated telephony product, but not all manufacturers have the reach of Microsoft and the integration possibilities - from Zune to PC to Origami to 360. Everything currently built on top of Windows or MS Office will inevitably be built on top of the Zune.

3. GooTube Gaff - Taken from Techcrunch, a statement that was emailed from Viacom: After months of ongoing discussions with YouTube and Google, it has become clear that YouTube is unwilling to come to a fair market agreement that would make Viacom content available to YouTube users. When you think about it, it’s only 100,000 videos and about total 1,000,000,000 views…

2. Vista, Office 2007 released - There are all sorts of reasons or suggestions for the late release, but it’s finally here and ready to make waves. I’m sure you’ve heard it all or seen it all, so check out the Vista Homepage and Office 2007.

1. Snowflake’s Been Kidnapped! - Okay, so Snowflake, the mascot kidnapped in Jim Carrey’s break-out movie Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, has not been kidnapped. The Dolphin’s website, for both the team and the stadium, has been hacked though. Originally detected on January 26th, the website has been spreading malicious code and infecting computers for the last week. Honestly, if Ditka was in charge of security, this would have never happened. da Bears!

Microsoft has teamed up with a Toronto-based angel fund company to create Canada’s first entrepreneurship-based innovation center. The company, Infusion Angels, states its goal is to identify, fund, and help grow concepts into full fledged, revenue-oriented companies, and the creation of the Infusion Angels Innovation Centre should go a long way in helping reach that goal repeatedly. An excerpt from an article on IT Business about the announcement:

The country’s first entrepreneurship-based innovation centre will be a learning and experimenting space for IT up-and-comers who want to develop their ideas, skills, and business savvy — free of charge.

Mark Relph, vice president of developer and platform evangelism for Microsoft Canada, added:

When it comes to building these IT empires, said Relph, Canada is somewhat behind. “Canada’s known for a few strong companies, but compared to Silicon Valley or Israel now, where there is an explosion of community and a culture of risk-taking and innovation, we’re doing fairly well, but we can do better than we are today.” He sees that there has been a move in the right direction, what with the government’s interest in the country’s “agility and productivity.”

This comes on the same day that an article was posted on IT Business stating that Toronto is one of the IT hotbeds in all of North America, placing third behind San Francisco and New York.