After buying a small start-up, Reqwireless Inc., last year in Waterloo, Ont., Google's senior v.p. of business operations, Shona Brown (a Canadian), says the company plans to create a R&D facility in the region with as many as 200 people. While it's nowhere near the $1-billion investment that Google is making in India, it's encouraging to at least see Canada on Google's strategic radar. Then again, the company is growing so aggressively, it would be a shocker if Google isn't hiring in every major market that features some R&D expertise. Now, if Google really wanted to make a Canadian splash, maybe it should buy Research in Motion to hammer home its wireless plans. How's that for an outlandish idea for a Friday a.m.?

ZDNet has an interview with Flock co-founder Geoffrey Arone. At first, I was not high on the upstart Web browser, mostly because it released an alpha that wasn't ready for prime time. Today, I'm using Flock as the default browser on my desktop. It's come a long way in the last little while, buoyed by the growing number of extensions now available.

ZDNet has an interview with Flock co-founder Geoffrey Arone. At first, I was not high on the upstart Web browser, mostly because it released an alpha that wasn't ready for prime time. Today, I'm using Flock as the default browser on my desktop. It's come a long way in the last little while, buoyed by the growing number of extensions now available.

Apologies to anyone whose eyes glaze over when its comes to GSM vs. CDMA wireless technology but....I have an investment feature in today's Financial Post looking at how some analysts believe CDMA carriers such as Canada's Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility will have no choice but to take the plunge and do a GSM overlay of their networks. Scotia Capital Markets analyst John Henderson, for example, thinks Bell will have to spend C$800-million over the next two years to adopt GSM - a move already being made/done by Brazil's Vivo and Australia's Telstra.