Wearable tech has the potential to revolutionize your physical fitness

We humans are great at finding shortcuts, simple solutions and quick fixes. We instinctively avoid doing things the hard way. This drive has spurred amazing innovations in areas from transportation to telecommunications and automation. Everything from the wheel to the silicon chip has sprung from our need to avoid work.

But there's a downside: the easier we make our lives, the less active we are and the more difficult it becomes to stay physically fit. And even though we all know there's no magic bullet that will make us fit, strong and healthy, that doesn't stop us from looking for one.

More Canadian homes are abandoning conventional TV services

If you're the New Year's resolution-making type — and more than half of us are, statistically speaking — it's likely that better financial decision-making is one of your goals for 2017.

You're not alone; spending less money was one of the top three resolutions in a survey done earlier this month by the Statistic Brain Research Institute in the U.S.

So it follows that you'd be interested in saving anywhere from around $50 to $100-plus a month by making a simple change that would have virtually no impact on your quality of life, right?

New programs could see homeowners coming out ahead

If 2007 was the year of the smartphone, then 2017 might be the year of the smart home.

Before 2007, there were cellphones that connected to the Internet, sure. But that year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone. It was the company's biggest innovation since 1984's launch of the original Macintosh, and its ripple effect on the entire technology sector continues.

Enthusiasts waited in line all night to get an iPhone and for a tremendous number of people, seeing one was wanting one (although the initial high price tag held a lot of us back until the next year).

Hands-free camera technology offers applications for homeowners

If you had a camera that was always on, aimed and focused on whatever you're looking at, ready to shoot a photo, would you take more — and better — pictures?

Shota Takase is betting you would. That's why the young entrepreneur invented Blincam, a small, glasses-mounted camera that will photograph anything you're looking at, literally in the blink of an eye.

And it's completely hands-free, meaning you can take photos while riding a bike, carrying groceries, cooking or doing just about anything else you can think of.

Former CREB® president Nick Medwid said all eyes were on Calgary in 1991

Nick Medwid recalls Calgary's housing market in 1991 as a bit of a blur.

In the midst of a national downturn that year, all eyes turned to the city as several major companies uprooted their Canadian headquarters from out east and relocated to the heart of the new west.

Former CREB® president Bob Jablonski recalls 2012 as the year it started to turn around

Bob Jablonski doesn't have to look back too far to remember the last time Calgary's economy was booming.

During his year as CREB® president in 2012, the city was running at a full sprint due to good fortunes in the oil patch. Completion of the new West LRT, The Bow and Peace Bridge were just three of the many major initiatives that came to fruition in Calgary that year, noted Jablonski, who remembered, "the city was getting big and busy."

For many, particularly those in the real estate sector, the good news was overdue. Calgary's housing market had slumped since the 2008 financial crisis, not recovering at the same pace as other Canadian cities.

Former CREB® president Kent Lyle remembers impacts of National Energy Program like it was yesterday

It's perhaps the most contentious three words in Alberta's history: National Energy Program.

The early 1980s in the province are synonymous with the controversial federal initiative, which redistributed Alberta's oil wealth and, in turn, lead to a regional recession that few have since forgotten.

Today's technology is downright frightening

Combine a new technology with the creative mind of a rocket scientist, throw in Halloween and the results are pretty amazing.

When Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, it didn't take long for Mark Rober, a one-time NASA engineer who helped put the Curiosity rover on Mars, to come up with a Halloween costume idea that incorporated it.

For Halloween 2011, Rober showed up to a party wearing a shirt with gaping "bloody" holes ripped into the front and back, and iPads attached to the inside, visible through the holes. By setting up a Facetime video link between the two, he created the illusion of being able to see through his body.

Over-reliance on gizmos could be younger generation's ultimate downfall

It's one of those "aha" moments: Speaking to a roomful of baby boomers, bestselling author Jason Dorsey asks the audience to finish the sentence: "Generation Y is tech-...."

"Savvy!" shouts most of the crowd.

Nope, not true, says Dorsey, an expert on Gen Y, or the Millennial generation — people who became adults in the 21st century.

Technology continues to reshape homebuying experience

Pick a recent weekend, and you've likely spotted Calgarians wandering in your neighbourhood with cellphones held up to their face.

Pokemon Go?

Actually, they might be homebuyers following mapped directions to an open house in the area. Or texting where to meet a real estate professional to view a home for sale.