With the rapidly growing adoption of GPS- and email-enabled, camera-equipped smartphones like the iPhone and Blackberry, interaction between everyday citizens and local government is trending toward mobile and real-time.

The City of Toronto recent launched the 311 Toronto service, an online and phone-in call center that aims to allow for more efficient and trackable question-answer interactions related to city services. And they accept email submissions and queries, including (but not limited to) reporting of potholes, vandalism, and health and safety concerns.

Now, thanks to a Seattle-based company called Urban Anomaly, there's a way to very quickly and easily submit these types reports to 311 Toronto, from the iPhone.

Google Street View Toronto in now finally up and running! It's also live for Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, and Halifax.

We've been waiting for it for a long time for this in Canada. Since back in April, the Google Street View camera cars were seen in and around the GTA, and speculation that the new visual feature would be implemented "soon" remained alive and well. But it's been so long that most of us forgot about it. Until today!

And there are some hilarious moments captured.

Scotiabank Nuit Blanche is going online, mobile, and interactive - far more so this year than in previous years. Flipping through the printed event booklet, which has done the job reasonably well previously, won't be the be-all-and-end-all in this, the 2009 installment.

Event organizers and techno savvies have been working diligently behind the scenes to bring three main tech-related enhancements to Toronto's all-night contemporary art festival experience: a fast-loading mobile-friendly web site; an online custom itinerary builder; and comprehensive, GPS-enabled iPhone and Blackberry mobile applications that will allow festival-goers to get on-the-fly exhibit info galore and share their experiences in real time.

The inaugural Ignite Toronto saw a packed house at the Drake Underground last week. It had been a long time coming. Some of the 140 in attendance had been to an Ignite in another city. They're especially popular south of the border, but have also taken place in Paris, Helsinki and other international cities.

For the uninitiated, Ignite events always comprise two parts: (1) a contest and (2) a series of 5 minute presentations where each presenter gets 5 minutes to run through 20 slides.

For the first Ignite Toronto, there were 13 speakers ranging from Brady Gilchrist who riffed about the end of Television to Mat Lincez who discussed the evolution of street media. The speakers were almost universally entertaining, but it didn't help that all of us in the audience had a ready supply of beer; and were somewhat intoxicated on cupcake fumes from the hard-fought cupcake decoration competition that preceded the speakers.

Sony introduced the latest models in their line of Readers this week at the ROM, as part of the company's push to maintain their status as a major player in what's still a tiny but potentially massive part of the consumer electronics market. Sony Canada's showcase of their refreshed e-reader line came a day after a similar Sony event in New York, and gearheads who follow tech news couldn't help but note that the big news at the Toronto event wasn't what Sony was showing off, but what was missing.

This morning our friends over at Citynews launched their new and improved web site.

It's a significant improvement, both esthetically and functionally. The most obvious changes are a (debatably) slicker, more modern and legible look, and the introduction of reader comments on stories (which is sure to boost the level of interaction readers can have with one another). Two thumbs up.

But the front page headline section is also suffering from a bit of a graphic design / layout problem that could easily make top headlines susceptible to comical misinterpretation.