Gizmo guru

For a quarter century, Marc Saltzman has immersed himself in the rapidly changing world of technology. Nick Krewen finds out what’s new with him

It was hard to convince editors to take it seriously. Tech was not cool.

MARC SALTZMAN

Covering the tech beat for 25 years has provided Marc Saltzman with some fabulous life experiences.

He’s driven tanks in Russia, smashed a car in a demolition derby, slept in an 800-year-old English castle and hung with Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion.

But one of the most memorable? Riding what’s known as the “vomit comet,” a zerogravity flight above the Nevada desert aboard a modified Boeing plane. “It’s how astronauts train,” the journalist says over coffees at Demetres. “They rip out all the seats except for a few at the back for takeoff and landing — and it’s all padded.”

The pilots perform a parabola, which reproduces gravity-free conditions, by alternating upward and downward arcs interspersed with level flight.

“When the plane ascends, you’re stuck to the ground because of the g-force — you can’t even lift up your arm beside you,” Saltzman explains. “But when it descends, you’re weightless for 25 seconds. Then, with five seconds left, someone shouts out a keyword so you can reorient yourself, so you don’t fall on your neck, due to the parabola.”

Saltzman says that even though the excursion is hard on the body and caused some of the passengers to feel nauseated, “it was really fun.”

The fact that he was invited to this very expensive promotional event speaks to Saltzman’s influence as a freelance technology and consumer-electronics reporter — or as he calls himself, a “tech evangelist.”

“It’s been a wild ride,” says the Bramptonborn Saltzman, 51, who writes for the Toronto Star, among many other outlets, including USA Today and Zoomer.

His “Tech Talk” is heard on nine Bell Media iHeartRadio stations, while his “Tech It Out” is syndicated on more than 110 U.S. stations and available as a podcast. As for television, he frequently appears on CTV and Global, and in the U.S. he hosts “Tech Impact” on Bloomberg TV.

When he’s not delivering a keynote speech or hosting a corporate event, Saltzman is working on books — he’s written 16 — describing his latest, “Apple Watch for Dummies,” as a “refresh” of the edition published in 2015.

“I’m happily busy,” Saltzman says. “Twiddling my thumbs doesn’t work for me.”

Nobody is more surprised to be in this profession than Saltzman, who admits, “I didn’t grow up liking tech.”

Initially, he dreamed of stardom as a rock drummer. His band, Remedy, opened for the Tragically Hip and Barenaked Ladies, and at one point, Buffalo’s Goo Goo Dolls opened for Remedy. But he became disenchanted with being a musician upon graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in psychology.

Working as a bill collector at 23, he began reviewing video games part-time, landing his first regular freelance gig with Toronto Computes! magazine in 1994. He saw a niche he could fill.

“The passion was about video games, not about writing,” Saltzman says. “It was a means to an end, so I could get free video games. And then I realized, as a journalist, I could work from anywhere.” But he met with plenty of resistance. “It was hard to convince editors to take it seriously. Tech was not cool. I’m calling ‘The Today Show’ and CNN to pitch work and they’re all saying, ‘No, we think it’s niche and nerdy.’ I was banging my head against the wall.”

Of course, tech was less sophisticated back then: social media was non-existent; laptops were clunky and had little memory; and cellphones were not small. Saltzman remembers introducing a BlackBerry during a segment on CTV’s “Canada AM.” “I thought, ‘Wow, getting email on the go was pretty wild,’” he says with a laugh. “A pocket-sized computer — I felt like I was seeing the future.

“Then,” he adds, “came the evolution of the PalmPilot — it started to play music and came with a stylus pen and camera. Then, of course, the iPad came out and took it to the next level.”

When it comes to consumer electronics, what does he think the future holds? “Robotics and autonomous vehicles,” he responds without hesitation. “I’ve been in self-driving cars and it’s amazing, smart technology. Robotics? Maybe one day — a couple of decades away — we’ll have a biped domestic robot in our homes. It’ll talk like Siri and help get the kids ready for school.”