Author: Mobile Syrup

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Mobile Syrup

Pokémon reveals Scarlet and Violet DLC, new Netflix series, Go Plus+ and more

The Pokémon Company hosted a Pokémon Presents on Monday, showcasing two new DLCs for Pokémon Violet and Scarlet, a new Netflix series called Pokémon Concierge and Pokémon Sleep, which works with the new Pokémon Go Plus+.

Starting off with the DLCs, they’ll be split into two releases. The first, The Teal Mask, is due this fall, with The Indigo Disk scheduled for this winter. Both are supposed to release in 2023 and follow a storyline called ‘The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero.’

The two DLCs come alongside five new Pokémon: Monkidori, Okidogi, Fezandipiti, Ogerpon, and Terapagos.

However, there are two new Paradox Pokémon called Iron Leaves, a Paradox variant of Virizion that’s now a Grass and Psychic-type. Walking Wake, another Paradox Pokémon, is the past version of Suicune that’s a Water and Dragon-type Pokémon. Both Pokémon are out now.

Additionally, Pokémon Sleep is finally coming out this year. You, Professor Neroli, and Snorlax will come measure and analyze your sleep by leaving your smartphone by your pillow. Your sleep will be categorized into one of three sleep types. If you don’t have your smartphone with you, you can place it beside your pillow and it can sing lullabies. The more you sleep together, the friendlier the Pikachu will become.

Pokémon Sleep is planned for summer 2023, and the Pokémon Go Plus+ is scheduled for release on July 14th, 2023. The Go Plus+ can enhance Pokémon Go by allowing you to automatically spin PokéStops and throw Poké Balls at Pokémon without taking out your phone.

Finally, Pokémon Concierge is a new Netflix series with stop-motion animation that tells the story of a Pokémon resort and its Pokémon guests.

Other updates include Pokémon Masters EX bonuses and new master sync pairs, Pokémon Unite is getting the legendary Pokémon, Zacien, and Pokémon Go allows you to send Postcards to the Nintendo Switch titles to catch the roaming Pokémon, Gimmighoul.

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Mobile Syrup

How The Last of Us rebuilt abandoned Calgary mall for latest episode

The latest episode of The Last of Us, February 26th’s “Left Behind,” primarily consisted of flashbacks to Ellie’s (Bella Ramsey) time before meeting Joel (Pedro Pascal).

In particular, the bulk of this episode shows Ellie with her best friend, Riley (Storm Reid), as they have charming adventures through an abandoned shopping mall. Fans of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us PlayStation game will recognize this story from the downloadable expansion, Left Behind. Now, we’ve learned a bit more about how that setting came together in the show.

Speaking to Variety, John Paino, production designer on the acclaimed HBO series, explained how the crew found a real abandoned mall in Calgary to use for the episode. While Paino didn’t mention a specific name, Calgarians have identified it as Northland Village Mall, which closed in 2021 to be turned into an “open-air shopping centre.”

As Paino notes, the mall had been “completely stripped” and didn’t have a usable second floor. However, those who have watched the episode will know that a two-story setup was key thanks to a charming scene involving an escalator. Therefore, the rooftops were created using CGI.

Meanwhile, Paino’s team built 20-25 stores to turn the dilapidated Canadian mall into an American one. That said, some of the fast-food joints got to play themselves, such as A&W.

Elsewhere, Paino says the merry-go-round featured in a key scene had to be brought into the mall just for the shoot. “It actually used to be in that mall, but when it went out of business, another mall took it, so we made a deal to rent it,” he said.

TLOU merry go round

Finally, there’s the arcade. As Paino points out, the name and font of this spot (“Raja’s Arcade”) were taken straight from the game. This is a fun reference to a hot-headed character named Eddy Raja from another beloved Naughty Dog series, Uncharted.

Beyond that, though, the production team assembled a lineup of real arcade cabinets, including those for Frogger, Tetris and, most prominently, Mortal Kombat. Interestingly, though, Paino says they actually built LED displays for each game because their original cathode-ray tube (CRT) retro screens came out blurry on their modern cameras.

Naturally, seeing the old Calgary mall has brought out some fun reactions from viewers:

After “Left Behind,” only two episodes of The Last of Us remain. However, the series has already been renewed for Season 2, which doesn’t yet have a premiere window.

For more on The Last of Us, check out what Paino had to say about transforming Canmore — Pascal and Ramsey’s favourite place in Alberta — into Jackson, Wyoming for the show. Earlier this year, Paino also revealed how “shocked” he was to see how clean Alberta ended up being.

Image credit: HBO

Source: Variety

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Mobile Syrup

Google will bring eSIM transfer feature to Android this year

Android will get a tool for transferring eSIM profiles later this year, Google revealed at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2023.

Google will roll out eSIM transfer capabilities to Android in 2023, which should make the process much simpler than it currently is. For those who haven’t had to mess with eSIM yet, users currently need to unregister an eSIM profile from their old device before reactivating it on the new device. Sometimes, this process requires contacting your carrier (which, as most Canadians know, is a hellish exercise).

Although it’s not clear when these capabilities will arrive, my money would be on Android 14 delivering eSIM transfers. In part, this is due to preview builds of Android 14 featuring in-development pieces of the eSIM transfer tool.

While an exciting development for eSIM, it, unfortunately, won’t totally eliminate carriers from the process. Google also announced that Deutsche Telekom will be one of the first to adopt eSIM transfer on Android handsets. While that means little for Canadians, it does indicate Canadians will need to wait for Canadian carriers to support Android’s eSIM transfer feature.

eSIM has been around for some time, though support from carriers has so far been lacklustre. MobileSyrup’s creative director Brad Bennett recently hopped on the eSIM train after switching to Rogers — his experience was, well, not the best. Read all about it here.

Source: Android Police

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Mobile Syrup

This YouTube video is causing Pixel devices to crash

A strange new bug is affecting Pixel devices, including the current-gen flagship Pixel 7 and the Pixel 7 Pro.

The issue first surfaced in a Reddit post made by ‘u/OGPixel5‘ on Sunday, February 26th. According to u/OGPixel5, their Pixel 7 Pro automatically crashes and reboots when a specific YouTube video is played on it.

Back in 2020, an image surfaced on Reddit that caused Android smartphones to crash when it was set as the phone wallpaper. The current bug seems to be similar to the wallpaper one. The YouTube video bug seems to be affecting some Pixel 6 and 6a devices as well, though not all Pixel 7 series devices are impacted by the bug.

The video in question is this one, and it needs to be played on the YouTube app on your Pixel device to reboot it. Multiple users on the thread played the video, and a majority of them claimed that their devices rebooted. “It legit screwed my phone up for about 5 minutes. Cellular network wouldn’t connect. Had to reboot again,” wrote ‘cour000,’ while ‘snickers58‘ said, “Another Pixel 7 user. Phone crashed as soon as the YouTube app was loading up. Did a rather quick reboot tho.”

Even though the bug appears to be harmless, users are still recommended not to play the video as it could result in you losing cellular connectivity for a while.

MobileSyrup News Editor Jonathan Lamont tried to play the video on his Pixel device, and the device crashed and rebooted as soon as the video started playing.

In the case of the wallpaper bug, it was the device reading the colour space used in the photo incorrectly. The result is that a specific value at a certain point exceeds its defined maximum, which leads to an ‘out-of-bounds exception’ and crashes the System UI. It is currently uncertain why playing the video causes the device to crash and reboot, though it could be similar to the wallpaper bug.

Source: u/OGPixel5 (Reddit)

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Mobile Syrup

Apple reportedly revives plans for a 4th-gen iPhone SE

A report from earlier this year suggested that Apple has scrapped its plans for the 4th-gen iPhone SE. Now, Apple has reportedly backtracked and revived plans to develop a next-generation iPhone SE, according to credible Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.

Kuo suggests that the device will contain an in-house 5G baseband chip and feature an OLED display instead of an LCD one.

This latest report is the opposite of what Kuo had stated in early January when he claimed that the iPhone SE 4 had been cancelled, and Apple would use Qualcomm’s chips for the iPhone 15 and 16. The analyst now predicts that “the new iPhone SE 4 will equip with Apple’s 5G baseband chip produced by a 4nm process and will only support sub-6GHz as the current plan.”

The device is likely to go into production at the beginning of 2024, with the release expected for later that year.

If Apple’s SE device does start using in-house modem chips, the company’s business with Qualcomm will decline significantly. “Assuming the mass production of the SE 4 goes smoothly in 1H24, the iPad and Apple Watch, which have lower technical requirements, will soon abandon Qualcomm’s baseband chips, too,” wrote Kuo.

Further, one of the main drawbacks of Apple’s SE iPhones is their iPhone 8-era design that still features a Touch ID. With the upcoming 4th-Gen SE, Kuo says that the device will sport a larger 6.1-inch display, instead of a 4.7-inch bezel-heavy display that is too outdated to fit in today’s smartphone industry.

Source: @mingchikuo

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Mobile Syrup

Rogers says wholesale arrangements with Vidéotron not ‘preferential’

Rogers is asking the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to reject TekSavvy’s request that the company give competitors the same wholesale rates it says it will offer to Vidéotron.

TekSavvy’s January 20th file refers to information Rogers shared during the Competition Tribunal’s hearing examining the Competition Bureau’s push to block Rogers’ takeover of Shaw and Vidéotron’s acquisition of Freedom Mobile.

Representatives from Rogers shared Vidéotron will have access to discounts for wholesale high-speed access services, wireless domestic roaming services, and wireless backhaul services.

TekSavvy argues the arrangement violates the Telecommunications Act. “The Commission should either void the Rogers-Vidéotron wholesale arrangements, or order Rogers to offer access to the same terms for wholesale services as those enjoyed by Vidéotron,” TekSavvy wrote in its application.

In Rogers’ response, the company said there is “no basis” for the relief TekSavvy requested. “In any event, the rates in the pending Rogers-Vidéotron agreements are not unduly preferential.”

Bell’s response

TekSavvy also says “undue preference” is present with Bell and its affiliate EBOX. Bell acquired the Quebec-based company last year. 

“Bell and EBOX have made public statements that Bell is offering fibre-to-the-premises services (FTTP) to EBOX. It is clear that these FTTP services are not made available to EBOX via Bell’s established disaggregated tariffs,” TekSavvy’s application says.

But in its response, Bell says that’s not the case.

“The allegation is completely unfounded,” Bell says. 

The company says EBOX isn’t a stand-alone company, but has been combined with Bell.

“There can be no agreement, off-tariff or not, preferential or not, between Bell Canada and EBOX since they are the same corporate entity.”

Bell says the only undue preference allegation in TekSavvy’s application is between Rogers and Vidéotron.

Rogers and Shaw are reaching the two-year mark of announcing plans to merge. However, they still need approval from Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne. The Minister is responsible for approving Vidéotron’s acquisition of Shaw’s wireless licenses through Freedom Mobile. Champagne has stated multiple times that a decision will come “in due course.”

The Competitive Network Operators of Canada and OpenMedia are part of the various organizations that supported TekSavvy’s application, which is now closed for comments.

Image credit: Shutterstock 

Source: CRTC

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Mobile Syrup

Snapchat incorporates ChatGPT tech for its ‘My AI’ chatbot

Following in Spotify’s footsteps, Santa Monica, California-based Snapchat is also borrowing OpenAI’s ChatGPT and integrating it into its app.

Snapchat is introducing a ChatGPT-powered chatbot, and according to Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel, the move is a bet on AI chatbots becoming a more prevalent part of people’s lives in the coming years.

Snapchat’s bot called “My AI” resides reside in the app’s chat tab, right above conversations with your snapchat contacts. The feature will be limited to Snapchat Plus subscribers at first, but according to Spiegel, in a statement given to The Verge, he wants the feature to be available to all Snapchat users for free in the future.

“The big idea is that in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we’re going to talk to AI every day,” said Spiegel. “And this is something we’re well positioned to do as a messaging service.”

My AI reportedly answers questions in a way more restricted manner, when compared to regular ChatGPT. Snap’s employees have trained the bot to adhere to the company’s trust and safety guidelines and not give responses that include swearing, violence, sexually explicit content, or opinions about topics like politics.

So no, answering the Snapchat AI chatbot to do your homework for you wouldn’t work well. Instead of a productivity tool, My AI will function more like a persona that you can talk to. My AI is meant to be a virtual friend inside of Snapchat for users to hang out with, and not a dedicated search engine.

My AI is rolling out to Snapchat+ subscribers in the U.S. today, with a broader rollout to come sometime later.Read more about My AI here.

Image credit: Snap

Source: Snapchat Via: The Verge

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Mobile Syrup

Telus increasing Easy Roam cost starting March 8th

Last month, MobileSyrup detailed a price increase coming to Bell’s roaming service. Now Telus plans to increase the cost of its similar Easy Roam service.

As first spotted by iPhone in Canada, a notice on Telus’ website warns that starting on March 8th, 2023, Easy Roam will increase from $12 to $14/day for U.S. roaming and from $15 to $16/day for international roaming.

Though it may not seem like much, the price increase adds up really quickly. Currently, Telus caps U.S. fees at $240 per billing cycle, and international fees at $300 per billing cycle, or about 20 days of Easy Roam use. It’s not clear if Telus will stick with the current caps or increase them to match 20 days of usage with the new prices (that would be about $280 for U.S. Easy Roam and $320 for international Easy Roam).

Telus Easy Roam price increase notice.

It’s also unclear if Telus’ flanker brand, Koodo, will increase roaming prices. Koodo also offers the Easy Roam program, which currently costs the same as the pre-increase Telus price. However, at the time of writing, there wasn’t an increase notice on the Koodo website. MobileSyrup reached out to Koodo for clarification but did not receive a response in time for publication.

When Bell increased the cost of its roaming package, it also increased the price for its flanker brand, Virgin Plus. Bell’s roaming increase comes into effect on March 9th and will cost $13/day for U.S. roaming and $16/day for international roaming.

Finally, iPhone in Canada noted that Telus changed Easy Roam’s activation from being valid for 24 hours to being “valid until 11:59pm in the time zone you are travelling.” This makes Easy Roam worse value than before.

It’s worth noting that Telus, like other carriers, has steadily increased the price of Easy Roam over the last few years. When U.S. and international roaming first launched (in 2015 and 2016, respectively), it cost $7/day for U.S. roaming and $10/day for international roaming.

Now that Telus and Bell will increase roaming costs in March, Rogers is the last of the Big Three to have not made a similar announcement. It remains to be seen if it will follow suit or keep roaming prices the same.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Telus Via: iPhone in Canada

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Mobile Syrup

Federal devices won’t have access to TikTok come March 1st

Russia, Kazan May 28 2019: Tik Tok application icon on Apple iPhone X screen close-up. Tik Tok icon. tik tok application. Tiktok Social media network

Government mobile devices will not have access to TikTok come March 1st for ongoing security concerns.

According to the National Post, the Chinese-owned app “creates vulnerabilities to cyber attacks.”

A message sent to Global Affairs Canada employees Monday states Canada’s Chief Information Officer made the decisions, and the app will automatically be removed and blocked from devices.

“A review of the mobile application’s behaviour in relation to the Policy on Service and Digital found that TikTok’s data collection methods may leave users vulnerable to cyber attacks,” the message states.

ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok and has its headquarters in China, said the Chinese government couldn’t access data it collects from Canadian users. That information is stored in the U.S. and Singapore, the publication reports.

The news follows an announcement from federal and provincial privacy regulators stating they are investigating how the app collects and uses user data.

Image credit: Shutterstock 

Source: National Post 

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Mobile Syrup

Telus increases Stream+ bundle cost by $3 for ‘some’ customers

Telus will increase the cost of its Stream+ bundle by $3 starting in March.

In a statement to MobileSyrup, Telus confirmed the increase:

“Some Stream+ customers are being notified of a $3 increase to their bills beginning in March as a result of a price change to one of the streaming services included in the Stream+ bundle. This increase does not apply to customers receiving select promotional offers and only those notified will be impacted. The Stream+ bundle still offers the best combined rates for access to the leading premium streaming services.”

Telus also reiterated to MobileSyrup that it’s the “only provider in Canada” that bundles premium streaming services with mobility plans. The carrier said it “remain[s] committed to offering flexible payment terms to any customers who are experiencing financial hardship, and will continue to support them on a case-by-case basis.”

The price increase comes with unfortunate timing — it coincided with Netflix’s change to how it handles password sharing. Last week, MobileSyrup reported that Stream+ wouldn’t allow customers to add extra members as part of Netflix’s new password-sharing crackdown. Several readers took to the comments mentioning the Stream+ price increase, but it’s worth noting that the increase likely isn’t connected to Netflix.

Telus said that the Stream+ increase was because of a “price change to one of the streaming services” it includes in the Stream+ bundle. Though the carrier didn’t specify which, the obvious culprit is actually Apple TV+, which went from $5.99/mo to $8.99/mo in October 2022. That’s the only streaming service offered in the Stream+ bundle that has seen a price change since Telus launched the bundle in April 2022 — Netflix Premium still costs $20.99/mo (excluding the new account sharing costs), and Discovery+ costs $4.99/mo.

Moreover, the new Apple TV+ price is reflected on the Telus Stream+ website, though the $3 price increase is not yet.

You can learn more about Stream+ here.