Pluto TV viewers in Canada now have access to four new channels thanks to a partnership with Blue Ant Media.
Blue Ant is an international producer, distributor, and channel operator. It’s also MobileSyrup’s parent company.
The new channels include HauntTV, Crimetime, HistoryTime and Homeful.
“Blue Ant Media is a leader in producing captivating stories for audiences everywhere and we’re so pleased to partner with them to bring hundreds of hours of new content and channels to Pluto TV in Canada,” Katrina Kowalski, vice president of content at Pluto TV and Paramount+ in Canada, said.
Image credit: Pluto TV
Pluto TV is a FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) service and launched in Canada on December 1st, 2022. The expansion with Blue Ant means Canadian users have access to 120 free channels.
Sign up doesn’t require registration. Pluto TV is available online or through the app on Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, Android TV, Chromecast, Samsung and LG devices, and via mobile apps on the App Store and Google Play.
Following the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6th, 2023, several Canadian carriers announced plans to temporarily waive long-distance calls and SMS fees to both countries.
Rogers
The @RogersHelps Twitter account said that Rogers would waive long-distance calls and SMS for Rogers, Fido and Chatr customers to both Turkey and Syria until February 28th, 2023.
To help Canadians stay connected to loved ones following the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, Rogers is temporarily waiving long-distance calls and SMS for Rogers, Fido and chatr customers to both countries until Feb 28, 2023. pic.twitter.com/tUnW3GYJ2Y
Vancouver-based Telus said in a tweet that it would waive “all long-distance and roaming charges, including calls and texts to and from Turkey and Syria.” The carrier also noted that customers could text ‘DONATE’ to 41010 to give $20 to the Telus Friendly Future Foundation in support of earthquake relief in Turkey and Syria.
Our hearts are with those affected by the tragic earthquakes in Syria and Turkey. pic.twitter.com/Etnkj2nEFQ
Vidéotron will also waive call charges to both Turkey and Syria until February 28th.
To help members of the Turkish and Syrian communities in Canada stay in touch with their loved ones during this difficult time, Videotron is waiving call charges to both countries until February 28. #TurkeyEarthquake#Syria
OpenAI released a new ChatGPT detector tool on Wednesday, February 1st, called “AI Classifier” for indicating AI-written text. “We’re launching a classifier trained to distinguish between AI-written and human-written text,” the tool’s page on OpenAI’s website reads.
The tool would essentially help teachers and institutions distinguish between human-written and AI-written text. However, according to OpenAI itself, the tool is not fully reliable. “In its tests, the classifier correctly identified 26 percent of AI-written text, while it incorrectly labelled human-written text as AI-written nine percent of the time,” OpenAI wrote.
Naturally, the tool had to be put through its paces, and that’s exactly what folks over at NBC News did.
According to NBC, in a series of tests that it conducted, “the OpenAI tool struggled to identify text generated by ChatGPT. It especially struggled when ChatGPT was asked to write in a way that would avoid AI detection.” Who would have thought fooling the detector would be so easy? Just tell ChatGPT to write in a way that would be hard to detect, and Voilà!
NBC News asked ChatGPT to generate 50 different pieces of text with basic prompts. In half of the 50 prompts, it asked ChatGPT to write “in a way that would be rated as very unlikely written by AI when processed by an AI detection tool,” while the others were regular prompts.
The responses were then run through OpenAI’s Classifier, and to no one’s surprise, the responses where ChatGPT was asked to write in a way that would avoid detection were not noticed by the AI Classifier. Not even one of the responses could be categorized under “likely AI-generated.” Who is stopping students from doing the same?
ChatGPT was reportedly using highly stylized language, alongside cutting words short, to avoid detection. “Discord is a chattin’ platform that’s quite the talk of the town these days. It’s like a blend of instant messagin’, voice calls, and forum-style discussions all in one,” ChatGPT wrote when asked to describe Discord in a way that couldn’t be detected by an AI detection tool.
In some cases, however, ChatGPT reportedly gave warnings, saying that it is unethical to “engage in deceptive practices or create false information, even if it is to avoid AI detection.”
In the 25 instances where NBC News asked ChatGPT to write something without attempting to avoid AI detection, the tool could only detect AI-written text 28 percent of the time.
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Xbox has launched a new world in Minecraft Education called Privacy Prodigy, a learning experience that intends to teach youth aged 7-18 about the importance of personal information.
Now available as part of Safer Internet Day, Privacy Prodigy will teach players about how to keep their data safe in the real world while in public, as well as where to store it. Xbox says each of the world’s challenges has been designed to help students and parents better understand who should have access to their personal data. They’ll also learn about how to protect their data and some steps to take should it become compromised.
Privacy Prodigy can be accessed for free in the Minecraft Marketplace in the Bedrock version of Minecraft.
SaskTel and South Saskatchewan Ready have partnered to bring infiNET service to four communities in southern Saskatchewan. These four communities include Bengough, Coronach, Rockglen and Willow Bunch.
SaskTel plans to start construction of these communities in 2023/24 and anticipates the majority of the households will be fibre ready by the end of 2024.
“Today’s announcement further demonstrates SaskTel’s commitment to bring more advanced and reliable communications services to all corners of our province,” said Don Morgan, the Minister Responsible for SaskTel. “I applaud those involved with South Saskatchewan Ready for the work they’re doing to ensure these communities have the tools necessary to succeed in the modern economy.”
This service will be powered by SaskTel’s fibre optic broadband network and can deliver speeds reaching close to a Gigabit per second (Gbps).
Further, the infiNET network can grow to support the evolving needs of SaskTel customers and the increasing popularity of cloud service, video streaming and smart technologies, according to SaskTel’s press release.
On February 7th, OnePlus is set to launch its first-ever Android tablet; however, before the device is set to launch, new leaks have hit the internet.
In a Weibo post spotted by GSMArena, an official-looking promo video for the tablet shows off its stylus and keyboard accessory. Alongside the accessories, tipster Abishek Yadav has tweeted the device’s full specifications.
OnePlus Pad specifications.
– 11.6″ 2.8K LCD display with 144Hz refresh rate, HDR 10+ and dolby vision – Mediatek dimensity 9000 chipset – 13MP rear camera – 8MP front camera – 9500mAh battery 67 watt charging – Stylus support#OnePlus#OnePlusPadpic.twitter.com/LgdgqhyWu8
According to the leak, the OnePlus Pad will sport a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 chipset, an 11.6-inch 2.8K LCD display hitting 144Hz refresh rate, as well as 67W charging, a 9,500mAh battery, 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and 8-megapixel selfie camera.
At this point, we know the tablet will launch in India, but it’s unclear if it will make it to other markets.
Amazon Canada is offering 15 percent off the Xbox Elite Controller Series 2.
Now, you can snag the premium black gamepad for $194.99 CAD, down from the usual $229.99. You can order the controller from Amazon here.
The Elite Controller Series 2 is a modular gamepad that lets you add and swap out thumbsticks and paddles. It’s worth noting that MobileSyrup editor-in-chief Patrick O’Rourke has had some issues with the otherwise well-received Series 2, so your mileage may vary.
You can create a custom Elite Controller Series 2 through Xbox’s Design Lab program, although that isn’t on sale. Amazon also carries a white Series 2 gamepad without some of the extra add-on components for the regular price of $154.85.
Google has sent layoff notices to some Canadian employees after its parent company, Alphabet, announced that it was cutting 12,000 employees from the company.
A Google Canada spokesperson spoke to Global News, and said that impacted staff have been aware of the cuts since last month. It’s currently unclear how many Canadian have been impacted by the layoffs. The spokesperson did mention any specifics about the layoffs.
“Canada remains an important priority market for Google,” the spokesperson told Global News in an email. Google has offices in Toronto, Kitchener-Waterloo, Vancouver, Montreal and Edmonton.
Back in January, Google began the process of laying off 12,000 employees around the world. In the blog post, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that he takes “full responsibility” for the decision behind the mass layoff.
The impacted employees are “across Alphabet, product areas, functions, levels and regions.” The post indicates that impacted employees aren’t specific to one country and include U.S. employees.
Google isn’t the only company that had layoffs in the tech sphere. Companies like Meta, Shopify, and Amazon have also laid off many.
Now, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has confirmed the existence of the project, describing it as an “experimental conversational AI service” powered by LaMDA.
‘Bard’ will be able to answer user inquiries and participate in conversations in a human-like manner and is being released now to “trusted testers” before it goes public “in the coming weeks.”
Bard is similar to ChatGPT in the sense that it is all-knowing. According to Google, “Bard seeks to combine the breadth of the world’s knowledge with the power, intelligence and creativity of our large language models.” The AI service gathers information from the internet to provide fresh and high-quality responses. “Bard can be an outlet for creativity, and a launchpad for curiosity, helping you to explain new discoveries from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to a 9-year-old, or learn more about the best strikers in football right now, and then get drills to build your skills,” wrote Google.
Unlike ChatGPT, Google says that Bard uses less computing power, and thus, can be scaled to more users. It is also using external feedback alongside its own internal testing to make sure “Bard’s responses meet a high bar for quality, safety and groundedness in real-world information.”
It is evident that OpenAI’s decision to make ChatGPT freely available to the public is what triggered Google to go all hands on deck with Bard and make it functional as soon as possible. Another industry giant, Microsoft, is reportedly integrating ChatGPT to its Bing browser, as screenshots of the leaked browser leaked last week.
According to Pichai, AI is an exciting opportunity that can help people deepen their understanding of information and get to the heart of what they’re looking for. He adds that people head to Google for quick factual answers, like “how many keys does a piano have?”
Now, however, more and more people are turning to Google for deeper insights, with questions like “is the piano or guitar easier to learn, and how much practice does each need?” This indicates that people are looking for a diverse range of opinions and not just factual answers. Pichai says that AI can be helpful in such moments, “synthesizing insights for questions where there’s no one right answer.”
He also adds that users would soon see AI-powered features in Search, something which was hinted at in last week’s CNBC leak.
Another aspect pointed out by CNBC is that Bard will have up-to-date information, unlike ChatGPT, which is stuck in the year 2021. Pichai’s blog post doesn’t allude to that. Google was also reported to be testing alternate versions of its homepage. One of the versions reportedly gets rid of the “I’m feeling lucky’ button, and replaces it with prompts for potential questions users might wanna ask. This wasn’t hinted at, either.
The company is holding an AI-focused event about Search on Wednesday, February 8th, where we’ll likely learn more about the AI developments over at Google.
