Author: Mobile Syrup

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Mobile Syrup

First Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer coming via Nintendo Direct on Oct. 6

Nintendo has announced that a new Direct presentation will be held on October 6th, and it will be focused entirely on the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Kicking off at 1:05pm PT/4:05pm ET on YouTube and Twitch and coinciding with a New York Comic Con panel, the Direct will feature the world premiere of the animated movie’s long-awaited first trailer. In a social media post announcing the Direct, Nintendo also offered our first look at the movie’s animation style.

Nintendo and animation studio Illumination officially announced the film in January 2018, but since then, we haven’t actually seen anything from it. All we know, following a September 2021 Nintendo Direct, is the movie’s principal voice cast, which amusingly includes Chris Pratt (Mario), Charlie Day (Luigi), Anya Taylor-Joy (Princess Peach), Jack Black (Bowser) and Canada’s own Seth Rogen (Donkey Kong). Therefore, all eyes are on seeing actual footage from this movie, especially given its meme-worthy voice cast.

It should be noted, however, that Nintendo will only discuss the Mario movie during the Direct — no news on Mario games will be provided.

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Mobile Syrup

Public Mobile adds more 4G plan options

Back in July, Telus flanker brand Public Mobile rolled out new 4G plans, marking a major shift for the provider. Previously, it had only offered 3G plans. Now, Public is expanding its 4G plan options.

In a post on its community forums, Public detailed three new 4G-capable plans, including:

  • $55/mo 8GB with unlimited Canada-wide minutes, international text and picture messaging, voicemail, and call display
  • $60/mo 10GB with unlimited Canada-wide minutes, international text and picture messaging, voicemail, and call display
  • $65/mo 15GB unlimited Canada-wide minutes, international text and picture messaging, voicemail, and call display

All three plans offer data at 4G speed, which according to Public’s fine print, is up to 100Mbps. Public’s 3G plans, on the other hand, offer download speeds up to 3Mbps.

Public also offers 3x ‘Points Back’ on each of these plans for new customers for 12 months. Public Points, also introduced earlier this year, can be redeemed for discounts on your bill, add-ons, or entries into contests. Customers can earn five percent Points Back for every dollar spent, and can also earn points for things like refer-a-friend, helping out on Public’s community forums, and more.

These plans are similar to the 4G plans Public Mobile launched in July. In August, the provider briefly offered a $55/20GB student offer (which is a better deal than the new 4G plans). It’s not clear what happened between July and now that led Public to relaunch previously-available plans. Either way, there are now more 4G plan options for Public customers.

Source: Public Mobile

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Mobile Syrup

Google’s new Nest Wifi Pro is all about Wi-Fi 6E

Ahead of Google’s upcoming Pixel event, the company unveiled new Nest products that aim to make the smart home a little more intelligent.

One of the headlining announcements was a new Nest Wifi Pro, a new mesh router system with support for Wi-Fi 6E coming later this month. The Wifi Pro sports combined speeds of up to 5.4Gbps, and each mesh point can cover 2,200 sq. ft. Plus, the Wifi Pro sports a tri-band connection with 2.4GHz, 5GHz, and 6GHz access.

Google focused on the Wi-Fi 6E aspect of the Nest Wifi Pro since that will usher in some of the most significant changes compared to previous Nest Wifi devices. Wi-Fi 6E isn’t so much about improved speed (although that is a benefit) so much as it is about handling more devices.

In a briefing, Google repeatedly referenced a statistic that the average U.S. household has 25 or so devices connected to Wi-Fi. Boosting a router’s ability to handle high numbers of devices could go a long way in helping improve home networks.

Another way the Nest Wifi Pro will help improve home networks is by detecting issues with some devices and automatically adjusting and improving the connection.

Google says it made the Nest Wifi Pro with 60 percent recycled materials, and it comes in four colours: ‘Snow,’ ‘Fog,’ ‘Linen,’ and ‘Lemongrass.’

There are, unfortunately, some not-so-great details about the new Nest Wifi Pro. Google confirmed it’s not backwards compatible with the company’s other routers, mostly because of the Wi-Fi 6E upgrades. Similarly, the Nest Wifi Pro won’t feature a built-in Google Assistant speaker like the Nest Wifi does.

The Nest Wifi Pro will be available starting October 27th and starts at $269.99 for a one-pack and $529.99 for a three-pack.

Matter and Thread improvements coming to Google products

Google also took time to highlight its Matter and Thread support. For those unfamiliar, Matter is an up-and-coming platform for connected home devices — one way to think of it is as a common standard for smart home tech to communicate with other tech. Matter was previously called Project Connected Home over IP (CHIP).

Thread, on the other hand, is a Wi-Fi-like wireless networking technology designed specifically for IoT and smart home devices. It should benefit low-power devices and improve latency issues. Thread relies on a network of border routers that smart home tech can connect to — handily, that’s where Google devices come in.

Google’s new Nest Wifi Pro will act as a Thread border router, but so will other Google smart home tech (once updates arrive), including the Nest Hub Max and Nest Hub (2nd Gen).

Moreover, Google said it’s updating Android’s FastPair system to help set up Matter devices. It also plans to update Nest products to enable local controls.

Google also recently revealed an updated version of its Nest Hello Doorbell and a refreshed Home app. 

Header image credit: Google

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Mobile Syrup

Google reveals new, more customizable Home app

Google’s smart home hub app is finally getting a facelift.

According to the tech giant, the new app’s goal is to offer users more customization through a new ‘Favourites tab’ that aims to make it easier to access the smart home devices you use the most. As someone with dozens of connected devices in their Home app but only regularly accesses a few of them, I’m looking forward to this feature.

The tech giant is also adding a new feature to Home called ‘Spaces’ that allows you to group several smart home devices under one category. For example, if you have a pet camera and feeder for your cat, you can now create a custom space. Google says that the new Home app also features pre-created Spaces for categories like lights, cameras and thermostats.

Other new features include an in-app media mini player that lets you see what content is playing in your home and a refreshed Nest camera experience that gives you quick information about your device directly in the Home app. For example, you can now find important moments captured by the new Nest Doorbell directly in the Home app.

Finally, Google is also expanding ‘Household Routines’ to support more smart home devices and has plans to launch a detailed Home app script editor in 2023. It’s also worth mentioning that overall, Google’s new Home app looks cleaner and easier to navigate.

The new Home app is coming to iOS and Android through Google’s public preview program in the coming weeks. It’s unclear when the final version of Google’s new Home app will be released.

Google also recently revealed its new Nest Doorbell and Nest Wifi Pro.

Image credit: Google

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Mobile Syrup

Google officially reveals new wired Nest Doorbell with 24/7 video recording

After months of rumours and leaks, Google has finally officially revealed the new version of its wired Nest Doorbell.

The new Doorbell looks identical to the battery-powered version the tech giant released last year but is slightly shorter and overall 30 percent smaller than the Nest Hello.

Further, unlike the battery version, the new wired Nest doorbell is capable of 24/7 continuous video history as long as you have a Nest Aware subscription ($8/month).

The smart doorbell also supports three hours of event video history for free. This means that as long as you jump into the soon-to-be-revamped Home app relatively quickly after receiving a notification that someone is at your door, you might be able to avoid paying for a Nest subscription.

Google says that the new Nest Doorbell also supports Activity Zones and alerts for people, packages and animals without the need for a subscription, though recognizing familiar people requires nest Aware.

Other features include video backup if there’s a Wi-Fi outage, HDR video support and routines through the Google Home app.

The new Nest Doorbell costs $239 and is available to order now in Google’s online store in ‘Snow’ and ‘Ash’ colours.

Unfortunately for Canadians, Google hasn’t detailed plans to update its current battery-powered Nest Doorbell despite the fact that it suffers from cold weather-related issues related to its battery holding a charge.

Google also revealed its Nest Wifi Pro, a new version of its router that supports Wi-Fi 6E, and a refreshed Home app. 

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Mobile Syrup

Prime Video has already started filming season 2 of The Rings of Power

Prime Video’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season one is only partway through streaming, and the series has already started filming its second season.

The second season has entered production in the United Kingdom. In the second season, we’ll meet Cirdan, one of the eldest and wisest elves, according to The Hollywood Reporter. It’s worth noting that Galadriel herself is an elf over 1,000 years old, so Cirdan must be very old.

The first season of the show was filmed in New Zealand over 18 months during the pandemic, but it looks like Amazon has moved production of the second season to the U.K., which is more affordable and where “the company is establishing a multi-show hub,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. 

Season two will feature eight episodes, similar to The Rings of Power’s first season.

The news of the second season comes after the series hit number 1one on the streaming charts and amassed more than 1.3 billion minutes viewed, even though it was only the first two episodes that had been released at the time.

The Rings of Power’s was very expensive to make for Amazon, with season one costing $426 million USD (about $580,275 CAD).

The second season doesn’t have a release date or even a release window yet. Episode seven of The Rings of Power’s airs on October 7th on Prime Video.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

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Mobile Syrup

University of Illinois project supported by Apple and Google to make speech recognition more diverse

A new “Speech Accessibility Project” led by The University of Illinois aims to expand voice recognition technology “more useful for people with a range of diverse speech patterns and disabilities.”

The project is launching with support from some of the industry giants, including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft.

Speech recognition isn’t fully accessible to people with speech disabilities, due to a lack of diverse and representative data. The lack of data makes it impossible for Machine Learning models behind speech recognition tech to learn and understand different types of speech. In essence, the Speech Accessibility Project aims to broaden the database available to “more effectively train these machine learning models.”

“Millions of people will benefit from diverse and inclusive speech recognition. This may include but isn’t limited to people with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and a wide range of medical and non-medical conditions that affect speech,” reads the project page.

Project volunteers will record speech samples from text prompts, which would be developed in collaboration with focus groups and disability community organizations. The recording would go in a “private, de-identified” dataset that would be used to train Machine Learning models. Notably, the tech giants mentioned above would use the data to train their specific speech recognition Machine Learning models. “Each of the companies supporting the Speech Accessibility Project is committed to leveraging project data to make improvements within their respective voice recognition products and services,” reads the project page.

Learn more about the project and how you can participate as a volunteer here.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Speech Accessibility Project

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Mobile Syrup

You can now buy official Pokémon Crocs in Canada

Pokémon Crocs are now available in Canada.

The collection features options for both children and adults and a 5-pack of Jibbitz with Kanto Pokémon. You can head to the Crocs Canada website to check them out.

Below are all of the Crocs:

These Crocs are only around while supplies last, and oddly the Jibbitz aren’t available in Quebec.

Source: Crocs Via: RedFlagDeals

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Mobile Syrup

Stadia players plead to Google to expand wireless Stadia controller support

Following the announcement and confirmation that Google is shutting down its cloud-based gaming service Stadia next year, fans are asking the tech giant to expand wireless support for the controller.

Last week, Google informed Stadia players that on January 18th, the platform’s servers are going offline. Alongside this announcement, the company confirmed it’s providing refunds for hardware and software through the Google Play Store. Additionally, Google doesn’t require players to return the hardware to claim a refund.

With this in mind, fans of the Stadia controller have taken to the Google Stadia subreddit to plead with Google, asking the tech giant to update the gamepad to enable wireless use without the need for Stadia or Chromecast. The goal is for the Stadia gamepad to live on as a third-party wireless controller with universal Bluetooth support.

Players can currently use the Stadia controller as a wired gamepad on several platforms, including PCs, Macs and smartphones. However, the gamepad does not support wireless Bluetooth.

Even if Google was unwilling to fulfill the request to update the controller and enable universal Bluetooth, there could still be an option. Some are hoping Google provides a solution to open source the controller’s firmware, which in theory, would allow the feature to be added by Stadia users.

We’ve seen the untimely demise of both hardware and software in the past. In the case of Google Stadia, the writing was on the walls for quite some time. Although the cloud-based gaming technology worked to a certain degree, game support always remained lacklustre.

While it’s hard to gauge how many Stadia controllers there are in the wild, there’s no harm in using them elsewhere, especially since Google doesn’t want to go through the hassle of asking players to return the controller.

Source: Game Developer

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Mobile Syrup

Apple Music celebrates 100 million songs available on the service

Apple has announced that its Apple Music streaming service has reached 100 million songs.

Apple Music officially launched on June 30th, 2015. Since then, Apple has continuously added new tracks by artists from around the world. Seven years later, Apple Music subscribers have a virtually endless supply of music to listen to. To celebrate, Apple is looking back at the evolution of its musical ambitions.

21 years ago, Apple launched iTunes, largely supported by the company’s iPod. At the time, it was novel to store 1,000 tracks on the device. Whether it was an assortment of albums, playlists, or beloved songs, Apple redefined how to interact with our favourite tracks and listen to them while on the go.

As Apple points out, Apple Music is available in 167 countries and regions worldwide. In Canada, a subscription is available for as little as $4.99/month. Apple Music is now home to established artists as well as up-and-comers. Each day, Apple claims more than 20,000 artists are delivering songs to the platform.

As part of its 100 million song celebration, Apple Music notes the importance of discoverability. “At Apple Music, human curation has always been the core to everything we do, both in ways you can see, like our editorial playlists; and ways you can’t, like the human touch that drives our recommendation algorithms,” writes the tech giant.

Apple is not only providing curation with the help of algorithms but also through its ‘Apple Music Today’ series. To assist with discoverability, each day Apple Music selects a new song to highlight and dives into its history.

In recent news, Apple Music is replacing Pepsi as the official Super Bowl Halftime Show sponsor. Super Bowl LVII is set to host Rihanna as the headlining performer in February.

Image credit: Apple

Source: Apple