Author: Mobile Syrup

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Former Microsoft CEO reportedly wanted Cortana to be named ‘Bingo’

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had wanted the company’s AI to be called “Bingo,” according to former Microsoft product manager Sandeep Paruchuri.

Speaking to WhatsApp’s Alice Newton Rex for Big Bets, Parachuri said Ballmer, who served as Microsoft CEO from 2000 to 2014, had intended for the AI to be called Bingo so it would be more in line with the branding for Microsoft’s “Bing” search engine.

“Ballmer had poor product taste,” Parachuri told Big Bets. However, Ballmer’s successor, Satya Nadella, ultimately agreed with Parachuri’s team that “Cortana” was a more appropriate name.

Of course, the AI would eventually be called “Cortana,” based on the eponymous blue AI from Microsoft’s iconic Halo video game franchise. Given that Halo is continuing to go strong 20 years after its debut, while Bing is not many people’s go-to search engine, the decision to name the AI after the former arguably seems to have panned out better.

Overall, Parachuri’s interview with Big Bets is quite an interesting read, going behind-the-scenes on the making of Microsoft’s AI. You can read it in full here.

Image credit: Xbox

Source: Big Bets

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Mobile Syrup

OSOM, team behind Essential, to launch first phone in Summer 2022

The team behind the Essential smartphone company is now working on a new product.

In an interview with Android Police, Jason Keats, the CEO and founder of OSOM Products, a company that features people primarily from the Essential team, is finally ready to speak about the OV1, OSOM’s first smartphone.

According to Android Police, the name OV1 (OSOM Vault 1) is a throwback to the Essential PH-1. OSOM itself stands for “out of sight, out of mind,” but you say it like “awesome.” The “out of sight, out of mind” phrase has to do with privacy, as OV1 is a privacy-first smartphone.

This device won’t be modular like the Essential Ph-1, however. “Dear God, the headaches we had,” said Keats in the interview with Android Police.

What’s interesting about the OV1 is Dave Evans, the leader of the design team at Essential, is also part of OSOM. According to Keats, the smartphone will feature “throwback” surprises.

“One of the things that hurt Essential was, it wasn’t entirely clear what the point of Essential was, what we were building for, and that hurt us. Ultimately, that was probably the biggest — for all the other issues, that was probably the biggest thing that prevented us from being successful. And so we sat down and said, ‘What is something we can address?’ And we said, ‘Well, I’m really annoyed at how much my phone and other companies know what I’m doing,” said Keats to Android Police.

The phone will run stock-like Android with some customization on top, including better control of the content being shared. OSOM has reportedly made deep modifications to Android and worked with Google to make sure that it still meets all GSM and MADA requirements.

In terms of specs, not much has been revealed about the OV1.

Keats and the OSOM team plan to launch the smartphone in Summer 2022.

Image credit: Android Police

Source: Android Police

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus 10 Pro confirmed to launch in January 2022

OnePlus’ upcoming smartphone will reportedly launch its next flagship smartphone in January, according to a new report.

GSMArena’s says that the OnePlus founder, Pete Lau, has indicated the device is scheduled for a January launch on China-based microblogging site Weibo. 

Lau’s post reportedly says, “OnePlus 10 Pro, see you in January.”

With a January launch, it seems OnePlus is trying to beat Samsung to the punch, as it’s unclear when the South Korean company will unveil its flagship.

Previous leaks indicate that the 10-series will receive a China-exclusive launch in January and that it will release in more regions in March or April. Considering Lau posted the teaser on Weibo instead of an international social media platform, this is a plausible scenario.

The OnePlus 10 Pro will reportedly sport a camera array that extends around the edge of the phone, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip, a 120Hz refresh rate 6.7-inch display, a 5,000mAh battery and Oppo’s ColorOS.

Source: GSMArena,  Weibo

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Mobile Syrup

Here are the best Boxing Day deals available in Canada right now

Several Canadian retailers have discounted gadgets, appliances and all types of electronics as part of their Boxing Day promotions.

Below is a round-up of some of the most notable offers and deals available in Canada right now:

Best Buy

Best Buy’s sale includes a vast variety of electronics and gadgets, including gaming PCs, monitors, headphones laptops and more.

Check out some notable deals below:

Find all deals under Best Buy’s Boxing Day sale here.

Walmart

Walmart Canada has released a flyer that offers an early sneak peek of its Boxing Day sale starting in stores on December 26th and online on December 24th at 6pm ET.

Check out some of the deals from Walmart’s Boxing Day flyer below:

It’s worth noting that the sale pricing isn’t live yet. You can find the discounted deals in stores on December 26th and online on December 24th at 6pm ET.

Find all Walmart Boxing Day deals here.

The Source

The Source has gone live with its Boxing Day deal, with solid discounts on all major gadget categories, including TVs, laptops, smart home devices and more.

Check out some of the notable deals from The Source’s Boxing Day sale below:

Find all Boxing Day deals from The Source here.

Staples

Staples Canada has released an early sneak peek of its Boxing Day offers that start in stores on December 26th at 8am local time and online on December 25th at 12am ET/9pm PT.

Check out some of the deals from the upcoming sale below:

It’s worth noting that the sale pricing isn’t live yet. You can find the discounted deals in stores on December 26th at 8am local time and online on December 25th at 12am ET.

Samsung

Samsung has gone live with its early ‘Boxing Day’ with solid discounts on its TVs, audio products, monitors and more. Along with the discounts, Samsung is also offering freebies with some of its 2021 flagship smartphones.

Find the Early Boxing Day deals from Samsung below:

Several other products not mentioned in the list above are also currently on sale. Check out the full flyer here.

Gamestop

  • It’s worth noting that Gamestop’s Boxing Day deals are more or less the same as those that were offered by the gaming retailer for ‘Black Friday.’
  • Below are a few of Gamestop’s better offers:
  • Returnal (PlayStation 5): $59.99 (regularly $89.99)
  • Battlefield 2042 (PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One and Series X/S, PC): $49.99 (regularly $89.99)
  • Death Stranding: Director’s Cut (PlayStation 5): $49.99 (regularly $64.99)
  • Demon’s Souls (PlayStation 5): $49.99 (regularly $89.99)
  • Far Cry 6 (PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One and Series X/S): $39.99 (regularly $79.99)
  • Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut (PlayStation 5): $59.99 (regularly $89.99)
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Nintendo Switch): $54.99 (regularly $79.99)
  • Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One and Series X/S): $39.99 (regularly $79.99)

You can find the full flyer here.

Ecobee

Toronto-based Ecobee has gone live with its ‘Boxing Day’ deals, with discounts on its Smart Thermostat, Smart Camera and Ecobee Lite.

Check out the deals below:

These deals are available on Ecobee’s website and are expected to end on January 4th, 2022.

MobileSyrup utilizes affiliate partnerships. These partnerships do not influence our editorial content, though MobileSyrup may earn a commission on purchases made via these links that helps fund the journalism provided free on our website.

Image credit: Shutterstock

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Mobile Syrup

Save up to $200 on Motorola phones during Boxing Week sale

Motorola Canada has several phones on sale for Boxing Week. Those looking to pick up a new phone but not wanting to commit to a multi-year carrier contract might want to take advantage of some of these Motorola deals.

Check them out below:

You can check out Motorola’s Boxing Week deals here.

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Mobile Syrup

Here’s what’s coming to Disney+ Canada in January 2022

Disney has revealed all of the movies and shows hitting its Disney+ streaming service in Canada in January 2022.

Other than The Book of Boba Fett continuing into 2022 following its December 29th premiere, January is a fairly light month for the service in terms of new original programming. That said, a backlog of FX content — which has historically been tied up between various Canadian companies due to complicated licensing agreements — is debuting on Disney+, including Legion, The Americans, Dave and Atlanta.

Read on for the full list of new content:

January 5th

  • The Americans (Seasons 1-6)

January 7th

  • The Most Dangerous Animal of All (Season 1)
  • Underwater

January 12th

  • The Amazing Race (Seasons 1-25)
  • American Horror Story (Seasons 4-9)
  • Eternals
  • A Teacher (Season 1)

January 14th

  • Betty White Goes Wild!

January 19th

  • Black Narcissus
  • Hip Hop Uncovered (Season 1)
  • Legion (Seasons 1-3)
  • Man, Woman, Dog (Season 1)
  • Marvel Studios’ Assembled: The Making of Hawkeye [Disney+ Original]
  • Pose (Seasons 1-2)
  • Superstar (Season 1)
  • What We Do in the Shadows (Seasons 1-2)
  • The World According to Jeff Goldblum (Season 2 — Batch 2) [Disney+ Original]

January 21st

  • The Informant: Fear and Faith in the Heartland

January 26th

  • Atlanta (Seasons 1-2)
  • Baskets (Seasons 1-4)
  • Dave (Season 1)
  • Marvel’s Hit Monkey (Season 1)
  • Random Rings (Seasons 1-2)
  • You’re the Worst (Seasons 1-5)

January 28th

  • The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild [Disney+ Original]

A Disney+ subscription costs $11.99 CAD/month or $119.99/year.

Find out what came to Disney+ Canada in December here.

Image credit: Marvel Studios

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Mobile Syrup

Here’s what’s coming to Crave in January 2021

Bell has announced all of the content coming to its Crave video streaming platform in January.

Series and movies like the original the second episode of Euphoria, Doctor Who — Eve of the Daleks, Search Party season 5, and a spin-off of The Suicide Squad film, Peacemaker will all hit the streaming service this January.

Below is all the content coming to Crave in January 2021:

January 1st

  • Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts — HBO + Movies
  • Apollo 13 — Starz 
  • Doctor Who – Eve of the Daleks @8pm ET

January 2nd

  • Buckley’s Chance  — HBO + Movies
  • JFL Gala 2021: Rita Baga and Jean-Thomas Jobin Part 1

January 5th

  • Falls Around Her — Starz, HBO + Movies
  • Crossing Swords: season 2 @10:30pm ET

January 7th

  • Search Party  — HBO + Movies
  • Back of the Net — HBO + Movies
  • Crimson Peak — HBO + Movies
  • Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat — HBO + Movies
  • Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax — HBO + Movies 
  • Frailty — HBO + Movies
  • Jacob’s Ladder — HBO + Movies
  • The Many Saints of Newark — HBO + Movies
  • Nutty Professor II: The Klumps — HBO + Movies
  • Riders of Justice — HBO + Movies
  • Sex and the City 2 — HBO + Movies
  • Trigger Point — HBO + Movies
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race: season 4
  • Aussie Gold Hunters: season 5

January 9th

  • Euphoria: season 2, episode 1 — HBO + Movies 
  • The Righteous Gemstones: season 2, episodes 1-2 @10pm ET
  • JFL Gala 2021: Rita Baga and Jean-Thomas Jobin part 2

January 13th

  • My Mom, Your Dad: season 1 — HBO + Movies
  • Peacemaker: season 1, episodes 1-3 — HBO + Movies 

January 14th

  • Ray Donovan: The Movie @ 9pm — HBO + Movies
  • 1000 to 1 — Starz, HBO + Movies
  • Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse — Starz, HBO + Movies
  • L.A Story — Starz, HBO + Movies,
  • The Midnight Meat Train — Starz, HBO + Movies
  • Near Dark — Starz, HBO + Movies
  • Nobody — HBO + Movies

January 15th

  • Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood: season 1, episodes 1-2
  • the Adventures of Tintin: season 1

January 16th

  • Somebody Somewhere: season 1, episode 1 @10:30pm ET —  HBO + Movies

January 17th

  • Fanny: The Right to Rock — HBO + Movies

January 21

  • False Positive — HBO + Movies
  • Free Willy, — HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Free Willy 2 — HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Hellboy: Blood and Iron — HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Hellboy: Sword of Storms — HBO + Movies, Starz
  • In the Earth — HBO + Movies
  • Kindergarten Cop — HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Kindergarten Spirits — HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Miss Sharon Jones! — HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Ocean’s Twelve —  HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Traffik HBO + — Movies, Starz
  • Ram Leela
  • Yeh Jawwani Hai Dewwani — HBO + Movies
  • Bajirao Mastani — HBO + Movies
  • Action Jackson — HBO + Movies
  • Dabaang — HBO + Movies
  • Ki & Ka — HBO + Movies
  • Agneepath (2012) — HBO + Movies
  • Housefull — HBO + Movies
  • Housefull 2 — HBO + Movies
  • Sarkar 3 — HBO + Movies
  • Manmarzian — HBO + Movies
  • Happy Bhaag Jayegi — HBO + Movies
  • Son of Sardaar — HBO + Movies
  • Badlapur — HBO + Movies
  • Singham Returns — HBO + Movies
  • Ridiculousness: season 20-22

January 22nd

  • Real Time with Bill Maher: season 20 — HBO + Movies
  • Geronimo Stilton: season 3
  • The Jungle Bunch: season 1, episodes 1-20

January 23rd

  • Billions: season 6, episode 1 @9pm ET

January 24th

  • The Gilded Age: season 1, episode 1 @9pm ET — HBO + Movies 

January 26th

  • Astrid and Lilly Save the World: season 1, episode 1

January 28th

  • The Fallout — HBO + Movies 
  • Campus Code — HBO + Movies
  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory — HBO + Movies
  • Enter the Dragon–  HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Eve’s Bayou —  HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Black Bodies —  HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Ocean’s Thirteen —  HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Patch Adams —  HBO + Movies, Starz
  • Reminiscence —  HBO + Movies, Starz
  • The Sting–  HBO + Movies, Starz

January 29th

  • Blippi Visits: season 1, episodes 1-20
  • Handico: season 1,
  • Legendaries: Season 1
  • Clifford the Big Red Dog
  • Denver
  • Moominvalley: seasons 1-2

We’ve separated the different shows and movies by which tier of Crave they fall within. Crave has three tiers: basic, Crave + Movies + HBO and Starz Programming. On top of Crave’s regular monthly $9.99 CAD cost, Crave + Movies + HBO costs an extra $9.99 per month and Starz is an extra $5.99 per month.

Further, Crave is available on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4/5 and more.

Image Credit: IMBD

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Mobile Syrup

Tesla adds TikTok and better blind spot detection in winter update

Tesla has started rolling out its usual holiday software update with several useful and fun new features, including the first Sonic that originally released on the Sega Genesis, more useful blindspot cameras and the TikTok app.

The part of the update the drivers are likely to interact with the most is the new blind spot detectors. This means that once you trigger the signal lights to change lanes, a view of the blind spot on that side of the car will pop up on the screen.

This feature was first announced in the summer of 2020, so it’s nice to see it rolling out now. It’s also present in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and is a handy feature.

The Tesla team has also added a new multi-waypoint update to the in-car navigation and simplified a few other controls regarding the car’s user interface, according to Elecktrek.

Headlining the update, of course, is the addition of TikTok. The worst part is that this update is a few years too late and would have been much more helpful on the old vertical displays since that app could play in full screen. Since TikTok is so optimized for mobile, I’m interested to see how it works on the vehicle’s dashboard.

Looking at some photos of the update that a user posted to Imgur, it also appears that Tesla programmed a light show, added a customization option to the app launcher, and Sudoku.

Source: Imgur, Electrek

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Mobile Syrup

Tesla adds TikTok and better blind spot detection in winter update

Tesla has started rolling out its usual holiday software update with several useful and fun new features, including the first Sonic that originally released on the Sega Genesis, more useful blindspot cameras and the TikTok app.

The part of the update the drivers are likely to interact with the most is the new blind spot detectors. This means that once you trigger the signal lights to change lanes, a view of the blind spot on that side of the car will pop up on the screen.

This feature was first announced in the summer of 2020, so it’s nice to see it rolling out now. It’s also present in the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and is a handy feature.

The Tesla team has also added a new multi-waypoint update to the in-car navigation and simplified a few other controls regarding the car’s user interface, according to Elecktrek.

Headlining the update, of course, is the addition of TikTok. The worst part is that this update is a few years too late and would have been much more helpful on the old vertical displays since that app could play in full screen. Since TikTok is so optimized for mobile, I’m interested to see how it works on the vehicle’s dashboard.

Looking at some photos of the update that a user posted to Imgur, it also appears that Tesla programmed a light show, added a customization option to the app launcher, and Sudoku.

Source: Imgur, Electrek

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Mobile Syrup

The Source’s Boxing Day promotions are live now

The Source has gone live with its Boxing Day deal, with solid discounts on all major gadget categories, including TVs, laptops, smart home devices and more.

Check out some of the notable deals from The Source’s Boxing Day sale below:

Laptops

Find all laptops on sale here.

TVs

Find all TV deals here.

Wearables

Find all wearables on sale here.

Headphones

Find all headphone deals here.

Smart home

Find all smart home gadgets on sale here.

Peripherals and computer accessories

Find all peripherals and computer accessories here.

It’s worth noting that products from the list above don’t share a common ‘sale end date.’  Make sure you check when the sale price is ending if you’re going to sit on the idea of purchasing a device.

MobileSyrup utilizes affiliate partnerships. These partnerships do not influence our editorial content, though MobileSyrup may earn a commission on purchases made via these links that helps fund the journalism provided free on our website.

Source: The Source