Roughly two years after announcing that Translink riders in Metro Vancouver will have access to free Wi-Fi in 2020, the transit commission and Shaw’s plans are finally coming to fruition.
Translink announced on Tuesday that its free Wi-Fi is now accessible on select buses, SkyTrains and stations in Metro Vancouver.
Free WiFi is now rolling out on our system! In partnership with Shaw, select vehicles have been equipped with free public WiFi.
Currently, six RapidBuses, three SkyTrains, the Edmonds Station and the Carvolth Exchange feature Shaw’s Wi-Fi, with the system-wide rollout expected to complete in 2026. Additionally, posters and signage will indicate if the vehicle you’re on offers free Wi-Fi.
“We know that free Wi-Fi is something our customers want, and I’m so excited to start delivering this important feature to elevate the customer experience,” said TransLink CEO Kevin Quinn in a press relesae. “Free Wi-Fi means that our customers can use their transit time for leisure, work, or better connecting with family and friends without spending their money on data fees.”
It’s worth noting that customers on SeaBuses and in SeaBus terminals in Metro Vancouver can already use free Shaw Wi-Fi as part of a prior TransLink and Shaw rollout.
Customers can learn how to use the free Wi-Fi and monitor status updates on the transit’s Wi-Fi installation over time here.
Popular streaming platform Twitch confirmed on Twitter that it suffered a data breach.
The Amazon-owned service says its “teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this.”
We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available. Thank you for bearing with us.
Hackers accessed Twitch’s source code and published over 125GB of data online from Twitch and related services.
The data includes the source code for Twitch and an unreleased Steam competitor from Twitch’s parent company, Amazon. The leaked information also included three years’ worth of payouts to Twitch creators. Further, the massive leak was labelled ‘part one,’ suggesting more data could come in the future.
The person who posted the leak claims it’s meant to “foster more disruption and competition in the online video streaming space” and called the Twitch community “a disgusting toxic cesspool.”
It’s worth noting that Twitch has recently struggled to deal with ‘hate raids.’ Creators took a day off last month to protest and bring attention to the increased harassment and hate raids plaguing the platform. Considering the comment about Twitch’s community, it’s possible the attack could be related to the ongoing harassment issue.
Although the leak doesn’t appear to include passwords or address information for users, that doesn’t mean hackers didn’t obtain that information in the breach. If you use Twitch, you should probably update your password and add two-factor authentication (2FA).
The leak includes the following information:
Three years of Twitch creator payouts
The entirety of twitch.tv, including “commit history going back to its early beginnings”
Source code for the mobile, desktop and video game console Twitch clients
Code from proprietary SDKs and internal Amazon Web Services (AWS) used by Twitch
An unreleased Steam competitor from Amazon Game Studios
Data on related Twitch properties like IGDB and CurseForge
Twitch’s internal security tools
Ultimately, it appears hackers targeted Twitch and its system rather than users. But again, this is also allegedly the first part of a larger leak. It also remains unclear how hackers gained access to so much Twitch data and whether they exploited a larger flaw in AWS. If so, that could pose significant problems since AWS powers such a larger amount of the internet.
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania will release exclusively on Amazon Prime Video worldwide on January 14th, 2022.
The animated family film was originally slated to hit theatres this month, but Sony scrapped those plans out of concerns for the rising cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant.
Instead, the company sold the distribution rights to Amazon for $100 million (around $125 million CAD) in August, with the Prime Video release date only now being confirmed. This is Sony Pictures Animation’s second theatrical film to be sold to a streamer amid the pandemic, following April’s critically acclaimed The Mitchells vs. The Machines.
Transformania is the fourth and film in the popular Hotel Transylvania franchise, which has grossed more than $1.3 billion USD (about $1.6 billion CAD) to date.
The film finds Drac and his monster friends transformed into humans, leading them to race to find a cure.
Google is updating its flight and hotel search tools to include information about CO2 emissions and sustainability commitments.
Starting today, every Google Flights listing now features a note next to its price detailing the estimated CO2 emissions for that particular flight, compared to the usual amount of CO2 emissions produced on the route being flown.
If a flight boasts a lower-than-average emission rate, a green badge is displayed.
According to Google, the CO2 metrics are seat-specific, with emissions for business and first class generally being higher because “they take up more space” in the plane.
Travelers can also check if the hotel they stay at upon landing is eco-friendly using Google’s recently updated hotel search tool.
On September 22nd, Google added badges to indicate whether a hotel is eco-certified, as well as details about each hotel’s sustainability practices — for example, the famous Château Laurier in Ottawa boasts energy-efficient lighting, a towel and linen reuse program, and locally sourced food.
The new eco-focused flight and hotel search tool features are available to Google users in Canada and globally.
Google also announced today that it plans on improving the results in its regular search engine when people ask about ‘climate change.’
Last week, on September 29th, California-based company released its Google Maps wildfire tracking tool globally to Android users, with iOS and desktop updates planned for October.
Google is improving the results it provides when users ask questions about climate change.
In a company update on sustainability initiatives, Google announced its plans to add a “dedicated results page” about climate change to its main search engine.
The page will feature “in-depth” and “high quality” information from credible sources — the United Nations is listed as one — explaining the “causes, effects and definitions” of climate change.
The update is schedule to roll out sometime later this month, and will be available upon launch globally in English, French and Spanish.
As of today, Google is also updating its flight and hotel search tools to include information about CO2 emissions and sustainability commitments.
In April 2021, Google Earth released a video illustrating the devastating global effects of climate change in the last 40 years.
It looks like Apple’s new iPad mini suffers from display clearance issues.
A user on Reddit (Aromatic-Coat5459) reports that the iPad Mini’s glass screen is too close to their LCD panel and that it’s causing pretty annoying distortions.
In my experience, the iPad mini I have doesn’t look quite as bad as the Reddit user’s. That said, I have found the LCD and glass a little too close to each other given it takes surprisingly little pressure to make the iPad mini’s display distort.
Other commenters on the original video claim to have experienced similar issues with the new iPad mini’s design. Hopefully, Apple addresses this problem, but knowing the giant company’s track record related to hardware issues, it’s unlikely we’ll see a widespread recall.
In a comment to MacRumors, Apple said that this is normal screen behaviour. This is similar to the company’s response regarding the iPad mini’s ‘jelly scrolling’ issue that some users have also noted.
Overall, as someone who still uses the iPad mini daily, I don’t think either of these problems are that serious. However, it does make the tiny tablet feel a little cheaper than its expensive $640 cost.
As with other recent ads from Intel, this one picks a few areas to bash Apple computers over that, again, have almost nothing to do with the processor inside the computer. Those areas include customizing your computer, gaming, having two touchscreens and 2-in-1 form factors.
What makes this ad particularly annoying is Intel uses the classic ‘put people in a room to tell them about one thing, then reveal you were talking about something else’ format. Several of the people in the ad act completely shocked at various “innovative new features,” even though most have been around for a while.
The ad’s fine print notes that they are “real people paid for their time and opinions,” but nobody speaks like these people. One person loudly exclaims they are “100 percent loyal to Apple” and another looks at an RGB gaming rig and calls it “artwork.”
Before I get too much deeper into this, I want to acknowledge a few things. First, it’s entirely possible that people who don’t spend their days writing about tech wouldn’t know about some of these features. However, anyone that has shopped for a laptop in at least the last five years would know about 2-in-1s and multi-touchscreen computers. Plus, PC gaming has been around basically as long as the computer has.
The other thing I want to say is that I hope the criticisms I lay out here don’t come off as favouring either company. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of Intel or Apple — I have no allegiance to either one, and as far as the processor in my computer goes, it doesn’t matter to me as long as it works (and works well).
Intel’s “benefits” don’t have anything to do with the CPU
That said, Intel’s arguments against Apple computers are foolish. Let’s break them down, starting with the computer customization angle. Intel implies in the ad that people can buy a PC and freely swap out the hardware — for example, upgrade the RAM if they need more. That may be the case with some computers, but chances are if you walk into a Best Buy and purchase a laptop, you won’t be able to upgrade the components inside it. On the other hand, Apple is arguably worse in this regard since it puts the RAM and processor on the same chip. While that yields performance benefits, it also kills the potential for future upgrades.
But let’s be honest — Apple was never keen on letting people upgrade the parts in old Intel-powered Macs. Making it more difficult for people to upgrade computers with Apple Silicon is just Apple backing up a long-held stance.
Next up, dual touchscreens and 2-in-1 formatting. I’m going to lump these together because neither has anything to do with the processor. Apple doesn’t offer either of these form factors because, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t want to. The company has staunchly kept the iPad and MacBook lines separate despite continuously marketing the iPad Pro as a laptop replacement. I know the M1 chip isn’t a factor here because it currently powers both the latest MacBook and the latest iPad Pro — Apple Silicon could power some iPad-Mac hybrid device if Apple chose to make one.
I also know Intel’s chips aren’t at fault for this because several Windows 2-in-1s use the company’s hardware. Again, if Apple had wanted to make an iPad-Mac hybrid running on an Intel chip, it could have.
Also, I doubt Apple will ever put two screens on a MacBook. The company has always portrayed itself as a stickler for design, and every dual-screen laptop I’ve seen tosses good design out the window to squeeze in that extra display.
Apple’s M1 chip didn’t ruin gaming on Mac — it already sucked
Finally, the gaming argument. Yes, the hardware in your computer matters when gaming, but it’s also not the reason why Macs suck for gaming. Hardware impacts gaming in two ways — it determines first if you can even play a game, and second how good the game looks. That first part really comes down to game developers and what platforms they target — most of them develop games for Windows PCs, which primarily use Intel or AMD CPUs.
If a game developer wanted, they could totally build a game for an ARM-powered device, such as Apple’s M1 MacBook. But they don’t. Even when MacBooks ran on Intel hardware, developers didn’t make many games for them. Largely, this was because the player base on Apple computers was so small that the cost of porting to Mac didn’t make sense. I imagine the move to ARM-based chips didn’t help in that regard, but it’s definitely not the reason Macs suck for gaming.
Perhaps the worst part of Intel’s ad is that none of these features Intel boasts about are Intel-exclusive. The Vergepointed out that there are AMD-powered options with the features Intel touted as benefits of Intel-powered PCs. Plus, AMD is closing the market-share gap between it and Intel — maybe Intel should be focusing on something other than attacking Apple.
After being unavailable for nearly six hours yesterday, Instagram has announced that it’s rebranding its long-form video space IGTV as Instagram TV and will do away with the exclusive IGTV video format.
Main Instagram feed videos can now be up to 60 minutes long, a duration previously exclusive for IGTV videos. Further, users no longer need to exit the main app to watch them. According to an Instagram spokesman (via The Verge), the IGTV app, now known as the Instagram TV app, will continue to be a “destination for people to visit with the intent of watching video.”
Starting today, we’re combining IGTV and feed videos into one format – Instagram Video.
We’re also introducing a new Video tab on your profile, where this combined video format will live, to make it easier for people to discover new video content. pic.twitter.com/yVZYrgPX3d
— Alexandru Voica (alexvoica.eth) 💀 (@alexvoica) October 5, 2021
Additionally, when you come across a video while scrolling, you’ll be able to tap anywhere on the screen to enter fullscreen mode. You can exit the full-screen mode by tapping the back button or continue scrolling to find similar videos from the same and different creators.
As part of the improved upload experience, Instagram is also adding additional tools such as editing, filters, location tagging. Longer videos, which were previously labelled as IGTV videos, will continue to offer 60-second teasers in the Feed. However, if the video is ad-eligible, the preview will remain 15 seconds long only.
It’s worth noting that none of these changes will influence what Instagram is doing with Reels. According to TechCrunch, the company’s short-form video platform will remain distinct from the new Instagram TV.
Find more games under Xbox’s Harvest Sale, including Watch Dogs 2 Gold Edition, Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus, STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order Deluxe Edition and more here.
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Amazon might be producing its own “smart fridge,” according to Insider.
Codenamed “Project Pulse,” the appliance will use cameras and computer vision to track inventory and purchase habits, analyze this data and deliver products based on what it thinks you need.
Per Insider, the fridge can also track expiration dates and suggest recipes based on what’s in your fridge. Since Amazon owns Whole Foods and the U.S.-only Amazon Fresh, Insider says Pulse might even feature some sort of seamless way to order through these venues.
The smart fridge has been in development for about two years, according to Insider. Gopi Prashanth, Amazon’s director of computer and artificial intelligence, is said to be overseeing production. It will apparently use the same tech that powers Amazon’s self-serve ‘Go’ stores, which are currently only available in select U.S. cities.
While this would be Amazon’s first smart home product, it makes a lot of sense. Naturally, it has the potential to bolster the company’s e-commerce business by encouraging people to order from its website or even its other brands. It would also expand the company’s smart home offerings, which include Alexa-powered smart speakers like the Echo.
Insider says Amazon will likely work with other manufacturers on the fridge. Specific partners weren’t mentioned, but it could, in theory, take after Samsung and LG’s respective smart fridges.
Of course, the presence of cameras and other tracking technology raises questions about privacy. Specifically, there may be some people who aren’t comfortable with a fridge so closely monitoring what they’re eating and even making food choices for them.
Ultimately, though, we’ll have to wait and see from Amazon itself. The e-commerce giant declined to comment to The Verge, so it remains to be seen when — or even if — Project Pulse will even be unveiled.
