Author: Mobile Syrup

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Mobile Syrup

PM ‘surprised’ by Google’s test to block news access for some Canadians

June 11, 2019, Brazil. In this photo illustration the Google News logo is displayed on a smartphone.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is taking aim at Google for limiting some Canadians’ access to news content. 

“It really surprises me that Google has decided that [it] would rather prevent Canadians from accessing news than actually paying journalists for the work they do,” Trudeau said at a news conference last week. “I think that’s a terrible mistake and I know Canadians expect journalists to be well paid for the work they do.”

Google’s move is a possible response to Bill C-18. Known as the Online News Act, the bill will make platforms, including Google, pay news sites for publishing their content. The company told The Canadian Press the test only impacts four percent of Canadians and focuses on the search engine and Google Discover on Android.

Google further defended its actions, stating it conducts thousands of tests each year.

“We’ve been fully transparent about our concern that C-18 is overly broad and, if unchanged, could impact products Canadians use and rely on every day,” a Google spokesperson told Cartt.ca. “We remain committed to supporting a sustainable future for news in Canada and offering solutions that fix Bill C-18.”

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: The Canadian Press Via: Cartt.ca 

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Mobile Syrup

The Nothing Phone (2) will feature a flagship Qualcomm chip

The Nothing Phone (2) is likely a flagship device, unlike its predecessor, which is mid-range at best.

The Nothing Phone (1) featured a mid-range Snapdragon 778G+ chipset. The upcoming device, however, will sport a flagship Qualcomm chipset, as shared by the company at the MWC event in Barcelona, Spain (via Android Police).

The company did not specify which chip exactly, but it will likely be the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 2 chipset powering the Nothing Phone (2). This adds credence to a previous leak by MySmartPrice that suggested that the device will run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 series chipset “which is yet to be announced.”

It is also very likely that the Nothing Phone (2) will cost more than its predecessor. At launch in July 2022, the device cost £399 (roughly $656.12 CAD)

Other reported leaks about the upcoming phone indicate that it will feature a slightly larger 5,000mAh battery, in comparison to the 4,500mAh battery in the Nothing Phone (1), along with 12GB of RAM and 256GB internal storage.

We know that the Nothing Phone (2) will launch in the U.S. later this year. In an interview with Inverse, Pei said that the device will arrive later this year and that the company is “developing a smartphone that’s more premium than the Nothing Phone (1).” If the device is coming to the United States, we can expect it to likely be available in Canada as well.

The Nothing Phone (2) is expected to be released sometime in the second half of 2023.

Source: Android Police

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Mobile Syrup

Fix for YouTube video causing Pixel crash to roll out in March

We recently reported about a bug that causes the Pixel 6 and 7 series to crash and reboot.

The bug in question involves playing a specific YouTube video, after which the Pixel device automatically crashes and soft-reboots, sometimes resulting in users losing cellular connectivity for a few minutes. The issue first surfaced in a Reddit post made by ‘OGPixel5‘ on Sunday, February 26th.

Now, as first shared by 9to5Google, Google has confirmed that it knows about the problem and is working on a fix. The issue will reportedly be addressed in the March Pixel update.

Google didn’t share details about what’s causing the problem. Back in 2020, an image surfaced on Reddit that caused Android smartphones to crash when it was set as the phone wallpaper. The reasoning behind the crash was that the device was 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 unclear if the YouTube video crash is because of the same issue.

Further, according to 9to5Google, the problem seems to be less prominent on Pixel devices running the Android QPR Beta and Android 14 Developer Preview 1. If you’re not on one of those two builds, it would be prudent to refrain from playing the video. A video of the glitch in action can be found below:

Source: 9to5Google

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Mobile Syrup

Has Netflix stopped you from mooching off your friend’s account yet?

Netflix has announced that if you’re in Canada and you’re using someone else’s account who doesn’t share your IP address, you’ll soon get locked out if you don’t shell out an additional $7.99 per month. However, it seems the streaming platform hasn’t yet locked freeloaders out of their accounts.

On the MobileSyrup team, no one has been locked out of an account. For example, I “borrow” my mother’s Netflix account and so does my roommate, and both of us haven’t experienced any issues — at least not yet.

With this in mind, we have a question: If you’re currently using someone else’s Netflix account, have you been locked out yet?

This poll is solely for those living in Canada, where Netflix’s new policy went into place on February 21st.

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Mobile Syrup

CRTC orders Rogers to disclose redacted details on July outage

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) wants Rogers to share more details on its July 8th outage publicly.

The Toronto-based telecom company filed two responses with the Commission following the outage: the first on July 22nd and the second on August 22nd. However, these responses contained vast amounts of redacted information. In some cases, Rogers blacked out entire pages.

The first response contained six appendices marked as confidential. Rogers disclosed additional information from this response on August 12th, including sharing one of the six appendices. For months, five remained away from public view. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) argued the move wasn’t appropriate, given Rogers addressed some of the information from these appendices in its responses.

In reply, Rogers said disclosing the files won’t help the public understand the outage or what the company is doing to prevent something similar in the future. The company also said even an abridged version of the documents could lead to security concerns.

Now, the Commission is ordering Rogers to file abridged versions of the confidential appendices. “Rogers is reminded that it is expected to disclose information on the public record to the maximum extent possible, given the immense public interest in understanding the facts surrounding the outage.”

The company also has to file an abridged response to two questions the Commission asked in its second round of questions. Rogers has until March 1st to do so. Parties can ask for additional information associated with Rogers’ response by March 8th, with the company responding to questions by March 15th.

However, Rogers has asked the Commission to extend this deadline to March 8th. The company also suggests that the CRTC push the other two deadlines to March 15th and 23rd.

Source: CRTC

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Mobile Syrup

Samsung S23 series preorders squash S22 sales numbers in multiple markets

Samsung’s latest S-series flagship devices are reportedly selling really well, as indicated by the company’s pre-order sales figures.

The data, which was compiled by Android Police, shows that the S23 series is selling better than its predecessor in markets like Taiwan, India, South Korea, France, and in some Latin American countries.

In Taiwan, Samsung has sold roughly 10 percent more S23 series devices during the preorder period when compared to the S22 series. Growth was even stronger in India with double the preorders than last year.

In Samsung’s home country of South Korea, preorder promotions for the S23 series were available for seven days post-launch. During that time, Samsung sold 1.09 million units of the S23 series, compared to 1.01 million units of the S22 series devices last year. A further breakdown revealed that the S23 Ultra accounted for 60 percent of the sale volume, while the S23 made up 23 percent of S23 series devices sold. The S23 Plus took up 17 percent of the sale volume.

In Europe, only France’s data is available at the moment. According to Samsung, it sold almost double the devices than last year during the preorder period from February 1st to February 16th.

Similarly, S23 preorders were 50 percent higher than last year in Latin America, with a large part of the sales coming from Brazil. “Sales were tracked from February 1 to February 13, and during this period, the S23 Ultra accounted for 59% of preorders in the region,” wrote Android Police.

Samsung has yet to reveal sale numbers for the flagship series in Canada and the U.S., though if other countries are an indication, the S23 series is likely to have outsold the S22 series during the preorder period here as well.

Find out how the S23 series compares to last year’s S22 series here.

Source: Android Police

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Mobile Syrup

Elon Musk and Tesla being sued over misleading self driving claims

Tesla and Elon Musk are being sued by shareholders over misleading self driving claims.

According to the report, Musk and Tesla were sued on Monday, February 27th, with the main reason being the company overstating the effectiveness and safety of Tesla vehicles’ Autopilot and Full Self-Driving tech.

The class action was filed in a San Francisco federal court, with the shareholders saying that the company has defrauded them over the course of the past four years. The technologies in question are suspected as a possible cause of fatal crashes, and capable of causing “a serious risk of accident and injury.”

The shareholders, along with believing in the company’s vision, also want to make money on their investment. According to the suit, the shareholders claim that Tesla’s share price fell multiple times as the truth about the technologies became known, including after investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating Musk’s Autopilot claims.

A recent FSD bug caused the automobile company to recall over 362,000 vehicles. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the FSD bug “may” cause Tesla vehicles to crash. The NHTSA added that FSD allows Teslas to “exceed speed limits or travel through intersections in an unlawful or unpredictable manner increases the risk of a crash.” The vehicle could drive straight through an intersection while in a turn-only and enter an intersection with a stop sign without coming to a complete stop.

The recall caused Tesla’s shares to slide by 5.7 percent on Thursday, February 16th.

The lawsuit is led by shareholder Thomas Lamontagne with Tesla, Musk, Zachary J. Kirkhorn and Deepak Ahuja as the primary defendants. Lamontagne is seeking unspecified damages from Tesla for the February 19th, 2019 to February 17th, 2023 timeframe.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: Reuters

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Mobile Syrup

The Weeknd becomes first artist to hit 100 million monthly listeners on Spotify

Canada’s own The Weeknd has set a new Spotify record.

On February 27th, the Toronto-born singer-songwriter has become the first artist on Spotify to hit 100 million monthly listeners. For context, this is well above the runner-up, Miley Cyrus, who has 82 million monthly listeners. Meanwhile, Taylor Swift comes in at No. 3 with 80 million and Rihanna with 79 million.

This also comes just a few days after he dropped a remix of his 2016 single, “Die For You,” with Ariana Grande. In December, The Weeknd also released “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” for Avatar: The Way of Water, the third highest-grossing movie of all time from fellow Canadian James Cameron.

Notably, this isn’t The Weeknd’s only Spotify record. His 2019 single, “Blinding Lights,” is Spotify’s most-played song ever with more than 3.4 billion streams.

In related news, The Weeknd just dropped a concert special, Live at SoFi Stadium, on Crave. Later this year, he’ll also co-star in The Idol, an upcoming HBO drama he co-created with Sam Levinson (Euphoria).

Source: Spotify

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Mobile Syrup

FromSoftware announces Elden Ring DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree

It’s time to return to the Lands Between with a new Elden Ring expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree.

FromSoftware and Bandai Namco haven’t shared much about the upcoming DLC, simply tweeting that it’s “currently in development” alongside concept art.

We can see in the image what looks like a dying or corrupted Erdtree in the background. There also seems to be a steed that resembles Torrent that’s being ridden by a blonde character. The character may be Miquella, Queen Marika, or even Melina with longer hair if some time has passed.

The official Japanese site confirms that the DLC will be coming to all versions of Elden Ring, including PS4, PS5, Windows PC via Steam, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. FromSoftware also states it’ll be some time before they share more, so a release in the coming months doesn’t seem likely.

Image credit: Bandai Namco

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Mobile Syrup

OnePlus foldable to arrive in ‘second half of 2023’

OnePlus’ foldable smartphone is no longer just a concept.

During OnePlus’ Cloud 11 Launch Event, the company teased its foldable smartphone and revealed a Q3 2023 release schedule.

Now, on day two of the MWC event in Barcelona, Spain, the Shenzhen-based company confirmed that the foldable is indeed in the making, and should arrive in the second half of 2023.

“Our first foldable phone will have the signature OnePlus fast and smooth experience,” said Kinder Liu, president and COO of OnePlus, via Android Police. “It must be a flagship phone that doesn’t settle because of its folding form, in terms of industrial design, mechanical technology, and other aspects. We want to launch a device that aims to be at the pinnacle experience of today’s foldable market.”

Other than that, not much else was revealed about the upcoming foldable. OnePlus’ foldable will likely look similar to the foldable handsets available at Oppo, like its Find N and the Find N2. OnePlus and Oppo share an R&D department, so it’s possible that the company will use its resources.

The company also showed off a concept OnePlus 11 device with active water cooling at the event in Barcelona.

Via: Android Police