Category: Mobile Syrup

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Here are the streaming services you should check out if you cancelled Netflix

Now that Netflix is charging an additional $7.99 to share your password on top of a standard subscription cost ($16.49 for ‘Standard and $20.99 for ‘Premium), many Canadians have opted to cancel their subscription to the streaming service.

If you’re looking to replace Netflix with another streaming service, there are several options out there — and some of them arguably offer better content for a lower price (and you can still share your password).

Below are several platforms work subscribing to if you’ve cancelled Netflix and have a hunger for more content:

Apple TV+

Ted Lasso in chair

Ted Lasso (Image credit: Apple)

The iPhone maker’s streaming service has built up a solid roster of original shows in its first three-plus years, including the smash hit comedy Ted Lasso, psychological thriller Severance, alternative history sci-fi drama For All Mankind and video game workplace sitcom Mythic Quest. And while its original film catalogue is comparatively small beyond a few standouts (namely, the Oscar-winning CODA), the company is also reportedly set to dramatically expand its movie business, particularly through Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Apple TV+ costs $8.99/month. It’s also included in Apple One subscription bundles, which start at $15.95/month.

Crave

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us

The Last of Us (Image credit: HBO)

Bell-owned Crave has its issues, including video bitrate problems and a less-than-stellar app on some platforms, but its content offerings remain impressive.

Along with Crave Original content like Letterkenny and a wide selection of Showtime TV shows like Yellowjackets, the platform also features all of HBO’s originals, including Game of Thrones, The Wire, The Last of Us and new, still-airing shows like Season 4 of Succession.

Crave costs $19.99/month or $199.90/year (Bell recently got rid of Crave’s $9.99 per month Mobile plan.)

Disney+

The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda in a ship

The Mandalorian (Image credit: Lucasfilm)

Arguably the best deal in streaming, Disney+ offers an at times overwhelming amount of content. Along with Marvel movies like Avengers: Endgame, Star Wars TV shows like The Mandalorian and animated films like Soul and Frozen II, the service also features Star, the home of many Hulu titles in regions where the Disney-owned service isn’t available.

Star features TV shows like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Atlanta, The Kardashians, Futurama and more. As far as pure bang for your buck goes, it’s difficult to beat Disney+.

Disney+ costs $11.99/month or $119/year in Canada.

Paramount+

Yellowstone (Image credit: Paramount)

Along with the best video game movie ever, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Paramount+ is home to movies like Jackass Forever, The Godfather and Top Gun: Maverick and TV shows like Tulsa King, Yellowstone and its spin-offs, 1883 and 1923.

The platform doesn’t offer quite as much content as its competitors, but there are still a few gems in its library worth checking out.

Paramount+ costs $9.99 per month in Canada.

Pluto TV

Degrassi: The Next Generation

Degrassi: The Next Generation (Image credit: WildBrain)

Here’s a service that you don’t actually need to subscribe to at all. That’s because Pluto TV is a FAST (free, ad-supported television) channel, so if you’re willing to put up with the occasional commercial, you can get access to a wealth of content at absolutely no cost.

Structurally, the service is laid out like a cable box, so you have channels for “live TV” plus an “on-demand” section. Although it doesn’t have original content, Pluto TV has a decent catalogue of older titles, including everything from Happy Days and the Carol Burnett Show to South Park and Canadian fan-favourite Degrassi: The Next Generation.

Pluto TV is available on a variety of devices, including the web, Android, iOS and smart TVs.

Prime Video

The Boys Season 2 team

The Boys (Image credit: Amazon)

Amazon-owned Prime video is a little different from most streaming services in that it really doesn’t offer a lot of notable content. It’s more of a pack-in bonus that adds value to a standard Amazon Prime subscription. That said, Prime Video does have several TV shows and movies, including Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Boys, The Man in the High Castle, Upload, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power and more.

It’s also worth mentioning that Prime also allows you to subscribe to several ‘Channels’ for an additional fee, including Starz and standalone services like StackTV, Paramount+ and more.

Prime Video costs $9.99/month or $99/year and is included in all Amazon Prime subscriptions.

With files from Patrick O’Rourke and Brad Shankar.

Categories
Mobile Syrup

EA cuts around 800 jobs shortly after reporting major profits

EA has laid off nearly 800 employees, or six percent of its roughly 12,900-person workforce.

Andrew Wilson, the company’s CEO, confirmed the cuts in a blog post on Wednesday.

“As we drive greater focus across our portfolio, we are moving away from projects that do not contribute to our strategy, reviewing our real estate footprint, and restructuring some of our teams,” Wilson wrote of the layoffs. This follows EA’s cuts of 200 Apex Legends QA testers last month, although it’s not clear if EA is counting some or all of those people among the six percent.

However, this all comes just two months after EA reported earning approximately $7 billion USD ($9.47 billion CAD) in net revenue last year, which works out to $5 billion USD ($6.76 billion CAD) in gross profits, an 18 percent year-over-year increase. Meanwhile, Wilson himself earned $19.9 million USD ($26.9 million CAD) in 2022, which was already made to be about half his 2021 salary due to shareholders taking issue with his executive bonuses. For context, EA reported to the SEC that its median employee income for 2022 was $115,569 USD ($156,372 CAD), meaning Wilson makes roughly 172 times more than those who work below him, on average.

In the blog post, Wilson says EA is offering eligible employees other roles within the company and, “where that’s not possible,” providing severance pay and health benefits to others. It’s currently unclear exactly who among EA’s global workforce has been affected by the layoffs. The publisher has several studios in Canada, in particular, including a flagship Vancouver campus (FIFA and NHL), BioWare Edmonton (Mass Effect) and the Montreal-based Motive (this year’s Dead Space).

For now, Wilson is singling out the success of FIFA 23, which he says is pacing to be the franchise’s biggest title, as well as Apex Legends and The Sims. One month from now, the company also has Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the highly-anticipated sequel to 2019’s best-selling Jedi: Fallen Order. Clearly, then, the company isn’t hurting, which makes these layoffs all the more disappointing.

EA’s layoffs follow many other recent cuts in the tech sector, including thousands at Meta, Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

Image credit: EA

Source: EA

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Anti shoulder surfer security features to come with Android 14

The latest Android 13 QPR3 Beta 2 dropped this week, and it brought with it several bug fixes and a minor improvement for Adaptive Charging.

Although Android 13 QPR3 beta 2 doesn’t come with a ton of changes, it includes hints about a new feature that could be incredibly useful for those who are always wary of shoulder surfers.

According to XDADevelopers, enhanced PIN privacy will make its way to Android devices with the next major OS update — Android 14. The new “enhanced PIN privacy” toggle in Android 13 QPR3 Beta 2 is located in Settings > Security & privacy > Device lock. What the feature essentially does is that it disables the animations, keystrokes and numeric previews as you enter your PIN on the screen. This is particularly helpful when you’re unlocking your phone in a crowded place and are wary of someone else reading your keystrokes.

Until Android 14 comes out, the “enhanced PIN privacy” feature is likely to remain a Pixel-exclusive feature.

From what we know so far, Android 14 will also bring separate live wallpapers for Home and Lock screens, alongside separate ring and notification volume settings in the new OS. Android 14 is expected to come out sometime this fall, so users wouldn’t have to wait too long to make use of the security feature.

Source: XDADevelopers

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Reddit banned record number of posts, accounts, featuring harmful content in 2022: report

Reddit removed more offensive content from its website in 2022 than the year prior, its recently released transparency report shows.

Roughly four percent of all content shared on the platform was removed for violating Reddit’s Content policy or community rules.

Copyright notices increased by 43 percent, and removal requests from government and law enforcement agencies increased by 51 percent. Legal requests for account information from this source went up by 61 percent.

Image credit: Reddit

In March 2022, the company changed its rules to make it easier for people to report prohibited non-consensual intimate media. This led to the company banning 473 percent more subreddits concerning the matter in 2022 compared to the year prior. User accounts suspended for violating the rule increased to 244 percent.

“Looking at the data as a whole, it’s likely this increase is primarily reflective of our updated policies and increased effectiveness in detecting and removing non-consensual intimate media from Reddit,” the company said in the report.

The company also removed more than 80,000 pieces of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), increasing the figure by 874 percent compared to the year prior.

Reddit partially credits this figure to hiring more staff focused on combating CSAM. “Additionally, we added new ways to share media (such as images in chat and comments) on the platform,” Reddit said in its report.

The company says it will also share these reports more often, moving towards biannual publishing focused on six months of data each time.

Source: Reddit

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Twitter rolls out three new tiers for API access

Twitter has announced new details to access its API, and it’s leading to headaches for some.

As a recap, the company pulled the once-free Application Programming Interface (API), which lets third parties use public data from Twitter, on February 2nd.

The re-vamped version offers developers three tiers.

Free allows for write-only use cases with 1,500 tweets a month at no cost. Basic has 3,000 monthly tweets at the user level or 50,000 tweets on the app at $100 USD/month (about $135 CAD).

Enterprise offers “managed services, complete streams, and access that meets your specific needs,” the Twitter Dev account announced without specifying a price. However, some sources say it could cost upwards of $42,000 a month USD (nearly $57,000 CAD).

As The Verge reports, the new tiers mean some developers will have to end their projects. Luca Hammer, the developer behind Accountanlaysis, a tool that lets users evaluate Twitter accounts, said he would shut down his operations.

Twitter will shut down older tier versions “over the next 30 days.”

Source: Twitter Via: The Verge 

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Bing AI starts placing ad links within responses

Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot is now showing embedded ad links in response to some user queries.

Microsoft confirmed that it is testing “placing ads in the chat experience,” though ads are not showing up for all users yet. The company says this will allow it to “share the ad revenue with partners whose content contributed to the chat response.”

At present, the ads take the form of linked citations and “Learn More” sections below Bing’s responses. However, in the future, Microsoft might launch a more interactive experience where hovering over an advertiser’s link will display additional links from its website, according to Engadget. Additionally, for its Microsoft Start partners, the company is also looking to place “rich caption of Microsoft Start licensed content beside the chat answer helping to drive more user engagement.”

Monetizing the Bing chatbot was always on the cards, and with over 100 million daily active users, Microsoft has a significant opportunity to capitalize on the platform. As noted in the blog post sharing the details, one-third of these users are new to Bing, presenting a new target audience for advertisers. It will be interesting to see how users react to them and how Microsoft continues to develop its advertising strategy within the platform.

Image credit: Microsoft 

Source: Microsoft, Via: Engadget

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Roku announces plans to reduce its workforce by six percent

Roku will lay off 200 employees to improve its operating expenses and focus on projects leading to a “higher return on investment.”

The move is part of the company’s restructuring plan and will impact six percent of its workforce, according to a recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

As The Verge reports, this is Roku’s second round of layoffs in recent months. The company laid off 200 employees in the U.S. in November.

The recent filing doesn’t specify where impacted employees are located. Roku has offices worldwide, including one in Toronto, Ontario, its website shows.

Roku’s layoffs follow the steps of several other tech companies, including Amazon, Disney, and Microsoft.

Image credit: Roku 

Source: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Via: The Verge 

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Chatr offering 4GB of bonus data for 12 months, free month of service

Rogers’ Chatr Mobile is offering 4GB of bonus data per month for 12 months and a free month of service on select plans.

Until April 3rd, you can get the 4GB data bonus on plans $35/mo and up and the one-month credit on all of the provider’s plans.

Unfortunately, the 4GB bonus isn’t quite as good as it seems at first glance. Per the fine print, the 4GB bonus is only available with a “new activation and auto-pay,” and the bonus “includes [the] 2GB auto-pay bonus.” So realistically, you’re only getting 2GB of bonus data since if you were to sign up with auto-pay, you’d get a 2GB bonus anyway.

As for the free month, Chatr says it’s a credit equal to one month’s plan fee and is “applied on [the] 2nd anniversary date.”

Like most Chatr deals, both of these offers will expire if an account becomes inactive or if customers change their plan. With that in mind, customers should make sure to pick a plan they’re going to stick with for the 12 month period.

You can check out the deals here.

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Google will show extreme heat alerts in Search soon

Over the coming months, Google will roll out extreme heat alerts in Search that aim to help people stay safe during heat waves, alongside AI-powered tools to help communities handle hotter temperatures.

According to Google, to stay safe during extreme weather, people often turn to the internet to ask questions. In order to display authoritative and helpful information for scenarios where people search for information on extreme heat, Google will now show alerts that detail when a heat wave is predicted to start and end, tips on staying cool and other health related concerns to be aware of.

“To make sure the information is relevant and accurate, we’re working with the Global Heat Health Information Network (GHHIN),” wrote Google.

Further, according to Google, cities around the world are looking for ways to prevent “heat islands,” which are urban areas with higher temperatures due to structures like roads and buildings that absorb heat and re-emit it.

Tree Canopy is part of Google’s Environmental Insights Explorer, and it combines AI and aerial imagery to help cities understand their current tree coverage and better plan future urban forestry initiatives. “The City of Austin has already used the tool to prioritize planting trees in vulnerable areas of the city and even used it to help place bus shelters to increase shade,” wrote Google.

Now Google has announced that it is expanding Tree Canopy from 14 cities to nearly 350 cities globally, including Toronto, with plans to expand to more cities this year.

Other than that, it is also leveraging its AI algorithms and aerial imagery to help urban planners and governments to identify areas that would benefit the most from ‘cool roofs.’ For reference, cool roofs are designed to reflect sunlight and absorb less heat.

Check out Google’s full blog post to learn more about its initiative to help people stay safe during heat waves.

Image credit: Google

Source: Google

Categories
Mobile Syrup

Anker portable chargers up to 25 percent off today

Anker has some great deals on for those looking for discounts on portable chargers. This might come in handy as the warmer weather hits Canada. Charging on the go is highly underrated.

Below are all of the deals:

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

Source: Amazon Canada