Category: Mobile Syrup

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Mobile Syrup

Rogers to start charging $1/minute for standard long-distance calls to the U.S.

Rogers will soon start charging double for standard long-distance calls to the U.S.

According to its website, the “standard U.S. long-distance pay-per-use rate” will cost $1 a minute starting on April 19th, 2023.

Rogers currently lists its standard call rate to the U.S. at $0.55 a minute.

The company also offers a “preferred rate” for $0.05 a minute. It’s unclear if Rogers will also subject this category to a price increase.

Rogers is implementing the same pricing strategy for its flanker brand Fido and will charge customers $1 a minute for standard long-distance calls to the U.S.

Comparatively, Telus currently charges $0.80 a minute for calls between Canada and the U.S. Bell charges $0.75 a minute, according to its website.

It’s unclear why Rogers has implemented the price hike. MobileSyrup has reached out to the company for an explanation and will provide an update once available.

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Mobile Syrup

Ontario wool farmers spot their blanket in The Last of Us

While watching Episode 8 of HBO’s The Last of Us, Kingston, Ontario wool farmers, Jacob Murray and Rach Hawkshaw, noticed something familiar draped over Joel (via CBC).

Just seconds into the episode, the pair took note of a very familiar-looking green and grey checkered blanket sold by their company, Topsy Farms. According to Murray, an entertainment industry props buyer reached out about purchasing the blanket earlier this year.

After seeing the green and grey blanket in the episode, Murray says he contacted the prop company, and as he expected, it was his brand. In total, the blanket appears roughly 30 times in the episode.

According to Murray, in the time since Episode 8 aired, the blanket has become a sought-after item, but unfortunately, only one was left in stock. However, instead of selling it, Topsy Farms gave it away through a recent contest on social media.

“If you want a blanket that’ll survive to the apocalypse, you need Canadian wool,” said Murray in a recent interview with the CBC.

This isn’t the first time fabric and The Last of Us have combined forces to become a news story only worthy of a Friday blog post. Last Friday, we covered Pedro Pascal, who plays Joel in The Last of Us, strutting around Hollywood wearing a pair of socks from Calgary-based Friday Sock Co.

The Last of Us is now streaming on Crave in Canada.

Image credit: HBO

Source: CBC

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Mobile Syrup

Here’s how to watch Succession season 4 in Canada

If you’ve been eagerly anticipating the finale of the Waystar RoyCo saga, the moment you’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.

Succession Season 5 kicks off Sunday, March 27th at 9pm ET/6am PT on Bell’s Crave and will stream in the same time slot each subsequent week.

This season, Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Shiv (Sarah Snook) and Roman (Kieran Culkin) will find new allies against their father Logan (Brian Cox), including Sandi Furness (Hope Davis), Stewy Hosseini (Arian Moayed) and Nan Pierce (Cherry Jones).

Personally, I’m most interested in how Cousin Greg (Gregory Hirsch) fares when the dust settles. HBO has confirmed season 4 will be the critically-acclaimed TV show’s last.

You can find the trailer for the new season below:

A standard Crave subscription (which also includes HBO content) costs $19.99/month. Bell recently removed the ability to subscribe to Crave’s mobile-only $9.99/month subscription.

Image credit: HBO

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Mobile Syrup

Google’s sleek-looking Pixel Tablet dock showcased in new leak

Google’s Pixel Tablet is expected to launch sometime this year, and with the release drawing closer, we’re starting to see more information leak about the upcoming tablet/smart home hybrid device.

This latest leak from SnoopyTech showcases the Pixel Tablet’s stand. While we’ve seen the tablet and its stand in promotional material in the past, we haven’t caught a glimpse of it from angles like this.

The tablet’s stand features a gray colour that will likely be called ‘Chalk’ and features what looks like the same fabric as other Nest devices. It also looks like it uses the same power supply as the Nest Hub. Finally, there’s a Google ‘G’ logo on the back of the speaker and another on the stand’s surface, alongside a hardware button.

According to a previous rumour, the Pixel Tablet’s ‘Hub Mode’ activates when you place the tablet on the stand, allowing you to assign the dock to a room, similar to other smart home speakers.

It’s unclear when the Pixel Tablet will release, but it will likely release alongside the Pixel 7a at Google I/O on May 10th.

Image credit: Google

Source: @_snoopytech_

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Mobile Syrup

Details about Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset leak

Details regarding Qualcomm’s upcoming flagship chipset, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, have leaked online. It looks like the chip will use new cores from Arm and potentially drop 32-bit support entirely.

The information comes from leaker Kuba Wojciechowski, who shared the details in a Twitter thread. Wojciechowski has previously leaked details of Pixel hardware.

According to Wojciechowski, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is codenamed either ‘Lanai’ or ‘Pineapple.’ The chip will reportedly adopt a 2+3+2+1 layout, differing from the 8 Gen 2’s 1+4+3 layout.

The new configuration breaks down as follows, according to Wojciechowski:

  • 2x Arm codename Hayes (A5xx) “silver” cores
    3x Arm codename Hunter (A7xx) “gold” cores
    2x Arm codename Hunter (A7xx) “titanium” cores
    1x Arm codename Hunter ELP (Xn) “gold+” core

Wojciechowski goes on to note the 8 Gen 3 is the first Qualcomm chip to introduce a ‘titanium’ cluster, but he doesn’t have information on what’s different with the cores. Wojciechowski suggests the cores could have different configurations, like higher cache, or different clock speeds.

He says that the Hunter and Hayes chips are brand new, unannounced CPU cores and that they drop support for 32-bit entirely. That means the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 will be 64-bit only — a significant shift, but one that’s been a long-time coming. Previous leaks suggested Google’s upcoming Pixel Tablet would be 64-bit only, and Google has required apps on the Play Store to use 64-bit architecture for a while.

Finally, Wojciechowski said the 8 Gen 3 will sport an Adreno 750 GPU, which currently has a maximum frequency of 770MHz. The 8 Gen 3 will also support Linux kernel 6.1 and Android 14.

We’ll likely learn more about the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 when Qualcomm unveils it later this year. In the past, Qualcomm held a tech summit in December to unveil its new chips, but last year the event was in November, and rumour has it Qualcomm could reveal the Gen 3 in October this year.

Header credit: Shutterstock

Source: Wojciechowski Via: 9to5Google

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Mobile Syrup

Presto officially replaces TTC tokens as main fare system

Friday, March 24th is the last day TTC tokens will be available to purchase, with Metrolinx’s Presto card entirely taking over paying for the transit system’s fares.

The TTC hasn’t directly sold tokens since late 2019, but some third-party retailers continued to offer them. The TTC says that tokens and tickets will still be accepted.

Presto cards can be loaded with money or a monthly pass at Fare Vending Machines, Shoppers Drug Mart locations, through the Presto app and online at prestocard.ca. It’s worth noting that the Presto system also works with iPhone/Apple Watch Apple pay payments and Google Pay via a credit card.

According to the TTC, Presto cards now account for more than 90 percent of fares on Toronto’s transit system.

Source: TTC

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Mobile Syrup

Staples looking to fill 800 positions arising from Bell partnership

Staples Canada has launched an effort to fill hundreds of new positions due to its partnership with Bell.

Under the multi-year agreement, Bell’s services, along with its flanker brands Virgin Plus and Lucky Mobile, will be for sale through kiosks at Staples locations. The services are expected to begin in the spring.

The company is looking to fill 800 positions. Staples’ website shows several postings for wireless sales consultants, along with other jobs, across the country.

More information is available on Staples’ website.

Image credit: CNW Group/Staples Canada ULC

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Mobile Syrup

CRTC orders Rogers, Bell, to share details on network-sharing agreements

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has directed Rogers and Bell to share details on agreements with Vidéotron and EBOX.

Rogers’ agreement with Québecor subsidiary Vidéotron is part of the company’s $26-billion merger with Shaw. Vidéotron is seeking approval to acquire Freedom Mobile for $2.85 billion from Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne.

Rogers has said it will lease its broadband network to the company at a lower rate than wholesale. However, TekSavvy has argued the deal violates the Telecommunications Act.

The Commission wants Rogers to share specifics on the wholesale service or agreement it will provide to Vidéotron. Almost nothing is known about the selection process that led Rogers and Shaw to pick Vidéotron as the company it would sell Freedom to.

TekSavvy’s application also points to preferential treatment with Bell and its recently acquired company EBOX. The CRTC has also directed Bell to share details of any agreements between the two brands.

Both Rogers and Bell have previously stated the agreements aren’t preferential.

The CRTC says it must receive the responses by April 11th.

Source: CRTC

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Mobile Syrup

New ChatGPT browser plugin allows it to retrieve information post 2021

San Francisco-based OpenAI has announced that it has begun to gradually roll out plugins for ChatGPT.

One of the new plugins offers access to third-party knowledge sources and databases from within the chatbot. It’s worth noting that the plugin will initially be available in alpha to developers and subscribers of OpenAI’s premium ChatGPT Plus plan. “We plan to roll out larger-scale access over time,” wrote OpenAI. 

The new plugin allows the chatbot to browse the internet, expanding the amount of content and information it can discuss, going beyond the training models to new information from the present day.

One of the main drawbacks of ChatGPT is that it is trained on information until the year 2021. The new web browser plugin can retrieve recent information, and as an example, OpenAI asked ChatGPT a question about the recent Oscars.

OpenAI acknowledges that a web-enabled ChatGPT could perform undesirable behaviours, such as sending fraudulent and spam emails, bypassing safety restrictions, and increasing the capabilities of bad actors. Nevertheless, the company has implemented several safeguards to prevent such behaviours. “This scopes the browsing plugin to be useful for retrieving information, but excludes “transactional” operations such as form submission which have more surface area for security and safety issues.” wrote OpenAI.

“Browsing retrieves content from the web using the Bing search API. As a result, we inherit substantial work from Microsoft on (1) source reliability and truthfulness of information and (2) ‘safe-mode’ to prevent the retrieval of problematic content. The plugin operates within an isolated service, so ChatGPT’s browsing activities are separated from the rest of our infrastructure.”

In addition to the browser plugin, OpenAI is also introducing a “Code Interpreter” plugin that can use Python, handle uploads to ChatGPT and download the results. According to OpenAI, use cases where using code interpreter is especially useful are:

  • Solving mathematical problems, both quantitative and qualitative
  • Doing data analysis and visualization
  • Converting files between formats

OpenAI aims to develop more plugins and wants to bring them to a broader audience in the future. Check out OpenAI’s blog post about the plugins here.

Image credit: OpenAI, Shutterstock

Source: OpenAI

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Mobile Syrup

Google might fix Android’s auto brightness so you don’t get blinded at night

Have you ever turned on your Android phone in a dark room only to be blinded like you just got flashbanged in a Call of Duty game? Well, Google might finally fix the problem.

Android expert Mishaal Rahman shared in a thread of information gleaned from the Android 13 QPR2 source code a link to the Google Git detailing work on a change to Android’s auto brightness (via Android Police). Git, for those unfamiliar, is a system used for tracking changes to code. These changes would impact how Android phones adjust brightness when users turn on the screen.

Currently, Android doesn’t take into account the ambient brightness until after you turn on the screen, which is what causes that blinding brightness. When the screen turns on, it’s set to whatever brightness level it was when you turned off the screen and, chances are, it was a lot brighter when you turned off the screen.

Per Rahman’s findings, Android could start using the brightness sensor to “determine the screen’s initial brightness,” which should mean that phone screens will come on at a reasonable brightness for your current environment.

Unfortunately, it’s not entirely clear when this will actually roll out to users. It could arrive in a Pixel Feature Drop or end up rolling out with Android 14 later this year.

Whenever it arrives, it’ll be yet another small but important improvement to Android’s auto brightness system, which has long had issues with consistency and reliability.

Source: Google Git Via: Mishaal Rahman, Android Police