Best Buy Canada’s refreshed list of Top Deals is live now with discounts on Google smart home products, Lenovo and HP touchscreen laptops, Samsung 4K TVs, Canon DSLRs and more.
The sale starts today, Friday, March 24th and ends on Thursday, March 30th.
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At Sony’s recent CES 2023 keynote, the head of the company’s gaming division, Jim Ryan, made a highly anticipated announcement that gamers had been eagerly awaiting.
After months of PS5 shortages, Ryan declared that the supply of PlayStation 5 consoles has improved and that the shortage is now over, noting “PS5 supply improved towards the end of last year… everyone who wants a PS5 should have a much easier time finding one at retailers globally, starting from this point forward.”
Ryan also revealed that December 2022 marked the biggest month of PlayStation 5 sales ever, which is undoubtedly a testament to the console’s enduring popularity.
Those interested in a deal can head over to Amazon Canada today as the Disc Edition of God of War: Ragnarök is currently on sale for $60 off, bringing the cost down to $669.96.
The release of Sony’s PlayStation 5 in November 2020 was met with a huge demand from gamers, who were seeking an upgrade from the previous generation of consoles. However, the release also coincided with the peak of the pandemic and global supply chain disruptions, leading to scarcity and exorbitant prices from resellers.
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.
The Canadian Intellectual Property Office has granted Proto a patent for its holographic devices and methods.
The company is responsible for creating a communications platform that displays individuals through holographs. It offers a self-contained, cloud-based device that can display images in real-time.
“This recognition of the originality of Proto’s hardware and methods means so much to our whole team of executives and engineers,” David Nussbaum, the CEO and inventor of Proto, said in a statement. “Canada has been home to some truly memorable accomplishments for Proto — this patent will help us protect our IP and continue to innovate.”
Founded in 2018, the company has Verizon and T-Mobile in the U.S., among other companies. In Canada, Cadillac Fairview, the Canadian Walk of Fame, and Rogers (through NHL events with SportsNet) have utilized the technology.
Apple is reportedly testing its Autonomous Driving features on California’s roads, according to data from the California DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles), via AppleInsider.
The California DMV requires companies to register key details such as the number of drivers and vehicles used for autonomous driving testing. Apple has 67 vehicles and 201 drivers registered for testing autonomous driving features on public roads, the DMV says.
According to MacReports, Apple had 196 authorized testers in January 2023 and has since added five new drivers to test the Autonomous Driving features. The DMV’s data indicates that Apple is not a part of the list of driverless testers that is testing for completely autonomous cars with no drivers. However, the company is committed to testing self-driving cars with a driver present. Apple is registered alongside other manufacturers such as Mercedes, Waymo, Tesla, Nvidia and Zoox.
Apple reported one minor collision during the first quarter of 2023, in which the vehicle’s tire and rim made contact with a curb, and authorities were not involved. Since registering, Apple has reported a total of 16 collisions in California.
Rumours of an Apple Car have been swirling for years, with the company reportedly working on autonomous driving technology and even acquiring self-driving car startups. Apple’s car layout includes a steering wheel and pedals, contrary to previous reports indicating that the vehicle wouldn’t include conventional car control input.
The car will reportedly be powered by a custom Apple chip and will feature a price tag under $100,000 USD (roughly $137,000 CAD), ensuring it’s a luxury vehicle. The Apple car isn’t likely to come out before 2026.
The old Twitter verified checkmark system is officially coming to an end next month.
In a tweet, the social network confirmed that it will begin removing the legacy verified checkmarks on April 1st. Going forward, the only way to obtain a checkmark will be to pay for one. Individuals can simply pay $8.75 CAD/month (annual plan) or $10/month (monthly plan), while organizations will have to apply and fork over $1,000 USD (about $1,372 CAD).
On April 1st, we will begin winding down our legacy verified program and removing legacy verified checkmarks. To keep your blue checkmark on Twitter, individuals can sign up for Twitter Blue here: https://t.co/gzpCcwOpLp
Since acquiring Twitter last year, Elon Musk has accused the old verification system of being “corrupt” without providing any actual evidence. He’s also been looking at Twitter Blue subscriptions as an additional revenue stream for a company that has been consistently losing money.
However, many have criticized the shift to the Twitter Blue system for defeating the whole purpose of verification, which was originally intended for public figures, organizations and the like. Now, though, anyone can simply pay to receive a checkmark. The company had to temporarily pause Blue subscriptions due to users paying for a checkmark and then changing their name to impersonate others.
Elden Ring now supports ray tracing on current-gen consoles and PC as part of update ‘version 1.09.’
To activate ray tracing, head to ‘Game Options’ and then select the option to turn on Ray Tracing. For PC, head to ‘Graphics,’ then enable ‘Ray Tracing.’
In the patch notes, Bandai Namco says frame rate and resolution may be impacted while playing with ray tracing turned on.
Here are the technical specifications you might want to check out for those on PC.
Over the March 17th weekend, Blizzard launched a closed beta for its upcoming top-down role-playing game, Diablo IV, and I spent a lot of time playing it. Development of the game is still in progress, so I won’t be reviewing it yet, but I have a lot of thoughts about my experience so far.
Diablo IV is interesting because it shifts away from the traditional RPG style of previous Diablo titles and borrows more from massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. The game’s world is big, looks great, and offers a lot you can do with your character. However, I also encountered several of the negative aspects tied to big online multiplayer titles, including long queue times and the looming fear of a pricey battle pass.
With this in mind, Diablo IV likely won’t be for everyone, including maybe even long-time fans of the series.
Sanctuary
Lilith, the Mother of Sanctuary (the world Diablo is set in), has returned, and your character will do whatever it takes to defeat the demon daughter of Hatred. This is the premise of Diablo IV‘s story, which is filled with entertaining cutscenes and, so far, surprisingly interesting twists and turns.
If I’m not playing a shooter or an ultra-difficult game like Elden Ring, I’m typically playing games that feature interesting storylines and cutscenes, and Diablo IV’s beta offered this in spades. During my time with the beta, I made it to the end of the playable campaign — there was still a lot for me to do outside of it. I particularly enjoyed Diablo IV‘s cutscenes because they showcased beautiful animations with detailed character emotions. It was thrilling to see Lilith first emerge from a bloody ritual. The Mother of Sanctuary looks haunting and beautiful, and when the full game launches, I’m looking forward to learning more about her, as she seems to be able to bend people to her will.
I also really like Diablo IV‘s overall art style. While Diablo III features a more hand-painted, cartoony graphical style, Diablo IV utilizes hand-crafted renders that offer a great blend of fantasy and realism that throw back to the look of Diablo and Diablo II.
Having recently played Weird West, I found that the two titles have several similarities, including their top-down gameplay and graphical style. Further, Sanctuary offers an eerily-dark sense of fantastical whimsy. For instance, part of the map is a frozen tundra, with a blizzard that renders snow beautifully without making it too distracting. At the same time, there’s a forest area with dreary yet charming trees — and tree monsters that could be described as monstrous versions of Middle Earth’s Ents.
While Diablo IV‘s creatures are overall cool, I grew tired of repeatedly seeing the same monsters towards the end of my time with the beta. I’m hoping the full game offers more variety in enemy types.
It’s worth noting that I’d occasionally encounter too many enemies on the screen at once, which can quickly become overwhelming, but in most cases, this can be solved with a few moments of spell-casting.
Earth, Wind and Fire
Speaking of spell-casting, I played as a sorcerer created from the ground up with the game’s character customization system. The customizer offers three classes: Barbarian, Sorcerer and Rogue. Necromancer and Druid will be available during the next Diablo IV beta. There are eight face presets, two body types, four face variations, 11 hairstyles, many skin tones, jewelry and more. As a Black person, I was able to make my character look Black, which I always appreciate. However, there aren’t many Black hairstyle options. By comparison, even Elden Ring’s character customization offers more depth.
Moving on from character customization, I selected the Sorcerer class because without spell-casting, what’s the point of a fantasy game? I’d heard that Sorcerers are Diablo IV‘s glass-cannon character, as they do a lot of damage but can’t take a hit and might have issues early on. I didn’t find being a sorcerer all that difficult and didn’t die until I reached level 23 after being a little too confident while completing a dungeon.
I like that Diablo IV offers so many skill options; being able to cast a meteor, followed by a blizzard, and then shoot chain lightning not only looks cool but is also satisfying. Further, you can swap out a skill you don’t like with another, allowing you heavily customize your build — as long as you have ample in-game cash.
Sorcerers offer several enchantment slots, allowing you to enchant your character with a spell of your choosing. I decided to enchant my character with the Blizzard spell, causing a blizzard to form over my head every 15 seconds without spending any mana. I also tried slotting in spells like Fireball, which causes every few spells to feature an explosion, and this lightning teleport spell, which replaces the simple dodge mechanic with a teleport.
During the beta, you can only enchant one of your spells, but levelling your character to level 30 unlocks another slot. However, you’ll need to wait until the full game to use this feature.
Like the Sorcerer’s enchant ability, each class has its own special mechanics. The Barbarian, for instance, can use up to four different weapons simultaneously.
You can only slot in roughly six of these skills (or spells for Sorcerers), but your character can also have passive skills, and for sorcerers, the enchantment mechanic offers the player a lot to play with and try out. The robust amount of skills can also make it so that you and your friend can play the same class but ultimately have none of the same skills unlocked, which I appreciated. With Diablo IV being MMO-like, it’s likely that specific “meta builds” (builds that the community deems the best) will quickly take over, but it’s great there are enough options to still make your character strong if you want to diverge from that path.
There are also many different ways to customize the look of your characters, including weapons and armour that offer different stat boosts and effects.
Possibly too online?
Diablo IV feels like an MMORPG, which differs from previous Diablo titles. Like Diablo III, you’ll need a solid internet connection because you can only play the game online. While I didn’t have any friends join me over the weekend, your friends can enter your world, just like Diablo III. Where IV differs from its predecessor is that you’ll actually see random players in your Sanctuary playing alongside you.
You’ll also encounter other players in your town, which makes going to your weaponsmith or blacksmith a crowded experience. Further, you’ll also see characters interacting with enemies in the world, and you can join them in fighting creatures if you’d like. However, you won’t run into random players in dungeons, which I appreciated because I’m not interested in completing a dungeon with a group of randoms.
Grab your allies and get ready. Ashava's hungry. #DiabloIV's first World Boss spawns four times during Open Beta Early Access this weekend. pic.twitter.com/b1dQNUIpuu
There are also raids where you and your friends can try to defeat World Bosses. Over the weekend, players could fight the World Boss Ashava. Unfortunately, I missed out on this as raids only happen at certain times of the day. Some players reportedly got destroyed by Ashava, and I look forward to taking on World Bosses in the final game.
While MMOs are great, they aren’t for everyone. Given Blizzard is behind the biggest MMORPG ever, World of Warcraft, I have faith that the developer knows what it’s doing. However, on the beta’s launch day, I tried logging into the game and was forced to wait over an hour to get in due to queue times, and this was after several failed login attempts. I also encountered several server crashes that completely booted me from the game.
You will not survive alone.
Take on World Boss Ashava the Pestilent now in the #DiabloIV Early Access Open Beta, and again at 11pm and 1am PT.
This beta was only open to those who pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition of Diablo IV, along with media and streamers who received a code, and there were already long queue times. It’s likely that the situation will get worse with the upcoming Open Beta on March 24th-26th. It’s also possible that if the game gets big seasonal updates, we might also see long queue times on those days. That said, the queue times weren’t bad all weekend, and after that first day, the longest I had to wait was 10 minutes.
It’s also worth noting that I’m concerned about how the battle pass system for the title will work. If it’s anything like Overwatch 2‘s battle pass, it won’t be pay-to-win and will instead focus on costly cosmetics.
If you’re like me and not a big fan of MMOs like WoW or Final Fantasy XIV, you’re probably a bit concerned about sharing your RPG experience beyond a close group of a few friends. This is a valid concern, and I’m interested to see how Diablo IV‘s MMO-like features play out in the long-term.
Final thoughts
All tales of woe have to start somewhere. Welcome to Fractured Peaks. #DiabloIV
Overall, I had a lot of fun with Diablo IV‘s closed beta. It features cool cutscenes, a pretty world and ample customization. The variety of spells and interesting monsters also had me returning throughout the weekend. Knowing that there are still some spells I have yet to use and two other classes still to try out has me excited to check out the upcoming open beta and the final game.
I just hope I won’t be waiting for hours in queue times this weekend.
If you can’t check it out this weekend, Diablo IV launches on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and PC on June 6th.
Ford Motor’s electric vehicle (EV) division has suffered losses of $3 billion ($4.1 billion CAD) before taxes over the past two years, owing to the company investing heavily in the new technology. The information comes as part of figures released on Thursday, March 23rd, in the company’s financial results.
The company has a new way of reporting its financial results where it separates its EV, profitable internal combustion, and commercial vehicle operations. Under its EV operation, Ford is expected to lose a similar amount of capital this year as well. According to the report, the EV unit is expected to be profitable by 2026.
Just like any new endeavour, Ford chief financial officer John Lawler said that the EV unit should be viewed as a startup. “As everyone knows, EV startups lose money while they invest in capability, develop knowledge, build (sales) volume and gain (market) share,” he said. The EV unit is currently working on second and third-generation electric vehicles and already offers three EVs for sale in the US: the Mustang Mach E SUV, the F-150 Lightning pickup, and an electric Transit commercial van.
Despite the losses, Ford has announced plans to build four new battery factories and a new vehicle assembly plant, as well as spending heavily on raw materials to build EVs. By the end of 2023, the company expects to produce 600,000 electric vehicles per year, increasing to 2 million per year by the end of 2026.
“After 120 years, we’ve essentially re-founded Ford,” said Lawler . “We’re embracing technology and competitive disruption in our industry, fundamentally changing how we’re thinking, how we’re making decisions, and how we’re running the company.”
