Latest News

If you thought the new BlackBerry Q10 was priced a tab bit too high – which retails for $199.99 on a 3-year – then Best Buy might be a good pit stop today. The big box retailer has priced drop the Rogers, Bell and TELUS QWERTY/Touch BB10 device by $50 to $149.99 on a 3-year, but the offer is only valid today (May 24th).

A day after bringing its native version to parity with the beta — and all the nice new features that come with it — Google has once again iterated Chrome beta for Android.

Now on base version 28, the same as the desktop browser, Chrome beta for Android brings in-house language translation to the table, so webpages in languages other than your native tongue will be prompted to be changed. This is a really handy feature that we’ve come to take for granted on the desktop side of things, so having it on mobile is truly great.

In this new version, tablet users will also benefit from the fullscreen browsing experience that phone users have been enjoying since the previous beta. There’s also a new bandwidth-saving feature that Google promises will save up to 50% of data usage on the average cellular connection. It does this by routing traffic through its SPDY proxy, compressing images and other content before sending it to the user. This was previously enabled only through the chrome://flags address, but has since been added to the main branch of Chrome for Android.

Download Chrome beta for Android.

Via: Chrome Releases

Apple’s new iOS 7 will be unveiled at the upcoming WWDC on June 10th. Rumours are that the OS will receive a complete “software overhaul” and scrap the “realistic images” in favour of a “flat” design. 9to5Mac, who’s been incredibly reliable over the years, has written an in-depth piece from insider sources about the upcoming features within iOS 7.

The site reports that the OS will come with a few new features, but mostly sport design enhancements that will see it be “black, white, and flat all over.” Apparently Jony Ive, Apple’s SVP of Industrial Design, wanted to shed the “texture-heavy” iOS of past years (designed by Steve Jobs and former iOS chief Scott Forstall) by making “his mark on every corner of the operating system.”

Some other notable takeaways are that the lock screen will “drop the shiny, transparent time bar on the top of the Lock screen in exchange for a shine-free, black interface. Additionally, the square-grid for entering a pin code has been replaced with round, black buttons with white text and white borders.” In addition, the drop down notifications will be changed to a dark grey/black colour with white text. Apple is apparently also testing new panels/widgets that could see easy access to WiFi, Airplane Mode, and Bluetooth (like on Android).

It’s also rumoured that Apple will possibly announce a new iPhone with upgraded specs (faster processor, better camera, more colour options). Everything will be officially revealed at WWDC in a couple weeks.

Source: 9to5Mac

Samsung’s Galaxy S4 surpassed 10 million in “global channel sales” earlier this week. This milestone made it the fastest selling Android in history, which Samsung claims is selling at a rate of four units per second. The GS4 is available on every Canadian carrier – Rogers, Bell, TELUS, Fido, Virgin, Koodo, WIND, Mobilicity, Videotron, SaskTel, Eastlink, MTS – in both Black Mist and White Frost.

Samsung also confirmed a few new colours are coming, but no specifics for fine our land yet. In their global press release Samsung said they’re “planning to introduce more color variations to meet various consumer tastes and preferences. In addition to the currently available White Mist and Black Forest, new color iterations will be added this summer, including Blue Arctic and Red Aurora, followed by Purple Mirage and Brown Autumn.”

TELUS previously stated they will launch “additional color options to follow later this year,” so we could see at least one of these new flavours arrive on their network. Down in the United States, AT&T opened up pre-orders for Red Aurora, so this colour might be one of the first to arrive here. We’ve reached out to Samsung Canada more details and timing.

Source: Samsung
Via: Twitter

Coming off news of selling 5 million HTC One smartphones, HTC Canada is celebrating by revitalizing their popular trade-in offer. Now with a fancy new name, the “One Phone, One Weekend, Premium Upgrade” starts today until May 27th and could see a credit for your dated smartphone. Depending on what device you have – iPhone 4, iPhone 5, Motorola Razr HD, BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Bold, Optimus G, Galaxy S3, BlackBerry Z10 – HTC is willing to hand over a credit between $100 and $300.

To score this you’ll have to buy a new HTC One and register your device with the promo code of HTC100, then finally mail in “yesterday’s technology.” The HTC One is available on Rogers, Bell, TELUS, Virgin and SaskTel.

Check it out here at HTC Canada.

Shazam 6.0 has been released for iOS, creating a single universal app from two previously-disparate iPhone and iPad versions.

The new release adds an interesting feature called Auto Tagging, which will detect when music is playing in the background an automatically tag the artist and song. If that isn’t desirable, due to battery life concerns, the recognizable Shazam tagging logo is present on all screens in the app.

Shazam has also added a map to the app to show off the most popular tags in specific areas; you can drill down to your location and find which artists or songs are currently most popular.

The company is also expanding is TV tagging focus, and last month they integrated with Rdio to convert tags into full song plays. Shazam is pushing the second screen experience pretty hard, and with this latest version working in the background, it’s a constant reminder that, even when sitting on the couch watching TV or listening to an album, it wants to be a part of your day.

Download Shazam for iOS.

Via: TNW

We reported on MyShoebox when it launched last year, coming from the highly-polished pedigree of Toronto’s Extreme Startups.

The Toronto-based company has launched version 2.0 today for iOS, Android and the web, complete with revamped Windows and OS X applications. The premise behind the service is to cast as wide a net as possible over every digital photo in your life, and to back them up to the cloud in as frictionless a way possible.

There are two price tiers, and neither of them limit the number of photos you upload; the free version limits the quality of each photo, while the paid version at $5/month gives you cross-platform photo backup at original resolution.

With version 2.0, MyShoebox adds tablet support, both on iPad and Android, with the express purpose of making the service as much about discovering old, forgotten photos as it is about backing up current ones. It uses advanced organization algorithms to glean as much information from each photo as possible; you can search using a number of criteria, from place to date, and they’re all arranged in a nice grid pattern.

Google Drive for Android has received a pretty hefty update in version 1.2, bringing it up to par with rival Dropbox in terms of functionality.

The company’s cloud storage offering has been steadily improving, but until now the Android app was less than optimal.

Not only does version 1.2 bring a brand new interface, with a left-side navigation bar and Google’s new consistent three-line icon, but users running Android 3.0 and above can finally download specific files for offline use. This omission was the main thing keeping Drive from being used as my, and I’m sure others’, main cloud storage service.

You can also take quick scans of documents, business cards and letters and Google’s OCR technology will turn as much of the text into searchable content.

There’s also a new photo and file preview screen, which makes peeking into documents or pictures that much easier.

In all, Google Drive for Android is a fantastic app, and while it won’t take over as your go-to document editor — the word and spreadsheet capabilities don’t match dedicated apps like OfficeSuite, for example — it’s great to have in a pinch.

Download Google Drive for Android.

Via: Google Drive Blog

TELUS was first to launch a promo that gave a $75 credit to customers who decided to trade-in their old BlackBerry device. There was a bit of speculation surrounding this promo as one would think it would favour customers to transition to either the new Z10 or Q10, but instead they directed the credit to users signing up on a 3-year contract with a purchase of a white “Samsung Galaxy S III, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy Note II, Samsung Galaxy Ace II X, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPhone 5. All BlackBerry models except BlackBerry Q10 and BlackBerry Z10 are eligible.”

Bell has now hopped on board the exact same promotion, with the $75 credit available on the following white devices “iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy Note II, and Samsung Galaxy S III. All BlackBerry models except BlackBerry Q10 and BlackBerry Z10 are eligible.”

Seems like there’s possibly some serious tension of Rogers having the exclusivity on the White BlackBerry Q10.

Source: Bell

Rdio for Android and iOS have both received identical updates today, bringing them to feature and design parity (though, in truth, the iOS version is still slightly nicer).

In addition to a newly-textured left-side navigation bar, subscribers to Rdio can search the database based on user or label. The former lets you more easily find friends and brands that use the music streaming service, while the latter allows you to filter music based on an entire company, a great way to discover new artists or bands.

Rdio has slowly been making inroads into the extremely competitive streaming music market. With Google releasing its own solution, Play Music All Access, and Apple rumoured to launch a similar model this year, is at an advantage thanks to a robust multi-platform strategy, an incredibly versatile API that was recently used in Twitter #music, an amazing design team (seriously, Rdio is gorgeous) and a general free trial period. While you do need a $9.99/month subscription to continue using it on mobile (there are apps for Android, iOS, BlackBerry and Windows Phone), you can listen for free on the web for up to six months. If you haven’t already tried Rdio, I’d encourage you to do so.

Download Rdio for Android and iOS.

Via: Rdio Blog