This week’s top tech news: Bell’s bad week and Gemini comes to Canada [Antenna]

It’s been a rough week in Canadian tech and, in particular, for Bell employees. MobileSyrup broke the news that Bell would be shuttering The Source’s Barrie, Ontario headquarters, closing stores, and laying off employees in the wake of the Best Buy Express rebrand. Then, the telecom giant announced another 4,800 layoffs as part of a larger restructuring effort.

Meanwhile, Google finally brought its Bard chatbot to Canada under the rebranded Gemini name. During the announcement, the search giant admitted Bill C-18 was one reason why it delayed the launch. Check out the news below or subscribe here to get Antenna in your inbox every Friday.

Happy Friday! We're back with another edition of Antenna and ohhh boy, do we have a doozy of a newsletter for you this week. Here are the highlights: - Bell's bad week: Bell was in the news a lot this week and for a variety of (mostly) bad news. That includes job cuts, closing The Source's headquarters (more job losses) and more. 🤖 - Gemini finally comes to Canada: Google brought the AI chatbot formerly known as Bard to Canada under new Gemini branding. The company also admitted it delayed bringing Gemini to Canada over the government's Bill C-18. - Apple's Vision Pro is apparently a $3,500 chastity belt. - Read to the end to win a phone (or just click here).     Bell cutting 4,800 jobs under restructuring plan Bell is laying off nine percent of its workforce, a total of 4,800 positions including nearly 800 contractors in the company's biggest restructuring in 30 years. Bell says the move will save it between $150 and $200 million. Read more     Bell to close The Source headquarters, lay off employees following Best Buy Express rebrand Bell confirmed it will wind down operations at the retailer's Barrie, Ontario-based headquarters over several months. Read more   Bell touts 2023 as Crave’s best year while it lays off thousands Bell says Crave usage is up 8 percent year over year, but subscriber growth appears to have stagnated, with the company reporting about 3.1 million total subscribers -- about the same as the last few earnings reports. Read more     Google rebrands Bard to Gemini, launches it in Canada Google admitted the delay was related to getting Québécois right and issues surrounding Bill C-18. And while it's great Gemini is finally here, Canadians are still missing out on the full experience.       Tesla cuts the price of the Model Y by $4,000 in Canada Along with the regular and Long Range versions, the Model Y Performance got a price cut too. This brings all Model Y options low enough that they qualify for Canada's iZEV incentive. Reminder: Prime Video Canada will now bombard you with ads if you don’t pay up Starting this week, Prime Video will start showing ads on its streaming platform unless you pay an extra $2.99/mo for ad-free streams. You can’t watch immersive porn on Apple’s Vision Pro Sorry, you can't use those high-resolution displays to get off.         Reviews this week     OnePlus 12R Review: A new mid-range challenger appears A mid-range contender with more than a few compromises. Read it now   ZWO’s SeeStar S50 makes astrophotography accessible to all The SeeStar S50 is a great gadget to complement traditional astrophotography, but it can't replace it. Read it now   The Steam Deck OLED is a worthwhile upgrade over the original This isn't the Steam Deck 2 some were likely hoping for, but the upgrades are welcome. Read it now         Contest Win a Samsung Galaxy S24+ with Freedom Mobile

Please add info@mobilesyrup to your address book to ensure our emails reach your inbox. If you received this email from a friend and would like to subscribe to our email list, click here. If you’d like to stop getting emails, you can unsubscribe | Read our privacy policy ©2023 Mobile Syrup. 99 Atlantic Avenue, 4th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M6K 3J8. All rights reserved View this email in your browser