One of the more popular items this year — even before Boxing Day — are Amazon’s streaming Fire TV sticks. These are still on sale and can put up to 40 percent back into your pocket.
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PNP Games’ Boxing Week sale has Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X titles up to 50 percent off, as shared by @Lbabinz on Twitter.
It’s worth noting that all the titles mentioned below are physical titles, and PNP Games’ sale doesn’t offer any digital games.
Rogers’ first round of approval for its $26 billion merger with Shaw received little pushback.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) held a hearing to discuss the broadcast aspects of the merger in November 2021, providing its approval, with conditions, in March 2022.
The companies also need approval from Innovation and Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and the Competition Bureau. That hasn’t been as straightforward.
The Competition Bureau has been a strong voice of opposition, stating the merger will lead to higher wireless bills, among other issues, for Canadians. The sale of Shaw-owned Freedom Mobile to Québecor subsidiary Vidéotron for $2.85 billion did little to appease concerns.
Representatives from the bureau wrapped up a four-week tribunal hearing with lawyers from Rogers, Shaw, and Québecor earlier this month. The bureau argued the tribunal should block the deal in its entirety.
Chief Justice Crampton led a three-member panel that originally hoped to share a decision by Christmas. The tribunal will provide a 24-48 hour notice before issuing the decision.
Rogers and Shaw are on a tight deadline to close the deal by the end of the year. However, they have the option to extend it to January 31st. Anything past that date will see Rogers paying millions to bondholders.
But even if Crampton delivers a win for Rogers and Shaw, the companies will have weeks to get approval from ISED to make their deadline. Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne laid out several conditions that Vidéotron would need to fulfill before its takeover of Freedom Mobile is approved. Québecor’s CEO, Pierre Karl Péladeau, quickly indicated the company would accept the conditions.
Vidéotron can only acquire Freedom if Rogers’ takeover of Shaw receives full approval. It’s unclear if Champagne’s conditions for Vidéotron indicate how he’ll rule on the more significant merger. But if they are, the merger can be expected to close sooner rather than later.
Tech leaders at customer relationship management company Salesforce have shared their top IT predictions, based on market analysis and customers’ perspectives. Salesforce execs provided an overview of the main technologies, economic challenges, and trends that will impact businesses in 2023.
Here are Salesforce’s five IT investment predictions, given the ongoing economic pressures:
Digital Transformation – Organizations that lean too much on cost efficiency risk lagging behind at the time of the next economic upswing. With a looming recession, the pressure to make cuts will be compelling, but the key will be to evaluate how many digital transformation cuts an organization can make without creating a bigger risk.
Automation – Pressure to cut costs will also lead to more investments in automation, designed to create ways of working that can save time and labour, while continuing to drive efficient growth.
Business intimacy – Business intimacy is the process of identifying and understanding broader needs of an organization, including the priorities, the pain points, the investments and, most importantly, the technologies that workers are dealing with, chief information officer (CIO) of Salesforce, Juan Perez, said. That process will be key in 2023, not only to drive better strategies across all departments in the organization, but also for CIOs to bring a new set of skills and operating processes to the executive table during a radically different business environment.
“Digital Darwinism” to stay competitive – Markets and technology will continue to evolve, and so will customers’ decisions and behaviors, even when organizations decide to halt and cut costs. Competitiveness hence becomes a matter of digital Darwinism, whereby to survive in this market, organizations must adapt to the pace at which technology and society is evolving and be smarter than their competitors.
Composability – Organizations will need ways to do more with what they have, given limited resources. A composable digital strategy or reusable business capabilities will meet that need to drive efficiency and agility at scale.
Here are Salesforce’s predictions on what will drive sales and service, as sales reps find themselves forced to adapt to changing economic conditions.
Retraining – Leaders will look to leverage enablement programs to retrain and elevate morale of sales reps working in tough selling environments, while streamlining sales processes with AI and automation.
Sales enablement programs – Organizations will look to connect sales training to broader business outcomes. “As Enablers [of sales], we have to hold ourselves accountable for moving the needle on pipe generation, revenue, and participation. The better prepared the sales team, the better they can serve as trusted advisors to customers,” said Jody Kohner, executive vice president of global sales enablement at Salesforce.
Automation – With increasing customer expectations, shrinking team sizes, and worsening economic conditions, automation will become a ‘must have’, rather than ‘a nice to have’, in order to improve customer experience and drive down cost.
Customer relationship – Maintaining successful customer relationships will require consistent communication, and often from diverse channels. “The message to heads of customer experience is to learn to actively listen to customers, and create processes that naturally draw the customer to a specific channel — one that feels it is their choice. Get this correct and you earn the right to customers for life,” said Michael Maoz, senior vice president of innovation strategy at Salesforce.
Customer Data Platform (CDP) – Customers want personalized, real-time, and automated service and interactions, and CDP can provide that.
Salesforce execs also shared the top four disruptive technologies:
Generative AI (use of machine learning algorithms to enable computers to use existing content like text and code to create new content) will empower mass customization of experiences. Employees will experience workplace culture in the cloud as organizations move to invest more in online collaboration tools. Data will become more accessible and understandable for everyone, as organizations endeavor to create a data literate workforce. Virtual reality (VR) offices will not materialize anytime soon. The technology is still raw, the avatars are disengaging and it will be a while before organizations consider interacting with their workforce using VR.
Salesforce also predicts that more organizations will focus on climate commitments, approaching customer data with trust and transparency, and embedding tech ethics and privacy frameworks in their operations.
The Google Play Store has some hot deals for a limited time.
For Boxing Day, you can grab games up to 80 percent off the top games and in-game discounts as well. You can get discounts off Clash of Clans gems, Phantom Wonderland deals, discounts in Candy Crush, as well as deals on starter packs in Free Fire.
The Play Store is also offering 90 percent off apps as well. Including getting Tune In Premium up to 90 percent off for 90 days, 55 percent off VIP plans for Starmaker and 80 percent off monthly in Truecaller.
Tons of books are on sale, including The Witcher, Batman: Year One, The Witcher: Sword of Destiny, The Watchman (2019 Edition), and more, which are all under $5.
Audiobooks like Hercule Poirot’s Christmas: A Hercule Poirot Mystery, The Strain, The Soldier’s Scoundrel, Local Women Missing and more are all under $7.
There are a lot of movies at a discounted rate as well. The Batman costs $7.99, The Suicide Squad costs $7.99, The Black Phone costs $10.99, Click is available for $4.99m, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse retails at $9.99 and more.
The OnePlus 11 is launching around the world on February 7th, but the smartphone will make its first appearance in China on January 4th. The company announced this on the Chinese social media site, Weibo.
With the help of Google Translate, you can see that the handset will come in two colours called ‘Momentary Blue,’ and ‘Endless Black.’ Oddly, the images on the site show the handset in a green colour, so perhaps there’s an issue with the translation, or that there might be a third colourway.
The company also announced the phone’s specs, indicating that it sports a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, either 12GB or 16GB of RAM, up to 512GB of storage and more. The handset will come with OnePlus’ ColorOS 13 and Android 13 and sports three cameras.
The handset is also supposed to get unveiled with the Buds Pro 2 true wireless earbuds. We expect to learn more about the handset on January 4th, such as battery and camera details.
With so many movies skipping 2020 and 2021 due to COVID, this year felt, in many ways, like a return to form for the theatre-going experiences. Massive blockbusters from the likes of Sam Raimi, James Cameron and Matt Reeves were released, and we even finally got the triumphant debut of Top Gun: Maverick, a Tom Cruise vehicle that had been delayed a seemingly endless number of times.
That said, the advent of streaming services meant that people had already been shifting towards the home viewing experience pre-pandemic, and that’s only become truer over the past three years. Given that, we’ve put together a list of 10 of the most well-received movies of the year that you can stream right now in Canada. Some of these were already streaming originals, but regardless, we tried to include a varied bunch that spans all age groups and genres. There’s even a couple of foreign films.
From crowdpleasing epics and suspenseful mysteries to wonderful animation and intimate dramas, here are some of the year’s top movies to stream:
Aftersun
Genre: Drama Runtime: 1 hour, 41 minutes
A young woman named Sophie goes through old footage of a childhood vacation with her father to better understand him.
Aftersun is the debut feature from writer-director Charlotte Wells and stars Paul Mescal (Normal People) and Frankie Corio (debut role).
Stream Aftersun on premium video on demand services like iTunes and Google Play ($14.99 CAD rental).
The Banshees of Inisherin
Genre: Black tragicomedy Runtime: 1 hour, 54 minutes
After his lifelong friend ends their relationship, Pádraic is given an ultimatum that leads to shocking consequences.
The Banshees of Inisherin was written and directed by Martin McDonagh (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) and stars Colin Farrell (The Lobster), Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges), Kerry Condon (The Leftovers) and Barry Keoghan (TheKilling of a Sacred Deer).
A struggling Chinese-American business owner must connect with alternate universe versions of herself to thwart a threat to the entire multiverse.
Everything Everywhere All At Once was written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man) and stars Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Ke Huy Quan (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), Stephanie Hsu (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween) and James Hong (Hawaii Five-O).
Following 2019’s critically-acclaimed Knives Out, writer-director Rian Johnson and Benoit Blanc actor Daniel Craig return for a new mystery surrounding a murder on a tech billionaire’s private Greek island.
The film features an ensemble supporting cast that includes Edward Norton (Birdman), Janelle Monáe (Hidden Figures), Kathryn Hahn (WandaVision), Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) and Kate Hudson (Almost Famous).
Stream Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery on Netflix.
Pinocchio
Genre: Stop-motion animated musical fantasy Runtime: 1 hour, 57 minutes
Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) reinvents this classic tale about a wooden puppet brought to life.
Pinocchio features an ensemble voice cast that includdes Gregory Mann (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society), Ewan McGregor (Fargo), David Bradley (Harry Potter series), Christoph Waltz (Inglorious Basterds) and Vancouver’s Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things).
One of the most beloved pictures of the year is an Indian Telugu movie featuring a heavily fictionalized and over-the-top tale about the friendship between two real-life Indian revolutionaries, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, and their efforst to take down the British Raj.
RRR was co-written and directed by S. S. Rajamouli (Baahubali) and stars N. T. Rama Rao Jr. (Yamadonga), Ram Charan (Rangasthalam), Ajay Devgn (Total Dhamaal), Olivia Morris (Hotel Portofino), Ray Stevenson (Black Sails) and Alison Doody (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).
While the grandiosity of RRR is absolutely best experienced in a theatre, you can stream the movie on Netflix (Hindi) or Zee5 (original Telugu).
Tár
Genre: Drama Runtime: 2 hours, 38 minutes
World-renowned musician Lydia Tár must turn to her adopted daughter for support after her career begins to suffer.
Tár was written and directed by Todd Field (Little Children) and stars Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine), Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) and Nina Hoss (Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan).
Stream Tár on PVOD platforms like iTunes and Google Play ($24.99 rental).
Top Gun: Maverick
More than 30 years after the events of Top Gun, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell must train a new group of pilots, including the son of his late friend Goose, for an important mission.
Top Gun: Maverick was directed by Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy) and once again stars Tom Cruise (Mission: Impossible series) as Maverick, while Miles Teller (Whiplash), Jennifer Connelly (Requiem for a Dream), Glen Powell (Hidden Figures) and Jon Hamm (Mad Men) co-star.
Thirteen-year-old Chinese-Canadian Mei (Clique Wars‘ Rosalie Chiang) finds herself transforming into a red panda whenever she gets too excited or stressed while dealing with her overbearing mother and planning to attend a concert with friends.
Turning Red was co-written and directed by Toronto’s own Domee Shi (Bao) and features the voices of Rosalie Chiang (Man Imperfect), Ottawa’s Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) and Mississauga, Ontario’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (Never Have I Ever).
Of course, there were so many movies that came out this year that this only covers a fraction of them. There are also some other well-received movies that only just came to theatres this month and aren’t yet streaming, including two from Canadians: Avatar: The Way of Water from Kapuskasing, Ontario’s James Cameron and Women Talking from Toronto’s Sarah Polley. Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale, which stars American-Canadian Brendan Fraser, is another recent theatrical release.
For more streaming suggestions, you can find a catalogue of our weekly Streaming in Canada columns here.
What were some of your favourite movies of 2022? Let us know in the comments.
Virbela, a platform that creates virtual worlds for remote work, learning, and events, has released its 2023 enterprise metaverse trends and predictions.
The company broke down the trends into three categories: innovation and investment, employee experience and management, and security in the metaverse.
Innovation and Investment
Virbela predicts that next year, metaverse products will launch in an attempt to make imagined use cases real. The company says it’s beginning to see “metaverse budgets”, and internal “metaverse teams” as companies begin to take a further step, creating actual plans for the technology.
Virbela also predicts that while companies in 2022 struggled with the adjustment to hybrid work, this coming year, they will respond better and look to virtual worlds and the metaverse for solutions.
Companies are likely to start with lower-risk metaverse programs to build value across teams, and as the metaverse becomes second nature, we’ll see them add complexity, Virbela suggests.
Employee Experience, Management & DEI in the metaverse
When it comes to employee experience, Virbela reports that metaverse spaces will help give a larger voice to workers who may feel reluctant to speak up in the physical world, leading to more diversity in ideas.
“Being spatially present and ‘seen’ with colleagues again, but without the constraints of physical location, will lead to a better work-life balance, employee health and happiness both in and out of work.”
In 2023, we’ll see individual contributor, management, and executive roles change. Some may disappear as global teams become more efficient. Meanwhile, others will create roles to manage remote work, create communication channels, set new productivity benchmarks, and define culture. Accessibility to the metaverse will take priority for companies over fancy hardware like headsets.
Regulation and Security in the metaverse
Governments will have multifaceted relationships with the metaverse. The company added that due to a “lax central regulatory environment for Web2,” social media has begun to exploit user data and become a channel for manipulating human behaviour.
2023 will be a year where industry leaders and government authorities will need to focus on working together on regulations and privacy controls, and be more thoughtful about the value proposition that communities and individuals hold in the metaverse.
Virbela suggests that immersive collaboration within the metaverse will help make companies more transparent, eliminating the need for remote employee tracking tools.
“The metaverse is the next iteration of the internet, but with security,” Virbela notes. “While we will keep talking about “openness” and decentralization for the masses – in the B2B world, it will prioritize privacy and security. Our customers are actually asking for higher walled gardens as they battle with GDPR and other enterprise compliance issues.”
Staples Canada’s Boxing Week sale has discounts on laptops, monitors, headphones, earbuds, tablets and more.
It’s worth noting that the products mentioned below have varying sale end dates. If you’re going to sit on the idea of placing an order, make sure the check when the specific deal ends.
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.
2022 was a busy year in the telecom industry. We witnessed new developments on Rogers’ $26 billion takeover of Shaw, saw Starlink’s expansion in the north, and observed how telecom companies respond to disasters nationwide.
In no particular order, here are MobileSyrup’s picks of the most important stories to come from the telecom industry this year.
Rogers outage
Rogers customers woke up on July 8th to no cellphone service, internet, or working home phone lines. Rogers was witnessing a complete outage, leaving many struggling to get daily tasks done. The outage, caused by a maintenance update, impacted 13 million wireline and wireless customers.
The company issued $150 million in credits representing five days of service and said it would make changes to prevent something similar, including separating its wireless and wireline networks.
Rogers had to answer to millions of angry Canadians. Its first set of heavily redacted responses to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) questions came in July, hot on the heels of the outage. The Commission’s subsequent request for more information shed more light, as Rogers offered information once redacted in August. But it didn’t paint a complete picture. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) is one of the parties that want the CRTC to release more details.
When Rogers’ originally announced its plans to acquire Shaw, there was no word on what it would mean for Freedom Mobile. Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne had other plans. In March, he announced Rogers couldn’t acquire Freedom, as doing so would decrease competition. The company received offers to buy Freedom from Xplornet, Distributel and Globalive. However, Québecor subsidiary Vidéotron ended up the winner.
Competition Bureau’s challenge to Rogers’ takeover of Shaw
The Competition Bureau is one of three parties that needs to approve the Rogers and Shaw merger. But so far, the federal department has strongly opposed the takeover. Citing affordability and competition, the bureau filed to block the merger in May. The parties attempted negotiations twice before moving to a tribunal hearing where the bureau maintained its defiant position to block the merger.
Ian Scott’s time at the CRTC
Vicky Eatrides is the new chair of the CRTC, taking up a role previously held by Ian Scott. Scott filled the role for five years, but his time wasn’t without controversy. This past year, he has faced a request to recuse himself from files related to internet competition, addressed a meeting he had with Bell’s CEO, and faced numerous calls to resign. But Scott successfully completed his term, and if given the opportunity, he would be willing to take up the position again.
Hurricane Fiona
Hurricane Fiona hit Atlantic Canada with destruction when it made landfall in September, impacting telecom services. In response, some carriers announced they’d waive fees and offer extra data to impacted residents. But according to Nova Scotia’s Premier, not all telecom companies were helpful. Tim Houston sent Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne a letter complaining about “poor participation and support” from telecom companies, including Bell and Telus. The companies defended their actions and said they provided full support.