After various delays, Twitter officially relaunched its Blue subscription on Monday, December 12th. As before, Blue offers up a checkmark that appears next to the name of subscribers, although now there are different colours depending on what type of account you have.

When Twitter’s new owner and dude who got booed at a Chapelle show Elon Musk rolled out the first Twitter Blue revamp earlier this year, it cost $9.99/mo and was only available on iOS. This time around, Musk has changed up the pricing for Blue (likely after realizing Apple was taking a chunk and angrily tweeting about it). The service is now available on the web and iOS with different prices. However, at least for the MobileSyrup team, it doesn’t seem to be available on iOS in Canada.

Twitter Blue subscription in Canada

Twitter’s ‘About Blue‘ page says it will cost $8/mo on the web and $11/mo on iOS in the U.S. For me, Twitter Blue is listed at $10/mo CAD on the web, and it doesn’t appear at all in the iOS app. Checking the Android app reveals a message that Blue is only available on the web and iOS “for now.” If Blue on iOS follows the same pricing pattern as Blue on the web, it should cost around $13/mo in Canada once it becomes available.

Beyond the pricing and availability changes, Blue notes that subscribers with a verified phone number will get a checkmark “once approved.” There’s a 90-day delay on new accounts subscribing to Blue, but beyond that, there doesn’t seem to be any other measures in place to prevent abuse of the blue checkmark like what happened the first time the feature rolled out. Twitter’ Blue FAQ page even notes that “accounts that receive the blue checkmark as part of a Twitter Blue subscription will not undergo review to confirm that they meet the active, notable and authentic criteria that was used in the previous process” (emphasis ours).

Musk also reiterated plans to remove the legacy checkmarks from Twitter accounts, calling the old process to get them “corrupt and nonsensical.” While there were certainly problems with the old system, at least it took the time to establish a baseline of authenticity for verified accounts. I also find the corruption argument funny, given Musk’s plan to prioritize tweets from those who pay for Blue, effectively forcing pay-to-play rules on the whole platform.

Moreover, a Twitter support page spotted by TechCrunch details the new checkmark colours. Blue checkmarks will be for those subscribed to Blue (or legacy verified accounts until Musk gets around to removing those). The support page also notes that Twitter won’t review accounts with the Blue checkmark to make sure they’re authentic.

The new gold checkmark showing up for some people indicates that the account is “an official business account through Twitter Blue for Business.” The page also references grey labels applied to state-affiliated media and government accounts.

However, there isn’t actually a Blue for Business feature available on Twitter yet. As noted by TechCrunch, the gold checkmark is showing up on business accounts that previously had relationships with Twitter and the platform plans to open Blue for Business up to more companies in the future.

Anyway, it’ll be exciting to see how this rollout of Blue blows up in Musk’s face. The last one went over so smoothly. You can read all about the latest Twitter turmoil here.

Source: Twitter, (2) Via: TechCrunch

OnePlus 10T users can now download the controversial Android 13 update.

Branded as OxygenOS 13, this update brings the OnePlus software in-line with Oppo’s well-regarded ColorOS. This update changes the visual design of the software and adds some new features, like a handy quick-access shelf.

You can learn more about the update and how it compares to OxygenOS 12 you can read our previous review of the software.

The update has been rolling out for at least the last two days, but OnePlus updates typically take around a week or more to fully roll out to all users.

It’s nice that OnePlus is finally pushing out the update to the 10T, but I wish the company would stop feeding us lies regarding its updates. OnePlus even made a big show about being more consistent with its updates in November, claiming that select phones in 2023 will get four years of OxygenOS updates and five years of security updates.

Judging how inconsistent OnePlus has been in the past with software, it’s hard to believe this claim. There’s reason to believe that the more substantial hand of Oppo might help, but considering OnePlus launched OxygenOS 13 in August, released it on the 10 Pro in September and then the 10T in December doesn’t give me a lot of hope for the company to improve its speed in 2023.

Beyond that, the software still feels half-baked with critical features like the extra-large folders not working correctly and poor Material You colour accenting. There’s no denying enough new design here to modernize OnePlus’ operating system, but it’s still a subpar implementation compared to others.

Via: GSMArena

Surprisingly, Dave Chappelle fans don’t seem to like Elon Musk very much.

You’d think that the two controversial men would have at least a bit of crossover, but when the eccentric billionaire came out on stage at Chappelle’s recent San Francisco, California comedy show, he was booed so much that he stopped talking (if only he would do the same thing on Twitter).

Musk later went back to his home court of Twitter to say “technically, it was 90% cheers & 10% boos (except during quiet periods), but, still, that’s a lot of boos.”

Videos spread across internet telling a very different story, with most people at the show being unanimously unhappy with Musk appearing on stage. Eventually, Chapelle intervened with a lame joke about Elon buying him a jetpack for Christmas.

“but, still, that’s a lot of boos.”

In the back half of his tweet, Musk mentioned that he likely offended San Francisco leftists, which is an interesting and very public coping mechanism. It’s also worth noting that the video was initially posted by Twitter user @CleoPat48937885 and that account seems to be gone now, though others have reposted the content.

Turns out Twitter can, in fact, be real life. https://t.co/FFpups1yEy pic.twitter.com/41jcZgdDR4

— Steven Goffman (@SteveGoffman) December 12, 2022

Both Musk and Chapelle have come under fire for transphobic remarks, it seems like Musk’s extraordinarily messy and public takeover of Twitter has spurred at least some peoples’ hatred for the richest man on earth.

Source: @CleoPat48937885 Via: The Verge

Amazon’s Prime Gaming has announced several free games from December 27th to January 3rd, including Dishonored 2, nine games from SNK and more.

These titles include Dishonored 2, Metal Slug, Metal Slug X, Metal Slug 3, Real Bout Fatal Fury, The King of Fighters 2003, The Last Blade, The Last Blade 2, Twinkle Star Sprites and SNK 40th Anniversary Collection.

There’s also a special mobile game offering. If you tune into the ‘Crown Channel’ show on Twitch on Wednesday, December 28th, from 7-9pm ET/4-6pm PT, they’ll be playing Candy Crush Saga, Farm Heroes Saga and Bloons TD 6 in real life. Two streamers will lead their teams of gamers and athletes to compete against each other. Viewers will get the chance to win prizes and claim rewards, but you have to make sure your Twitch is linked to your Prime Gaming account.

There are also the already-available free PC games for the month of December, including Quake, Banners of Ruin, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Spinch, Rose Riddle 2: Werewolf Shadow, Doors: Paradox and The Amazing American.

Image credit: Prime Gaming

Source: Prime Gaming

At the beginning of this year, I wrote about the cost of plans offered by Canada’s Big Three carriers, Rogers, Bell and Telus. Now that we’re approaching the end of 2022, I thought it’d be worth looking at where plans are roughly one year later.

Barring any crazy Boxing Day offers, the current prices are likely what we’ll have to close out the year. That said, the carriers’ Black Friday offers surprised me with some excellent deals — like $45/50GB — so who knows what to expect on Boxing Day. Whatever happens, it’ll likely be the last reprieve from high prices until later in the new year.

We’ll also look at the flanker brands, although they weren’t included in the January 2022 coverage cited above. Regional carriers, on the other hand, won’t be included.

One significant change that happened this year is the introduction of speed caps. All of the Big Three carriers added speed caps to their primary and flanker brands, although the speeds vary from provider to provider.

Additionally, while not new, it’s worth noting that Rogers, Bell, and Telus all offer “unlimited” data. However, what that actually means is once customers use up their allotted monthly data, additional usage will be throttled at a maximum speed of up to 512Kbps.

Finally, before we get into it, all these prices are accurate as of December 12th, 2022. They may change after publication (and as mentioned above, likely will with temporary Boxing Day deals).

Rogers

Rogers started 2022 by offering the following plans:

$80/mo 20GB
$90/mo 40GB
$100/mo 60GB
$175/mo 100GB

Since then, the carrier added speed caps of 250Mbps or 1Gbps, depending on the plan (it was actually the last of the Big Three to do so), alongside the rollout of 5G+ branding for areas of its network running on 3,500MHz spectrum. It also changed up some of its plans and now offers:

Click/tap to enlarge

Infinite Essential – $85/mo 25GB (250Mbps)
Infinite Extra – $95/mo 40GB (1Gbps)
Infinite Lite (additional lines only) – $55/mo 5GB 25GB (250Mbps)
Infinite Advanced – $105/mo 60GB (1Gbps and Unlimited Canada-U.S. calling, texting, and data)
Infinite Premium (listed as a limited-time offer) – $125/mo 100GB (1Gbps and Unlimited Canada-U.S. calling, texting, and data)

Rogers also added two 4G LTE plans with non-shareable data: $50/mo 5GB (150Mbps) and $60/mo 15GB (150Mbps). Both those plans have an overage rate of $20 per gigabyte, and they’re listed as limited-time offers, so it’s not clear how long they’ll stick around.

For most of Rogers’ plans, it looks like the monthly cost went up by $5 with minimal changes, although the $85/mo plan does come with an extra 5GB of data compared to the earlier version of the plan. The 100GB plan did go down in price from $175/mo to $125/mo, but I feel like most Canadian are looking for better value on the lower end.

You can check out Rogers’ plans here.

Bell

Next up, Bell. The Montreal-based national telecom started 2022 with the following plans:

$90/mo 40GB
$100/mo 50GB (includes Canada-U.S. roaming)
$175/mo 100GB

Throughout the year, it added speed caps in April and launched 5G+ branding for its 3,500MHz network in June. As of December 12th, 2022, Bell’s plans are:

Essential 20 (Exclusive for internet and TV customers) – $55/mo 20GB (250Mbps)
Essential – $85/mo 25GB (250Mbps)
Ultimate 45 – $95/mo 45GB (at “fastest available 5G+ speeds”)
Ultimate 60 – $105/mo 60GB (at “fastest available 5G+ speeds”) plus unlimited Canada-U.S. calling, texting, and data
Ultimate 100 – $125/mo 100GB (at “fastest available 5G+ speeds”) plus unlimited Canada-U.S. calling, texting, and data
Lite (only available for additional lines) – $55/mo 25GB (4G at 150Mbps)

Again, Bell’s plans are generally $5 more per month than they were at the beginning of the year but offer additional data as well. The exception, again, is the 100GB plan, which now costs $125/mo instead of $175. I also find the trend of adding slightly lower-cost plans with other limitations, like lower speeds or 4G-only access, interesting.

You can view Bell’s plans here.

Telus

Back in January, Telus offered the following plans:

$80/mo 20GB (limit of two connected devices)
$90/mo 40GB (includes unlimited international messaging and ‘visual voicemail 25’)
$100/mo 50GB (includes everything in the $90 plan plus Canada-U.S. roaming)

Telus led the way in adding speed caps, which it did back in February 2022. It also rolled out 3,500MHz spectrum but already used 5G+ branding in its plans. Now, on December 12th, 2022, the company offers the following plans:

Unlimited 25 5G – $85/mo 25GB (250Mbps)
Unlimited 50 5G+ – $95/mo 50GB (1Gbps)
Unlimited CAN-US 60 5G+ – $105/mo 60GB (1Gbps)
Unlimited CAN-US 100 5G+ $125/mo 100GB (1Gbps)

As indicated by the plan names, the Unlimited CAN-US plans include access to data, talk, and text in the U.S. as well as Canada.

Telus also bucks the trend with some plans that are a little cheaper than before. Sure, the base plan is $5 more and comes with an extra 5GB of data, but those who want 50GB actually save $5/mo compared to last year. For $5 more per month, you get an extra 10GB of data.

You can check out Telus’ plans here.

Flanker brands

Unfortunately for the flanker brands, they were not included in the original January 2022 plan round-up. That said, coverage from around that time suggests that most offered the following options:

$30 talk and text
$52/mo 8GB
$58/mo 15GB (promo)

It’s a little tricky to nail down exactly what was on offer since in January, the three flanker brands were dancing around the $58/15GB promo plan.

Moreover, keep in mind that all the flankers offer ‘Starter’ plans as mandated by the CRTC. These plans don’t change often and are mostly the same across the flanker brands, so I’ll leave them out of this analysis.

Below are the current offerings from each:

Fido

Rogers flanker brand Fido added speed caps of 150Mbps to its plans in June, so all of the following max out at that speed:

$32/mo talk and text
$55/mo 8GB
$60/mo 10GB
$65/mo 20GB

Notably, Fido’s talk and text plan has gone up in price by $2/mo. Doubly frustrating about this is that Fido, Virgin, and Koodo lowered the talk and text plan to $27/mo in August. Beyond that, prices are up slightly — the 8GB plan has increased by $3/mo over 2022. While there currently isn’t a 15GB plan to compare to the $58/mo one available in January 2022, both the 10GB and 20GB options currently available are more expensive.

Check out Fido’s plans here.

Virgin Plus

Virgin Plus added speed caps of 150Mbps to its plans at the same time that parent company Bell added speed caps to its plans. The plans are as follows:

$32/mo talk and text
$55/mo 8GB
$60/mo 10GB
$65/mo 20GB

Much of the analysis that can be said here mirror’s what was said about Fido given the similar pricing between it and Virgin.

Check out Virgin’s plans here.

Koodo

Finally, Telus flanker brand Koodo was the first to add speed caps to its plans. In February 2022, Koodo capped speeds at 100Mbps, notably slower than Virgin and Fido. However, Koodo has since launched ‘Pick Your Perk’ plans that let customers select a free add-on perk. Options include things like international texting (which used to be included in several Koodo plans), rollover data and a speed boost that increases Koodo’s speed cap to 200Mbps. Koodo’s current plans are:

$32/mo talk and text
$45/mo 6GB (promo)
$55/mo 8GB
$60/mo 10GB
$65/mo 20GB

On the surface, Koodo’s $45/mo 6GB plan stands out as a notable stopgap between the $32/mo talk and text and $55/8GB plan. However, both Fido and Virgin offer a similar plan under the ‘Starter plan’ banner. It’s not entirely clear why Koodo chose to offer the $45/6GB as a promotional plan rather than as a Starter option.

You can view Koodo’s plans here.

In an unlikely turn of events, two unreleased Macs have appeared in Steam’s database via the platform’s November 2022 survey that gathers anonymous information from users.

In the survey, two unidentified Macs with the name “Mac14,6″ and Mac15,4” appear at the bottom of the list, alongside the names Mac Studio, 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro, M2 MacBook Air and more. The only M2-powered Mac Apple has released so far is the MacBook Air. Interestingly, both Mac14,6 and Mac15,4 are listed with zero percent usage on Steam.

Though we know more M2-powered Macs are on the way, rumours surrounding the devices have died down recently. Apple is expected to launch an M2 Pro and M2 Max chip for its MacBook Pro and Mac Studio at some point early in the coming year.

Apple’s M1 Pro and Max-powered MacBook Pro (2021) released last October, so the laptop is due for an update. While the M2 offers a marginal jump in performance over the M1, Apple’s M2 Pro and M2 Max are expected to be a more significant leap forward in power. Beyond the performance boost, Apple’s M2 MacBook Pro is expected to look identical to its 2021 redesign.

Source: MacRumors

Walt Disney Animated Studios’ Strange World is arriving on Disney+ ahead of the holidays. On December 23rd, the film will be widely available to subscribers to watch.

Strange World is a brand-new animated film from Walt Disney Studios. It stars an eclectic cast comprised of Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union and Lucy Liu. The film tells the story of a family of explorers known as the Clades. The family set out to explore a mysterious land inhabited by strange lifeforms in hopes of gathering resources. However, the Clades must set aside their differences if they want to return home in one piece.

They’re in their element when exploring this world…

Join the Clade family and experience Disney’s #StrangeWorld, streaming December 23 only on #DisneyPlus! pic.twitter.com/uLIU4xC2iq

— Disney+ (@DisneyPlus) December 12, 2022

The film recently debuted in theatres on November 23rd. However, it received fairly poor reception at the box office. The film has an estimated budget of $120 million USD (roughly $163 million CAD). However, Strange World grossed only $30.5 million USD (approx. $41.6 million CAD) in Canada and the U.S. A worldwide box office is estimated to be around $53.5 USD (around $73 million CAD). Disney is expected to fall short of a return on the film’s budget.

As for why the film didn’t hit its mark is anyone’s guess. Current reviews for the movie are more or less positive. Rotten Tomatoes has Strange World listed at 74 percent on the Tomatometer. However, a general consensus is that the marketing for Strange World was weaker than previous Disney animated films.

While the film’s box office success may not have panned out for Disney, Strange World may receive new life on Disney+. Launching around the holidays is a great excuse for families to sit down and find out whether the film is indeed a flop or a hidden gem in Disney’s catalogue.

A Disney+ subscription costs $11.99/month or $119.99/year in Canada.

Image credit: Disney

Source: @Disney

Samsung’s Galaxy S23 series is still reportedly a month or two away, but TENAA certification documents have shown off the specifications for the S23 Ultra, the flagship of the trio (via SamMobile).

According to the documents, the phone will sport a QHD+ 3088 x 1440-pixel resolution, 8GB/12GB of RAM, 256GB/512GB/1TB of storage, four rear cameras with 200-megapixel primary, 12-megapixel ultrawide, 10-megapixel 3x telephoto and a 10-megapixel telephoto with 10x optical zoom. TENAA indicates that the 10-megapixel shooters are actually 12-megapixel, but SamMobile says it’s likely due to Samsung upscaling its images from its 10-megapixel to 12-megapixel for consistency.

Further, Samsung’s flagship will feature Bluetooth, USB0C, a gyrosensor, a proximity sensor, a light sensor, an under-display fingerprint reader, face recognition and a 4,855mAh battery, which will be marketed as a 5,000mAh battery.

SamMobile also notes that it has an octa-core CPU that’s running a faster Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset (AC version) instead of the vanilla Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (AB version).

Though we should take most leaks with a grain of salt, with these TENAA documents supporting the specs, they might be close to what we get when the set officially launches,

The S23 Ultra is rumoured to launch in the first week of February. 

Source: SamMobile

Over the weekend, Twitter announced that its Community Notes feature (Birdwatch pre-Musk) would start rolling out globally.

Community Notes, for those unfamiliar with the feature, is a crowdsourced fact-checking system put in place before Elon Musk took over Twitter and gained some notoriety after fact-checking Musk’s claim that activists were responsible for advertisers pulling out of Twitter.

Beginning today, Community Notes are visible around the world 🌎🌍🌏

— Community Notes (@CommunityNotes) December 11, 2022

Until now, Community Notes was only available to users in the U.S. However, according to tweets from the Community Notes Twitter account, notes are now visible worldwide. The account also shared a link to a list of notes rated helpful by contributors.

Rollouts can take a while, so if you don’t see Community Notes immediately, they might show up soon.

Anyone on Twitter can sign up to contribute to Community Notes, starting with the ability to rate notes and eventually write Community Notes. You can learn more about Community Notes and how it works here or view the source code on GitHub here.

Source: @CommunityNotes Via: iPhone in Canada

Security researchers picked up US$989,750 in prizes for demonstrating 63 unique zero day vulnerabilities in consumer and small office products during the four-day Toronto edition of the Pwn2Own hacking contest.

The biggest bundle of cash went to a team from Devcore Security Consulting of Taiwan, which won US$142,500. As a result it was named the event’s Master of Pwn.

 

Top team winners and scores. Source: Trend Micro

It was the first time the contest, run under Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, was held in Toronto. Teams or individuals competed either live at Trend Micro’s Toronto office or online. Each entrant had three tries of five minutes each to show that an exploit they have created can break into fully-patched devices that IT hardware and software manufacturers believe are secure.

Run three times a year since 2007, there is always a contest in Vancouver. Other cities that have hosted contests include Miami and Tokyo.

The Toronto event focused on small office/home office (SOHO) devices, including routers, printers, network attached storage (NAS) devices and a Samsung smartphone.

These devices were chosen because, thanks to the pandemic, more employees are working from home than ever. However, Trend Micro notes, that can expand the corporate attack surface if home devices aren’t properly secured.

Not only were entrants challenged to hack into individual devices, the Toronto contest included a “SOHO Smashup” category that challenged hackers to exploit a Wi-Fi router and  a connected device. If contestants were able to take complete control of both devices within 30 minutes, they could earn US$100,000 and 10 Master of Pwn points.

In April, participants at the Miami event won US$400,000 for demonstrating 26 exploits and bug collisions. In May, Vancouver participants won US$1.15 million for showing 25 unique zero day exploits.

The post Toronto Pwn2Own hacking contest awards over $980,000 to bug hunters first appeared on IT World Canada.