TORONTO, Sept. 15, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Rogers will offer iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, featuring a durable, aluminum and color-infused back glass design, the Dynamic Island, A16 Bionic chip, an advanced camera system including a powerful 48MP Main camera and new 2x Telephoto option, and USB-C; iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, Apple’s lightest Pro models ever, featuring a strong and lightweight titanium design, a new Action button, powerful camera upgrades including a more advanced 48MP Main camera system, which enables the equivalent of seven pro lenses with incredible image quality and a 5x Telephoto, the longest zoom ever on iPhone, exclusively on iPhone 15 Pro Max, the A17 Pro chip unlocking next-level gaming experiences and pro performance, and USB-C with USB 3 speeds; the advanced new Apple Watch Series 9, delivering systemwide improvements and brand-new features including the all-new S9 SiP, a magical new double tap gesture, and a brighter display; Apple Watch Ultra 2, bringing new features to Apple’s most capable and rugged smartwatch.
Customers will be able to pre-order the iPhone 15 lineup beginning today, with availability on Friday, September 22. The new Apple Watch lineup, including the second generation of Apple Watch SE are available for customers to order starting next week, with availability beginning Friday, September 22. For complete pricing and availability details, please visit rogers.com.
“Rogers is excited to offer our customers the new iPhone 15 lineup on Canada’s largest and most reliable 5G network, so our customers can take full advantage of the lightweight titanium design, powerful camera, and A17 Pro chip that unlocks next-level gaming experiences and pro performance on iPhone 15 Pro, as well as the advanced camera system, A16 Bionic chip, and the Dynamic Island on iPhone 15,” said Phil Hartling, President, Wireless. “More Canadians choose Rogers than any other mobile provider, and as the only carrier to offer the Rogers red credit card Equal Payment Plan for purchasing a new device, Rogers remains the best choice for customers looking to buy the new iPhone 15 lineup.”
iPhone 15 lineup
iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus feature an industry-first color-infused back glass with a stunning, textured matte finish and contoured edges on the aluminum enclosure. Both models feature the Dynamic Island, an innovative way to interact with important alerts and Live Activities, and an advanced camera system, including a powerful 48MP Main camera that enables super-high-resolution photos and a new 2x Telephoto option to give users a total of three optical zoom levels — like having a third camera. The iPhone 15 lineup also introduces the next generation of portraits, making it easier to capture portraits with great detail and low-light performance. The fast and efficient A16 Bionic chip brings proven performance, and iPhone 15 models continue to deliver a high-quality, super-fast 5G experience and improved audio quality on phone calls, including those made on FaceTime or third-party apps. iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus are available in 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch display sizes1 in five stunning new colors, including pink, yellow, green, blue, and black.
iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are designed with aerospace-grade titanium that’s incredibly strong yet lightweight, delivering Apple’s lightest Pro models ever. The new design also introduces contoured edges and a customizable Action button, allowing users to personalize their iPhone experience. Bringing pro performance and capabilities, iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are powered by A17 Pro, the industry’s first 3-nanometer chip. Powerful camera upgrades enable the equivalent of seven pro lenses with incredible image quality, including a more advanced 48MP Main camera system that unlocks a new super-high-resolution 24MP default, the next generation of portraits with Focus and Depth Control, improvements to Night mode and Smart HDR, and an all-new 5x Telephoto exclusively on iPhone 15 Pro Max. The iPhone 15 Pro lineup now supports Wi-Fi 6E for great wireless performance and are equipped with super-fast 5G. iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are available in 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch display sizes1 and come in four new stunning finishes, including black titanium, white titanium, blue titanium, and natural titanium.
The iPhone 15 lineup uses a USB-C connector, a universally accepted standard for charging and transferring data, allowing the same cable to charge iPhone, Mac, iPad, and the updated AirPods Pro (2nd generation), with iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max supporting a 20x faster transfer speed with USB 3. All models also offer critical safety capabilities to provide assistance when it matters most, including Crash Detection2 and Emergency SOS via satellite.3 iOS 174 makes the iPhone lineup even more personal and intuitive, introducing Contact Posters, allowing users to customize how they appear to their contacts during incoming calls, and Live Voicemail to see real-time on-device transcription as someone leaves a voicemail, and users can even pick up the call while the caller is leaving their message. The iPhone 15 lineup is available with eSIM, a more convenient and secure alternative to a physical sim, so users can stay connected through affordable international roaming plans when traveling the world.
Apple Watch Series 9
Apple Watch Series 9 brings new features to the world’s best-selling watch, and achieves a significant environmental milestone. Apple Watch Series 9 is more powerful than ever with the new S9 SiP, which increases performance and capabilities; a magical new double tap gesture; a brighter display; faster on-device Siri, now with the ability to access and log health data; Precision Finding for iPhone; and more. Apple Watch Series 9 also runs watchOS 10, which delivers redesigned apps, the new Smart Stack, new watch faces, new cycling and hiking features, tools to support mental health, as well as all of the features to keep you connected, healthy, active and safe. For the first time, customers can choose a carbon neutral option of any Apple Watch, representing a significant milestone toward Apple 2030: Apple’s plan to be carbon neutral across its entire business, manufacturing supply chain, and product life cycle by 2030. Any aluminum Apple Watch Series 9 with a new Sport Loop band is carbon neutral. Apple Watch Series 9 allows users to stay connected, make calls and receive texts, even without their iPhone nearby.
Apple Watch Ultra 2
Apple Watch Ultra 2 brings new features to Apple’s most capable and rugged smartwatch, and it is carbon neutral when paired with a Trail Loop or Alpine Loop. Apple Watch Ultra 2 offers all of the features users love about Ultra, plus the powerful new S9 SiP, a magical new double tap gesture, Apple’s brightest display ever, expanded altitude range, on-device Siri, Precision Finding for iPhone, and advanced capabilities for outdoor and water adventures. Apple Watch Ultra 2 runs watchOS 10, which delivers redesigned apps, the new Smart Stack, new cycling experiences, features to help explore the outdoors, a new watch face — Modular Ultra, as well as all of the features to keep you connected, healthy, active and safe. Apple Watch Ultra 2 allows users to stay connected, make calls and receive texts, even without their iPhone nearby.
Connect in more places on Canada’s largest and most reliable 5G network across the new iPhone 15 lineup. To see pricing for 5G mobile plans, visit rogers.com/plans. For device financing options including the unmatched Equal Payment Plan available with the Rogers red credit card, visit rogers.com/mobility/device-financing.
For more details on pricing and data plans, please visit rogers.com.
For more details on Apple products, please visit www.apple.com.
About Rogers Communications Inc.
Rogers is Canada’s leading wireless, cable and media company that provides connectivity and entertainment to Canadian consumers and businesses across the country. Rogers shares are publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: RCI.A and RCI.B) and on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: RCI). For more information, please visit: rogers.com or investors.rogers.com.
1 The display has rounded corners that follow a beautiful curved design, and these corners are within a standard rectangle. When measured as a standard rectangular shape, the screen is 6.06 inches (iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15) or 6.68 inches (iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 15 Plus) diagonally. The actual viewable area is smaller.
2 Crash Detection is designed for four-wheel passenger vehicle crashes with certain mass, G-force, and speed profiles consistent with severe, life-threatening crashes. It was designed for severe, life- threatening, high-impact front and rear collisions, side-swipe, T-bone, and rollover crashes. Crash Detection is available worldwide on iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Plus, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2, Apple Watch Series 8, Apple Watch Ultra, and Apple Watch SE.
3 Emergency SOS via satellite was designed for use in open spaces with a clear line of sight to the sky. Performance may be impacted by obstructions such as trees or surrounding buildings.
4 Some features may not be available for all countries or all areas. View a complete list at apple.com/ios/feature-availability.
Although no one likes a know-it-all, they dominate the Internet.
The Internet began as a vast repository of information. It quickly became a breeding ground for self-proclaimed experts seeking what most people desire: recognition and money.
Today, anyone with an Internet connection and some typing skills can position themselves, regardless of their education or experience, as a subject matter expert (SME). From relationship advice, career coaching, and health and nutrition tips to citizen journalists practicing pseudo-journalism, the Internet is awash with individuals—Internet talking heads—sharing their “insights,” which are, in large part, essentially educated guesses without the education or experience.
The Internet has become a 24/7/365 sitcom where armchair experts think they’re the star.
Not long ago, years, sometimes decades, of dedicated work and acquiring education in one’s field was once required to be recognized as an expert. The knowledge and opinions of doctors, scientists, historians, et al. were respected due to their education and experience. Today, a social media account and a knack for hyperbole are all it takes to present oneself as an “expert” to achieve Internet fame that can be monetized.
On the Internet, nearly every piece of content is self-serving in some way.
The line between actual expertise and self-professed knowledge has become blurry as an out-of-focus selfie. Inadvertently, social media platforms have created an informal degree program where likes and shares are equivalent to degrees. After reading selective articles, they’ve found via and watching some TikTok videos, a person can post a video claiming they’re an herbal medicine expert. Their new “knowledge,” which their followers will absorb, claims that Panda dung tea—one of the most expensive teas in the world and isn’t what its name implies—cures everything from hypertension to existential crisis. Meanwhile, registered dietitians are shaking their heads, wondering how to compete against all the misinformation their clients are exposed to.
More disturbing are individuals obsessed with evangelizing their beliefs or conspiracy theories. These people write in-depth blog posts, such as Elvis Is Alive and the Moon Landings Were Staged, with links to obscure YouTube videos, websites, social media accounts, and blogs. Regardless of your beliefs, someone or a group on the Internet shares them, thus confirming your beliefs.
Misinformation is the Internet’s currency used to get likes, shares, and engagement; thus, it often spreads like a cosmic joke. Consider the prevalence of clickbait headlines:
You Won’t Believe What Taylor Swift Says About Climate Change!
This Bedtime Drink Melts Belly Fat While You Sleep!
In One Week, I Turned $10 Into $1 Million!
Titles that make outrageous claims are how the content creator gets reads and views, which generates revenue via affiliate marketing, product placement, and pay-per-click (PPC) ads. Clickbait headlines are how you end up watching a TikTok video by a purported nutrition expert adamantly asserting you can lose belly fat while you sleep by drinking, for 14 consecutive days, a concoction of raw eggs, cinnamon, and apple cider vinegar 15 minutes before going to bed.
Our constant search for answers that’ll explain our convoluted world and our desire for shortcuts to success is how Internet talking heads achieve influencer status. Because we tend to seek low-hanging fruits, we listen to those with little experience or knowledge of the topics they discuss yet are astute enough to know what most people want to hear.
There’s a trend, more disturbing than spreading misinformation, that needs to be called out: individuals who’ve never achieved significant wealth or traded stocks giving how-to-make-easy-money advice, the appeal of which is undeniable. Several people I know have lost substantial money by following the “advice” of Internet talking heads.
Anyone on social media claiming to have a foolproof money-making strategy is lying. They wouldn’t be peddling their money-making strategy if they could make easy money.
Successful people tend to be secretive.
Social media companies design their respective algorithms to serve their advertisers—their source of revenue—interest; hence, content from Internet talking heads appears most prominent in your feeds. When a video of a self-professed expert goes viral, likely because it pressed an emotional button, the more people see it, the more engagement it receives, such as likes, shares and comments, creating a cycle akin to a tornado.
Imagine scrolling through your TikTok feed and stumbling upon a “scientist” who claims they can predict the weather using only aluminum foil, copper wire, sea salt and baking soda. You chuckle, but you notice his video got over 7,000 likes, has been shared over 600 times and received over 400 comments. You think to yourself, “Maybe this guy is onto something.” What started as a quest to achieve Internet fame evolved into an Internet-wide belief that weather forecasting can be as easy as DIY crafts.
Since anyone can call themselves “an expert,” you must cultivate critical thinking skills to distinguish genuine expertise from self-professed experts’ self-promoting nonsense. While the absurdity of the Internet can be entertaining, misinformation has serious consequences. The next time you read a headline that sounds too good to be true, it’s probably an Internet talking head making an educated guess; without the education seeking Internet fame, they can monetize.
TORONTO – A new survey says a majority of software engineers and developers feel tight project deadlines can put safety at risk.
Seventy-five per cent of the 1,000 global workers who responded to the survey released Tuesday say pressure to deliver projects on time and on budget could be compromising critical aspects like safety.
The concern is even higher among engineers and developers in North America, with 77 per cent of those surveyed on the continent reporting the urgency of projects could be straining safety.
The study was conducted between July and September by research agency Coleman Parkes and commissioned by BlackBerry Ltd.’s QNX division, which builds connected-car technology.
The results reflect a timeless tug of war engineers and developers grapple with as they balance the need to meet project deadlines with regulations and safety checks that can slow down the process.
Finding that balance is an issue that developers of even the simplest appliances face because of advancements in technology, said John Wall, a senior vice-president at BlackBerry and head of QNX.
“The software is getting more complicated and there is more software whether it’s in a vehicle, robotics, a toaster, you name it… so being able to patch vulnerabilities, to prevent bad actors from doing malicious acts is becoming more and more important,” he said.
The medical, industrial and automotive industries have standardized safety measures and anything they produce undergoes rigorous testing, but that work doesn’t happen overnight. It has to be carried out from the start and then at every step of the development process.
“What makes safety and security difficult is it’s an ongoing thing,” Wall said. “It’s not something where you’ve done it, and you are finished.”
The Waterloo, Ont.-based business found 90 per cent of its survey respondents reported that organizations are prioritizing safety.
However, when asked about why safety may not be a priority for their organization, 46 per cent of those surveyed answered cost pressures and 35 per cent said a lack of resources.
That doesn’t surprise Wall. Delays have become rampant in the development of tech, and in some cases, stand to push back the launch of vehicle lines by two years, he said.
“We have to make sure that people don’t compromise on safety and security to be able to get products out quicker,” he said.
“What we don’t want to see is people cutting corners and creating unsafe situations.”
The survey also took a peek at security breaches, which have hit major companies like London Drugs, Indigo Books & Music, Giant Tiger and Ticketmaster in recent years.
About 40 per cent of the survey’s respondents said they have encountered a security breach in their employer’s operating system. Those breaches resulted in major impacts for 27 per cent of respondents, moderate impacts for 42 per cent and minor impacts for 27 per cent.
“There are vulnerabilities all the time and this is what makes the job very difficult because when you ship the software, presumably the software has no security vulnerabilities, but things get discovered after the fact,” Wall said.
Security issues, he added, have really come to the forefront of the problems developers face, so “really without security, you have no safety.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
As online shoppers hunt for bargains offered by Amazon during its annual fall sale this week, cybersecurity researchers are warning Canadians to beware of an influx of scammers posing as the tech giant.
In the 30 days leading up to Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days, taking place Tuesday and Wednesday, there were more than 1,000 newly registered Amazon-related web domains, according to Check Point Software Technologies, a company that offers cybersecurity solutions.
The company said it deemed 88 per cent of those domains malicious or suspicious, suggesting they could have been set up by scammers to prey on vulnerable consumers. One in every 54 newly created Amazon-related domain included the phrase “Amazon Prime.”
“They’re almost indiscernible from the real Amazon domain,” said Robert Falzon, head of engineering at Check Point in Canada.
“With all these domains registered that look so similar, it’s tricking a lot of people. And that’s the whole intent here.”
Falzon said Check Point Research sees an uptick in attempted scams around big online shopping days throughout the year, including Prime Days.
Scams often come in the form of phishing emails, which are deceptive messages that appear to be from a reputable source in attempt to steal sensitive information.
In this case, he said scammers posing as Amazon commonly offer “outrageous” deals that appear to be associated with Prime Days, in order to trick recipients into clicking on a malicious link.
The cybersecurity firm said it has identified and blocked 100 unique Amazon Prime-themed scam emails targeting organizations and consumers over the past two weeks.
Scammers also target Prime members with unsolicited calls, claiming urgent account issues and requesting payment information.
“It’s like Christmas for them,” said Falzon.
“People expect there to be significant savings on Prime Day, so they’re not shocked that they see something of significant value. Usually, the old adage applies: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”
Amazon’s website lists a number of red flags that it recommends customers watch for to identify a potential impersonation scam.
Those include false urgency, requests for personal information, or indications that the sender prefers to complete the purchase outside of the Amazon website or mobile app.
Scammers may also request that customers exclusively pay with gift cards, a claim code or PIN. Any notifications about an order or delivery for an unexpected item should also raise alarm bells, the company says.
“During busy shopping moments, we tend to see a rise in impersonation scams reported by customers,” said Amazon spokeswoman Octavia Roufogalis in a statement.
“We will continue to invest in protecting consumers and educating the public on scam avoidance. We encourage consumers to report suspected scams to us so that we can protect their accounts and refer bad actors to law enforcement to help keep consumers safe.”
Falzon added that these scams are more successful than people might think.
As of June 30, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre said there had been $284 million lost to fraud so far this year, affecting 15,941 victims.
But Falzon said many incidents go unreported, as some Canadians who are targeted do not know how or where to flag a scam, or may choose not to out of embarrassment.
Check Point recommends Amazon customers take precautions while shopping on Prime Days, including by checking URLs carefully, creating strong passwords on their accounts, and avoiding personal information being shared such as their birthday or social security number.
The cybersecurity company said consumers should also look for “https” at the beginning of a website URL, which indicates a secure connection, and use credit cards rather than debit cards for online shopping, which offer better protection and less liability if stolen.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2024.
