Rogers expands Roam Like Home service to Asia, Oceania for just $10/day

Rogers today announced their Roam Like Home service now includes some countries in Asia and Oceania joining a list of more than 100 roaming destinations worldwide. Rogers Share Everything_™ customers, including small businesses, can roam internationally for only $10 per day in Asia, Oceania, Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

"We know our customers love the freedom of using their plan wherever they are, just like they do at home. We've heard them and we've invested in Roam Like Home_™ to add more and more destinations to the plan," said Raj Doshi, Executive Vice-President Wireless Services, Rogers Communications.  

Almost two million Canadians plan on travelling to Asia this year, and 95 per cent of them say they plan on bringing their smartphone on their trip, according to a recent study.  Travellers agree their primary reasons for bringing a device abroad are to keep in touch (73 per cent), take photos/videos (66 per cent), and check email (66 per cent).  Compared with travellers to other regions, those travelling to Asia are almost a third more likely to bring a device to access the Internet.

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Google makes improvements to Chrome browser on iOS

Google today announced that it is making some critical updates to its Chrome browser in iOS which will result in faster and more stable performance.

"The latest Chrome for iOS is significantly faster and more stable, so you can pick up where you left off browsing (on any device) without worrying about Chrome crashing on misbehaving webpages. In fact, tests show that the latest version reduces Chrome’s crash rate by 70 percent and speeds up JavaScript execution significantly," Google said in a blog post.

This new update comes just as news of Apple's Safari browser on iOS and Mac is experiencing various crashes due to a search suggestion feature issue. 

Source: Google

Olympus brings new PEN-F camera that mixes high-tech features with retro-cool styling

Olympus has released a digital update to the venerable PEN-F  film camera. The new version features a 20 megapixel sensor with Olympus’ 5-Axis Image Stabilization, a built-in 2.36 million-dot OLED electronic viewfinder, and a new Creative Dial on the front of the camera that accesses a host of controls. Coming to market in March, the PEN-F will have an SRT of $1,499.99 in Canada.

While this is definitely a compact camera, it is also a standard setting release as one of the fastest and quietest cameras in the market. The PEN-F will feature shortest shutter-release time lag of any compact system camera at 0.044 seconds.

The 1/8000-second, high-speed mechanical shutter provides superior performance for capturing fast action, and shutter functions can be customized according to the scene. Silent Mode is useful for shooting in situations that require complete silence, and Anti-Shock Mode allows users to prevent shutter shake. 

Source: Olympus

Apple reports record earnings despite softening economy and weakened currencies

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

This is Apple’s biggest revenue and profit ever and likely the most revenue reported by any company, yet it is still dampened by falling short of expectations plus the first ever sales decline for iPhone in Q2, which will be the first downturn for Apple’s marquee product since its launch back in 2007.

Apple held its holiday quarter earnings call yesterday and reported $75.9 billion in revenue, $18.4 billion in profits which breaks previous records for the company despite the global ‘softening’ of the economy and devaled currencies.  Apple’s success is bolstered by iPhone sales, the company sold 74.8 million units for the quarter. iPad sales continued to fall at 16.1 million units sold despite the addition of the iPad Pro, and Mac unit sales were at 5.3 million units in what is traditionally considered Apple’s strongest quarter.

For the same quarter a year ago, Apple reported the following for comparison. $74.6b in revenue, $18 billion in profit, 74.4m iPhones, 21.4m iPads, and 5.5m Macs. Analysts were predicting around $76.6b in revenue, 75m iPhones, 17.3m iPads, and 5.8m Macs this quarter. 

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