Google Home Mini is now available in Canada

Canadians can now preorder the Google Home Mini which is expected to start shipping on November 5. Google Home Mini is the smallest member of the Google Home Family which is a smart speaker with a built-in Google Assistant which is the only assistant that's specifically tuned for English and French Canadian users and handles local information and nuances. We reviewed Google Home Mini here. 

With a price of CAD $80 as well as three attractive colours, Google Home Mini is the ideal trojan horse for consumers to get started with Google Assistant as well as smart home control and all the advantages of AI.

Hands on with Canadian Made Apple AR Kit powered Apps

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

I recently had an opportunity to discover some of the latest Canadian-made ARKit apps for iOS. AR or Augmented Reality is a huge part of Apple's iOS 11 and the Apple ecosystem going forward.

I've seen implementations of AR before, around a year or so ago Lenovo and Motorola showed off their Project Tango smartphones. These were large phablets that used special cameras and sensors to 'project' 3D images into reality (as viewed through their screen). While the demos looked impressive, the hardware felt awkward and certainly more cumbersome than a regular smartphone.

With Apple's ARKit, Augmented Reality comes to existing iPhones and iPads, no extra hardware required. More impressive is that Apple's made it possible for existing app programmers to port their apps and enable AR functionality.

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With the ZBook X2, HP proves it can build a better Surface than Microsoft

It is said that many of Microsoft's OEM partners resented the company's entry into hardware with the Surface devices. While Microsoft tried to appease said partners by not making its products direct competitors (i.e. no flip functionality, targetting the very high-end), the existence of the Surface Book, in particular, ruffled a few feathers.

Now we see partner OEM's taking it to Microsoft with similarly impressive hardware. HP unveiled the HP ZBook x2, its newest product designed to improve performance and mobility needs for the creative community. HP is making no bones about who they are after. They openly compare the ZBook X2 with the Surface Pro. Featuring quad-core processors as well as NVDIA Quadro graphics that are 73 per cent faster than the Surface Pro.

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Microsoft launches Surface Book 2 with 13 and 15-inch variants and USB Type-C

Just in time for the release of the Windows 10 Creator's Update Fall Edition, Microsoft has updated its Surface Book line of detacheable 2-in-1 flagships. Featuring the latest Intel processors, a range of video cards and now a choice between 13 and 15-inch models. The new Surface Book 2 models also adopt USB Type-C connectors which are quickly becoming the industry standard. Canadian pricing and availability remains a mystery as of the time of this post.