Key Operator: The BlackBerry Key 2 review

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

BlackBerry Mobile, which is owned by TCL Communications, has proven that there's a niche of smartphone users who want keyboards. More importantly, it shows that there is still innovation and evolution in keyboard-focused devices.

The BlackBerry KEY2, takes the ideas and design of the BlackBerry KEYOne and pushes them forward in a sleeker, more powerful and upgraded QWERTY keyboard smartphone.

Tapping into its heritage, BlackBerry has used the Bold 9600’s keyboard as the inspiration for the KEY2. Which now has a larger and even more responsive QWERTY keyboard. All the tricks and features are present, including the ability to use the keyboard as a trackpad and the flick-typing functionality for predictive text completion.

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eBay Canada launches Best Price Guarantee for shoppers

eBay Canada launched a Best Price Guarantee program, offering Canadian eBay shoppers 110% of the price difference on items found for less on an approved competitor's website. Best Price Guarantee improves on eBay's current price match offering, and runs site-wide through the month of July on Canadian items, making sure shoppers receive the lowest price online.

"Our Canadian eBay sellers have always offered great prices, but with this new program, we guarantee that they are the best or we'll pay the difference plus 10%," said Andrea Stairs, General Manager, eBay Canada & Latin America. "Just before the summer heats up with deal-driven events, we are introducing Best Price Guarantee to give Canadians on eBay.ca the confidence to know they are getting the best possible price every single day, with no membership fees required."

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Triple Beam: The Sonos Beam review

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

We live in a time where smart speakers are as common as TVs and smartphones. Powering these smart speakers are intelligent assistants which can respond to queries, set timers, run searches and play back an incredible range of streaming music, news and online content.

Behind each intelligent assistant is a tech company and its ecosystem of products. Amazon has millions of items for sale, Google has a massive advertising model, and Apple wants to shoehorn users into its Neverland of apps, services and devices.

Many of the existing $500 smart speaker releases of late seem to be solutions in search of problems. Apple’s HomePod is a circular single speaker that claims to be able to generate stereo sound. The Google Home Max is a heavy and oversized boombox for the streaming age. Both are expensive and serve one purpose, to play back streaming music and serve as the link for expanded smart home functionality.

The Sonos Beam, now that’s a different story. The second smart speaker from Sonos is also their third soundbar product and it is the hat trick of smart speakers capable of solving many problems at once.

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BC Cancer partners with Microsoft to answer cancer’s most complex questions and bring hope to patients

Microsoft Canada and BC Cancer have established a game-changing partnership that is answering cancer’s most complex questions at a rate never thought possible. Fuelled by advances in molecular biology, genomics and computer science, BC Cancer researchers are applying a radically investigative approach known as single cell genomics to analyze the millions of individual cells that make up cancer, made possible by cloud computing.

Together, BC Cancer’s single cell genomics expertise and Microsoft’s innovative computing resources will accelerate the pace of research to understand cancer at a granular level, and bring hope to British Columbians facing cancer. 

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