National Post Tech Desk

A former Ontario privacy commissioner is criticizing BCE Inc.’s ill-fated relevant advertising program and urging other companies to avoid similar missteps when making sense of the troves of valuable personal consumer data they are collecting, filtering, analyzing and storing.

“We pay for Bell service and they’re gaining at the other end by driving ads to us that we don’t want,” Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s former information and privacy commissioner, said during a panel Monday at the Canadian Telecom Summit. “That’s not a good model. Customers don’t like this, and I’m a Bell customer.”

Bell was tracking every website a consumer viewed, every app opened, every television show watched and every call made. Through the contentious relevant advertising program (RAP), the telco would marry these insights and other long-compiled account details to create a profile of users, which would then be sold to fee-paying third parties so they could better target and match their advertising initiatives.

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After hearing a record 170 public complaints and completing an 18-month investigation, the federal privacy commissioner ruled that the breadth of the data collected was too sensitive for the opt-out consent regime Bell had in place. Privacy watchdog Daniel Therrien noted in his April report that how Bell handled credit scores for behavioral targeting was “inappropriate” and in violation of the country’s privacy laws. 

Bell said it has terminated this iteration of the program and deleted all user profiles and while the matter has been resolved by the Commissioner’s Office, Cavoukian and another panelist at a separate industry event held last week in Toronto continue to dissect its composition and how it went wrong. Bell Canada and Bell Mobility are still facing a $750-million class action lawsuit in Ontario and Quebec.

Michael Maguire, a senior adviser at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada who leads inquiries into potential violations of the country’s privacy law, said the investigations team considered four factors relating to how the company dealt with subscribers to determine if the telco’s advertising program crossed the line. One of these four considerations was whether the program was a secondary purpose that didn’t relate to the primary delivery of telecom services, which it was deemed to be.

“It was the combination of these things [being collected] that in our view would lead customers to expect they’d be given the opportunity to express their consent and opt into the program,” Maguire said during a panel Thursday at the IAPP Canada Privacy Symposium. He applauded Bell multiple times for its cooperation.

Other issues he noted were that Bell had a French website but not a French privacy policy and it had little record of how its employees were internally handling the consumer data – things Bell agreed to improve.

But Cavoukian, now the executive director of the Privacy and Big Data Institute at Ryerson University, said this is a symptom of Bell’s consumer disregard, a glaring contrast to rival Telus Corp., which has “walked that talk” by embedding privacy into its services. “Telus is great at that,” she said, “Bell not so much.”

Executives ought to take the privacy angle of the growing analytics file – and the years-worth of trust that can be eroded quickly as a result of misuse – more seriously, she added. It should be treated it as a value exchange between parties, meaning consumers need to be paid in some way for their information.

“If you treat data like currency,” Cavoukian said, “you’d never think of taking anybody’s data.”

 

MONTREAL — Amaya Inc. has confirmed that its top two executives are named in an investigation by Quebec’s security regulators relating to trading activity of the company’s stock ahead of the $4.9 billion PokerStars takeover in June 2014.

Riccardo CellereAmaya Inc CEO David Baazov has been named in the investigation.

The online gaming company said Monday the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) authorized Amaya to disclose the names of CEO David Baazov and chief financial officer Daniel Sebag.

“I believe that any concerns that I or other Amaya officers or directors violated any Canadian securities laws are unfounded and we are confident that at the end of its investigation, the AMF will come to the same conclusion,” Baazov said in a statement.

The company said the investigation does not involve personal trading by Baazov or Sebag, and that the AMF has not filed any charge relating to the company surrounding the acquisition of Oldford Group, parent company of the PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker online gaming platforms.

“We have been cooperating with the AMF since the announcement of our acquisition of Oldford Group,” said Baazov.

Last December, the AMF executed search warrants at Amaya’s headquarters west of Montreal, as well as the offices of Canaccord Genuity and Manulife Financial.

In the lead-up to the deal PokerStars deal, Amaya’s stock price doubled to more than $14 a share. It would eventually climb past $38 a share, but company representatives said there were publicly disclosed reasons for the price increase.

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“To date, the AMF has neither threatened nor initiated any legal proceedings against the Corporation or its employees. Amaya has also not been provided with any evidence that any officers, directors, or other employees violated any securities laws or regulations,” said Ben Soave, a member of Amaya’s Compliance Committee, in a statement.

Soave, a retired Chief Superintendent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said Amaya has conducted an internal review supervised by its independent board members with “the assistance of external legal counsel.”

“This review found no evidence of any violations of Canadian securities laws or regulations,” Soave said in the statement.

In the same news release, Amaya also announced it had completed the sale of the Cadillac Jack Inc. gaming company under the indirect parent company Amaya Americas Corporation to to AGS LLC for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $476 million.

Twitter: @DamonVDL

TORONTO – At work, Canadians don’t use mobile technologies as much or as well as they do at home, creating a widening and costly productivity gap between our professional and personal lives, a new study shows.

According to a Ryerson University report out Monday, titled “Transformation of Work,” almost all of the 38 senior managers surveyed said their company was using some form of mobility, but fewer than 30 per cent of them saw a clear value proposition for adopting, despite a growing appetite to communicate and collaborate across business units and places. The result is unconnected companies and cost-savings left on the table.

The hesitation to embrace mobility in the office has resulted in a glaring lack of the “explosive” consumer data use and higher monthly cell phone bills that wireless carriers attribute rising revenue to, each quarter. While smartphones and tablets are ubiquitous at home, these devices are not being formally managed – let alone being optimized – at work. Instead, mobile strategies are nonexistent, ad hoc and lacking metrics.

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But the solution isn’t the technology itself, says Nitin Kawale, president of the enterprise business unit at Rogers Communications Inc., which supported the Ryerson University study along with Mitacs. It’s about persuading the people in charge to change the way teams work – and not relying on IT to steer the boat.

“It’s the same issues today as they were 20 years ago, which was about deconstructing business processes and reconstructing them,” Kawale said in a keynote speech Monday at the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto. Only then, the boardroom debates were whether companies should have a presence and conduct business on the web. “The real difference is the whole environment is on steroids and we’re moving at light speed.”

He warned that the Canada economy can fall behind in germane sectors such as oil and gas, utilities, forestry and agriculture – which are “absolutely ripe” to be connected to the so-called Internet of Things. If there’s no sense of urgency to adopt mobile devices, Canadian businesses will lag their international rivals.

“We shouldn’t fear cutting the cord on old technologies,” said Kawale, urging firms to unlock productivity from their connected employees right now. “Do not let technology be the issue, cause we all know it’s not.”

 

TORONTO • While wireless carriers are spending billions to build, upgrade and broaden their cellular networks to deliver faster and more reliable coverage, equipment provider Ericsson Canada is pressing for the debut of even better technology within the next five years as the appetite for connectivity grows around the world.

The number of mobile subscriptions is projected to exceed the world’s population in 2015, but the looming capacity crunch won’t be just a result of more people using smartphones, Ericsson Canada president Mark Henderson warned Monday. The source of strain will likely be data-transferring machines.

“As the previous four generations of wireless technology connected people, the fifth generation is going to connect everything else,” Henderson said during a speech at the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto. “Traditional networks and their one-size-fits-all approach need to be adapted to the thousands of use cases and the many different subscriber types,” some of which might not yet be visible.

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In comparison to what today’s networks manage on average, these new systems will have to process 1,000 times higher data traffic volumes, according to what Henderson described as an industry consensus. Also, 100 times more devices will require connectivity, with some applications demanding speed that’s 100 times faster than today’s. Some will expect absolutely no latency, or time delay, at all.

He predicts the industry ought to prepare for “an enormous transformation of connectivity” and a surge of new, pervasive demand propelled by the global rise of the so-called “Internet of Things” over the next four or so years. Ericsson Canada says it is focusing on innovation, having invested $317 million in R&D efforts in Canada last year. One of the company’s largest R&D centres outside Sweden is based in Montreal.

“Networks built for much smaller volumes will not be able to handle and cope with these new demands,” said Henderson. Networks built for specific use cases won’t work either in the 5G era. “We need technology that’ll efficiently support a wide variety of devices, applications, their limitations, their needs and to do that in cost-efficient ways to accommodate this enormous growth of connections.”

The specifics of how the Canadian telcos plan to adapt or what their future networks will look and feel like are sparse. But in this fierce technology arms race, the slowest carriers to move will quickly be left behind.

Nintendo’s next dedicated video game system will be built to run on Google’s Android operating system, according to a report by Japan’s Nikkei newspaper that set the gaming world abuzz Monday morning.

Briefly mentioned at a press conference earlier this year by Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata, details about Nintendo’s next game machine – codenamed NX – aren’t slated to be revealed until next year, with a launch date some pundits have speculated to be at least 30 months away.

But the rumoured potential that this device might be built around Google’s popular operating system could offer hope to Nintendo enthusiasts worried about the struggling game giant’s future in the hardware business – though some fans have already expressed trepidation.

Any worries about a heavily co-opted Android-like interface are unfounded. Android is malleable enough that Nintendo could – and surely would – transform it for its own needs, creating a GUI that would harness the power and speed of a proven and sophisticated platform while retaining Nintendo’s signature look and feel.

Indeed, Android could help solve many problems suffered by Nintendo’s current and previous console operating systems – including sluggish response, unreliability, and unintuitive navigation – while freeing up resources to focus on what Nintendo does best: Make great games.

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More than that, a familiar Android environment could prove attractive to studios that have previously passed on bringing their games to Nintendo’s systems due to the expense of designing for a machine so dissimilar to Xbox, PlayStation, and PC platforms. And the more good games that come to Nintendo hardware, the more people will likely buy it – which would in turn lead to additional revenue reaped in licensing fees. These are all undeniable pluses.

What’s more, Nintendo devotees concerned that Android might pave the way for the publisher’s games to begin appearing on non-Nintendo devices – thus losing some of their unique appeal – need remember that Nintendo already launched that boat this spring with the announcement that it was partnering with Japanese game maker DeNA to begin making and releasing apps for phones and tablets.

Besides, the likelihood that Nintendo would devalue high profile releases in its core franchises by porting them to other platforms is low to the point of non-existence. Android would be a means to make Nintendo hardware more open for other game makers, not a way for Nintendo to make its proprietary games available on competing hardware.

Of course, this is all just speculation. Chances are we won’t know whether this rumour is true until sometime next year, when Iwata provides additional information on what NX is and what it will do. We still don’t know if it will be a home console, a portable device, something in between, or something entirely new.

But if the Android rumour turns out to be accurate, Nintendo may have removed several of its longstanding roadblocks – and substantially lessened the cost and effort of new platform development – in one quick, clever move.

MILPITAS, Calif. — A recycling centre in the Silicon Valley is looking for a woman who dropped off an old Apple computer that turned out to be a collectible item worth US$200,000.

Victor Gichun of Clean Bay Area says the woman dropped off boxes of electronics that she had cleaned out from her garage after her husband died.

She didn’t want a tax receipt or leave her contact information, and it wasn’t until a few weeks later that workers at the recycling centre opened the boxes to discover an Apple I (one) computer inside.

The San Jose Mercury News reports it was one of only about 200 first-generation Apple computers made in 1976.

Gichun sold the computer to a private collection, and he wants to split the proceeds with the mystery donor.

The Associated Press

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Microsoft Corp. is preparing Windows 10 for release on July 29, in time for the back-to-school personal-computer season, as the company tries to boost an ailing PC market and revive its own fortunes in mobile devices.

The operating system will be available for PCs and tablets as a free upgrade to people using Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, or on new Windows 10 devices, Microsoft said in a statement Monday. Windows 10 for other devices will be available later this year.

Microsoft said in April it expects a billion people to be using its Windows 10 operating system in the software’s first two to three years on the market, signaling optimism in its push to revive Windows and make it more useful on smaller devices. Still, market research firm IDC is predicting that PC shipments will drop 6.2 per cent this year as a corporate PC purchasing cycle runs out of steam.

Windows 10 has a design that blends some aspects of Windows 8 with the older, more popular Windows 7’s appearance. It adds a new browser called Microsoft Edge, to succeed Internet Explorer. The update to Windows will also bring the Cortana voice-controlled assistant to PC desktops, and will have touch-enabled Office applications such as Word and Excel built in for smartphones and tablets.

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Bloomberg.com

WATERLOO, Ont. – BlackBerry Ltd. said Monday it has resolved its legal dispute with television host Ryan Seacrest’s company Typo Products LLC, a maker of add-on keyboards for the Apple iPhone.

BlackBerry claimed that the Typo had copied its keyboard design and launched the suit in California in early 2014.

The Canadian smartphone maker says Typo has agreed to permanently discontinue the sale of keyboards for smartphones and mobile devices with screens that are less than 7.9 inches.

The ban won’t apply to keyboards for devices with bigger screen sizes. Other terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed.

Physical keyboards have remained a key selling point for BlackBerry, loved by many of the company’s most loyal fans, as it loses market share to Apple’s iPhone and phones that run on Google’s Android operating system, which typically have touchscreen keyboards.

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With a file from Reuters

Intel Corp agreed to buy Altera Corp for US$16.7 billion as the world’s biggest chipmaker seeks to make up for slowing demand from the PC industry by expanding its line-up of higher-margin chips used in data centres.

By combining with Altera, Intel will be able to bundle its processing chips with the smaller company’s programmable chips, which are used, among other things, to speed up Web-searches.

Intel said it would offer US$54 per share in cash, a 10.5 per cent premium to Altera’s closing price on Friday.

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Altera, based in San Jose, California, rejected an earlier unsolicited offer of US$54 per share from Intel in April, a person familiar with the matter had told Reuters.

The deal is the third big one in the highly fragmented chip industry this year. Avago Technologies Ltd agreed last week to buy Broadcom Corp for US$37 billion in the industry’s biggest-ever takeover.

© Thomson Reuters 2015

In an industry where time is money, a 15-hour time difference can be costly.

That’s one of the reasons Animal Logic, the Sydney, Australia-based digital effects studio responsible for bringing The Matrix and The Lego Movie to life, is opening shop in Vancouver, where it’s in the same time zone as Hollywood and there’s talent and opportunity in spades.

The move follows the smash success of the animated kid flick The Lego Movie, which, on a US$60 million budget, grossed over US$450 million in 2014 for Warner Bros Pictures. Warner Bros. has since locked in Animal Logic for three more animated features to be produced out of the B.C. studio, starting with The Lego Movie Sequel, scheduled for 2018.

It’s a far cry from 1991, when AL started doing VFX for the advertising industry as a 10-person mom-and-pop shop. In 1996, the company branched out into features, from Warner Bros.’ Happy Feet to Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.

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Along the way, “we’ve had many great Canadian artists coming to Animal Logic [in Sydney] to work over the years,” says Zareh Nalbandian, co-founder and CEO of the company. “Vancouver stood out to us because of the incredible growth in artists and technicians, and just generally in terms of talented crew in the digital industries over the last five years.”

VFX is dominating film. The top 10 films of 2014, for example, is chalk full of titles like X-Men: Days of Future Past, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. According to Warren Franklin, an independent producer and president of Vancouver’s Visual Effects Society, visual effects eat up an increasing proportion – roughly 20 per cent – of movie budgets.

“Even a film you may not think of as a visual effects film, like The Theory of Everything or The Imitation Game, all have visual effects in them,” Franklin says.

Animal Logic, whose 45,000-square-foot space will open in September and plans to employ 300 people, mainly from Vancouver, to start production early 2016, joins the big-time animation and digital effects studios flocking to the region. In the last year alone, Sony Pictures Imageworks and George Lucas’ s Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) both opened permanent studios, joining Digital Domain and Gener8 Digital Media Corp – to name a few – which have contributed to the $1.4 billion film and television business in British Columbia, according to the film and media agency, Creative BC.

While it’s a bonus not having to deal with the 15-hour time difference between L.A. and Sydney, which makes meetings and phone calls with Hollywood colleagues challenging, the three-film deal provided the stable funding to make the B.C. move feasible for AL. “Of course, there’s the great government support [in Canada] on offer,” Nalbandian adds.

In 2003, the province introduced the Digital Animation or Visual Effects tax credit (DAVE) – a 15 per cent break on production costs, which increased to 17.5 per cent in 2010. In this year’s budget, B.C. announced it would extend DAVE to cover post-production costs. Coupled with the federal government’s credit of up to 16 per cent, Nalbandian says the  move to Vancouver is “a no-brainer.”

Provincial tax credits in Ontario and Quebec are even larger — 18 and 37.5 per cent respectively — but Vancouver’s talent pool and proximity to L.A. have long created an irresistible magnet for savvy producers.

Franklin, who worked with ILM and other studios in the U.S., before moving to Vancouver in 2005, says: “The industry was small but I could see the talent coming out of Canada for visual graphics – it’s pretty important to the whole industry.”

The weaker Canadian currency attracted foreign producers in the early days. “Canada was a cheaper place to go,” says Franklin. “Once that levelled a little bit, then the tax incentives kicked in and it’s still a very financially viable proposition for the studios to work up here.”

A 2014 snapshot of Canada’s film and television industry shows that foreign productions in Canada increased 4.9 per cent from the previous year, according to a report from strategy consulting firm Nordicity. The Canadian dollar in 2014 was also the lowest it had been in three years — something the report speculates helped attract out-of-country producers.

The industry was small but I could see the talent coming out of Canada for visual graphics

In this year’s Ontario budget, for instance, the government cut its tax credit by 2 per cent, suggesting the lower Canadian dollar is making Ontario an increasingly attractive location. But Peter Lyman, a digital media analyst and senior partner with Nordicity, says the government may have overestimated the power of the Canadian dollar. “There’s not a straight-line connection between the level of the dollar and production,” says Lyman.

Vulnerability to the whims of government does not deter Nalbandian, who says that Animal Logic plans on staying in Vancouver after fulfilling its current WB contract. “Our commitment is for a permanent long-term second animation studio mirroring what we do in Australia.”For

Nintendo has a lot riding on Splatoon’s success. With Zelda Wii U pushed back to a release date likely sometime next year, and with very few other big games coming out on the console over the next few months (other than Star Fox and Yoshi’s Woolly World), Splatoon sits alone as one of the only upcoming announced Wii U titles that looks promising.

Refreshingly, Splatoon is also one of the only Nintendo games released in the last 15 years to feature original characters. And it’s a third-person shooter — albeit not a traditional one — which is completely new territory for the company. The game is the answer to what Nintendo naysayers have been complaining about on Internet forums for years: “Why doesn’t Nintendo do something different?” and “Nintendo needs to evolve.”

So will Nintendo’s ink-filled shooter satisfy the unquenchable thirst of angry former Nintendo fans and hardcore fanatics? It just might. The game hits a similar level of perfection as some of the company’s other first-party developed titles, such as Super Mario 3D World. But underneath the colourful paint of Splatoon’s charms, the game is also rife with significant issues, some that might be game-ruining for shooter fans.

With this said though, Splatoon is different, inventive, and the most fun I’ve had with a Nintendo-developed title since the Wii U launched. If you’re a Wii U owner there is very little reason not to buy this game.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Splatoon is that it isn’t about racking up kills. Instead, it’s focused on pitting two teams of four against one another as they try to spray as much paint as possible across the game’s various multiplayer arenas. The premise really is as simple as that. Whatever team has covered a higher percentage of the level at the end of the match is the victor. In an industry full of shooting games that copy each others’ gametypes, a new way to play that isn’t focused on killing your opponents is a  nice change of pace.

Players are also awarded an individual score at the end of each game that’s added to their overall point statistics, which then levels up their online profile and unlocks new weapons and clothing for their character. This is all standard shooter fare, but there’s a level of simplicity to Splatoon’s progression system that isn’t present in other shooting games such as the Call of Duty series. Splatoon might be a shooter, but it’s very much the kind of shooter only Nintendo could create.

NintendoThe objective in Splatoon, even in the games singleplayer, is to spray everything in sight with ink.

Specific weapons perform better in different situations, and depending on your play-style, you’ll likely find some guns relatively useless.

The Splat Roller also feels overpowered at first, since it plasters a level with paint relatively easily. But after spending a few hours with the game I realized this wasn’t actually the case. Inventive players will quickly find ways to take down opponents who gravitate towards the close quarters-focussed Roller.

But as someone who’s fond of the Splat Roller, there are also obvious strategies to take down players using projectile weapons like the Splattershot, long-range Splat Charger or Jet Squelcher. The moment I saw anyone from the opposing team, I’d instantly dive down into the ink and swim to an area my enemy might not think I would be. I’d then pop out of the ink and smash the Splat Roller on top of my foe. The weapon also shoots out a small amount of ink when it’s smashed to the ground, taking out any enemies directly in front of you.

NintendoEmo octopus really are an enemy in Splatoon (that's even what Nintendo calls them)

Additionally, each weapon has its own special power-ups. For example, the Killer Wail can take out multiple enemies at once with its tornado of paint. While I’m still getting the hang of timing when to appropriately use power-ups, I’ve seen a number of high-level players turn the tide of a match with only seconds remaining on the clock by busting out an Inkzooka at the right time.

In short, Splatoon is an expertly balanced game and it’s easy to tell Nintendo painstakingly play-tested the experience to ensure the finished product was as balanced as possible. Matches often boil down to wars of attrition, with each team pushing forward slightly with their brightly coloured paint until one squad eventually breaks through the barrier of colour, opening the floodgates.

This brings me to perhaps Splatoon’s most unique mechanic beyond the wall-covering ink-spraying. Your “kid” character has the ability to turn into a squid and can dive into surrounding ink. This allows you to hide from your enemies and move around the map much quicker than when in kid mode. The ability to dive over objects while playing as a squid, and the visceral speed that comes from the transformation, makes Splatoon’s combat feel extremely fluid and, in some ways, almost rhythmic.

There are downsides to Splatoon’s multiplayer, though. For a game where teamwork is so integral to its core experience, it’s a shame Splatoon doesn’t feature voice chat. Since this is a Nintendo title, I expected this issue ahead of time considering there are only a handful of Wii U titles that support the feature, but this doesn’t excuse voice chat’s absence.

Having the ability to communicate with your team would add a lot to Splatoon.  For some players, the game’s lack of voice communication will be a deal breaker, especially those who have played other shooter games or even online multiplayer titles in general.

Splatoon is also different, inventive, and the most fun I’ve had with a Nintendo-developed game since the Wii U launched

While Splatoon’s matchmaking system is great and does a commendable job of putting together two teams of similarly levelled players relatively quickly, there is no simple way to play with friends. The only way to join someone on your friends list is to select “join a friend” and then wait until there is space in their game for you to jump in.

The lobby or party systems many online console players will be familiar with from other titles are not part of Splatoon. Nintendo has stated they have plans to add custom game lobbies as well as a party system via an update set to release in August, but as the game stands right now, it’s a chore to play with even just one other friend.

NintendoSplatoon's overall look is very reminiscent of early 2000s games like Jet Grind Radio.

Map selection and gametypes are also limited, although Nintendo has plans to add additional free maps and new gametypes over the course of the summer. Competitive ranked lobbies unlock once you reach level 10 (which will take quite a bit of time), giving players access to a surprisingly fun king of the hill-style gametype called Splat Zone. Splatoon’s standard ink-spraying gametype is called Turf Wars.

Offline multiplayer is also confined to just two players, and while this game mode is fun, Splatoon’s lack of four player offline mode seems like a missed opportunity.

On the bright side, while Splatoon is a decidedly multiplayer-focused experience, the game does offer an extensive singleplayer mode clocking in at approximately five to six hours. Players traverse through a variety of Mario-esque levels, painting platforms, exploding balloons, and taking on emo octopus enemies. Yes, you read that correctly.

NintendoWhile there are only a few multiplayer maps available right now, the ones you can play on are balanced expertly thought out.

What’s unfortunate about Splatoon’s singleplayer is parts of it don’t feel fleshed out enough. The game slowly introduces a great concept such as bouncing between guisers, only to have it disappear in the following level. Mechanics that are part of Splatoon’s singleplayer early on in the game are also rarely brought back again later.

Another drawback are Splatoon’s graphics. While the game’s look is interesting and reminiscent of Dreamcast classic Jet Grind Radio, its bright and inventive visuals don’t feature the same level of polish as other internally developed Wii U titles. Characters and objects often feature distracting jagged edges. On the plus side, plastering a level with colourful ink looks great and the game’s frame rate is solid.

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Despite its shortcomings, Splatoon is one of the best Wii U titles and is exactly the kind of game Nintendo needs to release right – a game that’s different, unique and, most importantly, features the charm people have come to expect from the company’s titles.

I saw something special in Splatoon last year when I played the game at E3 and it seems I was right.

MONTREAL – Kimbal Musk says an accident that almost killed him is also what changed the way he looked at his two passions – business and food. Musk broke his neck while tubing down a ski hill in 2010.

At the time, he had been running a restaurant in Boulder, Colorado. This was not his first business venture. In 1999, Musk sold the online publishing company Zip2 – founded with his older brother, Tesla Motors Inc. CEO Elon Musk – to Compaq Computer Corp. for US$307 million. He says his restaurant was successful, but after the accident nearly left him paralyzed, he wanted to make a bigger impact.

“Passion for business and passion for food were almost fighting each other,” said Musk, 42, during an interview at the C2 business conference in Montreal.

“[I] decided to find a way to tie them together and make business and food the same thing. After I did that I was much happier, and much more successful as well.”

For him, the answer was to create a non-profit organization called Kitchen Community, that works with schools on issues relating to food and education, while using his for-profit businesses for funding.

“You have both a financial return and a social return. I’ve always struggled with it because you can’t measure the social return,” said Musk.

Though Musk was born in South Africa, his mother is from Regina. He studied at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. while working at Bank of Nova Scotia, and graduated with a Business Communication degree in 1995. After selling Zip2, Musk moved to New York to study cooking, and in 2001 volunteered to cook for firefighters in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.

“That got me really, really passionate about food,” he said.

Since then he has opened eight restaurants, runs a non-profit that works in 225 schools across the U.S., and sits on Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc’s board of directors. Musk also still works with his brother as a member of Tesla’s board.

The company has a US$31.5-billion market capitalization, has sold 70,000 fully-electric cars since 2008, and earlier this year announced its Powerwall battery for home energy storage. Tesla is building Gigafactory 1, a lithium-ion battery plant that is projected to cost US$5 billion.

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Elon also attracts a lot of attention for his high-tech, interplanetary aspirations that include founding SpaceX, a private company with the goal of reducing space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars (Kimbal is also on the board).

Kimbal says that while the two were competitive while growing up, these days neither are fighting for fame.

“We do different things.  Honestly, I don’t think either of us are that excited about the spotlight. We do it because it helps us further our mission, but I don’t think we’re jumping at it either,” said Musk.

Musk says he has felt at home being in the kitchen since he was a child, surrounded by an ambitious family that included a fashion model mother, and an electrical engineer father.

“I loved cooking because it brought the family together, and if you know my family, they’re an intense, high-energy group of people,” said Musk.

For him, the relationship between food and transportation is clear.

Passion for business and passion for food were almost fighting each other

“There are certain things in our world that need to happen. Electric cars need to happen. The global pollution is just insane,” he said. “It’s the same with food … we need to understand the true cost of what food is, not just in terms of what we put into our body, but it terms of how we’re polluting the ground and rivers, and also climate change.”

At the moment, he says he’s focused on a project in Memphis — one of the most overweight cities in the U.S. — where he works with 100 schools, runs two restaurants and is financing farms.

During Google Inc’s annual I/O 2015 developers press conference on Thursday, the company discussed future plans for its Android Wear operating system, additional information about the next iteration of Android, dubbed “M,” and also revealed a new “smart” home network called Brillo/Weave, pitting the company in a head-to-head battle against Apple Inc’s HomeKit in the burgeoning Internet-enabled home device market.

Related

• Nexus 6 review: Is Google Inc’s big, pricey smartphone worth buying?
• Apple Watch review: A new smartwatch king has finally arrived — but even it has flaws

Below are five major takeaways from Google I/O 2015:

5. Google Cardboard will now work with Apple’s iOS – get ready for Google Cardboard V2

Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesThe new version of Google Cardboard will be designed to also work with Apple's iOS devices.

Google Cardboard’s SDK development tool will now allow app developers to create programs and games for both Android and iOS. While there are a few unofficial iOS apps available that already work with Google Cardboard, most are missing key features, such as the ability to use Google Cardboard’s magnetic button. Many also suffered from other performance and motion control related issues.

Now that Cardboard’s SDK supports both iOS and Android this will no longer be an issue for developers. The platform will also be open to a much larger audience than ever before now that Google’s Cardboard virtual reality app is set to launch on iOS.

The new version of Google Cardboard is designed to fit larger smartphones – up to 6-inches in size. The magnet button featured in earlier versions of the device has also been removed in favour of a cardboard button designed to work with every major Android smartphone (support of the original Cardboard’s magnet button was sporadic).

Google also revealed plans to begin promoting Google Cardboard as an educational tool, giving students a cost-effective way to go on virtual-reality field trips.

4. Android Wear update brings black and white battery-saver mode

AP Photo/Jeff ChiuDavid Singleton, director at Android Wear, speaks during the Google I/O 2015 keynote presentation in San Francisco. Android wear now has more than 4000 applications.

During Google I/O the company also revealed Android Wear is set to add a number of new features to its wearable operating system. Google has plans to add gestures, allowing users to flick their wrist up and down to scroll through notifications, as well as Wi-Fi and GPS support, but more importantly, always-on apps are coming to Android Wear. This is a feature Apple’s recently launched Apple Watch includes in some core Apple-developed applications. For instance, Apple Maps stays open the entire time a user is navigating to a location with turn-by-turn directions via the application.

Google also plans to allow Android Wear manufacturers to include an additional always-on feature in their devices, displaying the time, as well as possibly basic notifications, in a Pebble-like monochrome black and white coloured interface. This conserves battery life while still maintaining the “watch” appearance of the wearable, giving users quick at-a-glance access to information.

According to Google, the company’s Android Wear operating system also now has more than 4,000 apps.

3. Google Photos now offers unlimited photo and video storage

Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesGoogle Photos will now allow users to upload an unlimited number of photos an videos.

In what seems like an effort to ensure its users continue to be heavily invested in Google’s growing Android ecosystem, during I/O the company revealed a new version of Google Photos that gives users unlimited photo and video storage, allowing images of up to 16-megapixels in quality and 1080p in video resolution, to be stored directly through the application.

The same photo editing tools available through the company’s struggling social network, Google+, as well as the ability to analyze and tag uploaded photos and videos, will also be added to the company’s mobile photo app.

Google’s new free Google Photos app is set to launch on Thursday, May 28, shortly following Google’s I/O press conference.

2. Google announces Brillo, a new way to control your “smart” home

David Paul Morris/BloombergGoogle's Brillo is set to compete directly with Apple's HomeKit.

As the general concept of a “smart home” and Internet-enabled household devices continues to become more common, Google is poising Brillo as an effort by the company to get ahead of the curve and become the hub for all smart products.

Brillo has been developed in a partnership with Nest’s creators, the developers of an Internet-enabled thermostat and carbon monoxide detector. According to what Google showed off during I/O, the Android-based operating system that powers Brillo is designed to be a stripped-down version of Android’s mobile smartphone operating system.

The standard running behind Brillo was referred to during I/O’s keynote as Weave, a cross-platform common language that brings Brillo and other devices such as smartphones and computers, into the Brillo fold. According to Google, this new smart home operating system is designed to provide a platform for smart devices to communicate between each other. This means your smart lock, thermostat, light bulbs and any other device with an Internet connection, will be able to communicate.

According to Google, Brillo will be available towards the end of 2015. Apple has its own smart home communication network called Apple HomeKit and it seems Google’s Brillo/Weave is designed to compete directly with Apple’s offering. A developer preview of Brillo is coming in the third quarter of 2015.

1. Android M is Google’s smartphone future

Michael Short/BloombergUsers are engaging more and more with programs that have no attachment or often need for search on the broad web, and as a result Google Inc.'s position as the owner of our habits, interests, and needs on the internet has looked increasingly at risk. Today, Google might have just changed its trajectory.

Google’s next mobile operating system (OS), called Android M, is the successor to its current OS, Lollipop. During Google’s I/O press conference the company discussed its plans to focus M’s development on “polish and quality,” placing an emphasis on solving and simplifying one of every mobile operating system’s most significant issues – app permissions.

Google’s new permission system included in Android M allows users to accept and revoke permissions as an app requests access to different portions of your smartphone, rather than only during the initial installation of the application like it does now. For instance, if the app a user has opened needs to access their contact list, a pop-up will be displayed on the screen asking whether or not they would like to grant the app this permission. Google says this new permission system has been designed to help mobile security and privacy, two issues the company’s Android ecosystem is often criticized about.

Additionally, Android M is bringing updates to its U.S.-only payment option, Android Pay, though fingerprint authentication support, a feature Apple also touted during its most recent press conference when discussing Apple Pay. Android M will also bring improved “idle battery life” to Android devices, according to Google, doubling an Android smartphone’s battery life (this feature was shown off on a Nexus 6 during the press conference via a detailed infographic) through a new efficient, battery-saving operating system feature called Doze.

Google is also opening its popular Google Now personal assistant platform to third-party developers. Double tapping on an Android device’s home screen now opens Google Now and a feature Google’s Now’s team director, Aparna Chennapragada, referred to as “Now on Tap.” M-powered Now on Tap allows users to quickly create custom Google Card reminders, as well as search for the information they want in a more efficient way. The example shown off during Google I/O 2015 featured Chennapragada searching for information about a movie after receiving an email from a friend in Gmail, as well as searching for the correct way to pronounce a specific food at an Italian restaurant, while still browsing its digital menu.

Now on Tap is essentially a contextual search option that gives users information about almost anything they’re doing on their smartphone, almost instantly, at least if the new platform performs how Google says it will. This would effectively make Google Now and Now on Tap the glue holding an Android user’s digital world together.

USB-Type C is also coming to Android M. The new operating system is set for a late 2015 release date.

What Google just announced at its IO conference is a bombshell for the future of the company. For years the search giant has witnessed the chipping away of its core product — search — due to the rise of mobile applications and their siloed-off experiences. Users are engaging more and more with programs that have no attachment or often need for search on the broad web, and as a result Google’s position as the owner of our habits, interests, and needs on the Internet has looked increasingly at risk.

Today, Google might have just changed its trajectory.

The company demoed a new feature of its Android OS which allows its Now service (a dashboard of notifications focused on your life and interests) to plug in as a layer that essentially hovers above any app running on your phone or tablet. It’s always on and listening. This means that you can get contextual search information around almost anything you’re doing, provided there is text and data that Google can pull from the app itself. And the best part is that developers won’t have to make any changes to their existing software to allow the new service — dubbed Now on Tap — to bring search and context into the user’s view.

For instance, while listening to music in Spotify you can search for more info on an artist, or if you’re talking about a restaurant in WhatsApp, Google can pull up data on the place and even help you make reservations. And this is not a feature of the app itself, rather a helper that lives inside of the entire operating system.

Related

• Google unveils new Brillo platform for powering Internet-enabled ‘smart’ devices

This is a major move for two reasons. The first is that it really brings Google back to a place of dominance as the glue that holds your digital life together. The web has thrived and grown in no small part because of Google’s ability to track, organize, and understand all of its disparate pieces. Now it’s able to do the same thing with every app running on your phone. It allows Google to get back into the search game but by speaking the common language of apps. It gives the company a second life with access to user behavior and needs.

But secondly, it starts to show how Google can be an interconnecting layer between the apps themselves — a kind of neutral staging ground between one action and another. This is a sea-change for how we use our mobile devices and how mobile apps interact with one another. Currently, we use OS-defined tools which let apps interact with each other (with rules defined by the OS-makers, not developers). But imagine if developers didn’t have to think about how their work connects to the rest of your world? Imagine if Now on Tap is aware enough of the core functions of those apps that it can predict what you’d most likely want to do with them, and then execute on those needs?

That’s the ultimate promise of Now on Tap — and it’s a game changing one.

However, the technology has its limits. There’s no chance a service like this will ever make its way to Apple’s iOS given the closed nature of the operating system (and the fact that Apple will undoubtedly take a stab at the same concept). And Google also has to prove that this kind of natural language processing can work effectively enough to live up to the company’s promise of a seamless experience.

But if the service is as impressive as what Google just showed off on stage in San Francisco — there is a whole new world ahead of us for our devices. One that’s more connected than ever.

Bloomberg.com

While Shomi plans to make its subscriptions available to all Canadians sometime this summer, a complaint alleging that the video streaming platform and its two owners are in violation of telecommunications laws remains “unchanged and live” and before the industry’s national watchdog.

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the Consumers’ Association of Canada (PIAC-CAC) challenged a sales tactic employed by Shomi that limits the service’s use to only existing cable or Internet subscribers of its co-owners, Rogers Communications Inc. and Shaw Communications Inc. The advocacy groups contend that Shomi, Rogers and Shaw have been in “clear violation of the prohibition against unjust discrimination and undue preference” since the streaming service became available last November.

Despite Shomi’s plans to eventually lift the restriction, PIAC wrote to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that the news unveiled Wednesday was short on key details – such as a firm launch date and whether an active TV subscription is required – and asked if the regulator still planned to render a decision specifically on whether tying Shomi to a specific Internet service has been violating the Telecommunications Act and the Broadcasting Act.

Indeed, the process will continue, a CRTC spokeswoman confirmed. Submissions are due Monday.

Related

• Rogers Communications Inc, Shaw Communications Inc open streaming service Shomi to all Canadians
• Shomi, CraveTV ‘unduly prefer’ telcos’ own subscribers, consumer groups complain to CRTC
• Bell Media’s CraveTV and Rogers/Shaw’s Shomi now available on Apple TV

“It’s not enough for a company, who is facing a complaint that raises issues about complex matters under broadcast law and telecom law, to say at the last minute they’re changing their practice because there’s an issue of competition implicated right here,” Geoffrey White, external counsel to PIAC, said in an interview.

“Smaller, independent competitors who weren’t affiliated with Rogers or Shaw could have been losing out to Rogers and Shaw because of their unfair tied sale. We’d like a ruling on whether it was lawful.”

When asked who would be able to purchase a subscription under the new sales plan, Shomi spokeswoman Jodi Cook said: “Shomi will be available OTT (over-the-top) to all Canadians through their Internet provider. In addition, Shomi will also be available on set top boxes through our joint venture partners, and on offer to other BDUs/ISPs (broadcast distribution undertakings/Internet service provider).”

Shomi, which has a growing library of 15,000 assets, 300-plus series and over 1,000 movies, will continue to cost users $8.99 per month. By allowing a broader customer base and adding another vertical, legacy cable providers Rogers and Shaw would be pinned against global streaming service Netflix.

“With regards to PIAC, the response will be filed on Monday,” David Asch, Shomi’s senior vice-president and general manager, said in an email sent through a spokesperson. “We respect the regulatory process and won’t be commenting at this time.“

Google Inc. unveiled Project Brillo, a set of technologies to connect more household items to the Web, part of a shift to the so-called Internet of Things.

The platform aims to make it simpler for developers to build applications for everyday devices, said Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president of products, at the company’s I/O conference on Thursday. The company also announced a system called Weave to help with communication between devices.

Bloomberg.com

NEW YORK — Shares of GoPro jumped to a five-month high Thursday after the company’s CEO said the company is getting into the drone and virtual reality business.

The company already dominates the action video camera market and its entry into the fast-growing field of drones and virtual reality sent shares up 3 per cent early Thursday.

Nick Woodman, who also founded the company, said at the Code Conference in California, that GoPro will come out with a quadcopter drone geared toward consumers in the first half of 2016.

Related

• GoPro Inc sales top analysts’ estimates on growth overseas
• Apple Inc gets patent approval for wearable camera, GoPro Inc shares slide

GoPro is also introducing six-camera technology for use in virtual reality, using its HERO4 cameras, which may be available this year. GoPro last month said it was buying Kolor, a French company that makes “stitching” technology that allows users to combine multiple photos or videos into a high-resolution panoramic or spherical whole.

GoPro said that Kolor’s technology will be an important part of virtual reality media.

Shares of GoPro Inc. rose US$3.92 to US$57.20 in early trading.

Associated Press

Google Inc. executives are taking the stage this week to talk about a plethora of new technologies, including automobiles, home automation, digital TV, Web-connected devices and a new version of Android.
What will prove to be a breakout hit from Google’s annual developer’s conference, called I/O, has always been harder to predict.

“They are the kind of company that can push the boundaries in all directions — what sticks is another story,” said Al Hilwa, an analyst at IDC. “They’re typically very experimental.”

They are the kind of company that can push the boundaries in all directions

Case in point: cardboard. Of all the gadgets Google unveiled at last year’s event, Google Cardboard was a surprise success, putting virtual reality into the hands of everyday users by turning smartphones into headsets. Now the Web company is seeking to maintain momentum for the gadget, and will probably give new hardware and software guidelines aimed at improving users’ experience.

Android, the key component of the company’s efforts to break into virtual-reality, cars and television, is due for an upgrade. As in past years, Google is expected to use the event to reveal updates for the mobile software. The new Android operating system could get updates around security, including fingerprint technology.

Google, based in Mountain View, California, declined to comment on its plans for the conference, which starts Thursday and will draw thousands of programmers who develop software, hardware and services that work with Google’s products.

Google Gadgets

For payments services, Google may unveil new products and services based on technology it acquired from Softcard, a mobile-wallet service, in February. That could help boost Google Wallet, which has less than 10 per cent of the payments market.

For car automation, Android Auto may include navigation updates and other new features designed for drivers. Google will also be able to report some success in automobiles as well — General Motors Co. and Hyundai Motor Co. said this week that they expect to roll out vehicles equipped with Android Auto later this year.

Related

• How YouTube is redefining celebrity with online video creators
• Here’s why Apple should avoid getting into the TV business

Google also could introduce upgrades to its software and services for the Internet of Things, such as Web-connected lightbulbs to refrigerators. Even though Google bought Nest Labs, the maker of digital thermostats, for US$3.2 billion in February 2014, the company hasn’t announced a major new product since then. A key question will be whether ex-Apple Inc. executive Tony Fadell will take the stage to update developers on Google’s progress in home automation.

Cheap Cardboard

Google isn’t the only company investing more time and money in technology that blurs the line between virtual and real. Facebook Inc. spent US$2 billion last year to buy Oculus VR, and Microsoft Corp. has been touting its own gadgets that let users interact with digital environments. At stake is a piece of a market that could be worth US$150 billion by 2020, according to researcher Digi-Capital.

“When Google looked out at the market, they realized it was something serious and that they could actually turn it into something,” said Brain Blau, an analyst at Gartner Inc.

The Google gadgets, which typically cost less than US$25, have attracted upstarts that have moved beyond cardboard and are using plastic, wood and metal to make headsets. The devices, about the size of a child’s shoebox, have a slot for Android- based smartphones, which are turned into virtual-reality displays using specialized applications. Users can then look through lenses on the boxes to experience an immersive digital environment.

Virtual Reality

Earlier this year, Google appointed Jon Wiley, lead designer for its main Web-search service, to lead design efforts for its cardboard and virtual reality initiative. The company announced in April “Works with Cardboard,” a program that certifies whether a device is compatible with the technology.

Apart from its cardboard-based efforts, Google has also invested in Magic Leap Inc., a startup specializing in computing and graphics that augment reality. The company, which raised US$542 million in a funding round in October, is developing technology that superimposes digital images over real-life images.

Bloomberg.com

Avago Technologies Ltd., a Singapore-based maker of semiconductors, agreed to buy wireless chipmaker Broadcom Corp. for US$37 billion in the industry’s biggest acquisition ever.

Avago will pay US$17 billion of cash and US$20 billion in stock in the transaction, the companies said in a statement. The offer values Broadcom at US$54.50 per share in cash, compared with its closing price of US$57.16 on Wednesday, when it rose the most since 2001 after reports that the deal was imminent.

The purchase of Broadcom creates the world’s sixth-largest chipmaker by revenue and is the latest in a round of consolidation in the US$300 billion industry as the rising costs of production and design push manufacturers to combine. Singapore-based Avago has been at the forefront of that wave with several acquisitions, including its US$5.6 billion purchase of LSI Corp. at the end of 2013. The flood of deals may be reaching its peak.

I’ve got my misgivings, this feels very frothy for me

“I’ve got my misgivings, this feels very frothy for me,” said Alex Gauna, an analyst at JMP Securities in San Francisco. “This seems like a stretch, like it has a touch of recklessness to it. It seems like a bridge too far to me.”

Broadcom, based in Irvine, California, represents a much bigger target for Avago. While Singapore-based Avago has a greater market value, at US$36.3 billion, Broadcom had higher sales last year, with US$8.4 billion compared with its potential acquirer’s US$4.9 billion.

A deal would be almost twice the size of NXP Semiconductors NV’s pending purchase of Freescale Semiconductor Ltd. for about US$16.7 billion, including debt, announced in March.

Related

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• Intel Corp forecasts improving demand for PC, data-centre chips

Broadcom shares gained 22 per cent to US$57.16 at the close in New York, its biggest one-day gain and highest value since 2001. Avago increased 7.8 per cent to US$141.49 after the Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the companies were in advanced merger talks.

Broadcom is the biggest maker of WiFi chips that provide short-range connections for mobile devices. The company is shuttering its unit that makes modem chips for mobile phones. That’s reducing losses and expenses in a business that failed to gain significant market share from Qualcomm Inc.

Avago was founded in 1961 as an electronics division of Hewlett-Packard Co. It pioneered the market for light-emitting- diode displays before expanding into fiber-optic transmitters, optical mouse sensors and other equipment. It then became part of the Agilent Technologies Inc. spinoff from Hewlett-Packard in 2000.

In 2005, a group of private-equity firms, including Silver Lake and KKR & Co., acquired the business for US$2.66 billion. They orchestrated an initial public offering for the company, which debuted on the Nasdaq Stock Market in 2009.

–With assistance from Brooke Sutherland in New York.

Bloomberg.com

With the G4, LG has opted for the incremental upgrade strategy many other major smartphone manufacturers have adopted with their 2015 flagship smartphones.

This means it isn’t necessarily a bad smartphone if you didn’t own the nearly identical LG G3. But if you’re looking to upgrade to LG’s latest device from a G3, then the G4 isn’t worth shelling out hundreds of dollars for. LG’s strategy this year is reminiscent of HTC’s One line of smartphones. The HTC One M8 was a superb and surprising device, released after years of underwhelming smartphones from the company.

Related

• HTC One M9 review: Uninteresting upgrades, and a step backwards in camera performance
• Samsung Galaxy S6 review: Flimsy no more, the S6 is what Samsung fans have been waiting for

But when it came to this year’s M9, HTC decided to release a smartphone that ended up being nearly identical to last year’s model. LG’s G4 is in a similar situation.

Plastic build doesn’t cut it anymore

Patrick O'Rourke/National PostThe LG G4's screen is superb.

The only flagship mainstream smartphone manufacturer that has taken a chance this year is Samsung with its Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge. The major revamp puts the smartphone’s look so closely in-line with the iPhone’s that many speculate Apple might take legal action at some point in the future. Still, for all the S6’s shortcomings, Samsung is the only manufacturer that updated its design in a meaningful way this year.

While the G4 has taken the opposite approach and doesn’t take a single chance, it is still a decent looking smartphone, although one that lags behind the competition in terms of sleekness. The device largely looks and feels the same as the G3, only with a patterned triangle backing and slightly more curved edges. A leather backing is also available but is sold separately in Canada. And, love it or hate it, the G4’s defining rear on switch and volume rocker also makes a return with LG’s latest smartphone.

Placing these buttons on the back of the smartphone give it a unique look, which is welcome in an industry full of devices featuring a similar look and feel. Yet after the initial “cool” factor wears off, accessing the G4’s buttons becomes a frustrating chore. There’s no easy way to hold the phone in one hand and manipulate its buttons, causing me to place it in my hand on a strange angle. On more than one occasion I almost dropped the device while trying to reach its buttons. LG has tried to solve this issue by making the buttons more pronounced, but this change ultimately doesn’t solve the problem.

It’s also still difficult to get past the fact that the G4 still feels cheap when compared to the metal uni-body of the HTC M9 and even the Samsung S6’s Gorilla Glass exterior, especially considering LG is selling the G4 as a $699 off-contract high-end smartphone.

Top-notch battery life, removable back and MicroSD slot

Patrick O'Rourke/Financial PostThe biggest aesthetic change to the G4 is its patterned backing.

Battery life with the G4 is superb thanks to its 3000 mAh battery, making it one of the few smartphones to feature a battery of this capacity. I found myself only charging the G4 overnight unless I spent hours playing games on it during the day.

The G4’s backing is removable, unlike most other flaghship smartphones, allowing people to make use of an additional battery if they want to. However, most people concerned about smartphone battery life would likely rather use a USB battery pack. The G4 also includes a MicroSD card slot just like the HTC M9. This is a feature many other flagship smartphones (the Samsung Galaxy S6 for example) have dropped. It’s good to see LG still sees value in providing their customers with the option to add additional storage to their devices, although this is also a feature few people will probably take advantage of.

Minor display and hardware upgrades

Patrick O'Rourke/Financial PostThe strange placement of the on/off switch and volume rockers will be an issue for many people.

Those hoping for a pixel upgrade will be disappointed: The LG G4’s 5.5-inch 1440 x 2560 pixel screen resolution is identical to what was featured in the G3. so On the plus side, the G4’s new IPS display makes colours and images look slightly more vibrant.

For everybody else the screen upgrade will be almost unnoticeable. With that said though, when the G4’s screen is compared to other high-end smartphones like the Galaxy S6 (which features a OLED display), the LG G4 holds its own. It’s also important to point out the G4’s screen has a slight curve to it, which makes the phone slightly easier to hold in your hand, especially given its larger 5.5-inch size. But the curved screen is largely a superfluous change to the smartphone most people won’t notice unless they’re looking for it. The curvature of the screen also means the G4 sits somewhat strangely on flat surfaces.

When it comes to internals the G4 features top of the line hardware: A six core Snapdragon 808 processor and 3 GBs of RAM, which means you’ll be able to play high-end games, run multiple apps at the same time, and do almost anything any other modern high-end smartphone is capable of — all extremely smoothly with no lag time. Snapdragon 810 processors reportedly suffer from overheating issues. This problem is especially apparent in the HTC M9 since the smartphone tends to get very warm with prolonged use. So in a way it makes sense that LG instead decided to use the Snapdragon 808 in the G4, and most users will not notice a speed difference between the two processors’ speeds.

Clean user-interface and impressive camera

Patrick O'Rourke

LG’s Android skin, unlike HTC  and Samsung, sticks with Google’s broad concept for Android 5.1 Lollipop – bright colours and simplicity – and is also one of the first, if not the first smartphone to use Android 5.1 outside of Google’s Nexus line. This is a welcome change from the sometimes strange and cluttered interfaces of the HTC M9 and Galaxy S6 (although I’ve always liked how HTC’s skin spaces out icons better).

Built in features such as LG Smart Bulletin, an app that takes an entire page of the home screen to display apps like a music player, calendar and LG’s dedicated fitness tracker, also make a return. However, none of LG’s software tweaks are particularly impressive and I turned most of them off after using the phone for only a few hours. Google’s stock operating system experience is still much better than any skin smartphone manufacturers paste on top of Android.

And while the LG 4’s camera quality narrowly misses that of an iPhone, thanks to its improved, brighter F/1.8 aperature, larger image sensor and manual camera controls (a stock feature the LG G3 sorely missed out on) it just isn’t quite there yet. But as far as Android’s camera standards go, the LG G4’s 16 mega-pixel camera can go head-to-head with the Galaxy S6’s, the Android world’s current top performing camera.

A slightly improved version of the LG G3

If you didn’t own an LG G3 the LG G4 is far from a horrible smartphone. With this in mind though, both the Galaxy S6 and HTC One M9 are better looking and more high-end feeling devices. The G5 includes powerful hardware, but unfortunately its build-quality isn’t up to par with the company’s competitors, making it difficult to recommend.

Other Android smartphone manufacturers have stepped their game up in terms of design and it’s time for LG to do the same.