I didn’t see this coming but Industry Canada has just approved a surprise merger between Bell and TELUS.

While Bell and TELUS have been sharing networks for a few years, they’re separate companies that compete with each other.

A Bell spokesperson had this to say

“A merger of equals will create unparalleled value for our shareholders. By consolidating the market we’ll be able to increase ARPU substantially while at the same time cutting costs. Further, the combined company will be able to dominate the upcoming spectrum auction. We can start charging extra for LTE, introduce 4 year contracts, 250MB ‘unlimited’ data and a new Network Access Fee.”

You’re probably wondering why Industry Canada would approve such a merger given that they’re trying to increase competition. Turns out one of Industry Canada’s key conditions for the merger is that the newly merged company not operate under the name Bell or TELUS. That’s right, the new company won’t be known as Bell or TELUS.

In order for the merger to be approved Bell will transfer their trademark to Wind Mobile which going forward will be known as Bell Mobility while Mobilicity will now be known as TELUS.

Besides being able to merge, the combined company will be allowed to keep their combined spectrum.



That leaves a big mystery as to what the new company will be called. My sources say that there is a shortlist including: Bellus and Canadian Regional Telecom (CARTEL). In the meantime, they’re going with the name “TELL”.

It will also be interesting to see what will happen to Koodo and Virgin Mobile. Rumor has it that they will also combine into Voodoo Wireless.

More details on the merger will follow shortly.

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Huawei has had a challenging time breaking into the US market. Distrust of the Chinese owned company and lack of brand recognition have been blamed for their struggles.

One reason why they’ve been struggling is their name. While Chinese speakers have no problem pronouncing Huawei, most people here think it’s pronounced “Hua Way”. Patriotic Americans don’t need to be reminded that they’re not buying American when they look for a phone. Nothing alienates potential customers more than having to correct them when they try to pronounce the brand.

As part of their new assault on the American market, Huawei America will be changing their name to WahWay thus bringing the pronunciation in-line with the rest of the world.

“Our hope is that in a few years, Americans will think that WahWay will be seen as American as Apple Pie, Hamburgers, Pickup Trucks and Baseball.”

Good luck Huawei I mean WahWay!
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First round of bids are tomorrow, according to The Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repor...ticle10062360/

How is it I am not surprised? ...

Just read over at PocketDial that you can now redeem codes on the Canadian Google Play site.

Does this mean you'll soon be able to buy cards or is this how Rogers' $35 Google Play vouchers will be redeemed?

Hopefully we'll be able to buy Google Play cards soon. I've been waiting forever for these.

Thanks Logical_guy! ...

Today I had a chance to play with the Xperia ZL. It was actually announced earlier this year where Sony along with its sister phone, the Xperia Z.

Both sport a huge 5" 1920x1080 displays with a mind-blowing pixel density of 440 ppi. You also get a quad-core processor from Qualcomm, 2GB RAM 13 and 2MP cameras

The main difference between the 2 is that the Z is dust and water resistant plus it gets a glass back. The ZL has a smaller foot print along with an IR blaster so you can use it to control your TV among other things.



While it has a 5" display, it's not as big as I thought it would be because it uses on-screen menu keys which saves a bit of space. It’s actually about the same size as the Galaxy S III so while I wouldn’t call it one-handed friendly, it’s not terrible either.



The display itself looks incredible. 1080p resolution on a 5" display is pretty insane when you think about it. ...

Today Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy S4.

• 4.99" Full HD Super AMOLED display. 1920x1080, 441 ppi with Gorilla Glass 3
• 1.9Ghz Quad-core processor or 1.6Ghz Octa-Core processor.
• Android 4.2.2
• 13 and 2 megapixel cameras
• LTE with support for up to 6 bands (for roaming).
• 16/32/64GB built-in storage which can be expanded with MicroSD cards
• 2600mAh removable battery
• 130g and 7.9mm thin
• physical home, menu and back keys
• available in white or black

The body is now poly carbonate with a special finish on the back.

On the software side, Samsung has some new software features including Samsung Smart Pause. This allows you to pause videos by looking away. It also allows you to scroll the browser by looking and your face and what you're doing with your wrists and scrolls the page up or down.

Both cameras can record pictures or video simultaneously. The camera software allows you to choose frame effects before you take the simultaneous shot.

There's a Dual Video Call feature which allows you chat with both cameras at once (I think this requires Chat-On).

There are 2 shooting modes including a Drama shot (no, it doesn't make your wife look fatter causing more drama). Drama shots snaps up to 100 photos in a 4 second span and then chooses specific pictures to create a shot where the subject appears multi times. It's great for action.

Story Album takes your pictures, puts them into an Album. You can order a physical album if you want.

Group Play allows you to share music, photos, documents and games without having to be connected to the network or a WiFi access point (presumably this is WiFi Direct). There's a cool Share Music feature which lets you play the same music through up to 8 supported phones.

S Translator can translate both text and voice. You can say something to the GS4 English, it will translate it into another Language, hear the respond and translate it into English. Very cool.

Air View allows you to hover over content to preview it without having to open it. This is similar to what you can do with a S-Pen on a Note 2.

S Voice Drive is a car optimized feature which allows you make calls, check messages, etc while you're driving.

Samsung Optical Reader is a OCR program/QR code program. It can translate, call, text message and search.

Samsung WatchON is a fancy name for the IR Blaster which allows you to control your home theater. It can also pull information from an EPG (Electronic Programming Guide, nice).

S Health is software to tell you you're fat using built in sensor. Certain functions will require you to buy accessories which include a S-Band (presumably like a Nike fuel band), heart rate monitor, etc.

The new S4 looks nice but many of the new software features while very cool and snazzy aren't features I'd use in my everyday life. Many of them are very niche like S-Translate, Share Music, etc.

The only one I could see myself using is the Drama Shot feature, WatchON (the IR Blasters) and maybe the driving feature. And all someone would have to do is write software to recreate Drama Shot (I have this on my iPhone already and I'm sure someone made an Android version). Ditto for the driving feature.

Hardware is a evolution of what you have now. With the exception of the IR blasters I'm not sure the GS4 will really allow me to do anything I can't already do with a GS3.

In Canada the Samsung GALAXY S 4 will be available from Bell, Eastlink, Fido, Koodoo, Mobilicity, Rogers, Sasktel, TELUS, Videotron, Virgin Mobile and Wind Mobile in Q2.

In the 'States it will be coming to AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, as well as US Cellular and Cricket.

Who's getting one? Or are you going to keep what you have now or go get a Sony Xperia Z/ZL, HTC One or wait to see what Apple comes out with later? ...

The White House has agreed to act on legalizing cell phone unlocking! Thanks to everyone who signed the petition.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/res...hone-unlocking ...

Recently, I reviewed the Nokia Lumia 920 and the HTC Windows Phone 8X. So I was pretty excited when I got the Samsung ATIV-S. All represent the best you can currently get on Windows Phone.

If you were to compare the 3 phones on paper, the ATIV’s advantage is that it has the biggest screen, the biggest battery and most notably; a microSD card slot. Still, shopping for anything based on specs alone is the worst thing you can do. After all, things can be more than the sum of their parts. ...

Wow, looks like LG just bought WebOS from HP. Apparently they're going to use WebOS on their SmartTV's.

This means that when HP gets back into the tablet/phone market they're probably not going to use WebOS. Is this the first step in HP selling off their PC and hardware business? Also, while LG is going to use it in their TV's and other connected devices will this affect their focus on Android?

Also, for existing WebOS users:

Of course, part of me wonders what would have happened if LG (or anyone else) had purchased WebOS in the first place instead of HP?

Here's the release. ...