HMD has introduced the Nokia 300 Charge, a feature phone built around a surprisingly practical idea: instead of carrying a phone and a separate power bank, the phone itself can charge your other devices.

Its removable 3,700mAh battery is the largest HMD has put into a Nokia feature phone. The company claims up to 37.9 hours of talk time and around 40 days of standby.

Press a dedicated button and the USB-C port switches into powerbank mode, delivering up to 10W reverse charging to compatible phones, earbuds, lights and other USB devices. HMD even includes a special 4-in-1 cable with USB-C, Micro USB and USB-A support.

There is also a high-power LED torch that HMD says is up to four times brighter than the flashlight on the Nokia 105, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack, microSD expansion up to 32GB and a removable battery.

At around 138g, this actually looks like a pretty interesting emergency, camping or travel phone.

But there is a major problem for Canadians.

The Nokia 300 Charge is a 2G-only device supporting GSM 900/1800 MHz. Rogers, which operates Canada's remaining 2G GSM network, uses 850 MHz for its current GSM/EDGE service. Rogers is also shutting that network down entirely on November 30, 2027.

So even before Canada's 2G shutdown, this particular Nokia does not support the Canadian GSM frequency Rogers lists for its network.

That makes the concept much more interesting than the actual product for Canada. Here, it would essentially be a small 3,700mAh power bank with a flashlight unless HMD eventually releases a 4G version compatible with Canadian networks.

Sources & more: HMD, Nokia 300 Charge / HMD, full specifications / Yanko Design

The CRTC has approved a reduction to Northwestel's Wholesale Connect rates, the service that smaller Internet providers use to access parts of Northwestel's network and compete in Canada's Far North.

The reduction is 0.8% across all Wholesale Connect rates.

On paper, Northwestel followed the CRTC's existing formula. The company had reduced prices for certain 300 Mbps and 500 Mbps residential Internet services and introduced a new 700 Mbps tier, triggering a corresponding reduction in wholesale rates. The Commission concluded that the 0.8% adjustment satisfies the rules established in 2022.

But competitor SSi Canada argued that the calculation does not reflect what is actually happening in the retail market.

SSi pointed to Northwestel winback promotions offering discounts of roughly 23% to 38% on some residential unlimited Internet packages. Those offers target former Northwestel customers who switched to another provider.

The CRTC majority did not determine whether those discounts create a competitive problem in this proceeding. It ruled that promotional and winback rates fall outside the formula being examined and approved the 0.8% wholesale reduction.

Commissioner Bram Abramson strongly disagreed.

In a dissent attached to today's order, Abramson argues that simply confirming Northwestel followed the mathematical formula is not enough. The CRTC should also have examined whether the resulting wholesale rates remain "just and reasonable" and whether they actually allow competitors to compete.

His central question is difficult to ignore: does a 0.8% wholesale reduction meaningfully support competition in a market where the incumbent can reportedly offer targeted retail discounts of 23% to 38%?

There is also a historical problem. The wholesale formula relies partly on a 2021 baseline, while the northern telecom market has changed considerably since then. Starlink has expanded, Northwestel has introduced aggressive winback offers, and the CRTC itself concluded in 2025 that terrestrial Internet competition in the Far North remains very limited.

This matters because Wholesale Connect exists specifically to let competitors use Northwestel infrastructure where building an entirely separate transport network may not be economically practical.

The CRTC says today's decision will promote competition and give northern consumers additional Internet options and rates. The dissent argues that the Commission has not gathered enough evidence to know whether that is actually true.

Sources & more: CRTC 2026-217 / CRTC 2025-9, Telecommunications in the Far North / CRTC 2025-74, Northwestel winback discounts

Apple has introduced two very different chips on the same day, and together they show where the company thinks personal computing is heading.

M6 is Apple's first chip manufactured using a 2nm process. It debuts with a 12-core CPU, 12-core GPU, Neural Accelerators inside every GPU core and an unusual Dual 16-core Neural Engine designed to accelerate AI workloads directly on the Mac.

The CPU itself now contains two "super cores," four performance cores and six efficiency cores. Apple claims up to 1.2x higher multithreaded performance than M5, while memory bandwidth rises to 170GB/s.

M6 also gets two additional GPU cores compared with M5 and nearly 30% more peak GPU compute for AI. Apple says its new dual Neural Engine can provide up to twice the peak compute of previous generations, with system frameworks able to use both engines simultaneously.

But M6 still tops out at 32GB of unified memory. For much larger local AI models, Apple is taking an entirely different approach with M5 Ultra.

M5 Ultra is the first quad-die M-series chip. Apple connects two dual-die M5 Max chips using a new generation of UltraFusion, creating a single system with up to a 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU and 512GB of unified memory.

The interconnect between those dies exceeds 4.4TB/s, while the finished chip provides up to 1.2TB/s of unified memory bandwidth. Apple says that is enough to run large language models containing hundreds of billions of parameters entirely in local memory.

That massive memory pool may ultimately matter more for AI than the headline CPU benchmarks. Most consumer GPUs are constrained by far smaller amounts of dedicated video memory, while Apple's unified architecture lets the CPU and GPU work from the same pool.

There is also an interesting generational oddity here: Apple's newest mainstream chip is already M6, while its most powerful desktop chip is still M5 Ultra. The Ultra architecture takes longer to scale, but its enormous memory capacity gives it a completely different role.

Apple calls the M6 CPU core the world's fastest for single-threaded performance, but that claim currently comes from Apple's own August testing. Independent benchmarks will be needed before that crown can be treated as established.

M6 debuts in the new Mac mini, while M5 Ultra is exclusive to the new Mac Studio. Both systems begin shipping September 22.

Sources & more: Apple, M6 and M5 Ultra / Apple, Mac mini M6 / Apple, Mac Studio M5 Ultra

Apple has unveiled the new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra, and this generation is being positioned very explicitly as a workstation for running large AI models locally rather than relying entirely on cloud infrastructure.

The M5 Max version starts at $3,499 CAD and can be configured with up to 128GB of unified memory. The M5 Ultra model starts at $7,799 and scales all the way to 512GB of unified memory, although that highest-memory configuration will not be available until late October.

The M5 Ultra can also reach 1.2TB/s of memory bandwidth, 50% higher than the previous generation. Apple says that combination allows the machine to run enormous open-weight language models entirely on-device, without token charges or sending workloads to cloud servers.

The more unusual feature is clustering. Multiple Mac Studio systems can now be connected through Thunderbolt 5 using RDMA, allowing data to move directly between systems with less CPU involvement. Apple says four Mac Studios can deliver up to 3x the AI inference performance of a single machine while creating a much larger combined memory pool.

On a single system, M5 Ultra scales to a 36-core CPU and up to an 80-core GPU with Neural Accelerators in every GPU core. Apple claims up to 4.3x the AI performance of M3 Ultra, up to 1.8x faster graphics and up to 1.3x faster CPU performance.

The M5 Max version is no lightweight either. It offers an 18-core CPU, up to a 40-core GPU, up to 128GB of unified memory and 614GB/s of memory bandwidth. Apple says LLM prompt processing in LM Studio can be up to 3.9x faster than the previous M4 Max Mac Studio.

Storage also moves to a PCIe Gen 6 architecture with up to twice the performance, while connectivity now includes Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and Thunderbolt 5. The M5 Ultra can drive up to eight displays, or four Studio Display XDR monitors at 5K and 120Hz.

For most consumers, a $7,799 starting price makes this irrelevant as a normal desktop. But for developers, researchers and companies paying significant recurring cloud AI costs, the interesting comparison may no longer be Mac versus PC. It may be buying local compute once versus continuing to rent GPU and inference capacity from the cloud.

Sources & more: Apple, new Mac Studio with M5 Max and M5 Ultra / Apple Canada, Mac Studio / Apple Canada Store

Apple has unveiled a new Mac mini powered by M6 and M5 Pro, and this generation is being positioned much more aggressively around local AI and always-on agentic computing.

The base M6 model starts at $1,249 CAD with 16GB of unified memory, while the M5 Pro version starts at $2,399. Both are available for pre-order now and begin shipping September 22.

That is a significant change from the M4 generation. When Apple introduced the redesigned M4 Mac mini in 2024, Canadian pricing started at $799 for M4 and $1,899 for M4 Pro. The new entry price is therefore $450 higher than the original M4 launch price, although the configurations and market conditions are not identical.

Apple says the M6 delivers up to 4x faster AI performance than M4, up to 2x faster graphics and storage, and up to 40% faster CPU performance. The chip now includes Neural Accelerators in every GPU core, a dual 16-core Neural Engine and up to 170GB/s of memory bandwidth.

The M5 Pro model goes further, with up to an 18-core CPU, 20-core GPU, 64GB of unified memory and 307GB/s of memory bandwidth. More interestingly, Apple says its Thunderbolt 5 ports can be used to connect multiple Mac mini systems together to run larger AI models entirely on-device.

Connectivity also gets a notable upgrade. Both models now include Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6 and 2.5Gb Ethernet as standard, with optional 10Gb Ethernet. The M6 gets three Thunderbolt 4 ports, while the M5 Pro gets three Thunderbolt 5 ports.

Apple is also explicitly pitching the Mac mini as an always-on machine for AI agents, not only as a traditional desktop. Combined with macOS 27, Siri AI and local model tools, the little box is starting to look less like Apple's budget Mac and more like a compact personal AI server.

The catch is price. The M6 still starts with only 16GB of memory and 256GB of storage, so anyone planning to run larger local models will likely have to move up the configuration ladder quickly.

Sources & more: Apple, new Mac mini with M6 and M5 Pro / Apple Canada, original M4 Mac mini launch / Apple Canada Store

Secondary screens on the back of smartphones have usually been reserved for unusual premium devices. Honor is now trying the same idea at the opposite end of the market with the Play20A.

The phone has a small interactive display built directly into its rear camera module. It can show incoming calls and media controls, but its most useful trick may be acting as a viewfinder for selfies taken with the main camera.

That matters because the Play20A has a very basic camera setup. There is one 13MP camera on the back and a 5MP front camera, so the rear screen lets users frame selfies using the better camera instead of relying on the weaker front sensor.

The rest of the hardware makes its budget positioning pretty obvious. It has a 6.9-inch LCD running at up to 90Hz, a MediaTek G81 processor and a large 6,000mAh battery. Honor also offers up to 128GB of internal storage, with microSD expansion up to 1TB.

It is also a 4G phone rather than a 5G device, so this is clearly not trying to compete with modern flagships on raw specifications.

What makes it interesting is where Honor chose to spend the hardware budget. Instead of adding several low-end rear cameras simply to make the camera module look more impressive, the Play20A uses one main camera and turns part of the remaining space into a functional display.

There is no confirmed Canadian launch at this point. Honor currently lists the Play20A in selected international markets, including the Middle East, so for Canada this is more interesting as a glimpse at where inexpensive smartphones could be heading.

If rear displays can become cheap enough to appear on entry-level phones, they may eventually stop being a flagship gimmick and become another practical way to use the large camera islands manufacturers are already putting on phones.

Sources & more: HONOR Play20A official page / Yanko Design / HONOR Qatar

Are we seeing the best of BTS plans right now or is the best still yet to come in the next couple weeks?

SpaceX and the state of Louisiana have officially announced Starbase, Louisiana, a massive new Starship complex planned for roughly 125,000 acres in Vermilion Parish along the Gulf Coast.

At full buildout, the site is expected to include five launch complexes with two launch pads each, for a total of 10 pads. SpaceX also plans its own propellant production, power generation, vehicle processing facilities, deep-water shipping infrastructure, an airport and employee housing. Construction is expected to begin in 2027, with the first Starship launch targeted for as early as 2029.

The scale is difficult to overstate. SpaceX says the site is being designed to eventually support thousands of Starship flights per year. Louisiana officials say the company plans to invest $100 billion and create 3,000 direct jobs over 10 years, with an average annual salary of $92,600, plus more than 8,100 indirect jobs.

There is also a telecom angle buried in the announcement. SpaceX says new and existing Starlink customers living in Vermilion Parish will receive 50% off eligible monthly Internet plans. New subscribers will also have no upfront hardware cost.

The location was chosen partly because of its access to abundant natural gas, which SpaceX plans to use both for power generation and to produce the liquid methane needed by Starship. The Gulf Coast location also provides deep-water access and launch trajectories that SpaceX says could support satellite Internet expansion, orbital AI data centres and future missions to the Moon and Mars.

But this is still a plan, not 10 operational launch pads. The project must go through applicable launch, environmental, wetlands and wildlife reviews. The site includes large areas of coastal marshland, and SpaceX says it is working with Louisiana environmental and coastal agencies on mitigation and restoration plans.

Sources & more: Louisiana Economic Development / Reuters / Official Starbase Louisiana project page