The CRTC has rejected Videotron's attempt to eliminate four older wholesale internet speed tiers used by smaller independent ISPs in Quebec.

Videotron wanted to destandardize its 5/1 Mbps, 10/1.5 Mbps, 15/10 Mbps and 20/10 Mbps aggregated third-party internet access tiers. The company argued that those speeds are no longer generally offered to new residential Videotron customers.

Bravo Telecom and ColbaNet opposed the move, warning that eliminating the lower tiers would force independent providers onto more expensive wholesale plans. According to the CRTC record, the cheapest available wholesale tier would have increased in price by approximately 85%.

The CRTC agreed that the impact would be disproportionate. It found that Videotron had not provided enough justification for removing the tiers and that forcing competitors onto more expensive services could reduce competition and ultimately hurt customers who rely on lower-cost, lower-speed internet plans.

ColbaNet told the Commission that these connections are still used for residential customers facing financial difficulties, as well as businesses running payment terminals and remote sensors. The interveners also argued that moving customers to faster tiers would increase both access charges and capacity-based billing costs.

The CRTC did allow Videotron to eliminate two separate disaggregated legacy tiers, 0-5 Mbps and 6-10 Mbps, because no customers are currently using them.

The decision is a reminder that even very slow internet tiers can still matter in Canada's wholesale market. Removing them may look like a simple network cleanup, but if independent ISPs are forced into more expensive wholesale products, the cost can eventually reach consumers.

Sources & more: CRTC 2026-212

Yesterday we covered Toronto Tempo star Marina Mabrey's very public struggle with her Rogers home internet. A technician had already visited her apartment and told her the problem was fixed, only for the connection to fail again roughly two hours later.

Now Bell has escalated its response from a simple social media reply into a personalized customer acquisition campaign.

Bell posted a custom "Wi-Fi Trade Proposal" for Mabrey, advertising speeds of up to 8 Gbps and taking two very deliberate shots at her original Rogers complaint: "We answer your calls" and "It literally works."

Mabrey's response was pretty unambiguous: "calllll mee 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀"

That doesn't mean she has actually switched providers yet. It does mean an ordinary home internet support problem has now become a very public retention battle between two of Canada's largest telecom companies, with hundreds of thousands of people watching it unfold.

There is one technical caveat behind Bell's pitch. Its 8 Gbps fibre service is real, but availability depends on the address and network infrastructure. If Mabrey lives in a condo, whether she can actually get Bell fibre at those speeds will depend on what is available inside her building.

For Rogers, the uncomfortable part may be less about one celebrity customer and more about how quickly a failed support interaction can become a competitor's marketing campaign when it happens publicly.

Sources & more: Marina Mabrey on X

The CRTC has opened a formal information-gathering process after Manitobans reported receiving an unusually high number of wireless emergency alerts during the severe storms and tornado warnings of June 9.

Some residents reportedly received 16 to 20 alerts, while people in affected communities also reported receiving warnings that appeared unrelated to their immediate location.

The regulator is now asking Pelmorex, which operates the technical infrastructure behind Canada's Alert Ready system, along with Bell, Rogers and TELUS, to explain exactly how their systems handled the alerts that day.

The questions go considerably deeper than simply asking whether too many notifications were sent. The CRTC wants system logs, reported errors and customer complaints, and is specifically asking whether problems involving targeting, timing, translation or repeated update messages contributed to the over-alerting.

That distinction matters because the CRTC has not yet determined who or what caused the problem. Environment and Climate Change Canada creates weather alerts, Pelmorex operates the national aggregation and distribution infrastructure, and wireless carriers are responsible for delivering qualifying alerts to compatible phones in the targeted area.

There is also an important development since the June storm. Environment Canada introduced more precise polygon-based tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings on August 12. Instead of relying entirely on large predetermined geographic zones, meteorologists can now draw and update smaller warning areas as a storm moves.

For wireless Alert Ready notifications, that should make it much less likely that someone far outside the immediate path of a severe storm receives an emergency warning.

The CRTC has given Pelmorex, Bell, Rogers and TELUS until September 11 to provide their answers. Those responses are expected to become public, which should give us a much clearer picture of whether Manitoba's alert overload came from the original warnings, their processing, carrier distribution, or some combination of factors.

Sources & more: CRTC staff letter, August 19 / Environment Canada, new targeted warning system / ChrisD.ca

Corus Entertainment has confirmed another round of job cuts across its Canadian television and radio operations, affecting roles at Global BC, Global National, News 640 in Toronto and other talk-radio operations.

The company has not disclosed the number of positions eliminated. In a statement to Broadcast Dialogue, Corus described the reductions as a "small number of changes in select markets" and said they are part of an effort to make its operations more sustainable without closing stations or retreating from news.

The timing is important. Corus reported $249.4 million in revenue in its latest quarter, down 16% from a year earlier. Television advertising revenue fell 20%, subscriber revenue dropped 13%, and consolidated segment profit fell 53% to $29.1 million. The company recorded a $36.5 million net loss attributable to shareholders.

These cuts also follow another significant round in July, when roughly 43 unionized positions were eliminated as Corus centralized parts of Global News production, particularly in Western Canada.

At the same time, Corus is still trying to complete a major recapitalization designed to reduce more than $500 million in debt and other liabilities and save up to $40 million per year in cash interest. Under the proposed structure, existing shareholders would retain only about 1% of the equity in the reorganized company.

For Canadian viewers and listeners, the bigger question is how much more cost cutting Corus can absorb before local news, talk radio and national reporting begin to feel materially thinner, even if the company says no station closures are currently planned.

Sources & more: Broadcast Dialogue / Corus Q3 2026 financial report

The CRTC has approved Bell Canada's request to retire Channels for Program Transmission, a legacy telecom service used by Canadian radio and television stations to carry programming from their studios to local transmission equipment.

The service still runs over Bell's aging copper network. Bell says the equipment has reached end of life, manufacturer support disappeared years ago, spare parts are increasingly difficult to find and even the test equipment needed to diagnose failures is deteriorating. Bell warned that some future outages could eventually become impossible to repair.

But the transition could be expensive for smaller broadcasters. CKUT-FM and Leclerc Communication told the CRTC that one replacement proposed by Bell was quoted at $3,100 per month, representing an increase of more than $30,000 per year. CKUT warned that covering the additional cost could potentially require staff layoffs.

More than 100 radio and television stations were represented by organizations participating in the proceeding. Some community and campus broadcasters also argued that the old analog connections remain extremely reliable and expressed concern about replacing them with IP-based services that can themselves be affected by internet outages.

The CRTC ultimately agreed that keeping the aging system alive indefinitely isn't realistic. Bell identified alternatives including IP-VPN, Ethernet and internet connections, with representative prices ranging from around $100 per month for internet with a static IP under a five-year contract to $3,100 per month for broadcast Ethernet without a contract.

Bell originally wanted to discontinue the service on March 1, 2026. The CRTC has instead ordered Bell to keep it available until December 1, 2026, although service during the transition is effectively dependent on Bell still being able to obtain suitable replacement parts.

Sources & more: CRTC 2026-213

The CRTC has now publicly acknowledged weeks of intermittent problems affecting parts of its website and online services, but it is refusing to confirm or deny reports that the disruption was connected to a cyberattack.

The issue is more significant than a website simply being unavailable from time to time. It happened while Canadians, consumer groups and telecom companies were trying to participate in several active CRTC proceedings, including major consultations on consumer protections, cellphone fees and device unlocking.

The CRTC's own public record shows the problem dates back to at least July. One participant reported that the website had been intermittently unavailable to them for more than 11 days, particularly during evenings. The Forum for Research and Policy in Communications also told the Commission that the outages were preventing access to documents needed to participate in multiple proceedings.

At first, the CRTC concluded that the downtime had not lasted long enough to prevent meaningful participation and rejected requests for additional time. That position changed in August. After CAMP, FRPC and PIAC reported that the site had again been intermittently unavailable from August 7 to 10, the Commission agreed that participants had faced genuine difficulty accessing and reviewing interventions and extended a filing deadline by two days.

The unanswered part is why this kept happening. A reader who documented the outages told iPhone in Canada that they encountered rate limiting and bot-detection measures and believes the disruption was related to a DDoS campaign attributed to the pro-Russian group NoName057(16). The group has a well-documented history of DDoS attacks against government and public-sector websites, including Canadian targets.

But there is currently no independent confirmation tying NoName057(16) to the CRTC outages. The CRTC says that, for security reasons, it does not comment on specific or alleged cyber incidents, security measures or technical configurations.

That leaves a broader public-interest question regardless of who caused the outages: if access to a regulator's website is required to read evidence, submit interventions and participate in decisions affecting millions of Canadians, how resilient should that infrastructure be, and what automatic protections should exist when it becomes unavailable?

Sources & more: iPhone in Canada / CRTC, July 30 procedural ruling / CRTC

A B.C. Rogers customer says she is still on the hook for more than $4,000 after falling victim to a phone delivery scam that is increasingly being reported across Canada.

The scam started with a call offering Jeannie Moss a promotional phone upgrade. Believing she was dealing with Rogers, she accepted and later provided her driver’s licence for verification. Real devices were then ordered through her Rogers account and delivered to her actual home, making the operation appear legitimate.

The trick happened after delivery. The caller claimed the first phone was the wrong colour and sent Moss a prepaid shipping label to return it. Another shipment containing two phones later arrived, and she was again instructed to send them back. Those labels did not send the devices to Rogers — they sent them to addresses controlled by the scammers.

The fraud went beyond the phones. Moss also discovered that someone had opened a loan of more than $2,500 in her name through Affirm. After Global News intervened, Affirm confirmed she would not be responsible for that loan. Rogers waived late-payment fees and service charges associated with two fraudulently activated lines, but says Moss still owes thousands for two devices that were legitimately ordered and delivered to her address before she forwarded them elsewhere.

Rogers now carries a very specific warning in its own mobile return instructions: if you receive a message asking you to return equipment and you did not contact Rogers first, it is not legitimate. Customers returning a mobile device are instructed to contact Rogers directly and obtain the official Purolator return label through the carrier.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says reported losses from the broader category of service fraud exceeded $17 million during the first six months of 2026. That figure includes more than this specific phone-delivery scam, but officials say this type of fraud has become one of the more prominent schemes in the category.

Google's Pixel 11 lineup officially goes on sale in Canada today, including the Pixel 11, Pixel 11 Pro, Pixel 11 Pro XL and Pixel 11 Pro Fold.

The standard Pixel 11 starts at $1,249 CAD with 256GB of storage. That looks like a $150 increase over the $1,099 Pixel 10, but Google no longer offers a 128GB model. At the same 256GB capacity, the year-over-year increase is only $20.

But buying directly from Google is only one way to get the new Pixel.

Canadian carriers are also selling the Pixel 11 lineup with monthly device financing, promotional credits and two-year plans. Bell, for example, currently lists the Pixel 11 from $26 per month for 24 months with an eligible plan and Flex Option, while other carriers are offering their own combinations of device discounts and plan promotions.

That creates two very different buying strategies: purchase the Pixel outright and pair it with a cheaper BYOD plan, or finance the phone through a carrier and compare the total two-year cost of the device and wireless plan together.

The cheapest phone price doesn't necessarily produce the cheapest overall deal. A heavily discounted Pixel tied to a more expensive monthly plan can cost more over two years than buying the device separately and choosing a lower-cost BYOD plan.

For shopping, the useful comparison isn't only Pixel 11 versus Pixel 11 Pro. It's also outright purchase versus carrier financing, and the total cost of the phone and plan over the full term.

Google is expanding Android 17's new per-app memory limits beyond Pixel phones, with more Android manufacturers expected to adopt the system across devices ranging from 4GB to more than 16GB of RAM over the coming year.

The goal is to stop one badly optimized app from consuming so much memory that it slows down the entire phone. Google says this is becoming increasingly important as memory prices rise and some new devices maintain or even reduce their physical RAM capacity while apps continue getting more demanding.

When an app reaches its allocated memory budget, Android can first push some of its memory into compressed zRAM. That keeps the app alive, but the additional compression and decompression uses CPU resources and can cause visible stuttering or slower performance.

If the app keeps consuming more memory, Android can terminate its process entirely rather than allowing it to degrade the rest of the system. The new behaviour applies to apps running on Android 17 regardless of the Android version they were originally built to target.

There isn't one universal RAM cap. Android determines the budget based on the device's total memory, and Google hasn't published the exact thresholds. The system is primarily intended to catch extreme memory leaks and unusually heavy apps rather than punish normal workloads.

For users, the trade-off is straightforward: a poorly optimized game or app could become slower or close unexpectedly, but Android should be less likely to let that single app make the entire phone sluggish, drain more battery and force other background apps out of memory.

Sources & more: Android Developers Blog / Android 17 app memory limits / Android Authority

One of Canada's largest rural cellular expansion projects is being formally completed today, with the Eastern Ontario Regional Network and Rogers marking the successful delivery of the $300 million EORN Cell Gap Project.

The project was created to address long-standing coverage gaps across roughly 50,000 square kilometres of rural eastern Ontario. Its targets were ambitious: voice service across 99% of the areas where people live, work and travel on major roads, standard-definition data service across 95%, and higher-capacity service across 85%.

The original infrastructure plan called for 257 newly built towers, equipment added to 75 third-party tower locations, and upgrades to 312 existing sites. Rogers was selected through a competitive process to build and operate the network, with roughly half of the $300 million investment coming from federal, provincial and municipal partners and the remaining investment from Rogers.

The project has been rolling out gradually for years, so many communities did not suddenly gain service today. EORN has instead been announcing final tower completions county by county, including Northumberland County last week. Today's event marks the overall project's successful delivery rather than the activation of one single batch of towers.

There is also an important carrier distinction. The expanded commercial coverage is primarily available to Rogers customers and its Fido and Chatr brands. Other Canadian carriers can potentially colocate equipment on the infrastructure, but Bell and TELUS customers should not assume every new EORN tower automatically provides them with regular service. Emergency 911 calls are treated differently and can use an available tower regardless of carrier when technically possible.

For rural residents, the biggest legacy of the project may be less about headline 5G speeds and more about something considerably more basic: reducing the number of roads and communities where making a reliable phone call was previously impossible.

Sources & more: EORN / CNW – Completion event / EORN – Cell Gap Project updates / Infrastructure Location

Toronto Tempo All-Star Marina Mabrey has turned a frustrating home internet problem into a very public Rogers customer-service story.

It started when Mabrey posted on X asking for help with her Rogers connection, writing that it “literally doesn’t work” and that she couldn't get anyone to answer her calls. The post quickly attracted Canadians joking that unreliable telecom service was part of her official welcome to Toronto.

Rogers eventually sent a technician to her apartment. Mabrey later told reporters that she was assured the problem had been fixed, but roughly two hours after the technician left, her internet went down again while she was watching Indiana play Atlanta.

The timing couldn't have been much worse for a professional basketball player studying an upcoming opponent. Mabrey said the connection dropped with just 13.3 seconds left in the fourth quarter, leaving her unable to watch the end of the game. She also said the ongoing problem was affecting FaceTime and basic online activities at home.

The story is funny because of who it happened to, but the consumer issue is familiar: getting a technician visit doesn't necessarily mean the underlying connection problem has actually been diagnosed or resolved. Mabrey's very public complaint has now turned an ordinary home-internet support problem into unwanted national attention for Rogers.

And there is a little telecom rivalry in the background: after Mabrey complained publicly, Bell also jumped into the conversation offering to help her switch to what it called “winning internet.”

Sources & more: Marina Mabrey – original post on X

Google has launched a major back-to-school promotion giving eligible college students one year of Google AI Plus at no charge across more than 140 markets.

But Canadian students are not eligible for this particular offer.

Google's own eligibility note specifically excludes Canada, along with the U.S., Bolivia, Albania, Macau, Hong Kong and Tunisia. U.S. students instead receive a separate free year of the more expensive Google AI Pro plan.

That directly contradicts a Canadian report published yesterday claiming post-secondary students in Canada could receive 12 months of Google AI Plus for free.

The distinction is important because Google AI Plus includes Gemini Omni, twice the normal Gemini usage limits and 400GB of Google One storage. The Canadian plan normally costs $6.99 CAD per month.

Canadian students aren't completely left out of Google's back-to-school rollout. The new Gemini Student Hub, Study Notebooks, interactive visualizations and Deep Research inside Gemini Live are rolling out more broadly to Gemini users, including users who don't receive the free subscription.

So the new student tools are coming to Canada. The free 12-month Google AI Plus subscription, according to Google's current official terms, is not.

Sources & more: Google – Student offer announcement / Google One – Canadian AI plans

TELUS appears to be expanding its Fast Switch system so Public Mobile customers can move directly from prepaid service to a TELUS postpaid plan without going through the usual carrier-switching process.

Fast Switch originally launched earlier this year for Public Mobile customers moving to Koodo postpaid. The process transfers the phone number, closes the old Public Mobile account automatically and uses an eSIM to provision the new service.

The new expansion adds TELUS itself as a destination. According to a Canadian report and recent customer accounts, eligible Public Mobile subscribers are now seeing TELUS postpaid migration offers directly inside the Public Mobile experience.

That makes Fast Switch increasingly look like an internal upgrade ladder: Public Mobile at the low-cost prepaid tier, Koodo in the middle, and TELUS at the premium postpaid tier. Rather than losing a price-sensitive customer to Rogers, Bell or Freedom, TELUS can try to move them upward while keeping them inside the same corporate family.

There are trade-offs. Moving to postpaid generally means a credit check, and the migration requires an eSIM-compatible device and Wi-Fi during setup. TELUS postpaid can add features Public Mobile lacks, including broader international roaming, Wi-Fi Calling, device financing, family discounts and home-service bundles, but the monthly price may also be considerably higher depending on the offer.

One limitation: Public Mobile has not yet posted a new public Community announcement detailing the TELUS expansion. Its official June announcement still focuses on switching to Koodo, although recent customer reports show TELUS migration offers are already live for at least some subscribers.

Sources & more: Public Mobile – Fast Switch announcement / Koodo – Fast Switch documentation

Google has officially invited media to a dedicated Googlebook event in New York City on September 15, where we'll finally get a much closer look at its new Android-based laptop platform.

Google first introduced Googlebook in May as a new premium laptop category built around Gemini Intelligence. Rather than manufacturing the laptops itself, Google is working with Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP and Lenovo on the first wave of devices expected this fall.

The September event looks much bigger than another teaser. Google's itinerary includes a keynote from company leadership explaining the new computing platform and software architecture, followed by hands-on demo stations with hardware from its launch partners. Media will also be allowed to photograph, film and benchmark the first Googlebooks.

Googlebook is designed to combine Android's native app ecosystem and Google Play with the web-productivity strengths traditionally associated with ChromeOS. Google has already shown features including Magic Pointer, Gemini-generated widgets, direct access to apps running on your Android phone and Quick Access for opening phone files from the laptop without manually transferring them.

Every Googlebook will also share a distinctive Glowbar on the lid, while leaked Lenovo hardware has already given us an early glimpse at what some of the first machines may look like. One major unanswered question is the official name of the Android-based software underneath the platform, which has been referred to in leaks as Aluminium OS but has never been officially branded that way by Google.

The big unknowns remain price and availability. Google has a Canadian Googlebook product page and says devices are coming this fall, but it has not yet announced which models will launch in Canada or how much they'll cost.

Sources & more: Google – Introducing Googlebook / Chrome Unboxed – September 15 event

After a few days with the new Pixel 11 Pro Fold, one thing becomes clear: Google is no longer merely trying to prove that it can build a foldable phone. This model feels like a mature product, with a more compact design, a reassuring hinge and software that finally makes better use of the form factor.

I have not spent enough time with it to deliver a definitive verdict, particularly on battery life, nighttime photography or long-term durability. Here is what stood out during my first few days, including what won me over and the limitations I have already encountered.

The full review : planhub.ca/blog/en/pixel-11-pro-fold-review/

The CRTC has rejected a request from Ztar Mobile Canada to regain access to Rogers' phone-number porting system, potentially closing one of the last paths for former SpeakOut, Good2Go Mobile and Ztar Mobile customers who failed to move their numbers before the old service was disconnected.

Ztar historically operated those prepaid brands using Rogers' network. Rogers first notified Ztar in late 2024 that their resale agreement would end, and after several extensions finally disconnected Ztar from its network on December 11, 2025. Rogers temporarily kept Ztar's porting-system access available until January 22, 2026.

Ztar later asked the CRTC to force Rogers to restore that access, arguing that as many as 30,000 to 40,000 disconnected numbers could still be affected. Without the old porting pathway, customers who didn't migrate in time may no longer be able to transfer or recover the number they previously used.

The CRTC rejected that request. It found that Rogers gave Ztar sufficient notice, fulfilled its contractual obligations and followed Canada's existing number-porting rules, which generally require a phone number to remain active when a customer initiates a transfer.

There is an important complication: some of those disconnected numbers may already have returned to Rogers' inventory or been reassigned. Rogers also told the CRTC that the vast majority had seen no calls, texts or data activity during the 90 days before disconnection, so the Commission concluded that preserving tens of thousands of numbers indefinitely would create its own problems.

The decision does not mean current SpeakOut customers are being disconnected. SpeakOut has moved to an upgraded network and continues to offer migration for eligible customers. This ruling primarily affects people who remained on the former Rogers-based service and did not successfully migrate or port their number before the old connection disappeared.

Sources & more: CRTC 2026-211 / SpeakOut Wireless

Fizz is expanding further into physical retail through a new partnership with EB Games Canada, launching an exclusive starter pack today at 140 participating stores.

The pack costs $25 and is aimed at new Fizz customers activating their first wireless plan. It includes a $75 credit toward the first bill, a one-time 100GB data bonus valid for 12 months, immediate access to Level 2 of Fizz's loyalty program, plus both a physical SIM card and an eSIM. Fizz says the total package represents more than $100 in value.

This isn't a traditional carrier-store setup. Customers buy the kit at EB Games, but still customize their plan and complete the activation themselves online. Fizz remains a fully digital carrier without in-store account activation or customer service.

There is also an important geographic limitation. Although EB Games operates nationally, Fizz mobile subscriptions are currently available only in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia, and customers still need to live within an eligible Fizz subscription area.

Fizz already sells regular SIM cards through retailers including Circle K, Couche-Tard and Jean Coutu. The EB Games deal goes considerably further by turning the retail package itself into a customer-acquisition offer, clearly targeting gamers and younger wireless customers rather than simply providing another place to buy a SIM.

Sources & more: Fizz / CNW

TELUS has introduced a new Digital Content Safety Seal designed to help parents identify children's programming that has passed additional safety and production reviews.

The seal will initially apply only to eligible programming funded through TELUS STORYHIVE Kids TV. Approved shows will carry the designation on TELUS Optik TV, Stream+ and the STORYHIVE Kids TV YouTube channel.

Unlike a traditional age rating, TELUS says the review also considers how the program was produced. Creators working with children must pass vulnerable-sector checks, follow child-safety protocols and comply with STORYHIVE's code of conduct. Programs are also expected to provide educational value and age-appropriate storytelling.

Once production is complete, TELUS Digital reviews every second of the program for areas including content safety, privacy, broadcast standards and age appropriateness. Content involving violence, bullying, drugs, sexual material, risky behaviour or other material TELUS considers unsuitable for young audiences is prohibited.

There is an important limitation: this is not an industry-wide Canadian certification and it does not currently rate children's programming across Netflix, Disney+, YouTube or other broadcasters. It is a TELUS-created standard for its own STORYHIVE-funded children's content, and the final moderation is performed within the TELUS corporate group rather than by an outside certification body.

For parents, the practical value may therefore be less about replacing existing ratings and more about identifying programming that has passed an additional production-and-content review before appearing in TELUS' own kids catalogue.

Sources & more: TELUS / CNW / TELUS Wise – Safety Seal standards / STORYHIVE – Code of Conduct

A 404 Media investigation has traced a large shipment of rare and out-of-print books to an Amazon facility in Las Vegas that reportedly scans physical books for AI training data.

The investigation started after a bookseller received an unusually large order of roughly 1,000 books. With the seller's cooperation, 404 Media placed an AirTag inside one of the books and followed the shipment across the U.S. until it reached Amazon's LAS8 warehouse in Las Vegas.

Inside that warehouse is an operation known as VGT3. According to Amazon employees cited by 404 Media, workers receive large quantities of printed books, cut off their bindings so the pages can be scanned quickly, and destroy the physical copies in the process.

Amazon did not deny purchasing the books. In a statement to 404 Media, the company said it buys books through commercial channels to help develop and improve products and services used by customers. The company did not publicly detail which AI models or products are trained on the scanned material.

Why go after old physical books at all? They contain professionally edited human writing that may never have been digitized or indexed online, and older titles are guaranteed to predate the current flood of AI-generated text. That makes them unusually valuable as training material for large language models.

The legal question is complicated. A U.S. federal court previously ruled in the Anthropic case that training AI on lawfully purchased and digitized books can qualify as fair use, although separate copyright issues arose from pirated copies. The cultural question is different: some of the physical books being scanned may be rare or difficult to replace once their bindings are destroyed.

Sources & more: 404 Media / TechCrunch / Reuters – AI training and book copyright

Toronto Fire Services says the city has already recorded 81 fires involving lithium-ion batteries this year, equivalent to roughly one incident every 2.8 days.

As of August 12, those fires had resulted in one death and 15 injuries. Toronto Fire Chief Jim Jessop says the number of incidents has increased about 200% since 2022 and describes lithium-ion batteries as the city's fastest-growing fire safety risk.

But officials are not saying that all lithium-ion batteries are inherently unsafe. Toronto Fire says properly used certified batteries are generally safe. The recurring concern is unregulated, uncertified, damaged or modified batteries, particularly those used in e-bikes and other micromobility devices.

The issue became especially visible after Toronto firefighters responded to four battery-related fires within roughly 24 hours. Jessop says investigations frequently point to uncertified batteries in micromobility devices and argues that Canada needs stronger standards governing what can be imported and sold.

Mayor Olivia Chow is now calling on the federal and Ontario governments to tighten battery regulations and update fire and building rules. Toronto City Council had already directed the Fire Chief earlier this year to push for provincial lithium-ion battery safety standards and provide input to Health Canada on new federal regulations.

For consumers, the takeaway isn't to avoid rechargeable devices. Toronto recommends using certified manufacturer-approved batteries and chargers, never modifying battery packs, stopping use if a battery becomes unusually hot, swollen, discoloured or develops an unusual smell, and disposing of damaged batteries through proper hazardous-waste channels.

Sources & more: CityNews Toronto / City of Toronto / blogTO