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Nova Scotia Wants to Allow Consumers to Cancel Wireless Cellphone Contracts Anytime for Only $50

Imagine being able to end your three-year smartphone contract early without fuss or hassle—and only pay up to a modest $50 in cancellation fees. Nova Scotia is hoping to make this pipe dream a reality.

The province has proposed numerous new safeguards in an effort to enhance consumer rights. The main changes are letting customers cancel their contracts "at any time" and limiting cancellation fees to "no more than $50." (Note that customers would still have to buy out their subsidized device with an early exit).

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RIM Will Make a Comeback. Just Not Anytime Soon, Investor Proclaims

Research In Motion will make a comeback. It just won't be for another few years.

That's the sentiment of Prem Watsa. The head of Fairfax Financial Holdings, Prem owns north of 5% of RIM thanks to a few recent investments of substantial size.

He says RIM has no shot of turning around in three or even nine months. Rather, the timeline for a comeback looks more like four or five years. RIM, he affirms, will end up "an amazing success story" in the long run.

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LinkedIn Launches App for iPad and Android Tablets

Professionally minded social network LinkedIn has at long last launched an app dedicated to tablets. Available for iOS on the iPad and on Android devices, the tablet-optimized app is slick, featuring a Flipboard-style news feed and sleek design throughout.

LinkedIn also revealed an interesting statistic: 22% of the site's traffic comes from mobile devices. Knowing this, it becomes surprising that LinkedIn waited to long to release an iPad app. But with how polished this first version appears, it seems that they simply decided to take some time to get it right.

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ChattBack Gives Diners a Digital Comment Card on their Smartphone

Had a bad restaurant experience? Want to thank a retail employee that went the extra mile but have no time to fill out a comment card?

ChattBack may be able to help you out.

The Vancouver startup makes it possible to give instant feedback, via a text message, directly to the owner. With ChattBack customers can privately text head honchos compliments, complaints, and suggestions, all on their smartphone.

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Canadian Technology Improving the Lives of the Mentally Challenged

If apps and devices have the power to make our lives easier and more enjoyable, they also have the power to change people’s lives. Putting new technology to good use, the Société de Transport de Laval, which manages the city’s public transit system just North of Montreal, is working on an app aimed at travellers with mental disabilities and pervasive development disorders.

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RIM Will Announce BB10 Device in August, Launch in October, Rumour Suggests

Loyalists and investors of Research In Motion await with baited breath news of BlackBerry 10, the Waterloo company's next-gen mobile software platform that will lead a wave of new devices and - hopefully - restore RIM to at least some of its former glory. New rumours have now surfaced, offering these patient folks a possibly accurate timeline.

According to sources cited in N4BB, the first BB10 device will be announced in August. A product launch will follow this roughly two months later in October.

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Victory for Wind: Globalive Defeats CRTC and Public Mobile After Years-Long Court Battle

It was a long-winded legal battle. But Wind won.

Today, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge from the CRTC and discount carrier Public Mobile to a government decision that allows Globalive - which owns and operates Wind - to offer wireless services in Canada despite substantial foreign funding. It was a lengthy seesaw battle that began years ago when Egypt's Orascom Telecom Holding SAE's funding allowed Wind to buy spectrum in the last government wireless auction. 

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The Anti-Groupon: Get Free Stuff – No Strings Attached – with Vancouver's Mobile App, TikTok

50% off isn't cool. You know what's cool? 100% off.

And to really pile on the cliches, let me also say: there's an app for that.

Vancouver-made TikTok is a mobile app delivering free goods to locals through a uniquely structured business model. Created by Vancouverite Dorian Banks, who founded MetroBridge Networks and sold it last year, TikTok offers short-term freebies to users. The geo-located coupons often expire within hours and vary by area and time of day.

The idea is to balance a business' day: drive traffic through the doors during slow times with tiny gifts (one free slice of pizza, one free cup of coffee), and hope they either buy additional items or return as a paying customer—and the businesses never have to worry about taking 90%-off vouchers during peak times, straining resources.

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Tablet Ownership to Double in Two Years, Research Predicts

Well over 60 million tablets were sold in 2011. By 2016, this number is expected to soar to more than 230 million, according to new data from Futuresource Consulting.

While these numbers include commercial, industrial, and institutional sales, consumers will continue to drive the bulk of tablet sales. Consumers accounted for roughly 90% of all tablet sales last year, Futuresource says.

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The Four Most Popular App Categories in the Future

Tablets will continue to gain popularity, and within that, apps will too. By 2016, ABI Research predicts that tablet owners will download an average of more than 30 apps per year. 

In 2016, ABI forecasts nearly 14 billion app downloads in total. And it expects 11 billion, or 80%, of those apps to come from one of four categories: games, digital publishing, social networking, and e-commerce.

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