For Blue Jays catcher, and resident Canadian, Russell Martin, being a cover athlete for a video game is a case of coming full circle. A childhood fan of the Jays and Expos growing up in Montreal, and a gamer at heart, the two-time All-Star catcher talks about being on the cover of MLB 15: The Show and what it’s like playing the game.

Listening to audio content in the car is most often reserved for music and talk radio, but a Canadian streaming service is adding audiobooks to that list by partnering with auto makers.

Is it an adage or a cliché to suggest bigger is always better? For Google’s Nexus 6, it’s a worthy question to ask for a number of reasons. This was a smartphone that deviated considerably from the premise many consumers expected from the Nexus line — nimble, reliable and affordable.

Japanese cars have a reputation for lasting a long time. To suggest a 10-15 year lifespan for a Honda or Acura vehicle is an expected consequence of buying one. This takes a different turn when it comes to the dash, where the AcuraLink infotainment system is partly designed to keep smartphones connected for years to come.

‘Small speakers that sound big’ is such a common pitch these days, it’s almost lost its meaning. But that doesn’t stop Bluetooth speaker makers from doing their best to sell you on the idea. The market has become crowded with a category full of speakers that look like they’re on a diet, but try as hard as they can to sound voluptuous. Unfortunately, try as they may, most fail.

June 3 is an important day if you have a cell phone contract with any of the Big 3 carriers in Canada because the CRTC’s Wireless Code makes three-year plans redundant as of that date. If you’re currently on a three-year term that started before June 3, 2013, you can free yourself from your contract without paying a cancellation fee, opening up an opportunity to avoid a new contract altogether.

It’s hard to find any average consumer who doesn’t like streaming music for free. As consumption continues to shift from downloading music a la carte to streaming it buffet-style, does offering any music for free portend a dystopian future for artists and the recording industry?

When one thinks of BlackBerry, three things come to mind: security, keyboards, and lost opportunities. The first two have been cornerstones of the brand, which is largely why the last two smartphones it launched — the Passport and the Classic — focused so much on them. The last item is an unfortunate reality for the company.

Glass screen protectors aren’t new, but they are slowly gaining in popularity as more vendors get into the game. Toronto startup Phantom Glass thinks it has the best in the business positioning it as the “last screen protector you’ll ever need.” Let’s put it to the test.

Apple isn’t the type of company that admits when it misses the mark. The iPhone 6 Plus wasn’t so much a product of Apple’s vision, but rather a response to how competitors, namely Samsung, had tilted the market. It was playing catch-up by enlarging its vaunted smartphone to new lengths.

The Nexus 5 and G3 proved that LG could play with the big boys, and the G4 expands on that notion, improving features that optimize the user experience in tangible ways. With an impressive camera and more user-friendly software, the G4 makes a strong case for being the dark horse smartphone that could make waves and surprise many in 2015.

Popcorn Time let’s users stream pirated TV shows and movies as easily as they would stream Netflix, and has made waves with millions of defiant users, thanks to the virtual middle finger it flips at movie and TV producers. A new free Popcorn Time app for non-jailbroken iOS devices went live on April 8. We’ve used it, and we’ve talked to the folks that made it.

You don’t have to strap on a headset to recognize that virtual reality is an exciting emerging technology. What’s out there is still mostly conceptual, offering a peek into the possibilities of what virtual interaction can do. So while we’re conceiving, how about the idea of merging the virtual world with the real one?

Flying a drone is fun. Ask anyone who has done it, even for a fleeting moment or two, and they will likely refer to the exhilarating feeling in controlling a device that can see from various angles and heights. Considering how popular drones are becoming, the Parrot Bebop comes at a time where the act of flying itself needs to be handled with greater precision, while offering an easier point of entry for those getting into it for the first time. Here is my experience with it, including a short video.

Now that Google has announced it is entering the wireless carrier market in the U.S. with its new Google Fi service, any hope that it may cross the border and shake up the Canadian market is more than premature.

Microsoft outlined its vision for some of its core products and services during a 3-hour keynote at its Build Conference in San Francisco. The takeaway from the various announcements is that the company may have finally figured out what kind of role it will play in the tech industry moving forward.

With tablets being so numerous, the eReader’s role has become more clearly defined as a platform to indulge in not just one book, but as many as you can possibly consume for months at a time. The new Kobo Glo HD is a model made for the bookworm in all of us, offering the opportunity to read under the sun or in the dark without missing a page.

For Sennheiser, the Urbanite XL Wireless are designed to appeal to a wider array of users who like moving around untethered, including the younger set that wants a mix of flair and fidelity leaning on the bass side of the equalizer.

For years, rumours have ebbed and flowed on Apple’s alleged plans to enter the TV market by designing and manufacturing its own flat-panel TV. Such a scenario already seemed unlikely, given that the company’s interest had more to do with software than hardware.

What has been the most attractive Android smartphone for the last two years is back, and the HTC One M9 sticks to the same design principles of its predecessors. The familiarity extends throughout the hardware and software, making this phone an iterative update from last year, rather than a major upgrade. There’s more speed, along with some refinements to HTC’s software overlay and the camera, but there’s no sign of an overhaul here.