Coffee Briefings are timely deliveries of the latest ITWC headlines, interviews, and podcasts. Today’s Coffee Briefing is delivered by IT World Canada’s editorial team!
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What’s new this week
Photomath is helping students solve tricky equations
Photomath, a math learning app for grade school through to college students, provides step-by-step solutions and tutorials so students can understand ‘how’ the equation was completed, and ‘why’ each step needs to be taken.
It uses AI photo recognition technology to help students understand complicated math problems by simply scanning a problem with their smartphone. According to a recent study by Photomath, 79 per cent of parents said they feel that learning apps can serve as a great tool for their children.
The basic app is free for all users and available for download on both Apple and Android devices. Users can pay to upgrade their app with more in-depth explanations and additional features.
Walmart Canada and TELUS Health partner to provide Walmart associates with virtual health and wellbeing services
Walmart Canada and TELUS Health have announced a new strategic initiative to bring TELUS Health’s full suite of total health and wellbeing solutions, including Virtual Care, Employee Enablement, and Wellbeing, to all Walmart associates in Canada. These services will provide Walmart Canada associates and their families with confidential access to hundreds of health professionals.
Associates will have access to counselling on a variety of topics, such as mental health, nutrition advice, and more. This partnership also offers virtual consultation with a clinician, and services to help improve their lifestyle habits through weight loss, more exercise, or better eating.
Associates can access the TELUS Health suite of solutions in French and English 24/7 via a single smartphone app or direct telephone number. They will also be able to access the services in 220 other languages and dialects through specialized translation services.
Nearly 30 per cent of ad traffic on certain browsers is bot-generated, study finds
A study reveals that nearly 30 per cent of ad traffic on Yandex and Opera browsers is bot-generated.
Threat actors are using computer-generated bots to replicate the activities of actual customers and fool advertisers into paying for ad traffic. A variety of approaches are utilized to produce false traffic, such as infecting customers’ personal computers and phones with malware that loads websites without their knowledge, or even infecting cloud services.
Research by Fraudlogix, an ad fraud prevention company, found that on average, 21 per cent of traffic advertisers pay for is generated by computers and scripts, not real people.
It found that the highest percentage of illegitimate traffic comes through the Russia-based Yandex browser. The report revealed that nearly one in three ad impressions coming across Yandex were non-human. The Opera browser is also popular for fraudulent traffic. Over 26.3 per cent of ad traffic coming through the Opera search engine was labeled as “non-human”.
Only 13.5 per cent of traffic from Mozilla Firefox was computer-generated.
Google Chrome, Apple’s Safari, and Microsoft Edge were all similar in terms of the percentage of bot traffic, at around 20 per cent.
Calgary’s annual Launch Party to shine spotlight on 10 tech startups
Ten Calgary-based startups involved in everything from nanotech healthcare offerings to personalized digital real estate transactions will participate in the 13th annual Launch Party, where they will also make their pitches to investors and the larger innovation community. Organized by Platform Calgary, the Nov. 24 event will be held during Innovation Week YYC, described by organizers as the city’s annual “tech-sector celebration.”
Innovation Week, they say, highlights the “diversity and depth of what is happening in innovation and technology in Calgary, and celebrates the people and the ideas that are having an impact.”
The companies involved are nominated by the Calgary innovation community and selected by a committee of three Launch Party alumni founders.
To be selected, companies must be in operation for less than three years, be revenue positive, and demonstrate potential for growth (amongst other criteria). Three prizes will be awarded: People’s Choice Award, Alumni’s Choice Award, and the Alex Raczenko Pitch Award.
Companies in the running this year are Caret, Communal, iBUILD Applications, Quickly, Reserve Plus, NanoTess, Propra, WaitWell, Wild Rose Mining and The Smart Benefit.
Further information about each can be found by accessing this link.
More to explore
Ransomware disguised as word documents. Why we need to train users to pay careful attention.
Staying informed is a constant challenge. There’s so much to do, and so little time. But we have you covered. Grab a coffee and take five while you nibble on these tidbits.
Reports swirl after parent of Sobey’s supermarkets admits ‘IT systems issue’
One of Canada’s biggest supermarket chains was hit a week ago by the Black Basta strain of ransomware, according to a news site.
TCS, UofT team up with plan to create ‘urban data sets’ for smart cities
It takes data to build a smart city, for without it, there is no way online programs and services designed to help residents could be developed. Consulting firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) notes that municipalities around the world have access to huge sources of urban data with the potential to improve the citizen experience – from sensors on bridges and other IoT sources, to new online databases of public information.
EXFO to open 5G Center of Excellence in Montreal
EXFO, a Quebec company specializing in testing, monitoring and analytics for the telecommunications sector, is set to establish a 5G Center of Excellence in Montreal and create 50 specialized jobs, most located in the city. Funding for the initiative is provided in the form of a $15.9 million grant by Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada as part of its Strategic Innovation Fund.
Markham-based tech hub VentureLAB hosted its second annual HardTech summit, bringing together tech leaders to highlight hardware and semiconductor innovation in Canada.
Outlook.com email attachments will count towards OneDrive storage starting next year
In an email update to Microsoft Account holders, Microsoft announced that Outlook.com email attachments will count towards Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage starting on Feb. 1, 2023.
Factory shutdown in China significantly slows Apple iPhone 14 production
Apple has announced that China’s COVID quarantine measures have shut down a key iPhone assembly facility, significantly limiting its iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max production capabilities.
IBM and Net Zero Atlantic partner to enhance clean energy transition for Indigenous communities
Today IBM announced the new members of its IBM Sustainability Accelerator program, with Halifax-based Net Zero Atlantic as one of the five organizations selected by the company to be part of its clean energy cohort.
Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover: What happens to the platform?
Following Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the fate of the social media platform is now up in the air.
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Trending
A Meta employee was laid off after relocating across the country, just two days before starting his job, Jeff Bezos is looking to donate the majority of his net worth,and a layoff is happening at Amazon.
Listen to the latest episode of Cyber Security Today
This episode reports on mistakes that led to hacks in Ukraine, a wave of threatening emails, work-from-home websites shut and more
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Tendances (Hosted by Direction Informatique)
If you live in Quebec, or prefer to consume the latest technology news in French, our sister publication Direction Informatique has you covered. Follow them on Twitter as well.
