As 2017 winds down to a close and the ITWC offices along with it (until Jan. 3, 2018 at least), we thought now would be an excellent time for a quick jaunt down memory lane.
Join us for a look back at five of the most popular articles on ITBusiness.ca in 2017.
1. Canada could be getting a Toronto-Montreal Hyperloop route
Digital transformation and smart cities were both popular themes on ITBusiness.ca this year, and no manifestation of smart cities captured the imagination of more readers than the announcement by California-based Hyperloop One that a proposed route between Montreal and Toronto was one of 10 finalists in the company’s ambitious Global Challenge.
That means business and engineering resources will now be committed to researching the proposed 640-kilometre route, which would carry visitors between Toronto and Montreal, with a stop in Ottawa, in 39 minutes.
2. Google Home appears to be available in Canada
Internet search giant Google Inc. was cagey about the official Canadian release of its smart speaker, Google Home, with the product rumoured for months – and spotted by ITWC editorial director Brian Jackson on Best Buy Canada and Amazon Canada in April – before it was actually released in June.
Our Google Home-related videos, including tutorials by Mr. Jackson on how to use the device to make a phone call (which features a guest appearance by yours truly) and how to use the device’s broadcast feature, have proven popular as well.
3. Reality, augmented: eSight device restores vision for the legally blind
Next to the Hyperloop One announcement, the example of digital transformation that captured the imagination of more readers than any other was Alex Radu’s profile of eSight Corporation’s eSight 3, a pair of third generation electronic glasses capable of restoring sight to the legally blind.
While not able to restore sight to the fully blind, the eSight 3 can help anyone with vision loss and acuity of between 20/70 and 20/600 reach a baseline of 20/20 to 20/30 vision.
4. Tech giants band together to help a kid get a year of free chicken nuggets
In a year we feel comfortable calling objectively depressing for the world at large for reasons we’d rather not focus on for longer than we have to, we’re less than surprised to learn that one of the year’s most viral stories was among the most viral on ITBusiness.ca as well, thanks to Mandy Kovacs’ recap of the support some of Silicon Valley’s biggest tech companies gave Las Vegas resident Carter Wilkerson after he asked the Wendy’s Twitter account how many retweets he would need for a year of free chicken nuggets.
HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3
— Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm) April 6, 2017
5+. Office tours
Whether it was Indeed’s diversely decorated Toronto digs, the newest addition to Softchoice’s 125,000 square-foot campus, or Vena Solutions’ new Toronto headquarters it’s clear that ITBusiness.ca readers love seeing digital transformation firsthand by checking out how the most cutting-edge employers support their workers. We’ll be sure to visit more of them next year.
Happy holidays!