Coffee Briefings are timely deliveries of the latest ITWC headlines, interviews, and podcasts. These briefings drop on Tuesday mornings. Today’s Coffee Briefing is delivered by IT World Canada reporter Tom Li, with files from the rest of the editorial team!
Missed last week’s Coffee Briefing? We got you covered.
ITWC Podcasts
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Trending
It’s all the biz/tech news that’s trending right now. A recent investigation uncovers some disturbing truths about civilian surveillance, the Biden administration blames China for a recent email hack, and the ongoing global chip shortage has hit smartphones.
Listen to the latest episode of Cyber Security Today
Today’s podcast reports on a new ransomware advice site, another Windows print spooler problem, more companies caught with unsecured cloud data storage and more applications to patch.
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.
In case you missed it
Recent tech news that we maybe didn’t get to yet, or it’s news we’ve reported on and feel is worth resurfacing.
Another vulnerability discovered in the Windows Print Spooler service
Panic rippled through the Windows community last month when a cybersecurity research company accidentally published a vulnerability in the Windows Print Spooler services. Microsoft quickly released a patch, but now another vulnerability has been discovered in the same service. This new vulnerability can also give attackers unfettered access to the host system. The good news is that admins can easily defend against these attacks by changing system settings.
Source: Bleeping Computers
The U.S. really doesn’t want China to get advanced chip manufacturing technology
Like climate change, the microchip and semiconductor market is breaking thermometers. It’s so hot, in fact, that the U.S. is doing everything it can to stop China from getting advanced chip manufacturing equipment.
China has been pressuring Netherlands-based ASML, a company that specializes in producing microchip fabricators, to export its equipment. Specifically, China has its eyes set on machines using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, which can fabricate sub-10 nanometre transistors. These machines cost around $150 million each and China wants lots of them to bolster its domestic chip production.
However, as China is pressuring the Dutch government to approve sales, the U.S. is asking them to block it. To discourage the sale, the U.S. put on its mean face and reminded the Netherlands that ASML’s machines wouldn’t work without U.S. components, components the U.S. could stop exporting to the Netherlands at any time.
Over the years, the U.S. has placed restrictive policies around sharing technologies with China for the sake of national security and to cement its lead in the tech race. It’s now urging other nations to do the same.
Caught in the unfortunate tug of war between two superpowers, the Dutch government and ASML are in a bind. China is a significant business opportunity for the Netherlands, but is it worth souring the country’s relationship with the U.S.?
Source: Wall Street Journal
Intel to invest $100 billion in building its chip production in Europe
Eight phases and $100 billion, all for a vertically integrated supply chain. That’s basically what Intel has in store for its Europe. According to the Financial Times, Intel will first invest $20 billion into a new production facility in Europe to establish a foothold. Then, over the course of multiple years and in eight phases, Intel will slowly develop it into a facility worth up to $100 billion. This is all part of Intel’s grand IDM 2.0 strategy announced back in March.
Source: Tom’s Hardware
Tesla turns “full self-driving” into a subscription
Imagine buying a new car and being told that there’s an additional subscription required to unlock the full car. Sounds like a nightmare, right? But that seems to be what’s in store for Tesla customers.
Tech publication Mashable scraped the details from Tesla’s support page. Essentially, drivers will need to pay up to $199 a month to unlock the vehicle’s full self-driving (FSD) capabilities. The upgrade has two tiers: $199 to upgrade from Basic Autopilot to FSD, or $99 to upgrade from Enhanced Autopilot to FSD.
Tesla’s support page explains that the upgrade gets drivers advanced steering, accelerating, and braking assistance that “provide more active guidance.”
To qualify for the upgrade, however, the vehicle needs to have Tesla’s Full Self-Driving computer 3.0 or above. Additionally, Tesla reminded drivers that despite being called full self-driving, the subscription doesn’t make the car autonomous; drivers need to be alert and ready to take over the controls at any time.
It’s unclear if Telsa intends to keep this model. The company has been known to change its mind on a whim.
Source: Mashable
Japan breaks internet speed world record
Japan has shattered the world record for internet throughput by almost twofold. By bundling four fibre-optic cores together, the Japanese researchers were able to achieve a whopping 319Tbps, completely outpacing the 179Tbps record set just last year. For a sense of its speed, today’s top-tier home internet connection of around 1.5Gbps is 213,000 times slower than the new speed record. While this technology won’t appear as a new internet subscription tier anytime soon, it does raise the ceiling for what’s possible and sets up for better services in the future.
Source: Engadget
ICYMI – IT World Canada
Canada, allies accuse China of widespread malicious cyber activity [Full story]
Canada, other members of the Five Eyes intelligence co-operative, and members of NATO today accused China of malicious cyber activity, including responsibility for the Microsoft Exchange Server compromise discovered earlier this year.
Canadian group helps Microsoft identify vulnerabilities used in spyware [Full story]
A Canadian university digital security rights group has helped Microsoft identify and patch two Windows vulnerabilities it says were used by an Israeli-based software company that sells spyware to governments.
Microsoft launches the cloud PC: Windows 365 [Full story]
Microsoft unveiled Windows 365, its Windows 10 desktops that stream from the cloud, at its annual partner conference, Inspire, on July 14.
Telus last week announced the launch of its new managed cloud security service built on global cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Access technology to help Canadian organizations securely access data and applications from anywhere.
ICYMI – IT Business Canada
Visa Canada, in partnership with IFundWomen, a marketplace for women-owned businesses, is expanding its She’s Next Grant Program to help Canadian women entrepreneurs grow their businesses.
Quality control for demand generation vendors – CMO Talks with Danny Sachdev [Full story]
Technology is touted as the new key to lead generation, but it is also the vehicle for fake leads, stolen data, and fraud. Not only do these unethical practices waste time and drain the marketing budget, but they also erode customer confidence and reduce the return on investment.
The Government of Canada has announced a call for applications for the first stream of the Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP), Grow Your Business Online, which will fund not-for-profit organizations that can support small businesses in the development and implementation of their e-commerce strategies.
ICYMI – Channel Daily News
Microsoft focuses partners on the cloud [Full story]
Chief executive officer Satya Nadella kicked off Microsoft Inspire by talking about the role Microsoft Cloud is playing in partner success and celebrating its progress so far before launching into a series of mainly cloud-related announcements.
SoftwareONE becomes first global design partner for Commvault’s Metallic MSP offering [Full story]
Data protection and data management software firm Commvault today announced its partnership with end-to-end software and cloud technology solutions provider SoftwareONE to launch BackupSimple powered by Metallic, designed to deliver Metallic-based data protection solutions to managed service providers.
AvePoint launches global partner program
AvePoint, an independent Microsoft 365 data management software vendor, launched its first global partner program on July 13.