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
Clik2pay adds two direct-from-account payment options to its API
Clik2pay has introduced Clik2pay Flexible payments and Clik2pay Scheduled Payments to facilitate direct-from-account payments for businesses. Both features require no sign-up and payments can be completed through Interac.
Clik2pay Flexible payments allow businesses to offer a partial payment option to their customers, while Clik2pay Scheduled payments allow the scheduling of payments at a specific date as well as enabling recurring payments.
The two options seek to allow businesses to track payments and improve customer satisfaction, as unnecessary steps are eliminated and customer interactions decrease. Customers tend to be less likely to miss payments, as Clik2pay features real-time notifications. The company says that businesses can save 50 per cent on payment processing fees as they charge less than credit card companies.
GoDaddy launches Empower in Canada in partnership with Futurpreneur
GoDaddy has launched its Empower program in Canada in collaboration with Futurpreneur to provide entrepreneurs with the digital skills, training, and expertise needed for their entrepreneurial growth.
The partnership will feature customized digital workshops and access to business experts to address the needs of each business and provide guidance accordingly. These resources will be in both English and French and will be curated by Futurpreneur, a Toronto-based organization that has funded and provided resources to young entrepreneurs for 25 years.
All participants of the Empower Program will receive a two-year subscription to GoDaddy services and marketing tools as well as a free domain name of their own.
Shopify partners with YouTube to expand creator economy
The launch of YouTube Shopping is now allowing Shopify merchants to sell their products and services on YouTube.
Shopify merchants have three ways to connect with consumers through YouTube Shopping:
- Livestreams- products can be pinned at key moments during a video; creators and consumers can shop while they watch with the picture-in-picture playback feature.
- Videos- a curated list of products can be displayed below on-demand videos
- Store tab- A tab will be added to the merchants channel, showing a full list of their products
Part of a longstanding partnership between Shopify and Google, this expansion seeks to further help creators scale their businesses and share their stories. Christen Dominique, a YouTube beauty guru with over 4.36M followers, and chief executive officer and founder of Dominique Cosmetics, is among the first creators to profit from YouTube Shopping.
Sage partners with Microsoft to simplify workflows for SMBs
Sage has announced an expanded partnership with Microsoft to integrate Microsoft 365 and Teams as embedded services in Sage Products.
Designed to provide customers a choice of a cloud platform and facilitate collaboration and workflow for small to medium businesses (SMBs), Sage Active is an integrated business management solution built on Microsoft Azure that was first released in July to select customers in France, and is coming soon to Spain and Germany.
The integration with Microsoft seeks to reduce manual processes for back-office functions such as accounting and payroll, and provide customers with a reliable and secure tool to perform office tasks with a single sign-on (SSO), hence streamlining workflow.
Uber Canada launches Uber One
Uber Canada has announced Uber One, a new membership program seeking to offer benefits and an integrated experience to customers using Uber for rides and Uber Eats for food and grocery deliveries.
Uber One offers five per cent off rides and eligible food orders, as well as premium support and top-rated drivers for Uber rides. There is zero delivery fee on Uber Eats orders and the customer receives C$5 in Uber Cash if the order arrives late
Uber One membership is priced at C$10 monthly or C$100 annually.
More to explore
More conditions may be imposed on telcos as result of Rogers outage, says government
The federal government may impose more conditions on telecommunications providers to improve their resiliency as the investigation into the huge July 8 Rogers outage continues, the Industry minister told a House of Commons committee this morning.
Ontario town still recovering from ransomware attack
A small Ontario town is in the fifth day of dealing with a ransomware attack that has encrypted data.
Toronto Symphony sideswiped by WordFly ransomware attack
One of Canada’s biggest orchestras is among North American organizations victimized by a ransomware attack earlier this month on WordFly, a digital communications and marketing platform used by arts, entertainment, culture and sports firms.
Hardware vendor differences led to Rogers outage, says Rogers CTO
Rogers chief executive officer Tony Staffieri today appeared alongside Ron McKenzie, the company’s newly appointed chief technology officer, before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology to answer questions from regulators regarding the company’s network outage that affected millions of Canadians on July 8.
Bell’s Fibe trademark challenged in Federal Court
SkyChoice Communications, a provider of television, telephone and Internet services operating in many Canadian provinces, is challenging the use of the Fibe trademark by Bell Canada before the Federal Court of Canada.
Public explanation of Rogers outage has lots of blanks
Rogers Communications has filed a 39-page reply to questions from the Canadian telecommunications regulator about the unprecedented outage of its internet and wireless network, again blaming a configuration change that deleted a routing filter, which caused its distribution routers to be overwhelmed.
Calgary primed, ready for what it thinks will be a massive tech boom
There is only word to describe the current Calgary tech scene – booming. That was evident last month at Collision 2022 in Toronto, and it is also evident by the enormous amount of interest the city is generating from organizations of every size, be it a start-up or a corporation such as Telus or IBM Canada.
Sophos channel partners set to play key role in new initiative
U.K. cybersecurity vendor Sophos today unveiled a new cross-operational unit it said is designed to help organizations better defend against “constantly changing and increasingly complex cyberattacks.”
‘Outages happen,’ telecom regulator tells parliamentary committee looking into Rogers crisis
The head of Canada’s telecommunications regulator said this month’s huge internet and wireless network failure at Rogers could result in more regulation of the industry, but also suggested there is nothing the regulator can do can prevent service interruptions.
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Trending
Hashtag Trending July 26 – Australian companies stop use of facial recognition tech; U.S. social media laws; Intel and MediaTek agreement
Listen to the latest episode of Cyber Security Today
Cyber Security Today, July 25, 2022 –Public hearings on the Rogers outage start today, a data breach at Entrust and patches issued for SonicWall and Confluence products
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.
