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 Pragya Sehgal, with files from staff writer Samira Balsara and editorial director Alex Coop. Missed last week’s Coffee Briefing? We got you covered.
ITWC Podcasts
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Trending
Listen to the latest episode of Cyber Security Today
Today’s podcast reports on three more Canadian firms hit with ransomware, the Nobelium continues to go after organizations, open databases at Dreamhost and Mercedes-Benz discovered and warnings to Zyxel and legacy Western Digital NAS devices.
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
The recent tech news that we maybe didn’t get to yet, or it’s the news we’ve reported on and feel is worth resurfacing.
AWS launches global challenge for developers to find and fix one million software bugs
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched the world’s first global competition for developers to collectively eliminate one million software bugs and $100 million in technical debt for their organizations. Developers from around the world can join the challenge by creating an AWS BugBust event for their organization in the Amazon CodeGuru console and compete for prizes and a chance for an expense-paid trip to attend AWS re:Invent 2021 in Las Vegas by identifying and fixing bugs in their applications. Each time developers fix a bug and save money, they will score points to climb their organization’s private BugBust leaderboard and see how they rank among their teammates. During the event, each participant’s total number of bugs fixed and cost savings will be added to the global AWS BugBust leaderboard, making participants eligible for rewards, explains AWS.
To help developers find and exterminate bugs, AWS BugBust utilizes machine learning (ML)-powered developer tools – Amazon CodeGuru Reviewer and Amazon CodeGuru Profiler – to automatically scan their code to weed out gnarly bugs and gamifies fixing and eliminating them. AWS says the AWS BugBust capability is available today in US East (N. Virginia) with availability in additional regions where Amazon CodeGuru is offered coming soon. [More info. on the challenge here]
Humi and Indeed team up to help recruiters in Canada
Last week, Canada’s all-in-one HR, payroll and benefits software company Humi announced it is teaming up with job search platform Indeed which has more than 250 million people globally searching for jobs on the platform each month. As partners, the two companies will work to improve the recruitment process through an API integration that will allow recruiters to instantly post and sponsor jobs to Indeed directly from the Humi platform.
“At Indeed, we are focused on making it easier for job seekers to connect with great employers,” said Jodi Kasten, head of sales at Indeed Canada, in a press release. “Through this integration, we’re empowering organizations to quickly and easily reach millions of potential candidates and find their next great hire with Indeed.”
The company also noted that through this integration, new clients who create an account with Indeed will be eligible to receive a sponsored job credit to use on their next job posting.
According to Andrea Bartlett, director of HR at Humi, the company has seen higher volumes of people applying across all industries in Canada, and hence the growing need for better management of recruitment processes and carrying out more efficient communications with candidates.
“By leveraging technology in the recruiting process, we’re seeing companies hiring more proactively. We’re also starting to see role requirements that were once a rarity, becoming more common. This is creating a need for a more sophisticated recruiting tool,” said Bartlett. [Full press release here]
Commvault awarded 2021 HPE GreenLake Momentum Partner of the Year title
Commvault, global data protection and data management software company, was named the 2021 Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) GreenLake Momentum Partner of the Year at HPE Discover 2021 last week. The award honours partners across the HPE ecosystem for commitment to customer excellence, a consistently strong performance, growth and dedication to mutual achievement, according to HPE. Winners are picked based on their financial performance and innovative solutions.
For John Tavares, vice president of Worldwide Partner Organization for Commvault, “It’s an honour to be one of HPE’s top partners for the third straight year…We are more excited than ever about our growing partnership with HPE. Our collaborative innovations with GreenLake Backup-as-a-Service and our tight integration with HPE technology gives our customers simple, flexible and radically scalable solutions, whether on-premises or in the cloud.” [Take a look at the full list of 2021 HPE Partner of the Year award winners here]
84% of Canadian patients say they’ll keep using telemedicine in future – report
A recent survey of 1,000 participants from the software reviews site Capterra revealed that over half (56 per cent) have had a remote medical consultation with their doctor. Of these, nearly 90 per cent said they did so for the first time during the pandemic. The future of virtual care will likely follow a similar pattern, as 84 per cent of respondents say they want to continue using telemedicine after the pandemic ends.
Telemedicine, commonly referred to as virtual healthcare, has been defined as any “medical service provided remotely via information and communication technology” by the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada.
Tessa Anaya, analyst for this Capterra study, says technology can make or break future use of virtual healthcare in Canada.
The data shows that the technology used to facilitate virtual appointments greatly influences patient experience. Seventy-six per cent of patients have had an appointment via phone call, while just 14 per cent have used a video conferencing platform. The survey shows that video consultations will encourage patients to use telemedicine more in the future.
“Although we have seen a boom in the use of telemedicine over the past year, the technologies used by doctors with their patients are taking some time to catch up. The overwhelming use of phone calls by doctors, rather than face-to-face technologies, restricts the level of connection felt by the patient,” explains Anaya. [Full report here]
Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada selects Quantcast Choice as their consent management platform
Global advertising technology company Quantcast last week announced that the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada (IAB) Canada, the organization fully-dedicated to the development and promotion of digital and interactive advertising in Canada, has chosen Quantcast Choice as its consent management platform (CMP).
Over three million publisher and marketer domains have implemented Quantcast Choice globally. The platform, designed to increase control and decrease complexity for website owners needing to know which vendors and partners have access to consent data, supports the Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF) 2.0 and other key privacy regulations and industry standards.
“Given that the anticipated amendments will include significant penalties and higher accountability standards for the industry, getting organized with solutions that can scale for change is critical,” said Sonia Carreno, president of IAB Canada, in a press release. “While we’ve been promoting and educating Canadian marketers on the importance of a consent management platform, including how to ensure it aligns with the business, it became critical for us to take first steps and implement a CMP platform to signal that the industry is changing and to demonstrate that innovative technology exists to help streamline compliance.” [Full press release]
ICYMI – IT World Canada
Windows 11 at a glance: Rounded corners, Snap upgrades, benefits for developers [Full story]
Microsoft Windows 11, launched this week, offers a new user interface, some shiny new features, and some things that will have both consumers and corporate IT tearing their hair out.
Do you really need to buy a TPM for Windows 11? [Full story]
While Windows 11 can still run on modest hardware–asking for just 4GB of memory and 64GB of storage–one detail stood out: the need for a Trusted Platform Module, or TPM.
New Brunswick to offer bilingual cybersecurity program to all high school students [Full story]
When high school resumes this September in New Brunswick, 1,500 students will have the opportunity to enroll in a three-year bilingual cybersecurity skills program linked to Cisco’s Networking Academy.
ICYMI – IT Business Canada
Intuit invites AI-focused startups to apply for its new accelerator program [Full story]
Intuit Prosperity Accelerator: AI is an equity-free and challenge-based virtual five-month accelerator program designed for high-potential seed-stage startups based in North America, who have AI-driven solutions with products in the market that aim to solve financial challenges.
‘Re-building a career is difficult for some trans people’ says panellist at LGBTQ2S+ event. Here’s why [Full story]
Coming out at work can be a mixed experience, as can dealing with colleagues and clients afterwards. In this panel, moderator Jim Love, chief information officer and chief content officer at IT World Canada, spoke with panellists about their experiences and asked them what people have done to help them in their journey.
Temporary remote work becomes a permanent option for Deloitte’s U.K. employees [Full story]
All of Deloitte’s U.K. offices reopened as of May 17, 2021, but its chief executive Richard Houston recently announced the company is giving all of its U.K. staff the choice of when, where and how they work in the future, once it is safe to do so.
ICYMI – Channel Daily News
OSF Digital is on a roll, announces fourth acquisition in six weeks [Full story]
OSF Digital, a Quebec-based provider of commerce solutions and digital transformation services, recently announced the acquisition of California-based Salesforce consulting firm Paladin.
Cloudflare announces direct integrations with Microsoft Azure Sentinel, Splunk and more [Full story]
Web infrastructure and website security company Cloudflare has announced new integrations with Microsoft Azure Sentinel, Splunk, Datadog, and Sumo Logic to extend the insights provided by Cloudflare Logs.
Quebec-based multi-cloud and multi-enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions provider Syntax Systems has acquired ON-based SAP systems integration and management consultancy Illumiti.
