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!
Missed last week’s Coffee Briefing? We’ve got you covered.
What’s new this week
Cradlepoint extends Cellular Intelligence capabilities to bolster visibility into 5G cell towers
Cradlepoint, global cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network edge solutions provider, today announced additional Cellular Intelligence capabilities that provide extended visibility into enterprise LTE and 5G Wireless WAN (WWAN) deployments. As part of its NetCloud Service, Cradlepoint has expanded Wireless WAN visibility to include cell tower location with service provider details for each connected router or adapter. These insights are now integrated into a single pane of glass to ease deployments and ongoing troubleshooting of the Wireless WAN.
The new feature within NetCloud GeoView allows IT teams to visualize where their cell tower is located in proximity to their Cradlepoint cellular modem on a map, enabling optimal placement of the modem for enhanced performance. IT teams will also have cell tower insights at their fingertips, including the supported service provider, service type, and active band(s), all without having to use external cell mapping tools. Additionally, for routers and modems that are not GPS-enabled, or not able to acquire a GPS signal, the location of the serving cell tower can be used to provide the approximate location of any Cradlepoint router or modem, regardless of where it is located. This accelerates network troubleshooting and improves asset tracking, especially in IoT deployments.
Announced in February 2022, Cradlepoint’s Cellular Intelligence is a collection of software features that allow administrators with distributed Wireless WANs to visualize, optimize, and troubleshoot cellular connections, data plans, and traffic flow. Integration between NetCloud and connectivity management platforms, such as Ericsson’s IoT Accelerator, and other SIM aggregation platforms provide visibility into the SIMs and data plans, with the ability to perform SIM management functions (activations, deactivations, data plan adjustments, and more) in seconds.
Canadian students win nine awards at 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair
Ten young scientists selected by Youth Science Canada represented the country from May 7 to 13 at the 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), a youth STEM project competition. The Team Canada-ISEF students brought home seven grand awards and two special awards.
- Haolin Li, Crescent School, Ontario, Canada brought home the Second Award in the behavioural and social sciences category for her project ‘Decoding the Underlying Neural Activity of Neurodegeneration in Traumatic Brain Injury’.
- Artash Nath, Bloor Collegiate Institute, Ontario, Canada won Second Award in the earth and environmental sciences category for his project ‘The Silence of Global Oceans: Acoustic Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown’.
- Hardit Singh, Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute, Ontario, Canada won the Third Award in the biomedical engineering category for his project ‘Speculor: A Comprehensive Teleophthalmology Platform for People Centered Eyecare’.
- Calvin Karthik, Kenner Collegiate Vocational Institute, Ontario, Canada won the Third Award in the energy: sustainable materials and design category for his project ‘A Mighty Mushroom and the Power of Poop: Testing Biogas Production Using Spent Mushroom Substrate V2’.
- Anna Voia, College Jean-de-Brebeuf, Quebec, Canada won the Fourth Award in the cellular and molecular biology category for her project ‘Effect of Mimosa Plant Phytochemicals on the Stress Response Pathways of Caenorhabditis elegans’.
- Julie Sieg, Earl Haig Secondary School, Ontario, Canada won the Fourth Award in the earth and environmental sciences category for her project ‘The Effects of Increased Sea Temperature on Phytoplankton Community Composition by Cell Size’.
- Henry Zhao, Collingwood School, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada took home Fourth Award in the robotics and intelligent machines category for his project ‘Low-Cost Quadruped Robot With Rough Terrain Traversal, Obstacle Avoidance, and Autonomous Navigation’.
Two special awards that were presented to Team Canada-ISEF during the event include:
- Certificate of Honorable Mention, a 1-year free student membership to the INCOSE, and free virtual admission to the 2022 International Symposium of the INCOSE to Henry Zhao and Hardit Singh.
National Film Board of Canada launches new tool to help Canadian educators teach students how to create short digital stories
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB) is bringing a new online program to its education portal, NFB Campus – Canadian Educational Resources Campus, that will teach students the fundamental and technical skills of digital storytelling, and build media-literacy skills and encourage digital citizenship. Launched on May 16 in the form of an online workshop, the program, called Media School, will help Canadian educators to teach students ages 13 to 18 how to use photos, voiceover and music to create engaging short digital stories. This new online workshop is an extension of the in-person filmmaking workshops the NFB used to provide to students.
Collaboratively developed by teachers from across the country, media education experts, filmmaker Paul Tom, and the NFB Education team, Media School is available for all educators to use now in preparation for their 2022–23 lesson plans. NFB says the workshop has been designed to fit within the Canadian curricula for Social Studies, English or French studies, and Media Arts, as well as the Digital Action Plans of most provinces.
Klarna launches virtual shopping offering
Klarna is bridging the gap between in-store and online shopping with the launch of its Virtual Shopping offering.
Virtual Shopping by Klarna lets consumers browse and buy online by connecting them directly with in-store experts via live chats and video calls to receive product advice.
Here’s how Virtual Shopping works:
Shoppers connect with an in-store expert when they click the Virtual Shopping icon on the retailer’s website. Once they are connected, they can chat, receive photos and videos, follow product recommendations, and even have a two-way video chat, recreating the experience they would receive if they were shopping in a store.
Retailers integrated with Klarna can simply add Virtual Shopping to their online stores and use the new, merchant-facing Klarna Store App for iOS and Android to connect with their online shoppers.
Klarna’s Virtual Shopping tools are now live with more than 300 brands such as Levi’s, Hugo Boss, and Herman Miller.
Klarna’s Virtual Shopping offering is now available in 18 markets, including the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, France, Poland, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Sweden.
NPower Canada is offering tech training programs for underserved Canadians
NPower Canada, a non-profit organization, is bridging the gap between underserved Canadians looking to start their careers and employers who need tech talent to fill the demand for tech roles in Canada.
The company offers training programs such as the Junior IT Analyst program, Junior Data Analyst program, the Google UX Design Program, and Indigenous Tech Career Pathways.
NPower Canada focuses on underserved groups who often occupy a minority percentage of tech roles. Last year, about 40 per cent of its participants were female, non-binary and/or transgender. Eighty one per cent were racialized, and 42 per cent were new to Canada.
The training programs are fully funded and provided at no cost to those participating. The majority of the programs are available to people living in British Columbia, Ontario and Alberta.
NPower Canada is now accepting applications for May 2022.
Companies offering hot tech jobs in Canada right now
Canada’s tech sector is growing, with major companies expanding into the country. Brands like Microsoft and Sentry are joining Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, Netflix, Reddit, and Google in opening brand new spaces in Toronto. While company headquarters may be stationed in Toronto, tech workers are in high demand throughout the country, as hybrid work from home models become more popular.
Data from Indeed shows that tech jobs make up a significant number of the total jobs available in Canadian cities.
For example, 27 per cent of Canadian tech jobs are found in Toronto, making up 17 per cent of the job postings in the city. Additionally, Vancouver holds 10 per cent of Canada’s tech jobs, Montreal takes up 8 per cent, and Ottawa has 5 per cent of Canada’s tech jobs. Four per cent of Canada’s tech related jobs are in Calgary.
More to explore
Ransomware: strategies to reduce the risk of data loss and downtime
Ransomware continues to be lucrative for criminals in 2022, with attacks growing in sophistication, and targeting both businesses and individuals. Businesses know the risks and the need for protection, but as we experience what the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) calls “the golden era of ransomware,” it’s important to understand how these attacks are evolving, and what can be done to prevent, address, and recover from them.
The return of in-person conferences: developing an agile event strategy
For two years, technology marketers and conference organizers optimistically budgeted for the return of in-person events, only to find themselves shifting plans on the fly. Now, as the summer conference season kicks off, some uncertainty lingers. Even as travel restrictions and mask mandates are lifted in regions around the world, the continued emergence of COVID-19 variants is just one of the risk factors impacting technology marketers’ plans for in-person conferences, events and tradeshows in 2022.
This week in ransomware – Friday the 13th edition, 2022
A recent report from Telus noted that “ransomware has evolved in sophistication at a dizzying pace. Ransomware malware is becoming more advanced, distribution is becoming more targeted, and tactics are continuously evolving to extort the greatest ransom from victims.
Canada’s D-Wave announces the availability of its latest quantum computing system in the U.S.
D-Wave Systems, a B.C., Canada-based global leader in quantum computing systems, software, and services, has announced the availability of the first Advantage quantum computer, accessible via the Leap quantum cloud service and physically located at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering.
Elon Musk tweets about putting Twitter deal temporarily on hold
Elon Musk today tweeted he is putting his US$44 billion Twitter offer on temporary hold, pending details supporting calculations that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than five per cent of users.
New artificial intelligence lab opens in Montreal
McGill University has announced the opening of a new international artificial intelligence (AI) laboratory in Montreal, confirming the city’s status as a leader in the field.
In the face of what it calls Russia’s “malicious cyber activities” in its war against Ukraine, Canada is urging the G7 nations to create a working group to share cybersecurity best practices for protecting their IT and telecom critical infrastructure.
Lighthouse Labs to build a search engine for the metaverse
Montreal-based Lighthouse Labs announced on May 11 that it had secured funding of C$9.1M to build a search engine for the metaverse. The company will use the funds raised to expand its team, expand its partnerships with virtual worlds and continue the development of its platform, which is scheduled to launch in the summer of 2022.
SAP highlights four focus areas at Sapphire conference
Enterprise application software giant SAP chose four areas to focus on during its hybrid Sapphire customer and partner conference this week: supply chain, sustainability, business process transformation, and accelerating innovation.
Open-source software community releases plan to boost application security
Under pressure after the discovery of several open source vulnerabilities including Log4Shell, leading open-source groups and software firms have created a 10-point plan for ensuring ongoing improvements in the security of open-source code.
IBM Think 2022 – Broad array of IBM software catalog now available as SaaS offerings on AWS
IBM today announced it has signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS), with plans to offer a broad array of its software catalog as software-as-a-service (SaaS) on AWS.
HPE Canada opens new head office in Mississauga
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has announced it has opened a new Canadian head office in Mississauga, ON, Canada, designed as a collaboration and culture hub with a particular emphasis on new graduates.
IBM set to migrate workloads to SAP’s latest ERP software SAP S/4HANA
IBM and SAP have announced the expansion of their partnership as IBM undertakes a corporate transformation project focused on improving its business processes with RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
Zoho’s new marketing platform unifies all marketing operations
Global technology company Zoho Corporation today announced the launch of Zoho Marketing Plus, a new unified platform that brings together marketing activities across campaign ideation, creation, execution, management, and measurement, providing stakeholders across the entire marketing organization with a single, shared view of information for improved collaboration and results.
Red Hat and General Motors collaborate to help advance software-defined vehicles at the edge
Yesterday, at the Red Hat Summit 2022, open source solutions provider Red Hat and General Motors (GM) announced a partnership to help advance software-defined vehicles at the edge.
SAP highlights four focus areas at Sapphire conference; cuts Store costs for partners
Enterprise application software giant SAP chose four areas to focus on during its hybrid Sapphire customer and partner conference this week: supply chain, sustainability, business process transformation, and accelerating innovation.
Google teases new smartglasses based on a design acquired two years ago
A new pair of augmented reality glasses was one of the tech giant’s biggest highlights unveiled at its annual Google I/O developer conference.
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.
Listen to the latest episode of Hashtag Trending
Texas turns off power plants ahead of scorching weather, AI can discern race and nobody knows how, and a security researcher defeats Tesla’s keyless entry feature.
Listen to the latest episode of Cyber Security Today
Beware of a new variant of the SYS-RV botnet, new phishing campaigns spotted and cybersecurity oversight boosted in the EU.
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.