iOS 11 launches worldwide with some hiccups, the Equifax breach keeps getting worse, and Google takes aim at fake news in Canada.
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On Twitter today, it was hard to miss people’s reactions to the global launch of Apple’s iOS 11. The new operating system is a pretty big shake up for iPhone and iPad users, and offers features like an all new customizable control centre that fits on one screen, a more intelligent and less robotic-sounding Siri, augmented reality experiences, and a driving mode that mutes notifications when your phone connects to a car’s Bluetooth system. The only problem is that the system takes up more than two gigabytes of space on most phones and takes anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to download.
And from Twitter again is more bad news coming out of this month’s massive Equifax security breach that saw 143 million consumer records compromised. The Atlanta-based credit rating giant estimates that 100,000 Canadian accounts were affected by the cyber attack, and says they’ll be notified by mail and offered protection in the coming weeks. Bloomberg has also reported that while the company announced this breach in early September after it discovered the attack about two months ago, new information says Equifax experienced another breach in March of this year by the same attackers that it did not report. The company is currently under investigation in both the US and Canada.
And finally from Reddit today, Google Canada is targeting fake news with a project called NewsWise, which hopes to boost media literacy amongst Canadian youth. The company is providing the Canadian Journalism Foundation and CIVIX, a charitable organization focused on youth civic engagement, with a $500,000 grant to develop and deliver a program that will teach students how to filter out misinformation online and find trustworthy sources. This program will be rolled out next year in Ontario, just in time for the provincial election in June, and across Canada in 2019 before the federal election.
