Archive for August, 2010
Canada’s new privacy bill lacks teeth
Aug 31st
A new bill known as the Safeguarding Canadians’ Personal Information Act, currently passing through Parliamentary approvals, is set to extend Canada’s existing privacy legislation. The bill will force organizations to both report any data breach to the Privacy Commissioner and to notify individuals affected by the breach, “if the organization believes that the breach creates a real risk of significant harm to the individual.”
Michael Collins
But while the sentiment behind this bill – increased transparency when data breaches occur – is sound, the bill lacks teeth.
Individuals will only be notified if the organization believes there is a need – the risk is that businesses simply won’t want to come clean and face losing not just one angry customer, but potentially hundreds should the news spread through social and traditional media channels.
In addition, the threat of financial penalties is notably absent from the bill, so where is the business incentive to comply?
QR Code Security – Are we ready to discuss the risks?
Aug 29th
The Quick Response codes we see on everything from movie posters to business cards are becoming the ubiquitous contact links of an entire new generation of mobile devices and the people who use them. Originally invented in Asia at the end of the last millennium (circa 1994 Japan, actually), these matrix or 2D (two-dimensional) barcodes are now enjoying broad adoption in North America.
Claudiu Popa
Playing on their coolness factor, their practicality is fully realized when we’re out and about, with only a couple of seconds to take in snippets of information on billboards or posters. From our perspective as users, it’s an intriguing way to exchange contact details and access a wealth of information about different products by simply scanning a digital coffee stain.
Sneak peek: Burstn pics, mobile style
Aug 25th
Picture this: you’ve just snapped some great pictures on your smartphone and want to share them instantly with friends, colleagues, customers, or with your social networks on Twitter and/or Facebook. What’s the fastest and easiest way to do this? Try Burstn them.
Krista Napier
Toronto-based Burstn has launched an app that allows iPhone users (and hopefully soon, at least for my sake, BlackBerry and Android users), the ability to share photos in real time without any hassles around uploading or posting them to a website.
I had a chance to chat with Josh Davey and Dave Senior from Burstn recently. Here’s a sneak peak into our chat: Read the rest of this entry »
ICT central to three new 21st century agreements in New Brunswick
Aug 24th
New Brunswick’s journey toward creating a 21st Century model of public education took three significant steps forward recently, with ICT being a central element in all three instances.
John Kershaw
On June 3rd the New Brunswick Department of Education (Anglophone Sector) entered into new agreements with three New Brunswick universities regarding pre-service teacher training.
The agreements represent a bold and exciting step forward by the universities in supporting New Brunswick’s 21st Century learning agenda. The agreements commit each of the three universities’ Faculties of Education to adopt new 21st Century oriented standards for beginning teacher training.
The process of reaching the agreements was highly collaborative, and included a team of representatives from the three Faculties of Education, the Departments of Education and Post Secondary, Education, Training and Labour, and the New Brunswick Teacher’s Association. The new teaching standards relate to the integration of ICT with pedagogy, and a commitment by the universities to adopt within three years a 1:1 student-computer model within their Faculties of Education, reflecting the province’s intent to adopt a 1:1 student-computer model in its upper grades in the years ahead.
A review of Rogers’ new Chatr discount wireless plan
Aug 23rd
The wireless market in Canada is heating up with some competitive cell phone plans.
Top mobile service provider Rogers recently decided to fight wireless newcomers in their own game by introducing its own Chatr discount brand aimed at the same customers as Mobilicity, Wind and Public Mobile. And the wireless incumbent launched despite a threat from Mobilicity’s Chairman about taking Rogers to court if they proceeded with the launch – I guess we will have to see what happens. Meanwhile, here’s my take on Rogers’ new discount brand. Read the rest of this entry »
Video conferencing waiting to see ‘the whites of their eyes’ for mainstream adoption
Aug 12th
I sat across the table from Magor Communications Corp. CEO Mike Pascoe and looked him in the eye. What was extraordinary about this was I was sitting in a Toronto office and he was behind his own desk in Kanata, Ont.
Brian Jackson
Video collaboration is nothing new, and the technology to hold a video conference is fairly commonplace. I’ve held many Skype conversations from my living room using a low-cost Web cam, for example. But the experience was nothing like this.
I almost forgot Pascoe was on a video screen. At the end of our conversation, I almost wanted to reach across the table and shake his hand. Displayed in full 1080p HD on a large flat screen monitor, the detail was such that I could really make eye contact and see facial expression.
How cyber crooks break CAPTCHAs
Aug 11th
The per centage of spam containing shortened hyperlinks has increased significantly over the last year. As far as spammers are concerned, any tactic that makes it harder to block their spam emails is going to be exploited. These shortened hyperlinks contain reputable and legitimate domains, making it harder for traditional anti-spam filters to identify the messages as spam.
Paul Wood
Analysis in the latest MessageLabs Intelligence Report revealed that URL-shortened spam hit a one day peak of 18 per cent, or 23.4 billion spam emails, on April 30, 2010. This doubled last year’s peak level of 9.3 per cent of spam, or more than 10 billion spam emails, on July 28, 2009.
While botnets are often the source of short URL spam, 28 per cent of this type of spam originated from sources not linked to a known botnet, such as unidentified spam-sending botnets or non-botnet sources such as webmail accounts created using CAPTCHA-breaking tools.
BlackBerry ban unravels handset’s ‘monopoply’ on mobile security
Aug 9th
Carmi Levy
I feel more than a little sorry for Research In Motion these days. Not only is the BlackBerry maker being pressured as never before in the market by the ever-sexy iPhone and the rapidly-evolving Android, but it’s also facing a kind of political pressure that no other handheld vendor has had to face. Yet, anyway.
RIM is being pushed by governments in a bunch of places, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and India because they want to give their law enforcement agencies greater power to snoop on citizens’ conversations. This weekend, according to Saudi government sources, RIM caved to government demands and agreed to install what officials there call “a server” within Saudi’s borders. This would allow law enforcement officials to monitor BlackBerry-based messaging traffic.
Call me a cynic, but that’s the deal when less-than-democratic governments bump up, hard, against advanced communications technologies that defy their desire to keep a lid on free speech. This kind of thing goes back a long way. For example, in 1989, the Chinese government limited access to fax machines to keep dissidents from reporting about the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In the Internet Age, national firewalls and tight e-mail restrictions have also been the tools of choice of autocratic governments everywhere.
Sneak Peak: Enabling Audience Interaction with Chatroll
Aug 6th
Engaging with audiences online and through mobile devices in real time is still relatively new, but quickly becoming a must for broadcasters, live event planners, big brands, and others that are looking to create more engaging audience conversations and experiences.
Krista Napier
Toronto-based Chatroll is looking to address this opportunity with its platform for real-time social interaction. I had a chance to chat with Jonathan McGee and Francis Ma from Chatroll June 21, 2010. Here’s a sneak peak into our Q&A:
Q: How do you differentiate Chatroll?
A: Chatroll allows broadcasters to quickly engage large audiences on a PC or a mobile device in real time. It allows the audience members to engage with one another, and the broadcaster, by commenting or asking questions. The conversation remains private (unlike a public forum like Twitter), providing an intimate conversation, but users can still sign in with their social media profiles so that other audience members can find and connect with them. Read the rest of this entry »
5 important things to know about Canadian cell phone plans
Aug 5th
The Canadian cell phone industry is confusing and difficult to understand. When comparing plans you have to deal with calling circle plans, specified evenings and weekend minutes, “anytime” minutes – it’s all so confusing. Well here are 5 items that you may not be aware of that you should know while you compare cell phone plans:
1. Long distance isn’t quite long distance
I always thought that if you were on a 100 min long distance plan that these minutes were in addition to my other minutes as I am paying extra for them. But what long distance plans do is to convert your regular minutes to long distance minutes. In other words, 100 of your 200 min plan is allocated for long distance usage as opposed to 200 regular mins plus 100 additional for long distance. Read the rest of this entry »
