For Amazon, getting Alexa’s new security-guard feature to work meant literally breaking a lot of windows. In December, the company started inviting Amazon Echo users to try out Alexa Guard, a new setting that turns the smart speakers into home security devices. It listens for suspicious sounds when you’re away and sends a smartphone alert if it detects, say,… Read more »
Posts By: David Firth
Bell wants permission to gather and track customer data
Canada’s largest telecommunications group is getting mixed reviews for its plan to follow the lead of companies like Google and Facebook in collecting massive amounts of information about the activities and preferences of its customers. Bell Canada began asking its customers in December for permission to track everything they do with their home and mobile… Read more »
It’s not just Apple — Samsung is hurting, too
The South Korean company said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter operating profit is set to plunge nearly 30% from a year earlier, well below analysts’ forecasts. It blamed the sharp drop on “lackluster demand” for its memory chips and “intensifying competition” in the smartphone industry. Samsung’s guidance comes after Apple (AAPL) set off alarm bells last… Read more »
America, China and tech’s next step
In a corner of the Las Vegas Convention Center, a row of Huawei Mate P20 smartphones are lined up, sparkling, for CES delegates to try out. It’s a typical scene at the trade show but one made slightly surreal by the fact that few Americans will likely ever own these phones. Right now, US networks… Read more »
Would you upload your house key to the cloud?
A digital solution for lost house keys has been revealed at the CES tech show. KeyHero will scan and upload a precise image of a key to the cloud for free, but it can only be accessed in one of the firm’s partner stores. This image is encrypted and linked to a phone number or… Read more »
Banning Huawei from building new 5G wireless network won’t really hurt Canada’s big telecom firms
A possible federal government ban prohibiting Huawei from building Canada’s 5G network is unlikely to have a major financial impact on two of the country’s top communication companies, analysts said. Source: CBC News Date: December 19th, 2018 Link: https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/huawei-ban-government-bell-telus-5g-1.4950521 Discussion 1) “Huawei’s equipment is already used in telecommunications infrastructure run by Canada’s major cellphone carriers, namely BCE and Telus. Those two companies are currently… Read more »
As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
For years, Facebook gave some of the world’s largest technology companies more intrusive access to users’ personal data than it has disclosed, effectively exempting those business partners from its usual privacy rules, according to internal records and interviews. The special arrangements are detailed in hundreds of pages of Facebook documents obtained by The New York… Read more »
5G is here. What that means and how you can get it
Ushering in the mobile 5G era, AT&T announced Tuesday that it will start selling a 5G wireless hotspot. It can offer speeds up to 400 megabits per second, which is way faster than most home broadband connections and between 10 and 100 times faster than 4G, depending on network conditions. 4G is the fastest wireless technology… Read more »
Russia, Facebook, the US election and when 126 million isn’t 126 million
As many as 126 million Americans may have seen content uploaded to Facebook by Russia-based operatives since 2015. That’s nearly half of the 270 million Americans who are old enough to be allowed a Facebook profile. The figure comes from the social network itself, which along with Google and Twitter, is preparing for a Senate… Read more »
France to go it alone on digital tax
France has said it will introduce its own tax on big technology firms from 1 January after EU-wide efforts stalled. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he expected it to bring in €500m (£450m) in 2019. France, along with Germany, had been pushing for the European Commission to agree measures by the end of… Read more »
Leading Titles
Introduction to Information Systems, 3rd Canadian Binder Ready Version Update Edition
R. Kelly Rainer, Casey G. Cegielski, Ingrid Splettstoesser-Hogeterp, Cristobal Sanchez-Rodriguez
ISBN: 978-1-119-13385-8
August 2015, © 2016
CDN $98.95; CDN $114.95