FACEBOOK’S TACTICAL ASSAULT on Snapchat is nearly complete. This morning, the big blue giant launched a trio of features: a fun new effects-filled camera that sits a swipe over from your News Feed; a place for disappearing stories; and a way to share straight from your camera to your friends. That’s a lot of words… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Consumer Technology
Are your shoes giving away data?
Hoxton has come up with a novel way of measuring footfall – literally by filming people’s shoes. Sherlock Holmes-like, its system can deduce a remarkable amount of information such as age, gender and social class of shoppers from their footwear. “We have cameras at about 50cm off the ground and it points down so it… Read more »
Robots to affect up to 30% of jobs, says PwC
Robotics and artificial intelligence could affect almost a third of UK jobs by the 2030s, according to a study. However, the report from accountancy firm PwC also predicted that the nature of some occupations would change rather than disappear. It added that automation could create more wealth and additional jobs elsewhere in the economy. Jobs… Read more »
Ottawa explores potential of ‘blockchain,’ billed as next-generation Internet tech
An emerging technology has caught the eye of the innovation-obsessed federal government — a platform so packed with potential, many experts believe it could comprise the foundation for the next generation of the Internet. Source: Toronto Star Date: March 8th, 2017 Link: https://www.thestar.com/business/2017/02/28/ottawa-explores-potential-of-blockchain-billed-as-next-generation-internet-tech.html Discussion 1) “Like a giant digital bulletin board, blockchain creates an online ledger or database… Read more »
How we started the Arab world’s biggest music service
At the turn of the century, as mobile phones were taking off, there was a fad for novelty ringtones. People were paying small sums for their new Nokia phones to play a simple version of popular tunes as a call alert. “It was a silly trend at the time,” says Eddy Maroun, co-founder of Anghami,… Read more »
How the internet is turning us all into ‘mean girls’
Without realizing it, we’ve all become “mean girls,” excluding those who don’t fit in with the online communities we design for ourselves, one click at a time. Sure, at first we humoured them — those outliers who posted polarizing political views on our timelines for everyone else to see. But then we slowly started minimizing… Read more »
Trump Can’t Stop the Globalization of Work—the Internet Will See to That
DONALD TRUMP IS promising to make America great again by keeping others out. That approach is already undermining the smidgen of tentative good will he had enjoyed from the tech industry. As a strategy for keeping jobs in the US, it’s also fatally flawed. Turns out that in a world connected by the internet, isolationism… Read more »
Can your voice reveal whether you have an illness?
Our voices are amazing things. We can use them to sing, shout and whisper sweet nothings. We can use them to activate gadgets and prove who we are to banks. And now researchers believe they can also reveal whether we’re getting ill. Source: BBC Technology News Date: January 17th, 2017 Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38637257 Discussion 1) What are some of… Read more »
Amazon launches Prime Video in Canada
Canadians have a new option to binge-watch movies and television shows: Amazon Prime Video has launched in Canada. After much speculation that it was arriving earlier this month, the Netflix-like streaming service, which carries original shows as well as older movies and TV shows, launched in more than 200 countries, including Canada, overnight this week. Source: Toronto… Read more »
The Dumb ‘Smart’ Gear That Someone’s Gonna Hack in 2017
A collaboration between beauty company L’Oreal and generally solid tech upstart Withings, this Wi-Fi hair brush (yes, you read that correctly) has an onboard microphone (again, yep) that listens to hair as you brush to identify hair issues. Simultaneously, various sensors count brush strokes, measure brushing patterns, and determine how much pressure you’re applying to your… 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