This week’s meeting between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden was a signal of momentum for electric vehicles that those in Canada’s industry have been waiting for. In the roadmap released following the meeting, both leaders promised to work together to build supply chains for electric vehicle (EV) battery development so Canada and the U.S. could… Read more »
Monthly Archives: May 2021
Twitter finds racial bias in image-cropping AI
In September last year, a university employee noticed that when he posted two photos – one of himself and one of a colleague – Twitter’s preview consistently showed the white man over the black man, no matter which photo was added to the tweet first. Other users discovered the pattern held true for images of… Read more »
The app that lets you pay to control another person’s life
How would you feel about being able to pay to control multiple aspects of another person’s life? A new app is offering you the chance to do just that. When writer Brandon Wong recently couldn’t decide what takeaway to order one evening, he asked his followers on social media app NewNew to choose for him…. Read more »
Facebook launches Neighborhoods, a Nextdoor clone
Facebook is launching a new section of its app designed to connect neighbors and curate neighborhood-level news. The new feature, predictably called Neighborhoods, is available now in Canada and will be rolling out soon for U.S. users to test. As we reported previously, Neighborhoods has technically been around since at least October of last year, but that… Read more »
Mayflower: Ship to sail across Atlantic without a crew
A fully autonomous ship will attempt a ground-breaking journey across the Atlantic ocean without a crew later this month. The Mayflower 400 will travel 3,500 miles (5,630km) from Plymouth in the UK to Massachusetts in the US, conducting scientific experiments during its journey. Source: BBC Technology News Date: May 19th, 2021 Link to 3 minute… Read more »
Financial Expert Lloyd Ostertag (aka Elon Musk) on Cryptocurrency – SNL
Source: SNL (Saturday Night Live) Date: May 19th, 2021 Link to 2 minute 16 second video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5RCfQyTDFI Discussion ” Originally formed as a joke, Dogecoin was created by IBM software engineer Billy Markus and Adobe software engineer Jackson Palmer. They wanted to create a peer-to-peer digital currency that could reach a broader demographic than Bitcoin. In addition, they wanted to… Read more »
Heritage minister should carry through with ambitious agenda to tame Big Tech
For years, Ottawa was content to stand by while foreign-owned digital giants — Google, Facebook, Twitter and the like — reshaped much of how we live and work. Even when other countries started to push back against Big Tech and its power over the economy, social life and even democracy, Canada pretty much stayed on the… Read more »
Colonial hack: How did cyber-attackers shut off pipeline?
How can a pipeline be hacked? For many people, the image of the oil industry is one of pipes, pumps and greasy black liquid. In truth, the type of modern operation Colonial Pipeline runs is extremely digital. Pressure sensors, thermostats, valves and pumps are used to monitor and control the flow of diesel, petrol and… Read more »
Tesla will no longer accept Bitcoin over climate concerns, says Musk
Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin due to climate change concerns, its CEO Elon Musk said in a tweet. Bitcoin fell by more than 10% after the tweet, while Tesla shares also dipped. Tesla’s announcement in March that it would accept the cryptocurrency was met with an outcry from some environmentalists and investors. The… Read more »
How can we avoid coded bias in facial recognition tech?
Artificial intelligence (AI) researcher, Joy Buolamwini, has spent the last four years raising awareness of the social implications and possible harm of the technology. Inspired by her own experiences of facial recognition tech she founded the Algorithmic Justice League and recently became the star of the Netflix documentary Coded Bias. Source: BBC Future Date: May… Read more »
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