Category: News

Following an announcement that Intel Corp.’s executive team will slash their salaries by up to 25 per cent and cut employees’ pay by five per cent as a result of a dire economic slump, the dismal news continued yesterday, with S&P Global Ratings lowering the company’s rating to A from A+.

A statement from the ratings company about the move said the Santa Clara, Calif.-based semiconductor manufacturer reported fourth-quarter earnings last week “well short of our expectations due to continued weak PC demand, inventory corrections across client and server end markets, and company-specific execution issues.

“We expect weak operating results in 2023 across its client computing, data centre and AI, and network and edge business segments, resulting in about US$7 billion to US$8 billion negative free operating cash flow (FOCF) before dividends.”

The company added that it took the rating action for several reasons including:

Continued market share loss to competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), especially in the server end market, which could persist through 2024.
An expectation that the company’s revenue will decline by a percentage in the mid-teens this year, to an estimated US$53 billion.

“The company recently launched its fourth-generation Intel Xeon processor, Sapphire Rapids, in January 2023, which was originally scheduled for a fall 2021 release,” S&P noted. “Product launch delays have allowed AMD to gain significant market share over the past two years, threatening Intel’s long-established dominant market position in the x86 client and server CPU markets.”

In contrast to Intel’s woes, Bloomberg reported yesterday that AMD “gave a better-than-feared sales forecast for the first quarter as gains in the lucrative server market help make up for a collapse in demand for PC chips.

Revenue will be as much as US$5.6 billion in the period, AMD said in a statement Tuesday, in line with an average analyst prediction of US$5.56 billion – with estimates coming in as low as US$5 billion.

In a release, the company said that for full year 2022, it reported revenue of US$23.6 billion, gross margin of 45 per cent, operating income of US$1.3 billion, net income of US$1.3 billion and diluted earnings per share of US$0.84.

“2022 was a strong year for AMD as we delivered best-in-class growth and record revenue despite the weak PC environment in the second half of the year,” said AMD chair and chief executive officer Dr. Lisa Su.

“We accelerated our data centre momentum and closed our strategic acquisition of Xilinx, significantly diversifying our business and strengthening our financial model. Although the demand environment is mixed, we are confident in our ability to gain market share in 2023 and deliver long-term growth based on our differentiated product portfolio.”

Meanwhile, S&P stated that it continues to view Intel’s product roadmap as “aggressive given its track record of technology missteps. Intel remains committed to delivering five process nodes in four years, achieving process performance parity in 2024 and regaining its leadership position.

“Intel’s heavy capital spending, which we estimate will be about US$15 billion to US$17 billion in 2023 and US$19 billion to US$20 billion in 2024, net of government support and various subsidies, will weigh heavily on its profitability over the next several years.”

David T. Tsui, an analyst with S&P, said the company’s strategy involving new nodes “is very important to them. But if there are any delays in node transition then their products will be less competitive compared to their competitors, AMD specifically.

“There’s investment required for them to move along that aggressive node transition curve. And it’s our expectation that free cash flow is going to be negative in 2023 and 2024.”

He noted the company is taking actions, including an announced pledge to cut upwards of US$10 billion in costs annually by 2025, but said “it’s not just about cost cuts – it’s about looking at the whole company, the fixed costs, the CAPEX and hopefully to  a lesser extent R&D to see what is reasonable to optimize, and make sure they have enough funding to execute on their (node) strategy.”

The post A bad day for Intel as rating lowered … but a great day for AMD first appeared on IT World Canada.

Laid off workers flock to Blind app, PagerDuty CEO quotes Martin Luther King when announcing layoffs and OpenAI charges $20 a month for ChatGPT.

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Thursday, February 2nd and I am your host, Ashee Pamma

As layoffs continue to blight the tech industry, laid off employees are taking it to social media platforms to share their stories while remaining wary workers look for information to prepare for looming cuts. Blind, an anonymous network has been a cushion for many of those employees. Not Microsoft-owned Linkedin unsurprisingly, although the employment-focused social media network also saw its fair share of ex-employees chronicling their professional journeys and displeasure after being laid off. According to internal data revealed to news company CNN, some 6000 Microsoft employees signed up for accounts on Blind between Jan 13 and January 18, the day the 10,000 layoffs by the tech giants were announced. Employees used the service to speculate about when the layoffs would come, which departments might get hit and comfort those who were concerned. Employees on the platform are verified through their work email address but they remain anonymous, leading to candid conversations about America’s biggest employers. Now, Blind is filled with posts from workers comforting each other about how to get through periods of unemployment.

Source: CNN

In an email to employees announcing layoffs, PagerDuty’s CEO Jennifer Tejada turned to a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.”I am reminded in moments like this, of something Martin Luther King said, that “the ultimate measure of a [leader] is not where [they] stand in the moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand in times of challenge and controversy”. After facing heavy backlash for being “tone deaf” and self-aggrandizing, she has now apologized for using the quote in the layoffs announcement. She admitted that the quote was inappropriate and insensitive and she should have been more upfront and thoughtful. Seven per cent of the company’s headcount was slashed in this announcement.

Source: Business Insider

OpenAI announced that it is starting to sell subscriptions to ChatGPT for $20 a month. ChatGPT will still be available for free to users who don’t subscribe, but paying customers will get priority access, faster response times, and early use of new features. According to experts, ChatGPT is looking to monetize as the AI service is taking a lot of computing power, costing OpenAI $100,000 a day or more to run it, Axios wrote. Monetization of its technology is especially important for the AI firm right now, following its 10 billion investment from Microsoft. OpenAI said in a blog post that the company is actively exploring options for lower-cost plans, business plans, and data packs for more availability.

Source: Axios

In February, the Supreme Court will hear a landmark case on Section 230 of Communications Decency Act. This legal provision protects social platforms from lawsuits over harmful user-generated content while giving them the authority to remove posts at their own discretion. This provision has been key to BigTech’s massive growth and if repealed, social media companies will have to transform their content moderation strategy. However, smaller sites like Reddit and Wikipedia that rely on community moderation will also be hit as moderators simply doing their jobs will also be taking a legal risk every time they moderate a content. Reddit’s lawyers filed an amicus brief claiming that their features like “upvotes” and “downvotes” are protected by Section 230, which Congress crafted to immunize Internet ‘users,’ not just platforms. Wikimedia, the foundation that manages Wikipedia, is also worried that a new interpretation of Section 230 might force volunteer editors to court for how they deal with user-generated content.

Source: MIT Technology Review

Samsung unveiled its sustainability efforts at the 2023 Samsung Unpacked event, saying that their Samsung Galaxy S23 series, were the company’s most sustainable phones yet. The company said the new Samsung Galaxy S23 phones are UL ECOLOGO certified. This certification indicates that a product has a reduced environmental impact based on environmental performance criteria throughout its life cycle, including energy reduction, materials, health, environment, manufacturing, and operations. The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is made up of 12 internal and external components of recycled material, compared to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, which was made of six. These recycled materials include pre-consumer recycled aluminum and glass and post-consumer recycled plastics sourced from discarded fishing nets, PET bottles, and water barrels. The phones also come in 100% recycled packaging certified as sustainably sourced.

Source: ZDNet

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Ashee Pamma.

The post Hashtag Trending Feb.2- Blind app provides info and support to laid off workers; tech CEO quotes Martin Luther King; ChatGPT for $20 first appeared on IT World Canada.

Yesterday, the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) announced an investment of nearly C$5.4 million in non-profit Invest Ottawa’s Area X.O, a research and development complex responsible for developing and commercializing connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs), aerial systems, communications infrastructures, defence and cybersecurity technologies and more. 

Invest Ottawa, which celebrated its 10th anniversary yesterday, has been key to providing businesses and innovators in the Ottawa region with the tools and space required to develop their products and services. 

Delivered through the Job and Growth Fund, the investment seeks to expand the capabilities of Area X.O, support 140 companies, create and maintain 745 jobs and accelerate the commercialization of 40 new products and services at the research hub.

Seventy per cent of participating businesses need to be founded, owned or co-led by members of underrepresented groups, including women, racialized Canadians, Black entrepreneurs, Indigenous entrepreneurs, and members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community, Invest Ottawa said yesterday, to advance DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).

“The work being done at Area X.O will be felt across Ottawa and Canada, as innovators and entrepreneurs aim to bring their solutions to Canadians, create jobs and contribute to our thriving tech industry,” said the Honourable Filomena Tassi, Minister responsible for FedDev Ontario.

Invest Ottawa will add the following capabilities at Area X.O through this investment:

Remote simulation to allow entrepreneurs to remotely conduct tests and demonstrations.
New programming to support companies developing services for essential sectors like defence, emergency management, public safety, security, and disaster preparedness.
Support the creation of the first advanced robotic and unmanned aerial systems testbed of its kind in Canada.
Enable increased access to foreign direct investment, particularly in the development of smart mobility, autonomy, and connectivity technologies.
Improve market access by creating collaboration opportunities across Ontario and internationally.

The announcement builds on a previous C$7 million investment from FedDev Ontario that was instrumental in the creation of Area X.O and support of 35 small-to medium enterprises (SMEs) and creation of 350 jobs in 2020.

FedDev Ontario said in its release that, since 2015, the government of Canada, through FedDev Ontario, has invested over C$210 million in more than 200 projects in the Ottawa region, estimated to create nearly 8,000 jobs and maintain over 7,000 jobs.

The post Government of Canada invests $5.4 million in Ottawa R&D complex first appeared on IT World Canada.

A significant number of employees are still falling for phishing scams, according to the results of a global test by a Canadian-based firm.

Seven percent of all end users who participated in the 2022 Gone Phishing Tournament run by Quebec’s Terranova Security clicked on the link in the phishing email. Three per cent of them — 44 per cent of clickers — failed to recognize the warning signs on the simulation’s webpage and proceeded to enter their credentials on the malicious site.

“To put these numbers into perspective,” said company chief information security officer (CISO) Theo Zafirakos, “if an enterprise-level organization of 10,000 employees had been targeted with a phishing scam like the one depicted in the simulation, 700 employees would have clicked on the phishing link and over 300 of those clickers would have entered their password, which can be used to compromise systems and sensitive information. Given our reliance on online systems and data to conduct many business transactions and services, this reality is concerning.”

Terranova Security is part of Fortra LLC of Minneapolis. The simulation, which was done in October, was co-sponsored by Microsoft. The annual test, which has a different format every year, saw over 250 organizations in several countries agree to have their employees sent phishing emails. A total of 1.2 million messages were sent in 21 languages.

The report, with full results of the test, is available here. Registration is required.

Though the 2022 Gone Phishing Tournament simulation was deemed easier than in previous years, Terranova said in a news release, the click rate and web form submission rate should still be considered high as a result.

The three per cent failure rate was a significant improvement when compared against results from 2021 and 2020, where 14.4 per cent and 13.4 per cent of end users, respectively, would’ve completed an action that compromised sensitive information in the simulation.

“These findings underscore why building an engaging security awareness training program
that leverages hands-on, practical exercises like phishing simulations is essential,” says the report. “Technical infrastructure like firewalls, endpoint security, and even phishing report buttons in a corporate email client can’t guarantee information security.”

Microsoft supplied this year’s email and webpage templates, designed to imitate a real-world scenario that many employees experience: a gift card scam. The scenario, selected by the Terranova Security leadership team, measured several end-user behaviors, such as clicking on a link in the body of a phishing email and entering credentials into a form on a phishing webpage.

If users clicked on the link in the phishing simulation’s email, they were redirected to a landing page, which prompted them to enter credentials that, had the simulation been an actual attack, would have been compromised. If users completed this second step, they were brought to a phishing simulation feedback page highlighting the warning signs they missed and the best practices they should follow.

The post Gift card lure was alluring to many in phishing test first appeared on IT World Canada.

Infosec leaders are still behind in cybersecurity basics, leaving their organizations unnecessarily open to attacks, says the vice-president of Microsoft Security.

Cyber attacks aren’t successful because they are getting more sophisticated, Kelly Bissell told the siberX CISO Forum Canada on Tuesday.

“Ninety-eight per cent of attacks are elementary,” he said, and take advantage of unpatched devices, a lack of multifactor authentication to protect logins, no privileged access controls, no identity management, and password vulnerabilities.

“Those things are happening every day. I think why we’re getting more [successful] attacks is because this is one of the industries where crime actually pays.”

Seventy-eight per cent of computing devices have an unpatched vulnerability that’s at least nine months old, he added. “We’re not patching our systems. We’re taking the approach, ‘I’ll patch these systems if I can.’ But what you’d better do is patch now, even at the risk of breaking an application.

“We have to re-think our DevSecOps function to be far more resilient in the patching of our environments.”

The good news is law enforcement agencies around the world are having some success against attackers, he added. He urged CISOs to work with police agencies if their IT environments are compromised.

There are a number of things CISOs should do to stiffen their security, he said, including

— move away from best-of-breed solutions to a platform;

— get intelligence feeds;

— move workloads to the cloud;

— invest in artificial intelligence solutions to speed analysis and response;

— make sure data is well protected;

— “be brilliant at the basics,” particularly having a well-designed Active Directory protection structure;

— get privileged access under control to prevent lateral movement;

— and optimize and simplify your IT architecture.

On this last point, Bissell offered proof:

“I was part of an organization a while back that had a ransomware attack on our AD domain. By the way, we had 90 domains. Thank goodness we had the right architecture. The ransomware was contained to one domain structure. If we didn’t have the right design, it would have spread to all domains. It would have been devastating. So the architecture of your security environment matters.”

The post Cyber attacks work because CISOs don’t do basic security: Microsoft first appeared on IT World Canada.

The Telegram text and video messaging service has become a “thriving ecosystem” for cybercrime and will likely continue to be a major challenge for security researchers and law enforcement, says a new report.

It is largely used by individuals for legitimate messaging and purchases — including digital equipment, consumer loans, apparel and shoes –who appreciate that it’s free and supposedly encrypted.

But researchers at Israel-based Kela say in a report released Wednesday that Telegram Messenger is also a hub for cybercrime activities, including the sale and leakage of stolen personal and corporate data, the organization of cybercrime gangs, the distribution of hacking tutorials, hacktivism and the sale of illegal physical products such as counterfeits and drugs.

Among the groups using the platform are

-the Lapsus$ data extortion gang. As of December 2022, it had over 55,800 subscribers. However the group has been quiet since March, 2022, when several alleged members were arrested in England;

-the pro-Russian Killnet group. Its main Telegram channel is followed by more than 90,000 users, says the report, and its campaigns are joined by many other influential hacking groups, including XakNet and NoName057;

-the Eternity Project, a malware-as-a-service operation, which uses Telegram bots to sell stolen information to actors who bought access to the service and to provide them with
an opportunity to build the binary. The stealer doesn’t have an administrator panel to manage the malware and attacks — everything is done via Telegram;

–“CHECKS GRUB SHOP” is a popular group for selling credit card information, counterfeit and stolen valid cheques, packages of full personal identification of individuals (known as  fullz) and stolen bank logs;

Messaging services including Discord, Jabber, Tox and Wickr are also used by some cybercrooks, but many favour Telegram.

“One reason why Telegram is attractive to cybercriminals is its alleged built-in encryption
and the ability to create channels and large, private groups,” says the report. “These features make it difficult for law enforcement and security researchers to monitor and track criminal activity on the platform.

“In addition, cybercriminals often use coded language and alternative spellings to communicate on Telegram, making it even more challenging to decipher their conversations.”

The reason Kela is skeptical about the encryption is the company doesn’t disclose the code of the application so there’s no way to know how secure it is.

As of November, 2022 there were an estimated 700 million monthly active users on the platform.

Telegram allows users to register accounts without disclosing personal information, the report notes, making it simple to set up many identities and use them to converse without revealing one’s genuine identity. “Because of this anonymity, law enforcement organizations have a tough time tracking down and identifying individuals who are using the program for illicit activities,” says the report.

While Telegram’s privacy policy states that it may disclose a user’s IP address and phone
number to authorities if presented with a court order on terrorism-related charges, the
company claims it hasn’t done so yet. However, the report says, recent investigations in Germany have revealed that the platform is sharing user data with government agencies and censoring content, despite its promise to keep users’ data secure and private.

Kela recommends infosec teams

–use threat intelligence monitoring solutions to continuously monitor for potential
threats on Telegram and take proactive measures to prevent them;
–regularly train and educate employees on how to identify and respond to cyber
threats on Telegram;
–implement technical controls, such as firewalls and intrusion prevention systems,
to prevent cybercriminals from accessing sensitive data;
–increase collaboration and information sharing with law enforcement agencies and
other organizations to improve the ability to detect and disrupt cybercrime on the
platform;
–and conduct regular audits and assessments to identify any vulnerabilities or areas
for improvement in the organization’s defenses against cyber threats on Telegram.

The post Why cybercrooks love Telegram Messenger first appeared on IT World Canada.

Microsoft tracks 100 gangs using ransomware, Google Fi customer data is copied and more.

Welcome to Cyber Security Today. It’s Wednesday, February 1st, 2023. I’m Howard Solomon, contributing reporter on cybersecurity for ITWorldCanada.com and TechNewsDay.com in the U.S.

There are more than 100 threat actors deploying over 50 families of ransomware, according to Microsoft. In a series of tweets this week it said attackers continue to use phishing and unpatched applications for initial access. However, the use of malvertising as well as fake application and browser updates for initial compromise is increasing.

Google Fi, which is Google’s cellular network provider, has confirmed it has suffered a data breach. According to TechCrunch, Google said the unnamed primary network provider for the service acknowledged customer data — including phone numbers and SIM card serial numbers — were copied. No payment card data or passwords were taken. However, the news story said at least one Google Fi customer claimed in a Reddit post that their phone number was hijacked for two hours. That was enough time for the attacker to use the phone to send and receive text messages.

Cyber crooks continue trying to leverage the document-signing service called DocuSign to steal employees’ login credentials. According to researchers at Armorblox, one of the latest phishing campaigns has a subject line saying, “Please DocuSign: Approve document 2023-01-11.” One tip this is a scam: While the message appears to come from DocuSign, the full email address of the sender shows it didn’t. It’s another example of why IT has to show employees how to turn on the ability to display the full sender’s email address for all messages. The targets of this particular campaign are companies that use the Proofpoint email protection service. Victims who click on the attached document are asked to sign in using their Proofpoint credentials to read the supposed document. Organizations that use Proofpoint have to warn employees to beware of this scam.

YouTube content creators need to toughen their security to avoid their sites being taken over by cryptocurrency scammers. That’s the word from researchers at Guardio Labs. Hacking YouTube channels in what’s called StreamJacking isn’t new. What’s going on now is that it’s being used to spread cryptocurrency scams once the YouTube channel is taken over. Often these messages pretend to be from entrepreneur Elon Musk offering giveaways: Victims are promised a two-for-one swap of any cryptocurrency they send in. What really happens is the crook just takes the digital coins. Meanwhile, the owner of the hijacked YouTube channel can’t get control back. This happens because the owner is tricked into giving away their login credentials, often by falling for email messages promising hacked software or modifications to video games. If you fall for an offer to cheat, don’t complain when you get hacked.

Maintainers of open-source repositories like PyPI, GitHub and others are reminded that some threat actors are determined to drop poisoned packages of code on their platforms. Researchers at Checkmarx this week detailed how one group used several tactics over four months to deposit code that steals credentials, bitcoin wallets and more from victims. These are developers who downloaded the packages and put them in their applications. Open code repositories have to beef up their security, while developers need to be more cautious in downloading packages.

There’s no shortage of reports about hospitals being hit with cyber attacks. Here’s more evidence: Kroll, a cyber risk evaluation provider, says that of its customers healthcare firms were the most breached sector last year. They overtook financial institutions as the most hacked industry. Also during 2022, breaches at industrial services doubled.

Finally, with Super Bowl Sunday less than two weeks away a reminder that crooks will push email and text scams. Officials at BullWall remind sports teams and companies to use email authentication procedures to make sure their brand and domains aren’t spoofed. Fans should be careful with pitches for tickets, T-shirts and other trinkets that appear too good to be true.

Follow Cyber Security Today on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or add us to your Flash Briefing on your smart speaker.

The post Cyber Security Today, Feb. 1, 2023 – Microsoft tracks 100 gangs using ransomware, Google Fi customer data is copied and more first appeared on IT World Canada.

OpenAI releases tool to detect machine-written text, Paypal lays off 2000 workers, Canadian team discovers power draining flaw in laptops and phones batteries.

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Welcome to Hashtag Trending. It’s Wednesday, February 1st and I am your host, Ashee Pamma.

OpenAI, the force behind popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT, released a free web-based tool, designed to detect machine-written text. The technology emerged after several educational institutions banned the use of the chatbot following risks of AI plagiarism and impact on students’ learning. The AI system offers a five-point scale of results: Very unlikely to have been AI-generated, unlikely, unclear, possible or likely. It works best on text samples greater than 1,000 words and in English, with performance significantly worse in other languages. However, OpenAI told news site Axios that the tool is imperfect and performance varies based on how similar the text being analyzed is to the types of writing OpenAI’s tool was trained on.  

Source: Axios

PayPal announced plans to lay off 2,000 employees, or around 7 per cent of its workforce. President and CEO Dan Schulman wrote in the release that PayPal is working to address the “challenging macroeconomic environment.” He added that the company has made progress focusing resources on core priorities and rightsizing its cost structure, but that there is more work to be done. Following the announcement, Paypal’s stock bumped up more than 2 per cent.  The company’s layoffs announcement marks the latest round of job cuts in the tech industry, after Google, Microsoft and Salesforce also  announced layoff plans last month

Source: CNBC News

Researchers in Dalhousie University, Halifax discovered the widespread manufacturing flaw that causes the power from phone, tablet or laptop devices to slowly drain. The problem lies in the tiny pieces of tape that hold the battery components together, made, according to the researchers, from the wrong type of plastic. When cables are connected to each end of the battery, electrons flow through the cables to provide power to devices.  The problem occurs when the electrons do not follow the cables, causing the battery to deplete internally without sending out electrical current and your device loses charge even when off. To find the perfect battery, the researchers tested out different types of batteries. One had a substance, with a similar structure as plastic that shuttles electrons within the battery, rather than having them flow outside through cables and generate electricity. Shuttling electrons internally depletes the battery’s charge, even if it isn’t connected to a circuit or electrical device. Realizing that the tape, made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) was not inert was massive for the researchers as many companies use PET plastic. 

Source: CBC News

Instagram’s co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back with a new venture to explore ideas for next-generation social apps. Their first product is Artifact, a personalized news feed that uses machine learning to understand your interests and will soon let you discuss those articles with friends. The app opens to a feed of popular articles chosen from a curated list of publishers ranging from bigger publishers like the New York Times to small-scale blogs about niche topics. When you tap on articles that interest you, Artifact serves you similar posts and stories in the future, like watching videos on TikTok. Tap on articles that interest you and Artifact will serve you similar posts and stories in the future, just as watching videos on TikTok. The app opened its waiting list to the public yesterday.

Source: The Verge

The Internet Archive announced The Calculator Drawer, a collection of 14 emulated old-school calculators. Most are from Texas Instruments, while there are some options from HP as well. The oldest calculator is 1989’s VTech Electronic Number Muncher toy. The calculators support keyboard input, and let you click on-screen buttons for input, which makes for an even more realistic experience when using the emulation on a touchscreen. Some of the calculators even have power buttons and sound effects. Math nerds can relive some memorable gadgets with the Calculator Drawer and use highly capable calculators, which can cost around $100 or more.

Source: Ars Technica

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash briefings or your Google Home daily briefing. Make sure to sign up for our Daily IT Wire newsletter to get all the news that matters directly in your inbox every day. Also, catch the next episode of Hashtag Tendances, our weekly Hashtag Trending episode in French, which drops every Thursday morning. If you have a suggestion or a tip, drop us a line in the comments or via email. Thank you for listening, I’m Ashee Pamma.

The post Hashtag Trending Feb.1- ; OpenAI releases tool to detect machine-written text, Paypal lays off 2000 workers, Canadians discover power draining flaw first appeared on IT World Canada.

A Canadian-based provider of identity verification services for banks and e-commerce sites has merged its individual products into a cloud platform, promising to make it easier for organizations to build their own workflow solutions.

Trulioo said Tuesday that the integrated platform, also called Trulioo, will help corporate customers deploy, modify and maintain identity verification services at a lower cost than before.

“Trulioo customers can design, build, deploy and maintain identity solutions in the platform with a single contract [with us] to help onboard new users and businesses, scale globally and adapt to evolving compliance challenges and broad problems,” Michael Ramsbacker, the company’s chief product officer, said in an interview.

Trulioo provides two services: By linking to over 400 identity data sources such as credit rating bureaus and government driver’s licence databases, businesses can verify that a new individual customer is who they say they are, and they can verify who the real owner of a business is.

Its previous way of offering services was through individual products, which were also cloud-based. Trulioo provided an application programming interface (API) for each point solution. After that, business customers were on their own for building the business logic and infrastructure needed to turn the offerings into combined practical services.

The new platform gives business customers no-code workflow building and low-code integration capabilities for Trulioo’s services. This comes from merging the capabilities Trulioo got from its 2022 acquisition of Denmark-based HelloFlow, a drag-and-drop solution for client onboarding monitoring and digital workflow.

The new Trulioo Portal provides single sign-on access to all verification services. It includes Workflow Studio, a no-code workflow builder allowing users to rapidly build, configure and deploy logic-driven identity workflows; API Direct, the ability to connect any Trulioo service to an existing system through a single low-code API; and Navigator, an online education hub making solution and industry expertise accessible with guided workshops and training on best practices.

Ramsbacker wouldn’t estimate how much the new platform could save customers.

He did say that next on the company’s roadmap for the platform are fraud and risk management solutions.

The company has around 425 employees, roughly 200 of whom are based in Canada. There’s a large research and development staff in San Diego and an engineering team in Romania. It is about to move into a new headquarters in Vancouver.

The post Trulioo deploys unified platform for its identity verification solutions first appeared on IT World Canada.

Following approval from Transport Canada, government-owned electricity generating company Ontario Power Generation (OPG) will deploy drones to monitor the resiliency of its power grid infrastructure and to quickly detect problems and restore power after storms and natural disasters.

The unmanned drone operations are currently in trial at the OPG facility at the McConnell Lake Control Dam in north-west Quebec.

Israel-based developer of autonomous drone technology Percepto will provide OPG with its drone-in-a-box solution, Percepto Air Max. Percepto’s autonomous drone solution seeks to provide OPG with the benefits of a remote, high frequency visual inspection, eliminating the need for human intervention.

Automated drone inspections can also be conducted faster and more frequently, enabling the creation of baselines and trend monitoring over time that make comparisons and measurements simpler and more accurate, according to Percepto’s co-founder and chief commercial officer Ariel Avitan.

“We look forward to gaining new operational and infrastructure insights at McConnell Lake Control Dam,” said Ontario Power Generation senior information system specialist, Tim Trebilcock. “Our hope is that this technology will help our efforts to ensure asset integrity and reliable electricity generation for Ontarians.”

Ontario Power Generation is responsible for approximately half of the electricity generation in Ontario.

Transport Canada approved Percepto’s Air Max Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations (operation of unmanned aerial vehicles and drones at distances outside the normal visual range of the pilot), following an assessment of potential risks to people and aircraft sharing that airspace.

Percepto uses an autonomous detect and avoid cycle that enables drones to automatically avoid other flying objects, said Avitan. He added that the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in the U.S, where Percepto has been operating for four years, allowed the company to fly its drones 200 feet above ground (double the altitude of any previously approved drone operation in the U.S.) without a pilot or visual observer on site. 

Percepto drone operations will be controlled remotely on the company’s AI-powered Autonomous Inspection and Monitoring (AIM) platform that translates key data gathered into immediately actionable insights on mission-critical maintenance issues, said Avitan.

Percepto’s drone-in-a-box systems have been “thoroughly stress-tested for 10 years”, and have built-in safety mechanisms within both their hardware and software, affirmed Avitan. “For example, our battery safety precautions include software closely monitoring drone power levels and proper usage and charging. Safety landing routines are also in place in the event of battery errors, including the automatic deployment of a parachute.”

Percepto also has a built-in weather monitoring system and site mapping software to ensure that the drones can safely navigate throughout any facility or weather conditions. In 2020, Percepto’s on-site drone was the first to pass level 5 hurricane testing at the Florida International University Wall of Wind, where it withstood winds of up to 150 mph (about 240 km/h).

Furthermore, the drones are capable of monitoring hard-to-access and hazardous assets, hence eliminating the need for staff to risk their safety to climb towers and equipment, especially during dangerous weather conditions.

An automated drone system also expands the eligibility for people to become infrastructure inspectors, stated Avitan. “A remote drone pilot can be any certified person with a drone license, opening up the job market to people with disabilities, for example.”

The post Ontario Power Generation to deploy drones for remote monitoring of the power grid infrastructure first appeared on IT World Canada.