Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

Stupid Patent of the Month: Alleged Cult Leader Wants to “Improve Performance” In April, Mexican federal police arrested Keith Raniere , taking him from the $10,000-per-week villa where he was staying and extraditing him to New York. According to the NY Daily News , Raniere, leader of self-help group NXIVM (pronounced “nexium”), is now being held without bail while he awaits trial on sex-trafficking charges. Through NXIVM, he preached “empowerment,” but critics say the group was a cult , and engaged in extreme behavior, including branding some women with an iron. This was not the first controversial program Raniere was involved in. In 1992, Raniere ran a multilevel marketing program called “Consumer Buyline,” which was described as an “illegal pyramid,” by the Arkansas Attorney General’s office. More recently, he has collected more than two dozen patents from the U.S. Patent Office, and has more applications pending—including this one , which is for a method of determining “whet

Stupid Patent of the Month: Alleged Cult Leader Wants to "Improve Performance" In April, Mexican federal police arrested Keith Raniere , taking him from the $10,000-per-week villa where he was staying and extraditing him to New York. According to the NY Daily News , Raniere, leader of self-help group NXIVM (pronounced “nexium”), is now being held without bail while he awaits trial on sex-trafficking charges. Through NXIVM, he preached “empowerment,” but critics say the group was a cult , and engaged in extreme behavior, including branding some women with an iron. This was not the first controversial program Raniere was involved in. In 1992, Raniere ran a multilevel marketing program called “Consumer Buyline,” which was described as an “illegal pyramid,” by the Arkansas Attorney General’s office. More recently, he has collected more than two dozen patents from the U.S. Patent Office, and has more applications pending—including this one , which is for a method of determi

The Crucial Next Few Days In the EU’s Copyright Filter and Link Tax Battle As we reported last week, JURI, the key European Parliamentary committee working on copyright reform, voted on June 20th to support compulsory copyright filters for media platforms ( Article 13 ), and to create a new requirement on websites to obtain a license before linking to news stories ( Article 11 ). That vote marked the last chance for the democratically-elected members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to submit fixes to the directive — under the usual procedures. But this is not an ordinary regulation, and there still remains a couple of unusual procedures that would let them throw out these disastrous two articles. The first of these happens next week. Generally, the text agreed by the JURI committee would immediately become the basis of a “Trilogue” negotiation between the Parliament, the European Commission (the EU’s executive) and the European Council (representatives of its member states)

More data was generated in 2017 alone than over the previous 5,000 years of human history combined. This explosion of data owes much to the Internet of Things (IoT) phenomenon and is forcing enterprises to enhance their ability to derive and analyze business relevant information from this vast pool of data in order to drive business growth. As more and more devices are connected, both data centers and edge nodes (an edge node can be a single server, gateway, or other device with computational capabilities that gathers and processes local data and is connected to a larger network) will need to be resilient and provide the fundamental physical infrastructure that enables analytics-related real-time decision support. How did we evolve to this point? Over the last several years, a wave of technology trends changed both data center design and operation practices and allowed for the emergence of a new arena of data processing: the edge computing environment. Since new technology builds on

The Crucial Next Few Days In the EU's Copyright Filter and Link Tax Battle As we reported last week, JURI, the key European Parliamentary committee working on copyright reform, voted on June 20th to support compulsory copyright filters for media platforms ( Article 13 ), and to create a new requirement on websites to obtain a license before linking to news stories ( Article 11 ). That vote marked the last chance for the democratically-elected members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to submit fixes to the directive — under the usual procedures. But this is not an ordinary regulation, and there still remains a couple of unusual procedures that would let them throw out these disastrous two articles. The first of these happens next week. Generally, the text agreed by the JURI committee would immediately become the basis of a "Trilogue" negotiation between the Parliament, the European Commission (the EU's executive) and the European Council (representatives of

I’ve been using my mobile banking app for several years now and I have to say, it’s a time saver. Think about what you had to do 10 years ago to deposit a check… get your keys, hop in your car, drive to the nearest bank branch (hope that it’s open), walk in, fill out a deposit slip, wait in line, and ask the teller to deposit your check. Today, I deposit checks and pay bills, whether I’m at home or away, using my smart phone. This is how easy it should be to monitor your data centers. Yet, many data center managers depend on a specific PC, with a VPN login, in order to log into a data center monitoring system. Avoiding these hassles is one of the benefits to digital data center remote monitoring solutions that allow you to check on the health of your data center from the comfort of your own home. Technology Trends Seen from the Expert I wrote a White Paper 237   reviewing this topic in hopes of informing data center managers how technology trends are coming together to improve their

The world does not remain static but is continuously transforming. Along with this, the mindsets of people also change. Modern society is heading towards digital transformation, particularly in the electric utility sector. Technological innovations have led to a complete paradigm shift with us now inhabiting a world where energy is more reliable, accessible, and affordable. The fourth industrial revolution has enabled utility companies to provide increased speeds and enhanced efficiency in their work, leading to superior customer satisfaction. Advanced analytics systems along with the access to real-time critical data have furthered the digital agenda of the electric utility sector. Digitalisation is playing a significant role at both the operational and consumer level with companies striving to come up with smart electrical products.   The traditional electrical switchboards have become antiques with the emergence of smart switchboards in the market. The primary function of electri

The advent of Connected services has seen a ten fold rise in awareness, acceptance and application mainly part to the IOT phenomenon especially Industrial Internet of Things and home control . In the domain of power distribution, IoT plays an important role by enabling owners of power distribution equipment (e.g., transformers, transfer switches and breakers) to migrate from a reactive and preventive maintenance model, to a condition-based maintenance business model. Practical deployment and feasibility related Information concerning power distribution-related IoT implementations have come to light. Schneider Electric’s Power Distribution and Asset Monitoring-as-a-Service (APM-aaS), a predictive analytics software solution, has been installed at several pilot regions. The main objectives of Power distribution based Asset Performance Monitoring is to provide insight as to the health of electrical distribution assets. The steps executed in the process include the following: Gatherin

Manufacturers, in their efforts to remain globally competitive, face many challenges including fluctuating demand, mass customization, high productivity/output expectations, and consistency of high quality. And the machine builders (OEMs) that support them face their own set of challenges. In today’s competitive environment, a key differentiating factor has become the ability of machines to continuously adapt to changes required by end users. For OEMs, success hinges on their ability to build better performing machines in terms of production speed and output quality. Flexible architectures are necessary in order to comply with varying end user specifications and connectivity in terms of integration into different architectures is critical, as well as accommodating suitable infrastructure for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) . Last but not least, machines must not compromise the machine operator’s safety. Addressing these challenges has become simpler thanks to recent enhance

Majority of our existing electric grids are decades old and were built when electricity needs were simple. The ever changing and rising energy demands of the 21st century necessitates modernization in our electric grids. A smart grid is an intelligent digitized energy network delivering energy in an optimal way from source to consumption. This is achieved by integrating information, telecommunication, and power technologies with the existing electricity system. It introduces a two-way dialogue where electricity and information can be exchanged between a utility and its customers. It’s a developing network of communications, controls, computers, automation and new technologies and tools working together to make the grid more efficient, more reliable, more secure and greener. A smart grid is an efficient way of managing electricity. The grid is a network of power lines and substations that carry electricity from power plants to homes and businesses. Today, when power lines break or po

Energy is at the heart of our civilization. As far back in history as we can trace, major economic developments have emerged each time new sources of energy were discovered. A few striking examples: the first industrial revolution in the early 19 th century was propelled by steam and coal. The second industrial revolution at the dawn of the 20 th century saw the rise of electricity and oil. On both occasions, major opportunities arose to do things better and faster, and more importantly to do new things that were unimaginable before. We live today in an energy system which was discovered during the second industrial revolution. This energy system consumes around 150,000TWh of energy yearly, with 80% of it coming from fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal). A century ago, this was 10 times less, an indication of the tremendous economic developments that this new energy system has enabled. Today, a large chunk (40%) of this “primary” energy is used to produce electricity, the rest bein

At Datacloud Europe 2018 in Monaco – as both a participant and exhibitor – I noticed a strong sense of positivity amongst the attendees, and for good reason: growth and fundamentals in the industry are strong. Additionally, innovation is abundant. I heard examples of companies using artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to help run more efficient operations. Let me recap some of the other highlights I took away from the show. 1. Augmented Reality is Getting Real in Data Centers From spending time in the Schneider Electric booth and speaking with visitors, augmented reality (AR) technology came up in conversation and we discussed how it might be applied in data centers. As most data center operators know, human error is one of the top causes of outages, so anything we can do to help minimize user error is a good thing. The Schneider Electric solution we demonstrated was an iPad and AR tool that walked through spe

The initial post in this series covered the reasons behind IEC 61439 , which when followed ensures the quality of low voltage electric switchboards . Other posts how shown how the standard applies to testing of protection devices , creepage and clearance distances , and insulating materials . In this post, I’ll discuss the importance of short-circuit withstand strength and how to verify it, as specified in the standard. First, let’s cover the importance of short-circuit withstand strength. A short circuit can have serious consequences: property damage, injury and even loss of life. What’s more, a fire that results from a lack of short circuit safeguards can tie up firefighting resources. For instance, a blaze at a mall in New Delhi required nine fire tenders to bring under control. It was not worse in terms of loss of life because it happened at night. Now, a big fire may well have started with a small short circuit. That short circuit and the energy it released, in turn, could have

Welcome to my seventh blog in the  Top 10 Reasons to Become an EcoXpert Partner series , centered around the IoT Wave ! More often than not, big technology predictions fizzle out or fail to live up to the hype. But sometimes, a technology barrels right past the hype and disrupts everything. The Internet fits that description, and now it’s looking like the Internet of Things, or IoT, will be just as important in its own way now that companies are riding the IoT wave. Forbes’ IoT forecast gives an idea of how big the IoT market is becoming, citing major trends such as: The IoT market will grow to $457B by 2020 (28.5% Compound Annual Growth Rate) Biggest IoT spending will be in Discrete Manufacturing, Transportation and Logistics, and Utilities B2B IoT segments will generate more than $300B annually by 2020 The IoT wave is sweeping over every business and industrial sector. If you’re in building automation and energy management, it’s getting harder and harder to ignore the impact