Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

In a recent earnings statement, Netflix announced that its biggest threat is the video game Fortnite. Fortnite has taken much of the world by storm, seemingly emerging from nowhere. Netflix’s announcement surprised many. As tech reviewer John Archer points out in Forbes , “The reason the [statement] stands out so much is that it forces you to abruptly rethink your ideas of competition.” [1] This rethinking is especially true in the age of Industry 4.0. Having written about the pressing need to cultivate a healthy level of paranoia to know what’s happening outside your traditional industrial boundaries , I personally was more excited than surprised by Netflix’s announcement. In our fast-paced, Industry 4.0 economy, e veryone needs to look beyond the periphery to be — and remain — competitive. For system integrators (S.I.s), this means looking out for new tech and trends that affect your ability to design systems on time, on spec, and on budget. Building around digital as new data-ce

Most digital innovation startups know there’s a lot of groundwork needed to move a great idea to commercialization. Think about Apple’s or Microsoft’s origin stories: the long hours in a garage and an almost obsessive commitment to pushing toward a breakthrough. There’s a common innovative spirit involved and many leaps of faith into the unknown. That’s the same feeling I had when I moved to China in 2001 to build a new business from scratch. With no location, licenses, or employees, I headed there with just a business plan, the committed investment from Schneider Electric, and my phone to pull together the right people, resources, and regulatory requirements to make it happen. Keep in mind that this was 12 years before China’s “Made in China 2025” policy went into effect to push advanced manufacturing and homegrown innovation, and the Internet was not a widespread thing yet. Not to mention that the roads in Suzhou Industrial Park were just being built. In other words, nothing was ea

As market conditions fluctuate and consumer demands change at an exponential pace in today’s digital economy, it’s clear that speed is of the essence when rethinking your core DNA. If you really want to differentiate as an industrial enterprise, you need to leverage digital to improve your core business while scaling new businesses. A siloed approach to digital innovation is too slow. Tackling business problems as a solo company simply will not work. Instead, working collaboratively within a digital ecosystem, both internally (you need to break internal siloes) and externally, is essential for speed. An open ecosystem frees you from having to reinvent the wheel for every idea you want to develop and ultimately commercialize. 1.Reinventing products With open innovation, you can turn to IoT, embedded intelligence, connectivity, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies to reinvent your products and ideate new ones. For example, Schneider Electric is a 180+

Don’t Buy California’s Callous Attempt to Ignore People’s DNA Privacy Rights, EFF Tells Court Analyzing and indefinitely keeping the DNA profiles of thousands of Californians arrested for felonies, but never charged with a crime, is not just an ominously overbroad practice by law enforcement—it’s an invasion of privacy that violates the state’s constitution. Last year we filed a lawsuit against California challenging its DNA retention and search practices on behalf of the Center for Genetics and Society , the Equal Justice Society , and an individual plaintiff, writer and editor Pete Shanks . Attorneys for the state responded to the case by telling a judge there’s no basis for it, no law is being broken, and it should be dismissed. This is simply wrong. We asked the judge this week to reject the state’s callous indifference to the privacy rights of Californians and its attempt to sweep its conduct under the rug. DNA can reveal a vast array of highly private information, includ

Don’t Buy California’s Callous Attempt to Ignore People’s DNA Privacy Rights, EFF Tells Court Analyzing and indefinitely keeping the DNA profiles of thousands of Californians arrested for felonies, but never charged with a crime, is not just an ominously overbroad practice by law enforcement—it’s an invasion of privacy that violates the state’s constitution. Last year we filed a lawsuit against California challenging its DNA retention and search practices on behalf of the Center for Genetics and Society , the Equal Justice Society , and an individual plaintiff, writer and editor Pete Shanks . Attorneys for the state responded to the case by telling a judge there’s no basis for it, no law is being broken, and it should be dismissed. This is simply wrong. We asked the judge this week to reject the state’s callous indifference to the privacy rights of Californians and its attempt to sweep its conduct under the rug. DNA can reveal a vast array of highly private information, incl

California’s Legislature is Contemplating Abandoning Oversight Over Broadband Monopolies Just Like the FCC At a time when we are fighting to keep the future of broadband access from reverting back towards a monopoly , it seems implausible that a legislator would suggest their state should follow the Federal Communications Commission’s lead to abandon oversight over a highly concentrated, uncompetitive market. But Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez wants to take that exact approach.  The recently introduced A.B. 1366 mirrors the FCC’s abandonment of consumers with one exception—California fought to establish its own net neutrality rules under S.B. 822 passed last year. Apart from that, A.B. 1366 removes any semblance of the state promoting competition for broadband access through its state regulator, the California Public Utility Commission (the state version of an FCC). Instead, it appears to just hope that our cable monopolies will be benevolent.   We Need to Promote Competition

California’s Legislature is Contemplating Abandoning Oversight Over Broadband Monopolies Just Like the FCC At a time when we are fighting to keep the future of broadband access from reverting back towards a monopoly , it seems implausible that a legislator would suggest their state should follow the Federal Communications Commission’s lead to abandon oversight over a highly concentrated, uncompetitive market. But Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez wants to take that exact approach.  The recently introduced A.B. 1366 mirrors the FCC’s abandonment of consumers with one exception—California fought to establish its own net neutrality rules under S.B. 822 passed last year. Apart from that, A.B. 1366 removes any semblance of the state promoting competition for broadband access through its state regulator, the California Public Utility Commission (the state version of an FCC). Instead, it appears to just hope that our cable monopolies will be benevolent.   We Need to Promote Competition

Through our Critical Facility Operations service, Schneider Electric manages data centers of all sizes around the world. In talking with some of the Critical Facility Managers (CFMs) who are responsible for data center operations in these facilities, it’s clear they share at least four attributes. Before diving in, though, it’s important to draw a distinction between “critical” facility management and “facility management.” A traditional office building, school, or retail store will have a facility manager who takes care of the building, making sure HVAC systems are functioning well, the roof doesn’t leak, the lights stay on and so forth – all certainly important for the comfort and well-being of the building occupants. But the stakes are far higher in a critical facility such as a data center. Many customers have zero tolerance for downtime, so plans must be in place to deal with everything from routine upgrades to widespread power outages without missing a beat. Meeting those ki

Don't Repeat FOSTA's Mistakes Some of the most fruitful conversations we can have are about nuanced, sensitive, and political topics, and no matter who or where we are, the Internet has given us the space to do that. Across the world, an unrestricted Internet connection allows us to gather in online communities to talk about everything from the mundane to the most important and controversial, and together, to confront and consider our societies' pressing problems. But a growing chorus of U.S. politicians is considering dangerous new policies that would limit our ability to have those complex conversations online. The Chair of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson, is urging tech companies to prioritize the removal of “sensitive, violent content” from their online platforms. But as we were worried might happen , the Chair didn’t stop there—he’s also threatening new legislation if the companies don’t move quickly. In a letter written shortly a

Don’t Repeat FOSTA’s Mistakes Some of the most fruitful conversations we can have are about nuanced, sensitive, and political topics, and no matter who or where we are, the Internet has given us the space to do that. Across the world, an unrestricted Internet connection allows us to gather in online communities to talk about everything from the mundane to the most important and controversial, and together, to confront and consider our societies’ pressing problems. But a growing chorus of U.S. politicians is considering dangerous new policies that would limit our ability to have those complex conversations online. The Chair of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, Bennie Thompson, is urging tech companies to prioritize the removal of “sensitive, violent content” from their online platforms. But as we were worried might happen , the Chair didn’t stop there—he’s also threatening new legislation if the companies don’t move quickly. In a letter written shortly after the he

Court Denies EFF Effort to Obtain Classified Significant Surveillance Court Opinions A federal court’s ruling earlier this week has blunted a key provision of the surveillance reform law that required the government to be more transparent about legal decisions made by the United States secret surveillance court. After Edward Snowden revealed the government’s ongoing mass collection of Americans’ telephone phone records in 2013, Congress responded by passing the USA Freedom Act in 2015. In addition to limiting the NSA’s surveillance authority, Congress also clearly intended to end the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s (FISC) ability to keep the decisions it made behind closed doors secret. Since its inception in the 1970s, the government has asked the FISC  to decide what constitutional or other legal protections, if any, Americans and others enjoy while seeking approval of the government’s secret mass surveillance programs. Though we were not happy with many aspects of t

Court Denies EFF Effort to Obtain Classified Significant Surveillance Court Opinions A federal court’s ruling earlier this week has blunted a key provision of the surveillance reform law that required the government to be more transparent about legal decisions made by the United States secret surveillance court. After Edward Snowden revealed the government’s ongoing mass collection of Americans’ telephone phone records in 2013, Congress responded by passing the USA Freedom Act in 2015. In addition to limiting the NSA’s surveillance authority, Congress also clearly intended to end the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s (FISC) ability to keep the decisions it made behind closed doors secret. Since its inception in the 1970s, the government has asked the FISC  to decide what constitutional or other legal protections, if any, Americans and others enjoy while seeking approval of the government’s secret mass surveillance programs. Though we were not happy with many aspects of t