Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

Alavaro Bedoya Highlights the Critical Connection between Civil Liberties and Civil Rights Earlier this month, Georgetown Law Professor Alvaro Bedoya delivered the U.S. Senator Dennis Chavez Memorial Lecture in Law & Civil Rights at The University of New Mexico School of Law, titled “ Privacy and Civil Rights in the Age of Facebook, ICE, and the NSA .” His remarks neatly encapsulated many of the reasons why we at EFF work to challenge state surveillance. Put simply, privacy is a public value that enables freedom of expression. Without it, our democracy stands at risk, as do communities that have long confronted bias and discrimination. Professor Bedoya’s comments trace the historical arc of the resistance to the McCarthy era in Congress, which he suggests started with the support of free speech shown by Senator Dennis Chavez (D-NM) in the face of McCarthy’s crackdown on freedom of expression. The very first U.S.-born Latino member of the Senate, Chavez argued in defense of di...

It’s Now Even Easier To Spot the Surveillance With Updates to EFF’s VR App To make it easier for everyone to recognize surveillance “in the wild,” EFF is fighting back with Spot the Surveillance, a virtual reality (VR) experience that teaches people how to identify the various spying technologies that police may deploy in communities. And with a major update to the software released today, spotting the surveillance has gotten even easier! After demonstrating the app to nearly 500 users in person, many of whom offered feedback and suggestions, today we’re releasing Spot the Surveillance v 1.2. The latest version brings with it several enhancements and fixes based on that feedback and additional accessibility testing (Spot the Surveillance was created with accessibility in mind, so is entirely gaze-based for people with mobility challenges, and audio is also used to assist low-vision users.) This version also includes upgraded code logic and performance thanks to the Mozilla A-frame...

More than 180 years of excellence At Schneider, safety is everyone’s responsibility.  Nurturing a safe, clean and orderly work environment is both our collective responsibility and a function of every Schneider employee, partner, and affiliate.  Our story encompasses generations of people who have transformed our company, and the world, for almost two centuries.  Today, our heritage has empowered us to innovate at every level, enabling us to become leaders in digital transformation. Safe, reliable & sustainable solutions Schneider Electric is a world leader in connecting technologies and solutions to manage energy and process in ways that are safe, reliable, efficient and sustainable. The Group invests in R&D in order to sustain innovation and differentiation, with a strong commitment to offer safety.  We believe that electricity along with water, food, and shelter, is a basic human right.  We contribute to this ambition through our Schneider Electri...

Skip the Surveillance By Opting Out of Face Recognition At Airports Government agencies and airlines have ignored years of warnings from privacy groups and Senators that using face recognition technology on travelers would massively violate their privacy. Now, the passengers are in revolt as well, and they’re demanding answers. Last week, a lengthy exchange on Twitter between a traveler who was concerned about her privacy and a spokesperson for the airline JetBlue went viral, and many of the questions asked by the traveler and others were the same ones that we’ve posed to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials: Where did you get my data? How is it protected? Which airports will use this? Where in the airports will it be used? Most importantly, how do I opt-out? Right now, the key to opting out of face recognition is to be vigilant. How to Opt Out These questions should be simple to answer, but we haven’t gotten simple answers. When we asked CBP for more info...

In an earlier blog I explained the problem with “percent leakage” in regards to air containment and I proposed some more practical metrics. To quantify these metrics, we set up a test at the Innovation Executive Briefing Center in St. Louis. In this blog, I discuss that study we performed in our cooling lab – with the help of Scott Buell and his awesome team. Our Containment Study: the setup We set up a 2-row pod, including four racks in each row with hot aisle containment (HAC) ducted back to the CRAH.  Although we had a raised floor, we took a hard floor approach where the CRAH supply air flooded the room (no perforated tiles anywhere). This “bowling alley” layout, where the CRAH supply jet crashes against the side of the pod, provided a worst case for our testing. We had 6 temperature sensors attached vertically across each rack. Other sensor arrays were placed in the hot aisle, CRAH return, CRAH supply, and in the cold aisle. We used a power meter for the CRAH and monitored...

Protecting people from shocks has always been a priority in AC electrical system design. Equipment is typically designed to provide a barrier to anyone making physical contact with a live conductor, either through the use of insulation or other means. However, such contact can sometimes accidentally occur, causing what’s termed an ‘earth leakage’ or ‘residual’ fault current to pass through the person’s body. And it only takes 30 mA of current through a hand to the feet to cause death, unless the current is interrupted within a very short amount of time. Residual current devices (RCDs), or GFCI in North America, are designed to protect again this risk. However, there are new challenges due to the growth of electrical system applications, such as electrical vehicle charging stations, photovoltaic installations, and the wider use of variable speed drives for motor control. This has resulted in residual currents that are not purely sinusoidal. In this two-part blog post series, I’ll prov...

Aging electrical equipment and components are not only inefficient, they are potentially dangerous. Overheating in medium-voltage switchgear and electrical enclosures, often caused by loose connections or friction (due to lack of, or improper lubrication), can shorten equipment lifespan, or result in costly downtime. So, what can you do to avoid these outcomes? Below we answer some of the most commonly asked industry questions. Q: How do I know which aging equipment could put my facility at risk? A:  Facility managers can feel overwhelmed by the daunting task of applying limited operating and maintenance and capital funds in the right places. Having an arc flash  risk assessment performed is a good starting point. This will identify improvements to the electrical system that can improve safety and reliability, while also providing an equipment condition inspection, updated single-lines, maintenance assessments, and other productivity-enhancing recommendations. ...

As technology keeps on developing at a blistering pace, the innovations that have been incepted as a result of these advancements are quite incredible indeed. Various applications and functions across multiple avenues and industries have grown significantly through the inception of these developing technologies, and one such lifestyle aspect that has been enhanced is building automation and control . The sheer number of methods in which this technology employed in any building management system is nothing short of noteworthy, and one need only look at the multiple functions that do not need human input anymore to analyse how this technology has become popular in the first place. Thus, advanced building automation is playing an influential role in ensuring that little to no problems affect the process of building management in the long run. It is possible to negate the need for a dedicated human resource that manages the process in which distinct forms of technology are being utilise...

Throughout time, humanity has been striving to improve its condition and circumstances. This striving has come in fits and starts. And at times, we fail in a big way…think war and starvation. But taken as a whole, human civilization has been steadily building and laying a foundation that has dramatically improved the lives of all people. The rule of law, freedom, democracy, human rights, property rights, education systems, legal systems, a free press, industrialization, science, and technology…these are the foundations of our modern society. Perhaps not always applied well and often imperfect, this foundation has, nonetheless, brought unprecedented well-being and a higher standard-of-living to billions of people. I believe we are working to add to this foundation today in the domains of energy sustainability and Information Technology (IT) as a utility. The problem we must deal with as a society, however, is that these foundations can undermine each other when one is pursued at the exp...