Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

It’s a cold afternoon in Paris. On her way to the Charles de Gaulle airport is Aline Paulino, Human Resources Business Partner Director for Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric. Currently, she lives in France but her story with the company started back in September 2014 in her home country: Brazil. Natalia Pachón: How has your career evolved since the day you joined the company? Aline Paulino:  It has been a very interesting journey since I joined the company [as] I’ve been having great opportunities for my career. I joined as Human Resources Business Partner for Brazil, and after 7 or 8 months, I was invited by the regional leader for South America to have another hat as Talent Manager for the region. I accepted and I was glad of having this opportunity in less than a year in the company. I spent three years in the region, and I’ve always dreamed of having an international career. I have lived abroad before, in Dublin, but I was a student, I was not working in a com...

Time to Save Alice: 2019 in Review  All too often, software patents stop more innovation than they promote. Patents are legal instruments that can be used to sue people and companies for creating, selling, or using software. Very often, the entities wielding software patents are “patent trolls”—companies that make money off suing and threatening to sue others instead of building or doing anything of their own. We’ve been advocating against problematic patents, particularly in software, for many years. In the past few years, it’s fair to say that patent trolls have been down—but not out. Two big changes that happened several years ago have made it realistic, finally, to get bad patents kicked out of the system. The first is the creation of the inter partes review system , in 2012; and next, the Supreme Court’s Alice v. CLS Bank decision , in 2014. Unfortunately, 2019 has shown us that we need to keep working to protect the patent system. Congress and the U.S. Patent Office ha...

In today’s day-and-age, we are increasingly dependent on electrical devices for all our comfort needs. Our phones, laptops, TV sets, refrigerators, and air conditioners – among others – have become a crucial part of our life. While some devices help us stay connected to the outside world, certain appliances in the house play the critical role of giving us a comfortable life like washing machines, TV sets, and hair dryer, to name a few. Of course, when we come to the topic of comfort, home lighting is a topic that we simply can’t avoid. We are so technologically advanced that now we can sync up our light with our smartphones to enable a degree of personalisation unlike anything even experienced before. One thing that is common and is required to keep these devices working smoothly and efficiently is electricity. It is in our hands as to how much we consume this valuable commodity. An sudden influx of electricity can lead to a power surge – it happens when the amount of voltage in our ...

Programmable Logic Controller ( PLC ) and Programmable Automation Controller (PAC) are primarily an industrial system that are designed keeping in mind manufacturing environment in a plant. These computers are highly reliable when it comes to gauging the ability to control and monitor industrial processes. PLC’s and PAC’s both utilise protocols and networks such as Ethernet, ControlNET, DeviceNET, and also integrate with software and databases like OPC, and SQL, etc. These systems can be used in combination but, they can be individually characterised. The basic difference lies in the programming interface of the two, making them serve different functions. The PACs are programmed using C or C++, therefore, have an open architecture and incorporate modular design. Whereas, the PLC s have simple program execution. Owing to this, it can scan along with limited memory and discrete Input and Output. With technology evolving, the difference between the two is seen to be diminishing. However,...

Expression on the Corporate Web: 2018 Year in Review If 2017 was the year that corporate platforms were finally forced to recognize their outsized role on the Web, then 2018 should be remembered as the year that many such platforms began to reckon with it. From Facebook finally instituting an appeals process to Tumblr banning adult content , here are some of the ways that corporate platforms tried to take responsibility…with mixed results for freedom of expression. Facebook improves on accountability For years, advocates called on Facebook to implement a mechanism to appeal content takedowns…and in May, the company finally took its first steps toward doing so, announcing that appeals would first be rolled out for photos, videos, and posts in two categories. Also in May, the social media giant , offering greater detail on how content decisions are made, and published its first Community Standards enforcement report Later in the year—following a letter from more than 70 civil ...

2018 Year-in-Review: Grassroots Networks Mobilize From Coast-to-Coast to Promote Digital Rights The digital rights movement showed its strength this year by projecting influence in jurisdictions across the United States. Community organizations on both coasts, as well as the Midwest and the South, took action, promoting issues from net neutrality and civilian oversight of local police surveillance to the right to repair and digital security.  Among the 84 groups in the Electronic Frontier Alliance , grassroots community organizations in many cities demonstrably improved public policy, while their allies elsewhere built awareness online , as well as in their local communities. EFF invites anyone seeking mentorship, guidance, or support to find a  local grassroots network in your area , or recruit a handful of nearby allies to form a new group and  join the Alliance  in the new year. Impacting Public Policy In Atlanta, Electronic Frontiers-Georgia mobilized t...

Medical Privacy Under Attack: 2017 in Review If you care about maintaining privacy over medical records and prescriptions, this was not a good year. Both the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued disappointing decisions that declined to recognize a significant privacy interest in prescription records. In California, the state’s high court ruled that the Medical Board of California can rifle through records of prescriptions for controlled substances—used to treat anxiety, depression, pain, and insomnia—without notifying patients, obtaining a court order, or showing any suspicion of wrongdoing. The Ninth Circuit reversed on procedural grounds a good ruling out of Oregon, which found that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) couldn’t access sensitive prescription records without a warrant. Both courts punted to another day the question of whether the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement protects prescription records. This precedent is co...

Security Education in Uncertain Times: 2017 in Review From the time Donald Trump became president-elect in November 2016 and through 2017, EFF was flooded by requests for digital security workshops. They poured in from all over the country: educational nonprofits, legal groups, libraries, activist networks, newsrooms, scientist groups, religious organizations. There are a few reasons for this rise in digital security training requests. Certainly, the 2016 election made a lot of communities rethink their relationships with the U.S. government. At the same time, a rise in high-profile stories of groups being hacked, often using increasingly sophisticated methods, left many of those groups feeling vulnerable. It doesn’t work to drop into a roomful of people you’ve never met before and have no connection to, spend a day teaching them security basics, and then leave, never to interact with them again. We’ve also seen a marked increase in technologists hungry for opportunities to share...