Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

A Surveillance Wall is Not a Good Alternative to a Concrete Wall Since even before he took office, President Trump has called for a physical wall along the southern border of the United States. Many different organizations have argued this isn’t a great idea. In response, some Congressional Democrats have suggested turning to surveillance technology to monitor the border instead of a physical barrier. Without specific legislative proposals, it’s hard to know what these suggestions actually mean. However, any bill Congress considers related to border security should avoid–at minimum– invasive surveillance technologies like biometric screening and collection, DNA collection, social media snooping, unregulated drones along the border, and automatic license plate readers aimed at interior traffic. Biometric Border Screening.  We have already seen several proposals authorizing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and its sub-agencies to collect biometric informat...

Hearing Thursday: EFF Tells Court That Clicking on a URL Isn’t Enough Evidence to Justify A Search Warrant Identifying IP Address That May Have Connected to a URL Doesn’t Amount to Probable Cause Richmond, Virginia—On Thursday, January 31, at 8:30 am, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will ask a federal appeals court to find that the act of clicking on a URL or weblink isn’t sufficient evidence for law enforcement to get a warrant to search someone’s home. The hearing involves a child pornography prosecution in which law enforcement obtained a warrant to search a defendant’s home based on the attempted connection to a URL (or weblink) by an IP address that was mapped to his computer. The URL led to a password-protected file-sharing service portal that the government maintains contained child pornography. The warrant application’s only connection to the defendant’s home was based solely on the attempted URL link, but included no information on how or why the defendant e...

If the questions I heard at our 2018 Innovation Summit are any indication, cloud and service providers may finally be embracing data center management as a service (DMaaS) platforms to help leverage data about their own data centers. At a time when speed-to-market, scale and security are paramount, colocation providers know they need to best ensure the agility, availability and operational efficiency of their data centers’ physical infrastructures. Data Center Management as a Service: an effective solution for speed and cost There’s never really been a doubt about using analytics to help run data centers optimally. But the concept is catching on now because everyone is being challenged to do better. For instance, if colocation providers normally deliver a data center in six months, now they’re being asked to do it in five. The same can be said of bringing down costs. Over time, the low-hanging fruit has been driven out of data center design , so it’s increasingly difficult to s...

Xcellerex is revolutionizing the way biopharmaceuticals and vaccines are developed, manufactured and commercialized with the development of FlexFactory, a manufacturing platform designed to enhance production of these critical biopharmaceutical products. During the development stages of this production solution, Xcellerex quickly identified the need to integrate single-use technology, controlled environment modules, process automation, and electronic batch records into its FlexFactory platform. Innovative technology requires innovative software Integrating complex technology with ultra-high levels of functionality was considered the greatest challenge in creating a biomanufacturing platform that could employ a single-use technology, controlled environment modules, process automation, and electronic batch records. Working with Schneider Electric Software solutions in past product development, Xcellerex identified Schneider’s AVEVA® software as ideal for integrating with this new, in...

Technology is developing at a rapid pace in today’s day-and-age, and it has become the need of the hour for industries to figure out the best course of action that can be taken to optimise their business processes. In this context, SCADA software is becoming one of the most prominent forms of technology around. It is seeing widespread adoption across a large swath of industries due to the ease in management afforded by adopting this particular service. SCADA is a shortened form of Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition. It is a system that allows for greater control and monitoring over most – if not all – processes involved in a particular business. Through a smart combination of impressive technologies like Programmable Logic Controllers ( PLC s) and a discrete Proportional–Integral–Derivative (PID) controller, this software will be able to streamline the management process by augmenting and simplifying the supervision process involved in a particular manufacturing unit. A SCADA ...

When Trading Track Records Means Less Privacy Sharing your personal fitness goals—lowered heart rates, accurate calorie counts, jogging times, and GPS paths—sounds like a fun, competitive feature offered by today’s digital fitness trackers, but a recent report from The Washington Post highlights how this same feature might end up revealing not just where you are, where you’ve been, and how often you’ve traveled there, but sensitive national security information. According to The Washington Post report, the fitness tracking software company Strava—whose software is implemented into devices made by Fitbit and Jawbone—posted a “heat map” in November 2017 showing activity of some of its 27 million users around the world. Unintentionally included in that map were the locations, daily routines, and possible supply routes of disclosed and undisclosed U.S. military bases and outposts, including what appear to be classified CIA sites. Though the revealed information itself was anonymized...

It’s Time to Make Student Privacy a Priority Last month, the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Education held a workshop in Washington, DC. The topic was “Student Privacy and Ed Tech.” We at EFF have been trying to get the FTC to focus on the privacy risks of educational technology (or “ed tech”) for over two years, so we eagerly filed formal comments . We’ve long been concerned about how technology impacts student privacy . As schools and classrooms become increasingly wired, and as schools put more digital devices and services in the hands of students, we’ve been contacted by a large number of concerned students, parents, teachers, and even administrators. The want to know: What data are ed tech providers collecting about our kids? How are they using it? How well do they disclose (if at all) the scope of their data collection? How much control (if any) do they give to schools and parents over the retention and use of the data they collect? Do they even attemp...

At #SchneiderElectric, we strive to change the world through innovation at every level, and in order to achieve this we know it’s essential to take our people seriously. There are many actions that substantiate this statement, the most recent being our #GlobalFamilyLeavePolicy that ensures all employees in all countries have a fundamental access to paid leave, enabling us to take care of our families in vulnerable moments. Schneider Electric appreciates what makes you you — your talent within talent. We’re a dynamic, global company looking for passionate people to help us innovate at every level; champions of safe, reliable, efficient, sustainable and connected energy for everyone. This year, the seven countries in the Nordics and Baltics came together to create an onboarding program for recent graduates. The goal was to take a new approach to how IoT affects our business by merging up-to-date academic knowledge and digital natives into a business in the middle of a technological r...

Over the years, the Oil & Gas industry had come to accept that capital projects involved long execution times, high costs and, in some cases, a high degree of risk.  In an era where profits were relatively easy to come by and oil prices were high, project delays and costly project restarts were often considered “business as usual.”  In the new world of low commodity prices, and oversupply ̶ however, this “business as usual” approach to project execution is no longer sustainable. These new marketplace variables drive to one fundamental challenge: how Oil & Gas companies can reinvent their business to maintain profitability in a low-price environment. Fortunately, a new approach for improving oil & gas industry efficiency and profitability is now available to facilitate business process transformation and simplification. Advancements in digitization, system convergence, and analytics now make it possible to overcome business barriers that were once constrained by ...

As the housing inventory continues to thin, many people are investing in improvements to their current home rather than moving to a new one. But rather than prettying them up with a fresh coat of paint or adding amenities like wine cellars and swimming pools, homeowners are choosing to make their homes smarter, greener, and more reflective of their lifestyle. Here are top trends driving the home renovation market. Smart home While there’s been a steady rise in smart-appliance adoption , we are on the cusp of a connected-home boom. According to market research firm Statista, the global smart-home market is forecast to reach a value of more than 40 billion U.S. dollars by 2020. More and more home buyers consider the integration of smart home technologies critical to their renovation project. Intelligent home security devices, climate control products, and lighting and entertainment systems top renovators’ wish lists. What once seemed like science fiction is becoming commonplace, th...

ICE Accesses a Massive Amount of License Plate Data. Will California Take Action? The news that Immigrations & Customs Enforcement is using a massive database of license plate scans from a private company sent shockwaves through the civil liberties and immigrants’ rights community, who are already sounding the alarm about how mass surveillance will be used to fuel deportation efforts. The concerns are certainly justified: the vendor, Vigilant Solutions, offers access to 6.5 billion data points, plus millions more collected by law enforcement agencies around the country. Using advanced algorithms, this information—often collected by roving vehicles equipped with automated license plate readers (ALPRs) that scan every license plate they pass—can be used to reveal a driver’s travel patterns and to track a vehicle in real time. ICE announced the expansion of its ALPR program in December, but without disclosing what company would be supplying the data. While EFF had long suspect...

I’m sure many would agree with me that a current hot topic in the industry is ‘energy efficiency’. The reasons behind this excitement from the business world is simple; using less energy helps reduce operational costs, as well as supports efforts to restore the health of local environments, making it a profitable and popular decision. Further, being more efficient positively impacts financial performance, an important motivator for multinational companies, who regularly seek out professional energy management consultants to improve and promote their energy efficiency. At Schneider Electric, we know this well as a specialist in the field of energy management for more than 180 years. The world today does not need additional energy . Rather than focusing on generating new energy, we should create alternatives that can make more efficient use of our current energy supply. So far, Schneider Electric has been engaged in energy management activities with many companies around the world. What...

This is the third blog in a four-part series on digital transformation in the chemical industry, check out the first blog “Chemical Companies Deliver Outstanding Customer Experiences Through Digital Transformation”  and the second post “5 Benefits of Digital Transformation in Chemical Manufacturing” .  Next week will be the finale of the series – predictive analytics in chemical manufacturing. There’s been a lot of hype around technology buzzwords related to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industrie 4.0. And a lot of them hold a great deal of promise in delivering true digital transformation of traditional industry and business operations. Today, I hear continual chatter about augmented reality. And while I have seen a few highly produced (translate that as completely staged if you prefer) demos of so called digital twin and augmented reality technology, a lot of what’s being demonstrated today simply fails to deliver on the tangible value that customers need t...

At the center of electric utilities ’ mission comes a very straightforward mandate: manage risk to minimize, observe, and reduce the effect of negative events and take advantage of opportunities. Minimizing threats to power network reliability and preventing expensive production shutdowns caused by outages are at the core of utilities’ and other electrical distribution networks’ risk management plans. Doing so requires electrical network operators to pinpoint the most likely sources of equipment failure in order to manage and minimize risks to substation equipment. This can be accomplished by using improved design engineering and technology modernization, calculated and strategic maintenance plans, and appropriate levels of service. Deploying sensors gives utilities visibility throughout their substations and allows them to detect problems and communicate information. The sensors identify the real-time state and condition of electrical distribution equipment for effective grid mana...

This blog was adapted from a recent article in WhereWomenWork. Schneider Electric, the leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation has featured among the 104 companies included in the  2018 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index . This fantastic news reinforces the company’s strong commitment to diversity and inclusion , and its longstanding efforts to promote gender equality . Olivier Blum , Chief Human Resources Officer and Executive Vice President at Schneider Electric, commented: “Our diversity and inclusion philosophy aims to provide equal opportunities to everyone everywhere, and ensure that all our employees feel uniquely valued and safe to contribute their best. The Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index gives us an opportunity to be evaluated among the best performers, while serving as a barometer for our efforts as a gender-equal employer. Our inclusion in the index strengthens our resolve to create an inclusive culture where all forms of divers...